Is a place in the Premier League a poisoned chalice for non-elite clubs? What can promoted and mid-table clubs aspire to in modern football?

By Tom Simmonds. Another Premier League season began this weekend and the same clubs are heavy favourites for success. Alan Shearer’s comment on the first Match of the Day of the season that 13 clubs were at risk of relegation begs a pertinent question. Can Premier League clubs outside of the moneyed elite aspire to success now?

Since the Premier League’s formation in 1992, each final table has worn a familiar look. Aside from Blackburn’s 1994/95 triumph, enabled by Jack Walker’s deep pockets, the title has been won by one of Manchester United, Arsenal or the interloping Chelsea and Manchester City. The trend is clear; you can only gatecrash the very top of English football, as City and Chelsea have, by having transformative amounts of money pumped into your club.

An argument exists, and it’s correct on one level, that big clubs always did win the big prizes in the days of the old league structure. Liverpool and Everton’s dominance in the 1980s is a point in this argument’s favour. However, what we have almost none of in the modern game is the potential for surprise. That Liverpudlian dominance was punctuated by events like the 1981 title fight between Aston Villa and Ipswich and teams such as Watford and Southampton finished as First Division runners-up to Liverpool. A smaller club with a tight, skilfully managed team could go out and play believing that the title was genuinely attainable.

An indicator of what ‘success’ looks like now to a club outside of the elite’s gated community can be seen in the praise given to the likes of Alan Curbishley for Charlton’s consistent comfort in the Premier League under his stewardship, Sam Allardyce for taking Bolton into Europe and George Burley for Ipswich’s fifth place finish in 2000/01. These three clubs, and others, are united by the fact that they now occupy berths below the rarified air they once breathed and have never returned post-relegation.

More worrying for the game’s health are the levels of financial overstretch that clubs countenance due to a desire to keep a spoon in the Premier League honeypot. The ongoing financial calamity at Leeds United, one of the dominant forces of the 1970s, is the most discussed example of this. Portsmouth, 2008 encroachers into the winner’s enclosure by dint of their FA Cup success, entered a death spiral even before their 2010 relegation. Fan ownership is only now providing some hope of recovery for the south coast side. Bradford, drunk on final day survival in 1998/99, overspent wildly in the summer of 1999 and racked up debts which put them into administration by the end of the 2001/02 season, a blow which saw them tumble towards the basement of the league.

Bradford’s rebirth and their surprise run to the 2013 League Cup final illustrates a hope fans of smaller clubs can cling to. The finals of the FA and League Cups have, since 2004, featured Millwall, Middlesbrough, Bolton, West Ham, Portsmouth, Cardiff, Birmingham, Stoke, Wigan, Bradford, Swansea, Sunderland and Hull. This is a sign that smaller clubs are increasingly targeting them as their best chance of transcending the elite’s closed shop.

Aside from promotions from lower divisions, domestic cups offer the only realistic chance of glory for a club without a multi-billionaire owner. While this is uncomfortable and imperfect, it will hopefully see an end to the lamentable practice of clubs playing weakened teams in cup competitions owing to avoiding relegation being prioritised. It would be ironic if a competition that has helped to debase the cups in recent years becomes a key reason behind their resurgence. The occasional cup win may be crumbs from the tables of the rich, but you’re grateful for them when they are all you have access to.

Will a non-elite club ever win a Premier League title? Should measures be put in place to counter Premier League elitism?

Read more from Tom Simmonds here!

Follow @TallulahonEarth