Shades of Success

There are twenty professional football clubs in the English Premier League and every single one of them is under immense pressure to be successful. So how does it work and what are the chances?

First of all, as Professor Cyril Joad might have said, it all depends on what you mean by ‘successful’. If success is considered purely in terms of winning trophies, then it has to be acknowledged that the chances are limited (Freddy Shepherd please take note). To begin with, there are only five major trophies available – the Premiership, the F.A. Cup, the Carling Cup and either the European Champions League or the EUFA Cup. Assuming that each is won by a different premiership team, that leaves 15 clubs without any form of silverware – and for the three who end the season in positions 18-20, this will be the least of their worries. What makes it worse is that sometimes one outstanding team will scoop up two or more trophies – an increasing trend in recent years where doubles have become commonplace and even a treble is not unknown.

All this means that if success is judged solely by the acquisition of trophies, then a minimum of 15 premiership clubs per season are condemned to varying degrees of failure. And if we measure success by wealth, the prospect is even more depressing. Until recently Manchester United was widely regarded as arguably the richest club in the world but now, in spite of their investment in secondary glazing, this is far from the case. These days, ‘rich’ is synonymous with Chelsea, backed by the apparently bottomless billions of Roman Abramovic, able to outbid anyone and everyone, capable of sustaining an annual loss of £140 million unflinchingly, while some of their rivals cast about for their own sugar daddy and others build a new stadium to increase revenue.

There is a lesson here when it comes to evaluating success – judgement can be fair only when it takes full account of the individual circumstances affecting each club. For some, success may be regarded as the development of a good Academy system, providing a steady supply of promising players at a minimal cost – even if, as in the case of West Ham United in the past (Lampard, Ferdinand, Cole etc) those players have to be sold. For others – newly promoted clubs for instance or those who have traditionally struggled in the lower reaches of the premiership - survival followed by consolidation will be the key. Some clubs will consider a mid-table finish to represent substantial progress and others will be utterly thrilled to secure a place in Europe. That is, if they are sensible – because being sensible is rooted in the recognition that within the premier league there are in effect several sub-leagues and the keys to real success are self-awareness, financial prudence and the pursuit of reasonable goals. Unless, of course, you are Chelsea.