Saturday, August 30, 2008 Most boring great league in the world By John Dykes Special Contributor
FOUR months after Kevin Keegan publicly worried that the Barclays Premier League was in danger of becoming “one of the most boring but great leagues in the world” he and we are being confronted with evidence suggesting he may have been overly alarmist when he made that statement.
Forget the talk about the pre-eminent Big Four or Big Two; forget the fact that La Liga’s very top sides often produce more attractive football than that seen in England—the real measure of the BPL’s success is its strength in depth.
Indeed, in replying to Keegan, the BPL’s chief executive, Richard Scudamore, said: “There are a lot of different tussles that go on in the Premier League depending on whether you’re at the top, in the middle or at the bottom that make it interesting.”
After two weekends of Season 2008/9, there are encouraging signs all around. Chelsea and Manchester United may look likely to dominate once more at the top but Liverpool is up there (in points, if not in terms of play) and if Arsenal and Tottenham continue to wobble, well that might finally open the top four to someone else for a change.
More importantly, in terms of the Scudamore Theory, there does not seem to be a team which will struggle as badly as Derby County did last season. By that, we mean a team which only picked up three points after January.
Many thought Hull or Stoke would be destined for something similar, but Hull has four points (that’s more than 10 percent of the total they will likely need to guarantee survival) and Stoke has three, thanks in large part to a top-quality strike from Ricardo Fuller. Sure, West Brom has none, but it looks as if it will never be pushovers.
So, a good start by the new boys, but they will have to struggle all the way to make the 37 or 38 points they need. At least as long as no one gets cut adrift a la Derby it should make for the sort of competition we love to see.
What is more encouraging about the start of this season, though, is the fact that it seems to be bucking another BPL trend.
When it comes to predicting which teams will be battling for survival against the newly-promoted sides, it normally makes sense to look at the three worst survivors from last season’s Premier League. Indeed, BPL history tells us that in a season when only one or none of the promoted teams has gone straight back down, seven out of nine times one of the relegation places has been filled by a team that was among the worst three survivors the previous season
It therefore made sense pre-season to predict doom and gloom for Bolton, Fulham and Sunderland, last season’s survivors. Furthermore, all three clubs finished last season with fewer than 40 points. Again, Premier League history shows that the outlook is bleak for teams that finished the previous season with fewer than 40 points.
Before Sunderland, Bolton and Fulham, 10 teams survived with fewer than 40 points since the Premier League was reduced to a 38-match season and the majority of those also struggled the following season. Eight of the 10 finished the next season with 42 points or below (five with 40 points or fewer), seven finished in the bottom five, four finished with fewer points than the season before, and two were relegated.
Sunderland fans especially would have had even more cause for concern, given that they are now in their second season after promotion. Second-season syndrome is a well-known phenomenon and in recent years teams that struggled in their first season have found the going even tougher in their second season. Of the last four promoted teams to survive their first season in one of the three lowest non-relegation positions), all four finished in the bottom four in their second season with two being relegated and one of the other two staying up only on goal difference.
So, what has happened to the three supposed weaklings? To start with, each pre-empted a potential struggle by spending big this summer. Bolton and Fulham invested £10m-plus to bring in a striker, with Johan Elmander moving to the Reebok and Andy Johnson heading back to London, while Sunderland’s spending spree began with Spurs cast-offs and has now expanded spectacularly to embrace the likes of Djibril Cisse, David Healey and Anton Ferdinand.
(John Dykes is the lead presenter of the Barclays Premier League, and host of ESPN’s Football Focus, Tiger Football Up Close, and First Edition.)
This sort of spending power is never seen in the supposedly lower reaches of Europe’s other major leagues (unless you get a situation like that at Bundesliga newcomers Hoffenheim, who are bankrolled by a billionaire). Thanks to the efforts of Bolton, Sunderland and Fulham, it looks as if everyone bar the very top teams are going to have to be on their guard to avoid being dragged into a relegation battle.
Hopefully there will be no repeat of the situation last season when West Ham and Tottenham seemed to have cemented their positions of “mid-table mediocrity” by January. With likes of Boro’, an enigmatic Manchester City and a resurgent Newcastle capable of beating anyone on their day, the only thing that looks predicable about this BPL season is it unpredictability.
Blurb:John Dykes is the lead presenter of the Barclays Premier League, and host of ESPN’s Football Focus, Tiger Football Up Close, and First Edition.
