It’s that time of the year again: one of the two months in a year I mostly stop spouting nonsense on X and focus on producing some actual content on a website. The fact I am no longer publishing at Medium also means there are some extra belated Christmas gifts for you aside from the usual — the mid-season review series, now re-branded as winter stocktake. If you’re into reminiscing (and laughing out loud at me), you can enjoy my full personal history of Bold Predictions at one place, as well as a slightly more depressing recollection of all New Kids on the Block. And if you’re into paying a few bucks for some fancy-schmancy tables, full of data you just won’t find anywhere else on the internet, then you can enjoy twin dashboards on 25/26 xP Performance and a complete Forecast Log.
Mid-season Reviews
We are mostly sticking to the old guns with what will hopefully be subtle improvements: The Outlook section dedicated to an updated Forecast will pull back the curtain a little bit on Jakub’s simulations, as I now highlight the peak autumn gains and losses of all team vis-à-vis model’s expectations, and also list the toughest and softest assignments left on the regular season schedules (once again strictly per model). The MVP Race section still does not feature pizza charts, sorry, but we have leaned more into visual player stats presentation this time around, so there is a neat little graphic from Jakub waiting for you. Since I always find it fun to write up in summer, some version of a Roster Battle to Follow appears, too. Finally, the Bold Prediction Temperature Check no longer needs to occupy space here; got its own page.
The timeline? I won’t promise anything, and I am not revealing the order as opposed to summer since this is effectively a Power Ranking. But we’ll start a bit later than usual with a double drop on Saturday evening, 18 January, because I just couldn’t make up my damn mind on which of the clueless teams to rank dead last wanted to provide myself with as much training camp information as possible, for reasons that will soon become clear.
New and Old (Updated) Dashboards
If you were quick enough in summer (for a day-long free access), you may soon feel like Alice in Wonderland. And if you paid up immediately, you are in luck — effectively getting to appreciate a total of 9 filterable or sortable tables, and there are more to come over the spring. Indeed, what used to be dashboards hooked up to my 24/25 spreadsheets on the league-wide MVP race and memorable goalkeeping performances (for better or worse) are now their updated 25/26 versions. The current offer for a mere €9.99 now reads:
Player Related
Who has been added most value to his own team throughout 2025/26? Added Value
Who spearheads the imaginary race for the 25/26 Most Valuable Player crown? MVP Tracker
How custodians have fared across 2025/26 season, in all directions? Goalkeeping Voodoo
Team Related
How many points, which odds teams have been projected for since 2022? Forecast Log
How all teams have performed vis-à-vis their expected point gains in 25/26? xPExpected Points (xP) measure a team's likely point gain from a particular game; not only based on sum xGF and xGA, but also based on distribution of shots (ie. five 0.01 xG shots won't give you the same chance for a win as one 0.05 xG shot). Performance
The ‘Miscellaneous’ Section
While all dashboards are, and will remain, accessible only to those willing to spare a couple of euros for the trouble, the newly established Miscellaneous section is effectively an archive free for everyone to appreciate. I built it partially for myself, so I don’t always have to go to an old preview at Medium whenever I want to check my Bold Prediction or who was someone’s New Kid on the Block in 2023. I’m sure there are those who do this among you, too.
More to the archive spirit: the clubs that never left the top tier in my 5 years of producing summer previews are now blessed with MVP Galleries recounting all the memorable campaigns. Just hover over Clubs in the menu and remind yourself of the glorious times I was forced to go to Imad Rondić as Liberec’s MVP, or Eneo Bitri as Baník’s fleeting hero.
