Skip to main content

Is the Premier League losing competitive balance?

Cardiff City lost 4-1 at Liverpool on Saturday. That was not perhaps a surprise, but Burnley losing 0-4 at home to Chelsea was. Last season this would have been a much more competitive game. Burnley may have specific problems because of their Europa League participation, but there is a more general issue, taken up by Oliver Kay in The Times on Saturday where he suggested that the Premier League is losing competitive balance as the top six reach new heights.

Before Saturday, of 40 matches so far this season between the 'top six' and the rest, the big teams had won 34, lost three and drawn three. The picture would be even more lopsided if it was not for the early season troubles of Manchester United: they are responsible for two of the draws and one of the losses. On Sunday they managed to beat Everton, one of the clubs with top six ambitions.

The top six have collected an average of 2.38 points per game. The comparable figure in the Bundesliga is 2.08 points. The same clubs have been in the top six for three of the last four seasons. After a relatively poor 2017-18 season, Arsenal still finished nine points ahead of seventh placed Burnley, easily the best of the rest.

Does it matter? One sided matches are less interesting. If your team is winning 4-0, you don't get as excited about another goal as you did about the first. Admittedly, the increasingly important global television audience is really only interested in the top teams (they may be the only teams they have heard of).

If the top clubs are, to quote Sean Dyche, 'super power' clubs perhaps the logical outcome is a European super league. One would then have a genuinely competitive domestic competition while Manchester City would get to play Real Madrid twice a year.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance.  Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected.  “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.”  He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...
Post a Comment
Read more