by Sam Todd

Created on: May 28, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

The Premier League, as its CEO Richard Scudamore likes to tell us, prides itself on its wealth. This came to a head during the "39th Game" nonsense, where an extra round of matches to be played overseas was proposed. Scudamore tried to persuade the average fan, who already fork out ridiculous sums to watch their side, that this would be a benefit to everyone, and would stop the "big four" from doing exactly the same thing.

In reality, not only would it be unfair from a sporting perspective to have an odd number of fixtures every season, but it would be no more than a money making exercise where the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. This was already the case at the start of play, as the new TV deal, backed to the tune of 1.7 billion by Sky, Setanta, and the BBC, kicked into gear. This season, Derby County not only picked up the wooden spoon and the tag of "Worst team in the Premier League era", but also 30 million. Seldom has failure been as richly rewarded.

Despite the new found wealth, it was the same old story on the pitch. You didn't have to be Einstein to work out that the so-called "big four" would fill up the top four league positions, for the third time in four seasons. This was despite the best efforts of Everton, who once again pushed Merseyside neighbours Liverpool close for the fourth and final Champions League position. That said, many expected Liverpool to be the closest challengers to Manchester United, and for Arsenal to struggle to stay in there at the expense of an up-and coming Tottenham side. Both proved the experts wrong for contrasting reasons. Tottenham's poor league campaign was swept under the carpet by their Carling Cup triumph, with Portsmouth capping another magnificent season by winning the FA Cup.

Ridiculous as it sounds, the way Derby went up, going from near relegation the previous year to promotion under Billy Davies, led me to believe that their momentum would carry them through - what it actually showed was an alarming lack of quality combined with gross under-achievement. Whereas you always sensed something would go wrong behind the scenes at Birmingham City - with the Carson Yeung fiasco, they duly delivered. A club where the fans can turn pretty quickly if things go wrong, relegation was ultimately no surprise for the St. Andrews outfit.

Reading, on the other hand succumbed to second season syndrome, whilst Roy Hodgson and Steve Bruce performed miracles in keeping up Fulham and Wigan respectively, the latter more convincingly than the former. Do they have the infrastructure to avoid a repeat? I doubt it - Wigan were in the bottom quarter for attendances, Fulham for the second season running relied on a weakened opponent ahead of a big match (Liverpool in 2007, Portsmouth in 2008) to survive. Both will need to improve or hope the promoted sides go the way of Derby to stay up again.

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