Well, when you look at it, how many real surprises are there? I would venture that Fulham’s euro spot, Stoke’s mid table comfort and Newcastle’s relegation at the expense of favourites Hull City are the only real surprises; the rest you could pretty much have predicted before the season began.
It wasn’t always this way, of course. I remember when we used to laugh because only Rangers or Celtic ever seemed to win the Scottish League title, while it wasn’t that long ago that QPR, Southampton and Watford all finished as League runners-up mainly because, even if only for a season or two, they had a management structure or a set of players in place who could compete with the best. While there will be many who don’t remember it, you really don’t have to carry a bus pass to recall when Aston Villa and Ipswich fought a battle for the title that went down to the last day.
The trouble with looking back with rose tinted glasses though, is that you immediately alienate a portion of the people you are trying to relate to. In much the same way as I used to roll my eyes when my Granddad regaled me of tales of when players climbed from the pit head on Saturday morning, donned boots that weighed half a ton before scoring a hat-trick in 20 minutes and rounding it all off with a cup of tea and an extra-strength Woodbine at half time, so fans weaned on the Pol Pot sponsored Year Zero Premiership will snort in derision at stories of dull days when the players had perms, kicked each other in the air with impunity and fought out matches on bog like pitches in stadiums so dilapidated and dangerous that some fans – and let’s never forget this – never returned home at all.
So credit where it is due; the Sky-backed Premier League has improved football enormously in this country and given us the added excitement of the pub based televised match, but it has also created a lack of real competition that, even if it’s not reflected in attendances – there’s always a ‘king’s new clothes’ element in anything that is marketed well enough – is sure to eventually provide stagnation if it is not addressed. The Premier League needs to be more than a feeding ground for the snorting behemoth that is, Champions League football.
In many ways this has been a significant season for the continued existence of the current state of affairs. After keeping Gareth Barry from the clutches of Liverpool on the promise of Champions League football, Aston Villa made a determined effort to break into the top four. Empty promises of the breakthrough are made by many club owners but Villa had the history, fan base, ground, backing and, most importantly, the manager and players to do it. That they eventually failed is of huge significance ensuring, as it did, that the status quo of the ‘Top Four’ was maintained. Everton kept up their enviable progress under David Moyes and topped it off with an FA Cup final appearance but, even so, without major investment it is difficult to see them going the extra step to catch Arsenal and break into the top four.
Mind you, within that exclusive four was a fascinating development for the neutral. Seeing CL and FA Cup semi-finals as failure – and doesn’t that say something in itself? - many Arsenal fans expressed disenchantment at finishing the season without a trophy and rumours of pressure on Arsene Wenger started to circulate. However, outside North London, most would look at Arsenal and their squad of young players - for the most part bought as unknowns - and opine that 4th place is really very, very good indeed. Certainly without the input of £50m+ it’s difficult to see what else they can look forward to, so it’s extraordinary to see one of the solid bastions of English football, a club that’s been able to attract and buy players with impunity for nearly a century, suddenly finding themselves as virtual also-rans in an exclusive club they helped create.
I know a couple of Arsenal fans and seeing them visibly angry at the fact that Chelsea – a club they feel is beneath them – are able to outspend them is really quite amusing. For the first time in 80 odd years they are seeing the league in the same way that many of others have always seen it. The dominance of Manchester United and Chelsea seems set to continue until someone shoots the cash cow and, with Liverpool’s re-emergence as a team that can at least challenge for the top spot making it a three-way chase, it only cements the top four cabal.
Outside of the ‘Gang of Four’, Tottenham’s revival under Harry Redknapp provided another interesting development seemingly confirming that a club the size of Spurs is able to overcome being virtually hamstrung for nearly half a season yet still be sufficiently strong enough to finish with mid-table respectability. Had the season continued for another few weeks then Spurs would probably have claimed the last Europa place. This may say much of Redknapp’s management and Spurs tenacity but it surely also says something of the opposition.
In fact, when you look at clubs who have climbed away from the relegation area a quite surprising pattern is revealed. When you consider only Manchester City’s unlikely defeat at West Bromwich Albion on the Sunday before Christmas prevented West Ham from languishing in the bottom three over the festive period, it means, staggeringly, every club barring Wigan, from 8th down has been involved in the relegation dogfight at some stage of the season.
Speaking of West Ham, there seems to be a general consensus that most fans were happy with progress this season even though finishing the season in 9th place might have been considered disappointing when 7th looked a strong likelihood just weeks earlier but, in another strange development, most Hammers fans I have spoken too seem glad to finish outside the euro places seeing the new Europa League as an overblown edifice that would take an unacceptable toll on a club with limited resources. You have to query any competition that people don’t want to play in, yet UEFA seemed to have conjured up just such a creature.
Quite where Europe’s governing body go on this is open to conjecture but something surely had to be done to streamline the secondary European tournament so it seems a shame the re-branding of the UEFA Cup and loss of the ridiculous Inter-toto didn’t bring forth something more exciting and relevant.
Whatever your opinion on the structure and relevance though, the Europa League is here and Winners of the Poisoned Chalice Trophy to compete in it next season were Fulham, who had a remarkable season when you think on how they survived this time last year. I doubt he will get it, but Roy Hodgson should be named Manager of the Year for his efforts with the Cottagers and it will be fascinating to see how he deals with the added pressure next season.
Returning to the Premier League though, I don’t want to be seen as damning the rest of the division with faint praise as Stoke had an enviable home record; Wigan were well organised under Steve Bruce, Bolton did better than was probably expected under Gary Megson and Sam Allardyce steered Blackburn away from the relegation mire but it can’t disguise the fact that there are, effectively, three divisions within the Premier League consisting of the ‘Top Four’, the Euro chasers and the relegation candidates with movement between possible relegation and the chase for an extra Euro spot the only real competition. It’s also worth remembering that only a set of circumstances involving Manchester United winning the Carling Cup even made the 7th spot relevant. Next season the likes of Spurs, West Ham and Fulham may well be chasing cash and respectability and not a lot else.
What can be done? Well, I’m loath to suggest leaving out clubs from competitions but perhaps the time has come to exclude the Champions League qualifiers from the Carling Cup (or, Europe-wide, the home countries equivalent competition) as that will ensure that at least one club from out of the top four has a chance of competing for Europe. I’ve long resisted the temptation to call for changes of this type but we’ve now reached the demoralising stage where ManU’s third string are able to turn over a Championship side and that surely can’t be good for anyone.
But even after a small amount of tinkering, it’s still really hard to imagine any success story similar to that which arose with Wolfsburg in Germany this season, and you’d have to conclude that only a wholesale change of rules involving player expenditure or representation of home-grown players is going to alter the fact that next seasons final table is likely to look pretty similar to this.
But perhaps we shouldn’t complain? If the quality of the football is good and a good percentage of matches are exciting, then the end justifies the means and the ‘interesting’ final positions are what we have to accept in order to keep the juggernaut rolling. Perhaps, I was searching for the wrong proverb all along and should have used ‘It is better to travel than to arrive.’
Born at an early age a mere defenders' spit from the Boleyn ground, Billy Blagg has seen every West Ham game from 1898 onwards. Blagg was mentioned by Kenneth Wolstenholme in 1966 as one of the people on the pitch during the famous Hammers win over West Germany that lifted the World Cup and he returned to the pitch again for the 1975 FA Cup Final but stayed on the terrace for 1980 FA Cup victory. Blagg, 26, now lives with his eighth wife and innumerable children in a small semi-detached with chintz curtains in Dagenham, Essex and still attends every Hammers match and training session.
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