Here’s the latest transfer news. Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaká have signed for Tottenham Hotspur. Harry Redknapp is delighted, although he is still complaining about the strength of his squad.

Actually, I think I misread the Fink Tank spreadsheet. Ronaldo and Kaká have joined Real Madrid, it turns out. But it was an easy mistake to make. Based on our computer model, and Real’s performance over the past few campaigns, when the superstars signed their mega-contracts they were joining a team whose quality was almost indistinguishable from that of Spurs. And that was before the North London club signed Peter Crouch.

The reason Real were so poor? A comically terrible defence (at least in Champions League terms). Their back men rank 64th in the defences of Europe as measured by the Fink Tank. That’s just below the defence of Bolton Wanderers.

It remains to be seen whether Real’s purchases have done enough to rectify this defensive problem. In the meantime, Dr Henry Stott, Dr Ian Graham and Dr Mark Latham have been able to use past data to simulate this season’s Champions League competition. It is worth noting that doing so gives Real only a 2 per cent chance of winning the trophy. It will be interesting to see what happens to that figure as the campaign progresses.

The Fink Tank model uses two seasons of league and European matches, weighted so that the most recent game counts more heavily. Past European encounters are used to allow performances to be ranked across countries. Is a Barcelona win against a mid-table rival more or less impressive than Chelsea’s victory against Burnley?

Once the ranking and the draw have been done, we simulate the tournament, running it through the computer again and again. We note the proportion of times that, say, a simulation ends in Liverpool winning the trophy or in Lyons being eliminated in the quarter-finals. The graphic below shows the outcome.

The graphic also shows why some people in football’s hierarchy have a thing about the Barclays Premier League. There is already a 59 per cent chance that an English club will win the tournament. This compares with a less than 2 per cent chance that a French side will emerge victorious.

Barcelona are favourites to retain the trophy. And the English clubs are marginally worse than them. However, there is quite a big gap between these five teams and the next best. Liverpool are 80 per cent as good as Barcelona, and after that Atlético Madrid are only 57 per cent as good.

So, if it is possible to speak of the Premier League as having a “big four”, the Champions League has a “big five”. The chance of the winners being drawn from those five is almost 80 per cent.

And it is only that low because the Champions League is not really a league. Knockout rounds introduce a lot of luck into the outcome. It is noteworthy that however good Chelsea might be, there is an 85 per cent chance that they will not win the Champions League this season.

The draw, incidentally, has not skewed things that much. If you want to understand the domination of the English teams, look at the group stage.

Arsenal are virtually certain to get through their group (only virtually because 100 per cent is a rounded figure from 99.6 per cent). Chelsea are in a similar position, despite the presence of Atlético and Porto. And even though Manchester United can feel the hardest done by, it would be a big shock if either they or Liverpool went out before the first knockout round.

I don’t agree with Michel Platini, but you can see why this might get on the Uefa president’s nerves.

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