I’ve run a bit of number crunching on that Time Fink Tank piece. You can read it here.

Interestingly, one comment made on the Times website points out exactly one of the anomalies highlighted by my work.

Have the authors checked whether the scores for all the team members together are consistent with the team’s position in the league? For example, Bolton were seventh in the league but their top two players are ranked 64th and 134th. That doesn’t sound like it tallies to me. Something like that might give a cross check to the validity of the approach.

Keith, Dubai

Exactly.