JEFF POWELL ON FRIDAY: The Greatest League in the World? It's more like The Beautiful and The Damned

Premier League has divide between top eight and bottom 11
If you want to know why Mackay was sacked, look at the table
Will Orient and West Ham meet at Olympic Stadium as equals?

PUBLISHED: 12:26 EST, 27 December 2013 | UPDATED: 12:56 EST, 27 December 2013

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A game of two halves? Now it’s a table of two halves.

The Great Divide, in football, is not between north and south.

It is the gap which separates those who might have been described by F Scott Fitzgerald as The Beautiful And The Damned.

The Beautiful and The Damned: Arsenal's Theo Walcott (left) celebrates his second goal against West Ham on Boxing Day but the Hammers' George McCartney (right) despairs

Hull of a difference: Wayne Rooney (second right) celebrates but the Tigers players hold their heads

Plenty to celebrate: Manchester City, led by Vincent Kompany (centre) will challenge for the title

More from Jeff Powell...

There are now two divisions within the Premier League:

1) A Super League comprised of the eight top clubs – the rich and the famous;

2) A Sub-Division made up of the 11 teams all anxiously hunched within five points of relegation.

Marooned between them, in a no man’s land of neither great aspiration nor fearful desperation, are Southampton.

Stoke are six points behind them but the real void is the 10 points which separate the Potters from the Spurs.

Tottenham are bringing up the rear of the major clubs but are still in a different league from those toiling below them, a league predicated on money and influence within the game.

As we approach this weekend, the exact half-way point of the season, we know already that the title and Champions League places will be shared among four from the top eight of Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton, Newcastle, Manchester United and Tottenham.

This, of course, is exactly what the Premier League moguls had in mind – the executives as well as the bosses of the major clubs – when they broke away from the good old-fashioned Football League.

Namely the power and the glory and the TV money to the big boys. Witness this half-term Super Sunday on Sky – Newcastle v Arsenal followed by Chelsea v Liverpool.

Fill your boots.

The irony – cleverly hidden behind all the glitzy hype and grasping propaganda about the self-proclaimed Greatest League In The World - is that this has been achieved by a dumbing down of standards.

Switch off the rah-rah-rah television volume – either that or go to games which are more dead than live – and watch some of the basement brigade try to play football against each other.

The great divide: There is a gap between the top eight (above) and the bottom 11 (below)

Unless you are a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of one of the clubs, you can lose the will to live.

Many of these matches are morasses of clumsy ball control, wayward passes, Neanderthal tackles, lumbering movement and missed chances. Empty seats at grounds around the country are reminders that you can’t fool all the people, all the time.

And yet the Premier League takes delight in pointing out that, on a given day, these teams can give the giants a run for their vast amounts of money.

What that really tells us is that the good are not as great as they would have us believe.

Take the three dominant teams of recent seasons, none of whom are as impressive as they used to be.

Heavyweight battle: Chelsea's Eden Hazard (left) faces a Liverpool side featuring Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho (right) on 'Super Sunday'

Manchester United, by their own admission, are in a flux of transition following the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson.

Manchester City’s indifferent away form, by common consensus, does not reflect their vast expenditure in the transfer market.

Chelsea, by Jose Mourinho’s admission, are not the force they used to be. Yet all are still up there.

Only Arsenal have maintained their level. Consequently their flowing, if somewhat fragile, football has taken them to the top… and may keep them there.

Liverpool, Everton and Newcastle are also beneficiaries of the slippage above them – as well as the deficiencies below.

This is not to say the second half of the season will be unexciting.

Down but not out: It's tight at the bottom and both Gus Poyet's Sunderland and Crystal Palace, for who Dwight Gayle (right) scored the winner, secured victories on Boxing Day

Entertainment, more than quality, is the name of the Premier League game and this division of the haves from the have-nots serves their purpose.

It will be fascinating finding out if Arsene can end the Arsenal trophy drought. And whether Everton or Newcastle can dislodge one or two of the Even Bigger Four from Champions League qualification.

Also, with so many teams hovering around the drop zone, the Sub-Division promises to be a cliff-hanger to the end.

But as Fitzgerald wrote, The Beautiful were privileged but not so lovely as they were made to appear.

And of The Damned 11, three are most certainly doomed.

How the Premier League has concentrated power into the hands of the richest few:

This is how the table looked on Boxing Day night in the year of the Premier League’s inception, 1992, through key stages down the decades:

1992-93

Shock leaders: Norwich were top after Boxing Day 1992 and finished the first Premier league season in third

Flying Canaries: Chris Sutton (left) and Ruel Fox (right) were key players in that Norwich side

1998-99

Villans were heroes: Aston Villa topped the table after Boxing Day 1998

Main man: Dion Dublin was the star for Villa that season, especially in scoring this hat-trick against Arsenal

2003-04

United on top: Sir Alex Ferguson's men led after Boxing Day but Arsenal won the title

Invincible: Thierry Henry and Arsenal were second after Boxing Day but won the league and were unbeaten

Is it really such a surprise Malky Mackay has been sacked? Take a look at the table.

Cardiff City are one point above the Premier League relegation places. Of the four teams below them, Crystal Palace, Fulham and Sunderland all changed managers - and all achieved improbable victories on Boxing Day.

Only West Ham have stuck with their man. But although they lost on Boxing Day and fell into the drop zone, to be brutally honest they looked more convincing against leaders Arsenal than Cardiff did against a middling Southampton.

Time's up: Malky Mackay has been sacked by Cardiff... but given their league position, is it such a surprise?

Mackay did a near-miraculous job in bringing top-flight football back to South Wales.

So while Cardiff’s slide is being blamed on their weird-seeming Tan Man owner, Malky can get out with his reputation intact, a hefty pay-off and high prospects of immediate re-employment.

It is, as football managers are so prone to saying, a result.

Can the day really be fast approaching when Leyton Orient, currently League One leaders, will have the ironic pleasure of going to the Olympic Stadium to play West Ham, now in the Premier League relegation places?

We O’s fans are beginning to believe.

Not that we wish misfortune upon our blood brothers at Upton Park. Even better if we end up doing it in the Premier League.

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Comments (7)

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The comments below have been moderated in advance.

Fergus Sira-Lexon, England, 3 days ago

"Many of these matches are morasses of clumsy ball control, wayward passes, Neanderthal tackles, lumbering movement and missed chances. " You could be describing every match played in the top flight in the days before The Premier League there. For some strange reason, people like Jeff yearn for the days where 90% of the players were of the standard of present-day League 2 players and not many of the other 10% were what you'd describe as top class. The Premier League isn't perfect but then what is? It's the most exciting league in the world and the standard is mostly very good. You only have to watch the Big Match on ITV 3 or seek out extended highlights or full matches on YouTube to see how lucky we are to have the quality of player we have in our top league now. We all wish we could go back to a time when we were a lot younger but anyone who thinks football was better in the 60s, 70s and 80s is living in a dream world and is looking back in time through rose-tinted glasses.

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Jason, London, 4 days ago

To claim Liverpool, Everton and Newcastle are only benefiting from the deficiencies of the teams above them is hugely disrespectful and ignorant............ they have massively improved themselves and are all playing great football, beating the teams around them and deserve massive credit

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JamieF, christchurch, 4 days ago

I don't understand the point this article is trying to make.. All leagues have a gap of some sort. Check back in a month and that 10 point gap will probably be gone, or moved to another section of the table.

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MrHMSH, Southampton, 4 days ago

So if the great teams are not as great as we think, does that mean that the great Bundesliga clubs.... are getting beaten by not so great clubs? Then these not so great German clubs are beating the apparently not so great Spanish clubs! FOOTBALL SUCKS!

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Sir Henry B, Leicestershire, United Kingdom, 4 days ago

Mr Powell states that 'entertainment, not quality, is the name of the Premier League game' as if this is a bad thing. Isn't that the whole point? Some people may consider a Rachmaninov piano recital to be more 'quality' than Slade belting out 'Merry Christmas', but give me Noddy every time.