We’ve read a lot about the “Big Four” over the off-season. In recent years four teams have dominated the Premier League; Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. No other team has sampled the rarefied atmosphere of the top four of the Premier League since Everton in 2005.
And what happened in 2004? It was business as usual, the same four clubs occupying the top four positions.
Dig a bit deeper and this tail of domination does not change much. Chelsea and Liverpool have both been in the top four seven times in the last decade. Arsenal and Manchester United have achieved perfect records, ten from ten.
These statistics don’t leave very much room for anybody else. Who else has made it?
Everton, as mentioned above, just the once.
Newcastle, though it’s hard to believe it given the dire state to which they have descended in recent times, did it twice under the shrewd tutelage of their then septuagenarian manager, Sir Bobby Robson.
Leeds United did it regularly in the late nineties and early part of this decade, inspired by money that never existed. These days there are languishing in League One. Unsurprisingly, none of the stars of those days are still doing their thing at Elland Road. It’s almost strange to remember the days of Robby Keane, Robby Fowler, Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, Lee Bowyer, Alan Smith, Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, Rio Ferdinand and Ian Harte. When the money left, so did they.
But was it ever any different? Are we viewing the past through rose coloured glasses?
For me the halcyon days of English football were the seventies. I discovered English football in the seventies and I loved it. I suspect that the seeds of English football’s current global domination were sown in those days. A decade of toothless centre-forwards, roaring crowds, hooligans and incredibly short shorts. So what do the statistics from 1971 to 1980 tell us?
Actually, they are damning. It’s true that Liverpool were the dominant team, winning five titles and finishing in the top four nine times. But that’s where any correlation between the halcyon days and the money days ends.
Chelsea did not finish in the top four once. No, Roman was not around back then.
Manchester United finished in the top four a feeble twice, despite, then as now, being by far the most popular team in the country. Arsenal, for their part, made it a mere three times, a mediocre decade for the Arse, lovingly chronicled in Nick Hornby’s “Fever Pitch”.
In the Seventies, no less than 14 teams tasted the glory of a top four finish, including such luminaries as Derby County (who actually won the thing twice), Wolverhampton Wanderers, Nottingham Forest (who also won it), Queens Park Rangers and, my mum’s favourite team, Ipswich Town.
Most incredibly, no disrespect to the legion supporters of these three fine but terminally cursed clubs, Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City also all touched those heady heights.
In fact on the last day of the 1977 season, Dennis Law, a Manchester United icon in the Sixties, scored a goal for Manchester City, against Manchester United, resulting in, take a deep breath, Manchester United’s relegation.
This, to place it in a more modern context, would be akin to Steven Gerrard transferring to Sunderland and scoring a goal to condemn Liverpool to the dreaded drop. You just know it’s not going to happen.
I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Nevertheless, I suspect most people, especially the new supporters from Africa, America and Asia, don’t care much.
However, I am a Manchester United supporter and I have to say that I would be thrilled if Spurs or Aston Villa or Manchester City triumphed this season. A noble but forlorn sentiment.
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