Why do you need so many points to remain in first place in the league?

Can SI answer me this question? Right now I'm playing as Juve and am currently in first place with 64 points from 26 games(19 W, 7 D, 0 L), yet Milan and Inter are both in my rear view mirror as the end of the season is in sight, with 62 and 58 points respectively. There's a huge drop off after that, Palermo, Roma and Fiorentina all tied for 4th with 44 points. So, I'm thinking, tight race at the top here in Serie A, eh? Well, I checked out the EPL, and was surprised to see this. Liverpool have a six point advantage over Tottenham in the league standings with 28 games played, 63 and 57 points respectively. All things considered, if they don't have some sort of meltdown, Liverpool will run away with the title. Thing is, I've got one more point in two less games than Liverpool and am still not in a comfortable position! Liverpool have lost three games and still hold a six point lead over 2nd place Tottenham, who've lost 7. I've lost none, and can't afford to, seeing as one loss could see me drop a place or two. And it's not like I have the squad to compete with Milan or Inter should I screw up. I'm technically not supposed to be there, seeing as the media predicted Juve to come in seventh. Even worse, I can sense a poor run of form coming, seeing as my victories haven't been as impressive as they've used to be. So may I ask, why SI, why?

What are you on about?

Are you complaining you have competition for the title?

As you said theres 3 people in the race, and you 3 people win pretty much all your games yes?

Who said I was complaining about a lack of competition? My point was, in every other league, the first place team has at least lost a game or two. My point was you need too many points to remain in first place, which is unrealistic. In my current save in the La liga, Real Madrid have played the same amount of games as I have and have 52 points compared to my 64 in 26 games. It's harder for me to remain in first place that it is for AI controlled teams in leagues I'm not playing in. At the end of the day, I probably gonna need close to 95-100 points to win the league while probably going undefeated as well, not exactly realistic.

Who said I was complaining about a lack of competition? My point was, in every other league, the first place team has at least lost a game or two. My point was you need too many points to remain in first place, which is unrealistic. In my current save in the La liga, Real Madrid have played the same amount of games as I have and have 52 points compared to my 64 in 26 games. It's harder for me to remain in first place that it is for AI controlled teams in leagues I'm not playing in. At the end of the day, I probably gonna need close to 95-100 points to win the league while probably going undefeated as well, not exactly realistic.

Not unrealistic at all. Take a look at the finishing points tallies of Inter last season.

But don't generalise that far. In most cases, 90 points will win you the league, but 80 is sometimes enough, and 95 not unrealistic at all.

Inter won it with 85 points, not too bad since they clinched it on the last day. But it's gonna take me about 100 points to win the league at this rate, not realistic at all, considering either Milan and Inter will probably both follow closely with something in the nineties, high eighties at the rate we're going. Not exactly realistic and I've also seen this problem mentioned before but can't exactly remember where. I think it has to do with the fact that the league I'm playing in has a human managed team(me, obviously) but there is no problem in a league with only AI managers.

I don't really agree with the OP. Sometimes, AI teams have monster years but, then again, so do teams in real, and it isn't a consistent happening that an AI team is always a monster.

So nothing wrong here!

I have just won my fourth successive league title in Serbia and season by season i have been getting worse

2007/2008 - Pld 33 W 33 D 0 L 0 Pts 99 (won by 30) was alright, had fun good start to career

2008/2009 - Pld 33 W 29 D 3 L 1 Pts 90 (Won by 23) was good to lose, focusing on Europe

2009/2010 - Pld 33 W 22 D 5 L 3 Pts 71 (Won by 18) Either i'm getting bad or They're getting better

2010/2011 - Pld 33 W 21 D 6 L 3 Pts 69 (Won by 09) They're definitely improving

Looking at this is wierd because i have felt very comfortable winning every year not noticing them coming up...

this is more exciting now than it was 4 years ago...

So as for you worrying about liverpool having a larger lead... next year someone esle could be winning by one point at the same stage and you could be ahead by 30.... its always going to be different, i wouldn't worry about it

i always find this, that if i join a league after a few seasons playing in a different one, it always seems that you need more points to win and you can never get a big gap between you and second place, despite the fact that if you look at previous years teams are winning the league with about 80points yet you always seem to need 90 plus points

i've noticed this. i remember countless times needing promotion. the user team seems to need to many more points to earn promotion than in previous years.

when i was fisher in league 2 i had 82 points and didn't earn automatic promotion where as in the previous 2 years in that league 74 points had been enough for the 3rd place team. also in league 1 and championship for the last 3 years no third placed team had reached what i had reached but yet i missed out on promotion.

Let's do a little test in League 2 then ...

2007/2008

1. 82 points

2. 80 points (p)

3. 78 points (p)

4. 78 points

5. 76 points

6. 72 points

7. 72 points (p)

2008/2009

1. 89 points

2. 80 points (p)

3. 78 points (p)

4. 75 points

5. 74 points (p)

6. 73 points

7. 73 points

2009/2010

1. 91 points

2. 88 points (p)

3. 83 points (p)

4. 82 points

5. 80 points (p)

6. 74 points

7. 74 points

2010/2011

1. 93 points

2. 87 points (p)

3. 85 points (p)

4. 83 points

5. 79 points (me, p)

6. 76 points

7. 70 points

2011/2012

1. 90 points

2. 78 points (p)

3. 77 points (p)

4. 76 points (p)

5. 74 points

6. 71 points

7. 71 points

This doesn't seem to be all that different from the years I didn't participate (I got promoted in 2009/2010). Although I didn't stay 1st, as you can see ... I had a lousy spree at some time. But the ranking table doesn't seem much different from other years before me, or after me.

Now, if I go for a league where I was 1st (BSS):

2007/2008

1. 90 points (me)

2. 84 points

3. 75 points (p)

4. 73 points

5. 73 points

2008/2009

1. 79 points

2. 73 points

3. 70 points

4. 70 points (p)

5. 68 points

2009/2010

1. 94 points

2. 83 points

3. 77 points

4. 74 points

5. 73 points (p)

2010/2011

1. 85 points

2. 79 points

3. 79 points (p)

4. 77 points

5. 69 points

2011/2012

1. 96 points

2. 89 points (p, #1 from 2009/2010)

3. 78 points

4. 73 points

5. 70 points

I don't even have the most points in the league and the 6 points difference between me and the #2 doesn't seem to differ all that much from other years after me either. Generally, the ranking table isn't all that much different from when I was in that league.

In the Premier League the Champions score around 90 points... In my game I've needed around 90 points maybe a little less.

They did a research on this once on the Dutch television, in which they compared the points of the champions of England and Spain in a period of 20 years (1982-2002 I believe it was).

Apparently, according to that research (well research, it's just a matter of playing around with averages really) in England you need about 15 points more in average to win the league as you do in Spain, with the same amount of matches. In Spain it's usually enough to have around 72 points at the end of the season to win the league, while in England you require at least 85 at the end of the run to seriously contend for the title.

This is because Spain has a more balanced league, big teams in Spain lose more matches than the big teams in England. The differences between big teams and relegation candidates are huge in England.

Italy is a complete chaos at the moment after the big fraud case in 2006 when all the big teams except for Inter were penalised, making the league very unbalanced. I hope it will get better this season. Then again I never watch Italian football anyway so I don't really care

EDIT: This research only concerns the premier divisions by the way.

i think that there is a problem with this, because i was East Stirlingshire in 2007/08 and finished 5th on 59 points, then in the following season was promoted as champions on 61 points! the 3 teams that were above who did not get promoted finished on 60+ points. so the teams that finished above me, all had storming seasons previously and gave me the burden of another season in the 3rd division, coincidence? surely not