Joga Bonito?

A joke. Boring. Only 4 teams. Too predictable....













All are fairly typical views of the Premiership from continental football fans. And to be fair they have a point - only 4 teams have won the Premiership since its creation in 1997. The last team to break into the current top four was Everton in 2005. And a weekend when each of the guys in the graphic above fail to score is deemed a minor miracle.

You don’t have to be Derren Brown or even Eileen Drewery to predict what will happen in the Premier League this (08/09) season. Manchester United will win, Chelsea will finish second, Arsenal will finish third and Liverpool fourth. Testament to how predictable the premiership has become comes in the form of pundit's supposedly 'radical' predictions that Aston Villa might push Liverpool for 4th place. Yet commentators rarely go a season without declaring - ad nauseam - that the Premiership is the most exciting league in the world.

"This league is in great danger of becoming one of the most boring but great leagues in the world. The top four this year will be the same as next year. […] The only games they lose are to each other. Not many sides outside the top four are beating them." (Kevin Keegan, May, 2008)

A similar pattern was seen in the late 70's and 80's. From 1976 to 1988, the championship only twice left Stanley Park - the area of Victorian greenery that separates Anfield from Goodison. Four teams won the title in those 12 years and neither Nottingham Forest nor Aston Villa, the rogue clubs of 1978 and 1981, ever threatened to repeat the feat - Villa were relegated six years after taking the title. For the readers of the Liverpool Echo it was a golden age, to everyone beyond the Mersey it was a predictable farse, watched by progressively fewer people.

But today English football is achieving record popularity and those who think it would draw more supporters if smaller teams had more of a chance ignore the fact that bigger clubs would shrink. Look at France where money is more equally divided. Their best players go abroad making their domestic league irrelevant when compared to its rivals.


So to ensure a debate ensues I would appreciate your thoughts on the following:

- Should we adopt a salary cap or draft system?
- Is Sepp Blatter's 6 and 5 idea workable?
- Would a more even league mean more success for the England team?
- Does recent success of premiership clubs in Europe make up for the predictability of the domestic league?

Images Courtesy of: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/7139276.stm
www.fmgamer.tv/.../index.php/t19655.html