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In May 2017, the final Premier League table for the season made for grim reading from a competitiveness point of view. Finishing in the top six positions were Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United. In some order, they were the favourites to take up those spots before a ball had been kicked, even despite Leicester City winning the title the year before, this seen as restoration of the status quo after a once-in-a-lifetime miracle.
Lagging eight points behind sixth-placed United were Everton, who were stranded on an island between those teams and the rest having finished a whopping 15 ahead of the team in eighth, Southampton. Only six points separated the Saints and Watford in 17th. The Premier League was a closed shop split into two sections – the challengers and the rest.
This was the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’ power axis at its strongest; a top-heavy division at its lopsided apex. The 2010s were almost exclusively dominated by these clubs, and this trend followed into the next decade.
Alas, there is at last some reversal. Television money from the league’s obscene broadcasting deals has filtered through to the ‘other 14’. Profit & Sustainability Rules (PSR), though flawed, have levelled the playing field slightly. Traditionally smaller teams are thinking outside the box and working much smarter than they used to in order to close that gap, while those above are burning cash like their lives depended on it. The ‘Big Six’ era is over.