Chris Waters: Predicting status quo to remain after moving financial goalposts

Why, we just don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to the next.

Consider the evidence...

On New Year’s Day, Sunderland won 1-0 against leaders Manchester City.

Twenty-four hours earlier, Manchester United lost 3-2 at home to Blackburn Rovers and Chelsea were beaten 3-1 at home by Aston Villa.

Throughout the season there have been eye-catching scores: Manchester United 1 Manchester City 6, Manchester United 8 Arsenal 2, Blackburn Rovers 4 Arsenal 3, Tottenham Hotspur 1 Manchester City 5, Chelsea 3 Arsenal 5, Newcastle United 2 West Bromwich Albion 3, and so on.

Bookmakers have been doing a roaring trade.

And yet how unpredictable really is the Premier League?

After all, the last time I looked, the two Manchester clubs were leading the way in the race for the title.

Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool were also riding high.

The likes of Bolton, Wigan and Blackburn were in relegation peril and Villa and Everton were a bit like the Grand Old Duke of York – neither up nor down.

The reality is the Premier League – far from being as fickle as the English weather – is as predictable as sunshine and sand in the Sahara Desert.

Give or take the odd exception, you always know the identity of the leading four clubs – even the top-six. You always know, too, which clubs are likely to struggle.

Out-and-out shocks are few and far between.

That is not to say, of course, the Premier League is boring.

On the contrary, it is the world’s most exciting domestic competition.

But predictable is precisely what the Premier League has become.

It is the inevitable consequence of a sport flush with greed.

As the rich have grown richer, the divide has grown wider, to the extent the top-flight is dominated by those with most money and resources.

If the Premier League really was unpredictable, newly-promoted clubs such as Swansea City would be capable of mounting a title challenge, instead of facing a battle – first and foremost – to avoid relegation.

Instead, the idea of any promoted side even breaking into the top-six is even more laughable than FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Indeed, it is a remarkable statistic, although by no means a surprising one, that only four clubs have won the Premier League since its inception in 1992-93 – Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal and Chelsea.

During the last seven seasons, the competition has been won by only two clubs – Manchester United (four times) and Chelsea (three).

Seven different clubs have finished Premier League runners-up – Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea.

In the old days, of course, it was a different story.

A generation ago, Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest won the old First Division title a year after securing promotion from Division Two.

Clough’s men went on to win back-to-back European Cups during a heady run of success.

Yet the thought of a Championship outfit doing that nowadays is utterly ridiculous.

Unless you happen to support one of the Premier League’s big guns, there is nothing remotely satisfactory about the fact only a few clubs have the capacity to win the competition.

It is the antithesis of what made football such a great game in the first place.

Slowly but surely the romance has been eradicated – and it is unlikely to return anytime soon.

FIFA, in a belated attempt to stabilise the economics of European football, have now introduced a system called Financial Fair Play (FFP).

To qualify for a licence to take part in European competition, clubs must now break even (within 5m Euros leeway) over a monitoring period (MP) of three previous seasons.

To allow them sufficient time to adjust, clubs are permitted to lose a total of 45m Euros in the first two MPs and 30m Euros in the following three.

Ivan Gazidis, the Arsenal chief executive, believes one of the consequences is that the Premier League will indeed become less formulaic.

“No club wants a system that boxes in the current hierarchy forever,” he said. “Even if you are at the top, it is not healthy.

“I don’t believe it is healthy in Spain to have Barcelona and Real Madrid locked in at the top.

“I believe it (FFP) will attract strong and capable ownership that clubs at the moment are struggling to attract.

“There are many clubs in this country that have enormous potential that could be unlocked.

“But can it be done in a year by buying players? No.”

There are clearly several benefits to FFP.

It could reduce the chances of clubs plunging into debt and is also likely to have the effect of driving down transfer fees and slowing the problem of spiralling wages.

But will it really serve to make the Premier League less predictable – less still achieve its fundamental objective of stabilising the finances of the European game?

It might have some effect, but it remains to be seen whether the difference will result in a tangible shake-up of the Premier League.

The reality, it seems to me, is that professional football is beyond redemption.

We are no more likely to see a less predictable Premier League than we are to see players desist from abusing referees.

The damage, you sense, has already been done and an equable system seems highly improbable.

Unless there is a radical overhaul of the global game, there will never again exist a climate in which the likes of Nottingham Forest can win English football’s top prize one year after winning promotion from the second tier.

It is simply not a viable option.

Nowadays, it would be drama enough if a club outside the Premier League’s top-six came through and won the title.

The equivalent, for example, of Stoke City making off with the coveted crown.

So rejoice in such results as Manchester United 1 Manchester City 6 by all means; savour those moments when the likes of Blackburn Rovers go to Old Trafford and pull off a victory.

But do not see them as anything more than isolated disturbances of the natural order.

For in terms of which clubs will prosper from one year to the next, the Premier League is ponderously, pathetically predictable.

It’s time to take Dalglish to task

YOU can tell a lot about someone by the way they deal with the media.

Take Premier League football managers, for instance.

The likes of Wigan’s Roberto Martinez are invariably polite.

They answer questions with courtesy and respect.

I have never seen Martinez lose his temper with an interviewer or treat him with contempt. He always comes across as a good human being.

Then, at the other end of the scale, are people like Kenny Dalglish.

No interview with the Liverpool manager is complete without condescending answers to even the most inoffensive questions.

You can almost see his brain working overtime as to how best to ridicule each enquiry. He makes Victor Meldrew look like Victor Borge.

Indeed, when Dalglish complained sarcastically the other week that he thought Sky’s opening question prior to the Manchester City match would have been about the game itself rather than Luis Suarez, the interviewer missed a golden chance.

“It’s the first question because it’s the most newsworthy topic, you sanctimonious so-and-so,” would, in my view, have been an apposite rejoinder.