English football clubs' success in Europe comes from the strength of the Premier League

The Premiership is rated as the strongest club league in the world and the fierce rivalry between its top clubs has certainly raised the standard of English club football - although it has yet to benefit the England national team. Indeed the very success of the top English clubs can be seen to be a cause of the England's team's decline.

The Premiership is really three leagues in one

There are twenty clubs in the Premier League but, in reality, over its history only a small handful of clubs has ever had a chnace of winning it. In fifteen seasons only four clubs have won the league; Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, Arsenal and Chelsea. In addition Liverpool has been a consistently top flight side with a finish in the top four in ten of the fifteen seasons. Blackburn's win in 1995 was a one-off and they soon disappeared from contention - it is the remainder of the Champion clubs, along with Liverpool, who are now the only realistic winners. So at the top of the league we have a competition between four clubs as to who will win the League and who will finish behind them to qualify for England's three other Champions League places. The next mini league is the contest for EUFA cup places (at its top) and to avoid slipping into contention for relegation (at its bottom). This compromises about ten clubs and is a much more flexible group. Unfancied teams with limited resources (like Reading this year) can rise to the top of this group with shrewd management. Poorly managed clubs, even those with a good history like West Ham, can slip to the bottom and flirt with relegation. Finally there are the perennial strugglers whose sole ambition is to try and stay in the Premiership rather than slip to the darkness of the lower leagues. Many, but not all, promoted clubs scrap in this part of the League.

The elite clubs are becoming more elite

In the pre premiership era the old First Division was frequently won by a different club. In the last twenty years of the old division clubs like Aston Villa, Everton, Leeds United, Nottingham Forest and Derby County were champions in one or more years. There is virtually no chance that one of these clubs could do the same today - unless a Russian benefactor appears over the horizon that is! Chelsea won the league in 1955 and it's a fair bet that this would have still been their only win had Roman Abramovich and his billions not decided that he's like a football club as a hobby. Chelsea is a bit of a special case but it is difficult to see the basis of the club unravelling in the near future - although the Russian "oiliarch" would be well advised not to meddle with the team's management and leave the clever José Mourinho in place again for next season. The one factor which links Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal is sound management of both the club and the team along with huge financial resources. The first three clubs are all now foreign owned and it seems very likely that Arsenal will join them when the American tycoon Stan Kroenke completes his buyout plans. The gap between these four clubs and the rest will widen and the best that the rest can expect is to finish top of the also-rans and qualify for Europe.

A European League must not be far away

The situation at the top of the Premier League is mirrored elsewhere in Europe - particularly in the two big leagues of Italy and Spain. Over the period that there have been four winners of the Premiership there have been just five winners of "La Liga" in Spain and also five winners of "Serie A" in Italy. In all the other leagues there are fewer still winners; two in Scotland, four in Portugal - and in France Lyon look like winning for the sixth year running. Not much real competition there either! So the prospect of a European League comprising the top clubs from each of the main countries is an attractive one. For the likely candidate clubs, managed now by pretty shrewd businessmen, it's a bit of a no-brainer. If you are the boss of Chelsea wouldn't you rather have lucrative ties against Barcelona or AC Milan rather than a trip to Wigan or Watford?

It's naïve to regret the changes in football

The "good old days" when Ipswich Town could win the English league, when you could stand and watch the Arsenal for five bob and when more than 75,000 could cram into White Hart Lane to see the Spurs are long since gone. The stadia are all seating, a ticket can cost £65 and the players all earn more in a month than a cabinet minister does in a year. And this particular clock won't wind back. A European league for the elite clubs might lead to the shedding of a few nostalgic tears - but if that is what the businessmen who run the clubs want then that is what they will get.