The list essentially does a straight ranking of a team’s best players based on ability (subjective), form (less subjective) and injury, so there are areas which we don’t yet take into account (squad strength, fluid formations).
What we tried to do was weigh the rankings based primarily on the form of the players who have played most over the last month while still trying to keep some sort of perspective over their relative strengths.

So for instance, many people would instinctively say that Fernando Torres is the best striker in the Premier League – he came out third because he’s barely fit and needs an operation so has little prospect of playing above his current level. There was actually debate that Torres should have been lower.

As for Spurs, they do rank highly but then can you say that Manchester United or Liverpool have been better than them over the past month or two? Instinctively you’d say that Spurs always roll over when they play ManU and being pessimistic, Liverpool will probably beat them on Sunday but if you look at the elevens, Spurs are noticably better.

Ask yourself this question: who are the best players playing on the left and right of midfield in the league at the moment? We were unanimous.
In fact taking the squad into account, you could contend that the top three wide midfielders all come from the same club…

As for Tottenham not strengthening, they did buy Krancjar and Bassong but more importantly, being a young team they have improved. Benoit Assou-Ekotto ranks highly at left-back, Dawson is playing out of his skin (backup for Terry and Ferdinand in South Africa?), Corluka has been very good, Gomes is in top form, Lennon is back to his best, even Huddlestone is improving (although he ranked second-last for his position).

Chelsea are fortunate to have an owner who has written off another £350m! But to a certain extent they are deferring their problems; they are still making a loss filling their stadium each week and playing the Champion’s League. Their squad isn’t getting any younger and in a year’s time when they can buy players again, another large injection of cash will be needed to keep them where they are (or a smaller injection in January and again in a year’s time).

It’s interesting to me that Spurs are so high up in your ratings. The media imo have a tendency to talk us up because of our ‘name’ players (eg Bentley) but rarely do they perform to expectations; we then get slammed as underachievers, whereas I believe the expectations were unrealistic in the first place. Even as a Spurs fan I could not see us coming higher than 7th, 6th at most this season, because it was clear that Liverpool had a title-challenging squad with only one player changed, and City have invested so much and have CL-tier players like Robinho, Ireland, Tevez etc while De Jong and Bellamy are having brilliant seasons. I think you are underestimating Pool and City because of their form so far this season – they have a lot of potential to improve even with the same players; there is some confidence and team ethic missing, this is not their real quality. Even Villa have strengthened what was a top 4 challenging team last season thanks to their defense. (Meanwhile Spurs’ defense is constantly changing – I don’t believe Woodgate and King can be considering starting XI players anymore, because they are so rarely fit nowadays. When uninjured that partnership is brilliant and got us the best home defense in the league last season, but sadly that is no more. We also didn’t strengthen our starting XI, Crouch aside, over the summer – we showed at best top 6 form in the second half of last season with a better defense and without City rivaling us, so I don’t see how we can jump to top 4 form now unless teamwork has massively improved.)

A bit pessimistic, but I think we are a good team yet not quite ready to make the step up. We are a pretty young team, one that mentally collapsed at Old Trafford last season; a few bad results could badly hurt confidence that has been carefully reassembled after the Ramos debacle of last season. It takes some time for a manager to build his team, even if he inherited a good one. So I have steered clear of expectations and comparisons of our squad quality to others, and simply hope that our players give it their all in every game.

What that should give is the best indicator as to how each team currently ranks and how each should fare for the rest of the season.

And yes, Tottenham have a very good team. You could also make an argument that next season’s top four could be Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City and Aston Villa…