by Jonte Rhodes

Created on: June 10, 2009

Whenever people discuss the best teams in the premiership, inevitably the so called 'big four' are brought up, namely Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. Between them they usually win most of the domestic competitions, always win the premiership title, and over the last few years have won European honors as well.

Perhaps the greatest team of all time in England is Manchester United, who are the current title holders and won the Champions league last year. They are still a few trophies behind the Liverpool squad of the 70s who won everything, but they do look set to overtake them in the coming years. Managed by Alex Ferguson, Manchester United have dominated the premiership for nearly 20 years, winning the majority of the titles during that time.

Whether Manchester United can continue their run after the retirement of Alex Ferguson, which has been scheduled and then cancelled several times over the last few years, remains to be seen. It could be the case that Ferguson will remain in the job for a while yet, as he simply cannot seem to pry himself away from the managerial office. Replacing him successfully when the time does come will probably be the measure of whether Manchester United can continue to dominate the way they have been.

Arsenal are something of an oddity in the way that they approach building their team of players, often building talent through their ranks rather than signing big stars. They have fallen short over the last few years of winning very much, but are always in contention. With a very young average squad age, and making a tidy profit every year, manager Arsene Wenger has been told he has a job for life. If there are two things that boards of directors and shareholders care about in Football, it is profit and trophy success. Often one can't be attained without the detriment of the other, but arsenal seem to have the balance just right.

Chelsea are the polar opposite of Arsenal, having spend massively since their takeover several years ago by the Russian Oligarch (magnate/captain of industry) Roman Abramovich. Rather than building their team from the ground up as Manchester United and Arsenal have done, for the most part, Chelsea have simply bought the biggest stars they could. This approach has worked in part, as they have won plenty of trophies over the last few years, although there has been a detrimental side as well.

Often talented younger players who could have been developed by other clubs are left out of the first team

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