RB Leipzig v Man City: honest numbers, and a goal-a-game gap

The short answerManchester City are fifth in our world club ranking on 1847; RB Leipzig are 40th on 1615, about 1.3 goals a game worse. Leipzig's points match their football almost exactly. City are a little ahead of theirs, but it is still the second-best football in England.

Here is the uncomfortable thing about RB Leipzig. Nothing about their season is fake. They have 15 points from eight Bundesliga games and their football deserved about 15.5. Their luck figure is -0.5, which we call fair. They have played the 5th-hardest schedule in the league. Every number says this is an honest team getting what it earns. And that is the bad news for Wednesday night, because what it earns is the 40th-best rating in the world.

Manchester City are fifth, on 1847. Leipzig are on 1615. The gap is 232 rating points. On our scale, where about 180 points is worth a goal a game, that is about 1.3 goals per match. City lost at home to Brighton on Saturday, their points are a little ahead of their football, and they are without Antoine Semenyo for weeks. None of that comes close to closing a gap of that size.

The reason the game is being billed as closer than our numbers suggest is that the two clubs' league numbers look alike. Per game, Leipzig's football has deserved 1.94 points and City's 1.92. On those figures you would call it level. The difference is the leagues. Leipzig's numbers come against the Bundesliga, City's against the Premier League, and once our ratings adjust for the strength of each league and each opponent, the near-tie becomes a large gap.

Honest results, and that is the problem

That is not a knock on the Bundesliga. It is how league strength works. The same football is worth less against weaker opposition, and the Premier League is the strongest league in our model. A Bundesliga side that is fourth on points and sixth on deserved points is a good team. It is not, on our numbers, a top-20 team in Europe. Leipzig's plausible world rank runs from 21 to 67. City's runs from 1 to 7. The two bands do not touch.

Inside Germany, the picture is clear. Bayern München are in a class of their own, third in the world. Leverkusen have the second-best football in the league on deserved points, even though their results have lagged. Freiburg and Dortmund are next. Leipzig are in the group behind that, sixth on deserved points and fourth on actual points per game. That is a decent but ordinary place for a club that has spent most of the last decade near the top of the Bundesliga.

Their trend is steady. There is no sign in our data of a team about to break out, and no sign of one falling apart. Leipzig are playing at their level, consistently, and the level is where it is.

The most interesting thing in Leipzig's profile is style. Our numbers pick out two flags. They dribble more than almost anyone in the Bundesliga, and their squad is one of the youngest in the league, weighted by minutes. That is the Leipzig model working as intended: young, quick attackers who carry the ball. Antonio Nusa and Brajan Gruda, on loan from Brighton, are the obvious examples, with Rômulo through the middle.

The twist is that City share the first flag. Our profile for City picks out dribbling first, ahead of possession and deep completions, the passes that arrive close to goal. Two sides who both like to beat a man will meet on Wednesday. The difference is what happens around the dribbling. City combine it with control of the ball. Leipzig use it to attack quickly and from wider areas. When a high-dribbling young side faces a team that keeps the ball for long spells, it often spends more time chasing than carrying.

City's luck, and why it does not change much

City do have some luck in their record. They have 21 points from nine games against about 17.3 deserved, a figure of +3.7. That makes them the fourth-luckiest side in the Premier League. Last season they were +4.1. But luck is measured against a team's own football, and City's football is the second-best in England on deserved points, only a fraction behind Arsenal. Take the luck away and City are still an elite side. They simply have a few more points than an elite side would usually expect after nine games.

The Brighton defeat is the result people will point to. On our numbers it cost City a little and it moved them from fourth to fifth in the world, as this week's World Ranking set out. One home defeat to a strong Premier League side is not a crisis, and it does not change the shape of the gap with Leipzig.

Team news

Leipzig are without Marc Guiu and Assan Ouédraogo, and Maxime Estève is a doubt with a knock that kept him out at the weekend. Christopher Nkunku is back in training and was an unused substitute at Schalke, but may not start. Martin Demichelis, a former City defender, is expected to name Maarten Vandevoordt in goal, with Willi Orbán, Castello Lukeba and David Raum in defence and Nusa, Gruda and Rômulo in attack.

City's only confirmed absentee is Semenyo, out with a knee injury until around mid-December. Enzo Maresca has plenty of choice. Erling Haaland will lead the line. Phil Foden and Rayan Cherki are pushing for starts, and Gianluigi Donnarumma, Rúben Dias and Abdukodir Khusanov are expected in a back line that could also include Marc Guéhi or Joško Gvardiol, who used to play for Leipzig.

Without Semenyo, City lose some directness on the flank. That matters less against a side that will probably sit off and try to break, because the space City need to attack will be in front of Leipzig's defence rather than behind it. Foden or Jérémy Doku in wide areas, with Cherki between the lines, is the more likely shape.

What our numbers say about Wednesday

We do not put percentages on games. What our numbers say is that this is the most lopsided of the three Champions League games we have previewed this week. United and Roma are ten rating points apart. Barcelona and Aston Villa are 188 apart. City and Leipzig are 232 apart. Home advantage helps Leipzig a little, and a loud Red Bull Arena will help a little more. But 1.3 goals a game is a lot of ground to make up.

The way Leipzig get something from the game is the way good underdogs usually do: keep it tight, use the young legs to break quickly, and take one of the few chances they get. Their dribbling is the route to those chances. City's best defence against it is their own possession, because a side that does not have the ball cannot dribble with it.

The thing to watch, more than the score, is whether Leipzig can get their wide players on the ball in space at all. If Nusa and Gruda spend the game defending, City's control will tell. If they get running at City's full-backs, the game becomes more open than our ratings suggest, and an open game is the one Leipzig need.

There is also a schedule point in Leipzig's favour that the headline gap hides. Their eight league games have come against one of the toughest sets of opponents in Germany, so the 15 points are not padded by easy fixtures. A side that has held its level against good Bundesliga opposition is used to playing without the ball for spells and staying in games. That will not turn a gap of this size into a coin toss, but it does make a heavy home defeat less likely than City's rating alone might suggest. The pattern to expect is a Leipzig side that competes hard for an hour and then has to decide how much it is willing to risk.

The other thing worth saying is that a Leipzig win would not, on its own, mean our numbers were wrong. Single games are noisy, and big favourites lose more often than people think. It would move both ratings by a modest amount, and the next few weeks would tell us whether it meant anything.

Where both clubs stand in the wider ranking

In this week's World Ranking, published on Tuesday, City are fifth, behind Barcelona, Arsenal, Bayern and PSG, and on performance they are the second-best side in England. Leipzig are 40th, the fourth-highest Bundesliga club, behind Bayern, Leverkusen and Dortmund. Their honest record and their steady trend say that is about right.

Leipzig's honesty is a strength in one sense. A club whose points match its football is not due a correction, and Leipzig will not suddenly fall away. But it also means there is no hidden quality waiting to show itself. The Leipzig that plays City is exactly the Leipzig the table describes, and the one City face most weeks in England is better.

Every club's rating, schedule and luck figure is on its club page, and the full table is in the world club ranking. How the ranking works explains the method in plain words.