Performance ratings for all notable La Liga players have now been refreshed taking into account the new scoring matrix and performances from pre-season and the opening games.
Over the International break, I’ll be refreshing each league following the changes to the scoring matrix and what we have learned from pre-season and the opening games.
The changes should not be much of surprise to members who have been following the Scouting in recent weeks. Reasons for changes have in almost all cases been discussed there.
Usually, Scouting will detail the reason for each and every change. When dealing with so many changes after the new matrix it is not possible to provide a write up for every single one this time.
But, for convenience I have listed the ones that have improved or declined below.
The full tables, with La Liga players updated, are now available in the usual place in the members area under defenders, midfielders and forwards respectively.
A Note on Performance Ratings
I put a great deal of time into compiling the performance ratings. They are sound, evidence based judgements of the real performance strength of players. I am a tough marker and a player has to do a lot to get 4 stars or more.
Some people may find the ratings surprising as they can be shockingly different to the general chatter you see about how good a player may or may not be on social media or the perception of how good a player is in reality.
This is because when assessing the ratings all hype and bluster is removed – they are an evidence based assessment of how likely the player is to deliver big performance scores consistently on the Football Index. I have a high degree of confidence in them.
However, as discussed often in Key Strategy, to succeed we must use the ratings and the Scouting information in combination with the trend information available on the Dashboard and consider whether they are good value or not.
A strong Current rating is an indicator they are likely to put up consistent strong performance scores. Whilst price rises often follow, that isn’t always the case if the player is off trend.
Equally, a player with a low Current rating is still capable of getting a rare win or scoring and soaring in price if their trend fit works.
So, I would absolutely not go out and automatically buy all 4 star or above players or sell any 2 and below. That is not the intended way to use them. The primary purpose of the ratings is to be the “hype buster”. They help us judge whether a player is really strong or not and then we can trade accordingly.
For example, I may be wondering whether a player who has won recently is worth holding even if they have risen in price. If they have a high rating and are likely to win again, I am more likely to keep them.
If on the other hand a player has just won or risen in price but actually has a weak rating and is unlikely to win again, I am much more likely to sell and take that profit before they blank a few times and traders realise their weakness.
I may also hold a striker at 2 stars if they are good value and good for IPD, that’s absolutely fine and the ratings do not reflect IPD appeal (that’s covered in Scouting).
A Note on La Liga
La Liga is another brilliant league to trade in as it has some massive teams that will play very weak teams fairly often. It’s not quite the Farmer’s League but there will be plenty of teams who aren’t strangers to a plow either.
And, as with any foreign league, it doesn’t tend to be as saturated as the EPL and good value can be found.
Barcelona, offensively at least, are tailor made for the performance scoring system and something to note here is just how strong Messi is going to be when he gets started this season.
It’s a slow start as he recovers from injury but a fit Messi is going to be posting massive scores. Were he fit, I am sure everyone would be talking about that already.
I am not usually a fan of premium holds as many members will know but it is worth pointing out that the changes to the performance scoring system are hugely in favour of player’s who have this all round game and there is no better example than Messi.
Whether that makes him a good trade or not is a different matter. It is likely that he will string some big scores together when he is back and I can see people buying in then. So if you are that person who would buy at that point, you might as well just get it over with now. My reservation is to do with age and that he is off long term trend as a non-European player. If he was involved in the Euros I’d have bought him long ago, as it is, this is more of a balanced call. Anyway, this isn’t all about Messi!
Griezmann as covered in early pre-season scouting has been one of my big bets and so far that is paying off. With his trend fit and ability he looks solid. In general, we can be very confident in offensive Barcelona players.
The same could usually be said of the other giants Real Madrid but they are having an awful start to the season. With people generally down on them, there will be value opportunities here to look out for but we need the genuine quality players, it is very easy for Real players to get over priced and over hyped.
If Barcelona will tend to improve a player performance prospects, you can rely on Atletico to weaken them. They have some solid players but they are not traditionally a fertile ground for performance points and I remain of that view having watched them this season. This can take the edge off even the best players leaving us relying on IPD, a transfer or hype to generate interest in their players more than big scores. That is tough for players like Felix as despite some good performances, eventually he will need to show traders big scores and this is not the best club for him to do it.
Outside of that Valencia and Sevilla are very solid sources of IPD and future transfer prospects. They do have performance wins in them but it tends to be in very specific players like Parejo and Banega who happen to be high baseliners with penalties. Outside of those big hitters, it can actually be a bit of a struggle to find winners.
And an honourable mention goes to Betis who can defy their mid table status and play some performance friendly football. Fekir should be the chief benefeciary much as Lo Celso was last year.
Outside of that, hopes for performance wins are generally thin. We can however profitably dig around at the smaller clubs for future transfer targets (Oyarzabal, Brais Mendez last season) and some excellent IPD players such as Aspas.
Improvers
Alvaro Morata
Joao Felix
Ansu Fati
Ousmane Dembelé
Antoine Griezmann
Lionel Messi
Iago Aspas
Borja Iglesias
Karim Benzema
Brahim Diaz
Gareth Bale
Eden Hazard
Aleksandr Isak
Luuk de Jong
Rony Lopes
Gerard Moreno
Carles Alena
Rafinha
Denis Suarez
Takefusa Kubo
James Rodriguez
Toni Kroos
Martin Odegaard
Joan Jordan
Daniel Parejo
Goncalo Guedes
Samuel Chukwueze
Jordi Alba
Junior Firpo
Daniel Carvajal
Marcelo
Sergio Ramos
Decliners
Inaki Williams
Angel Correa
Luis Suarez
Mariano
Vinicius Junior
Luka Jovic
Mannus Dabbur
Maxi Gomez
Thomas Partey
Saul Niguez
Riqui Puig
Ivan Rakitic
Brais Mendez
Sergio Canales
Casemiro
Marco Asensio
Lucas Ocampos
Zouhair Feddal
Raul Albiol
Keiran Trippier
Ferland Mendy
Nacho Fernandes
Diego Godin
Sergi Roberto
Nelson Semedo
Clement Lenglet
Samuel Umtiti
Marc Bartra
Aissa Mandi
Raphael Varane
Gerard Pique