Premiership finally becomes more interesting...doesn't it?
By Chris O'KeefeIt may have been an exciting weekend in the Premiership, but the fact that it was a rare piece of excitement in an otherwise stagnant league so far this season might tell it's own story.
Teams have gone into games resting players in large numbers and in some cases largely sacrificing the chance of winning the game. Tottenham was a case in point. Besides, the late chances that Petr Cech had to deal with, the amount of absentees were telling and Chelsea should have faced a sterner test that that.
That is only part of the problem however. Reading boss, Steve Coppell pointed out after the Liverpool game the amount of options available to Rafael Benitez on Saturday and the gulf in class between the two. To be fair, Liverpool always, for all the endeavour of Reading, looked likely to score again. It was a sad inevitability in a sense because it showed a unbalanced league that has evolved.
The much quoted research from Birkbeck College on competitive balance in football was a case in point. Data between 1947 and 2004 showed the gap increasing between the top and bottom clubs particularly during the Premiership years. In a slight variation on that study, I looked at points per game ratio and incorporated the 2004-05 season and the then unfinished (research conducted April 2006) 2005-06 season. The gap had increased and become its most extreme.
This brings in the following question. How will increased money - still apportioned in part by league position - be any better for the "greatest league in the world?" The answer is not bloody likely! The fact that sides are scrapping some desperately has a lot to do with the 30 million on offer for just finishing bottom. Championship sides are scrapping for every point as a squeeze for promotion means many will be disappointed in May.
It's a rather desperate state of affairs when a play-off final for a Premiership place is branded (optimum word in every sense) the richest game of the season. It shouldn't be about the money, but it is! And it will be a long time before money is less of an issue. Perhaps it takes more high profile casualties, such as Leeds - now scrapping to stay in English football's second tier five years after appearing in a Champions League semi-final - to change the landscape.
But for now it will likely become more expensive to watch and less exciting perhaps. Not a wonderful forecast, but its not Wish You Were Here, it's the truth!
Birkbeck College - http://www.birkbeck.ac.uk
posted by C O'K @ 1:13 pm
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