Media pre-season expecation

A quick question! Does anyone know what influences the "betting odds" your team is given for winning the league prior to the season starting and also the "media's expectation" in the club information screen. I was recently promoted to league 1 and the media expectation was a finishing place of 22nd (which I agree with as I only squeaked promotion through the play offs after finishing 7th). However, I was awarded odds of 16/1 to win the league. As a betting man this suggest I have an outside chance of winning the league (Arsenal are probably going to start the season with the same sort of odds in real life to put this in some perspective). Why do the two differ so much? In real life if you were expected to fight bravely against relegation you would probably be given odds of 200/1.

So a) what drives the betting odds b) what drives the media expectations c) are the two link and if not, why do they differ so greatly?

This would be interesting to know as it helps to prepare your own expectations depending on how the computer perceives your team.

Well, for one thing i know Media prediction = how much reputation your club has the higher the rep, the higher the place you have to get. It doesn't depend on your players at all, just rep. Luton Town is a perfect example for this.

I'm not entirely sure about the betting odds though.

Perfect, thanks for that.

I should imagine (and this is only me speculating) that the odds are derived more from the quality of your players hence the divergence from media prediction. It makes sense that media prediction put me down as 22 based on my status as this is a non-league team I have risen with through the divisions (taken me 5 season), yet my odds are higher because, after getting rid of a lot of dead wood and bringing in experienced players from the championship and league 1, I think I have quite a punchy squad, even though this is unchartered territory for my club. It would be interesting to know what the odds do look at………value of the players, average of attributes, maybe it has a connection to the team comparison (against fellow league teams) in one of the club tabs? Out of interest after 10 games, I am actually top with a 6 point lead over Ipswich and Crewe! I thought it was going to be a long hard season as the first game I lost to Chesterfield and gave away 65% of the possession! Since then I have not lost a game in the league! So maybe the odds give a truer reflection on realistic expectations than the “media prediction”?

Thanks again for helping.