Wonder how many places Man City will gain in the next few years?

I think this table is actually a very good indicator of real success of each club and how much they’ve contributed to the league. Everton and Aston Villa, two well run and consistent premiership clubs appear higher than flash-in-the-pan teams like Blackburn and Leeds who paid the price for their greed and short-term view.

It also suggests that Newcastle really are a team worthy of a place in the Premiership and that Hull (in 39th) are lucky to be where they are having amounted the same points as Barnsley who were comfortably relegated in their one season.

Perhaps those who are dismissive do so becuase they don’t like seeing in black and white just how far man united are ahead of everyone else. Roll on Fergie’s retirement party!

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Mean figures are not useful in this context without knowing the deviation from the mean. For example, a team that scores 100 points, 40 points, and 40 points will appear the same as a team that scores 60, 60, 60 points, even though one will have been safe in the middle of the table, and the other will have won the league once, and been nearly relegated twice. You need to say that the first team has averaged sixty points, with an average difference of 27 points, and the second has averaged sixty points, with an average difference of 0.

Before 1992, the league was a genuine competition where managerial and footballing talent, counted more than money. Since 1992 the competition is devalued as a sporting competition by being overwhelmingly financially handicapped in favour of the big four.

This performance ranking almost perfectly correlates with average club wage and transfer bill.

On this table, the achievements of Clough, Revie, Kendall count for nothing, as do the achievements of their relative clubs.