Quote Originally Posted by Darth Vela View Post
There was never really a big 4 tbh, a big part of it was Sky needing something to market on and to sell their annual 'Grand Slam Sunday', there were 4 teams that were usually in the top 4 spot but as that only really held for 3/4 years it was a bit of a weak claim. Now there is Chelsea and Citeh throwing money at anything that comes near them, Man U slowly declining (yes, despite winning the title...) and in need of rejuvenation and us and Liverpool trying to build something without the advantages of the other teams.

As for what I expect this summer, we'll see a few good players come in, probably of the right kind needed, and we'll see a few squad players leave. We'll be stronger next season but fuck knows if it'll be enough to stop us from doing our usual collapse, anything we do will be a little inconsequential as far as I'm concerned because we won't know if it's had any real effect until the crunch time at the end of the season, unless we win all our games from now until Christmas and end up 15 points clear then it might be an indicator.
I think there was a big 4. This was created out of the Chavs and Liverpool encroaching on territory that we and Manure dominated prior to 2003/4. Almost as soon as it came into existance, however, we were on the slide. And Liverpool have traded places with citeh over the past couple of years.

Ironic really that our decline came as a direct result of the measures we took to remain a top team in the long run.

But where we are now is that we are not in the top tier in this league, and IMO if we expect to be signing players of the calibre of the best players in the top 3 this Summer, we will be disappointed.

That's not being pessimistic. Its being realistic. Taking an overall look at the situation with a little distance between us and our shameful collapse the sad thing is that of all the teams in the league, possibly in Europe, we made the best effort to try to remain properly competetive by an alternative method than simply buying success...and failed. Whether in the future we will have our own means of spending big enough to achieve success is another matter.