Am I the only person who understood what Clandes is writing? Anyway, Bayern still look the strongest and probably would match that with actual productivity over the course of the season. City and Real Madrid have improved somewhat and should be a worry to most teams.

Juventus solidified their Scudetto winning team for next year but I still feel they would be a QF exit waiting, could be wrong though. Napoli improved greatly but I can see them choking, again.

Still not too sure about Barcelona though...

BVB are better than Barcelona, I don't know why people still rate Barca high, they've got nothing.

BVB are probably better now than they were last season.

To be honest I'll slightly derail the subject of the thread in order to avoid any confusion/ controversy that may result in an argument ; Instead of ranking and saying which are the strongest teams in Europe after their transfers , I'll just say who I think have done well in the market thus far, because to be honest, for lots of teams it looks quite well on paper after their activity in the market but when the season starts it could be quite a different story for some of these teams and I also can not say who looks the strongest because football is so unpredictable at times.

But for starters , Napoli's team has improved from a holistic basis in my view, despite the departure of Cavani. We've seen some good purchases like Higuain, Reina and Mertens . The likes of Armero , Callejon and Albiol aren't very awful signings either if you ask me. They will be very good for Napoli if you ask me, since one of Napoli's major weaknesses was their depth and the quality of their depth. So under Rafa ( A manager who loves to rotate ) it seems logical/smart that he is addressing one of their weaknesses. I've heard good things of Radosevic ( even though he was signed last summer , he just came ) and they also signed  Novothny (don't know a thing about him but he is a youngster ) so the squad is becoming a bit more rejuvenated too!  The fullback position just needs to be addressed a bit more  and then I will actually consider them quite competitive.

I really don't need to talk about Bayern ( Especially them), BVB and City since it is more or less obvious that they will be quite good.

Juve's activity has also been encouraging in the attacking department since that's where they've been struggling for quite a while now.  I would love to see them have a back up for Pirlo though.

I'm not sure about the rest of the clubs though, I'll have to pay more attention now to the other clubs but in my opinion the other clubs haven't done much that I really can talk about besides Real or I can't say much until the window has elapsed. Barca and United still have work to do in my opinion!

McAgger wrote:BVB are better than Barcelona, I don't know why people still rate Barca high, they've got nothing.

BVB are probably better now than they were last season.

Only the best player in the world.....

1. Bayern

2. Barca
Madrid
BVB

3. Juve
English top teams

City competing for the 2nd best team in the world ? They are not even the 2nd best in England ffs. Top 5 is Bayern, Real, BVB, Barca, Juve in no order. Let's give a verdict in winter(at least)

Valkyrja wrote:City competing for the 2nd best team in the world ? They are not even the 2nd best in England ffs. Top 5 is Bayern, Real, BVB, Barca, Juve in no order. Let's give a verdict in winter(at least)

Pls go. Madrid are not better than Juve or United


Bayern
BVB

The rest

I reckon

Bayern


Then on a pretty even platform you have Juve, Barca, BvB, Madrid and United

No point trying to categorise them in definitive places. We really wouldn't know where that group of teams stacked up until they played each other a few times each. And that can't really happen.

I don't think we will be as good as last season. It looks like Pep is going to change a little bit too much at the begnning (what i didnt thought/predicted) , so this could become a very complicated season for us. Schweinsteiger already said he wants to play as 6, Lahm said he doesn't like to play in the middlefield and Ribery said Pep new system is kind of funny and he doesn't like to play in the centre. And those 3 are our most important players.
Same like Iniesta, Xavi and Messi would be unhappy with their positions/situation at the club.

So we'll have to wait and see, but i think this season will be very complicated.

jibers wrote:

Valkyrja wrote:City competing for the 2nd best team in the world ? They are not even the 2nd best in England ffs. Top 5 is Bayern, Real, BVB, Barca, Juve in no order. Let's give a verdict in winter(at least)

Pls go. Madrid are not better than Juve or United


Bayern
BVB

The rest

United ? Please. Juve may be on the same level, it depends on Pirlo's condition.

Thank you all for your analysis and rankings. As the threadstarter, I've taken the liberty to average out all your comments as of now, and roughly came out with the below:--

1st tier Bayern Munich (GER)
2nd tier Barcelona (SPAIN), Real Madrid (SPAIN), Borussia Dortmund (GER), Manchester City (ENG)
3rd tier Chelsea (ENG), Juventus (ITA)


I understand above is just a rough indication but will provide some helpful framework for those who wishes to know which of the top teams are now potentially relatively better than the other instead of purely depending on historical reputation or fluctuating odds, and will also be good for the betting people in general.

walk the league....not a top club in the world, but 2nd place and 3rd place are

love you GL

City get rid of Balo and Tev, buy two Sevilla players, a Shakhtar CM and Jojo and they're one of the best clubs EVAAAAH

B-Mac MUFC wrote:walk the league....not a top club in the world, but 2nd place and 3rd place are

love you GL

We are all well aware that GL is pre dominantly anti-United. How Madrid are better than last year is beyond me. Isco being in Madrid will not stop Gundogan walking through them. City

Negredo and Navas

Gl is a joke

Jibers it's a well known fact that City are the best team ever ffs.


I wish we signed a homesick Winger ffs. Marotta

City will be a LOT better this year and i expect them to win the league tbh but they shouldn't be mentioned in this thread.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:City will be a LOT better this year and i expect them to win the league tbh but they shouldn't be mentioned in this thread.

okay... I suppose United are nobodys. When will ppl learn, The league is always ours to lose lol

Respect me Jibers ffs.

Look i know you won the league last year but you have lost your manager.

And a key reason why i think City will win the league are these....

Mancini was tactically awful, Pellegrini is much better in this department.

They have addressed key weak points at CM, Wing.... telling me Fernandinho and Navas are not better than Milner and Barry lol?

Also they have 4 forwards this season who will contribute, last season all 4 forwards didn't do so.

Tevez was inconsistent and Balo was crap.

I expect Jovetic and Negredo to provide a lot more than they did.

Kompany will be back also as he was injured for much of last season.

Tbh Negredo was brought in to make Edin feel good about himself & his shot/goal conversion rate.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:Tbh Negredo was brought in to make Edin feel good about himself & his shot/goal conversion rate.

Dzeko was City's best striker last season tbf lol.

Anyway its a key point, Pellegrini has been smart with his striker choices.

He now has two target men and two technically gifted and creative strikers.

They will all compliment each other extremely well, i got the feeling with Balo, Dzeko, Tevez, Aguero their was very few combinations that worked it was just a collection of names.

Alot seems obvious before the season actually starts, but never actually is. I think Juventus and Bayern have the most going for them going into the season, followed by United, City, Barca and R.M.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Respect me Jibers ffs.

Look i know you won the league last year but you have lost your manager.

And a key reason why i think City will win the league are these....

Mancini was tactically awful, Pellegrini is much better in this department.

They have addressed key weak points at CM, Wing.... telling me Fernandinho and Navas are not better than Milner and Barry lol?

Also they have 4 forwards this season who will contribute, last season all 4 forwards didn't do so.

Tevez was inconsistent and Balo was crap.

I expect Jovetic and Negredo to provide a lot more than they did.

Kompany will be back also as he was injured for much of last season.

Tevez was consistently their best player last year after Zabaleta.
Milner was arguably their best player as well; he went for a massive fee but he's definitely NOT a "weak link" in the side.
Balo was crap because Mancini's a douche. And he didn't see much game time. Even when he did find himself on the pitch, the system didn't suit him.
Negredo is no better than Dzeko. That's a stupid signing on Txiki's part.

Clandestino wrote:

rwo power wrote:
Dortmund did improve that much indeed.

2010/11 was Jürgen Klopp's first ever attempt at a European competition in the EL with Dortmund. Okay, then he messed up as he had to learn.

2011/12 was Jürgen Klopp's first ever attempt in the CL. He went about things naively there and paid quite some tuition fee, too.

2012/2013 was Klopps second run at the CL and he used what he learned in his former attempts to improve his tactics considerably, and look where he ended then.

And his results in the group stage were by no means "lucky". Dortmund topped the group of death as the Pot 4 team without getting defeated. Lucky?

Well, you can say that, but you can also say that in 11/12 they won the league while in 12/13 they comfortably lost it. And we all know that the League is the most consistent competition in football. Also, I wasn't claiming luck in the group stages or throughout the CL campaign, I just said they got lucky against Malaga - and luck is essential in all good CL campaigns, I am not holding it against them. Basically, they had a great CL run, but for me that is about it, they are not a football superpower - they need to be up there consistently but I believe they will start to fade come this season.

Let me reiterate yet again, that I think differences between top teams are very minimal. I am not saying BVB suck or are third class, I just think that the first 3 challengers for Bayern are City, Real and Barca. Not sure why this stirred up so much name calling, surely there must be others that don't think Borussia is the 2nd best team on the planet?

No you can argue that BVB isn't the 2nd best team in the world that's fine. Is Barca better, or Juve or Man Utd? You can debate that. However BVB>>>>>>>>>Madrid and it's not arguable. It's a fact.

lololol umad a team that cost 20 times less to build than your team is better than yours

we beat barca with the b team last season calma, being the better team doesn't mean your stronger player for player

That's probably one of the most ridiculous comments I've heard about any sport.
Who cares who has the better player for player when the team is better and why would it matter?

cause some assuming last season=this season regardless of improvement in squad or tactics, give it a few games into the season