This class war is just a class bore

Updated: 16:33 EST, 5 May 2008

There was excitement at the British Soap Awards this week as EastEnders or Coronation Street beat EastEnders or Coronation Street to the main prize.

Next year promises to be equally thrilling. It could go either way. The storylines aren't any different in the Premier League. It's been a gripping competition, it's been close and the last weekend will contain moments of intense drama and heartbreak.

But Manchester United or Chelsea will beat Chelsea or Manchester United to the main prizes, with Arsenal and Liverpool on the fringe. Does anyone think it is going to be any different next season?

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Status symbols: Cleese, Barker and Corbett sum up the Premier League

In fact, look down the entire length of the table and you can see every club has settled into predictable groups. They might be corralled together under the Premier League banner, but it has never been more apparent that the 20 clubs are now split into three distinct competitions.

The scenario reminds me of that famous comedy sketch from The Frost Report where John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett lined up together.

Cleese: 'I look down on them because I am upper class.' Barker: 'I look up to him because he is upper class but I look down on him because he is lower class. I am middle class.'

Corbett: 'I know my place.'

And boy does everyone in the Premier League know their place.

Let's start at the top with Platinum Club, which consists of a familiar quartet — Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.

They are now permanent fixtures at the summit. They fight among themselves at home and abroad with the gap between this elite clique and the rest growing ever wider, thanks to Champions League revenues.

They finish at the top, they collect more money, they buy the best, they finish at the top again, they collect more money — and so on.

That self-perpetuating dominance is now so overwhelming it has even taken hold of Europe, with England providing three of the Champions League semi-finalists for the past two seasons and at least one finalist for four years in succession.

This is not some statistical blip. It's a clear and obvious trend and their power is such that the Champions League is in danger of becoming a private scuffle between an English-based cartel of world stars.

To counter accusations that his success is leading to stagnation, Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore claims it is just a 'cyclical process', that nothing ever stays the same and power will soon be transferred elsewhere.

History tells us that certainly used to be the case, but that wheel of fortune is turning ever slower and in some cases it appears to have ground to a halt.

This phenomenon is not just confined to England, either. A similar situation is being played out across most of the Europe on a slightly smaller scale.

Real Madrid have just retained the Spanish championship. Inter Milan are within sight of their third Serie A title in a row. Porto are close to being crowned champions of Portugal for the third year. PSV Eindhoven are on the brink of their fourth Dutch league win.

And the French might as well hand the trophy to Lyon at the start of every season, as they head for their seventh title in succession.

Does that seem 'cyclical' to you? From any perspective, it looks like the guaranteed jackpot of Champions League cash gives leading clubs the chance to bolster their advantage.

This is at its most distinct in the Premier League, where those outside the top four are left to jostle for the best seats in their business class and economy sections.

Sitting in England's Business Class Lounge are eight clubs.

They have pretensions to grandeur, yet cut their cloth accordingly, doing enough to stay apart from the economy herd while still longing for the opulence of the Platinum Club.

Again, you probably could have guessed that Everton, Aston Villa, Blackburn, Portsmouth, Manchester City, West Ham, Tottenham and Newcastle would make up that middle tier.

Everton had a fine season again, but only threatened to break into the top four because Liverpool stumbled. In truth, they lack the depth of resources to make that giant leap up.

Aston Villa were impressive, too, but were reminded of their place in the scheme of things when Liverpool recently moved in on their player, Gareth Barry.

Great things were expected from Tottenham and, as usual, they failed to deliver with any consistency, picking up the Carling Cup as consolation.

They have been spending, but do they have the nerve to gamble the £40million or so that is needed these days to break into the top tier? Or are they content to keep up with Villa and Everton, which is Newcastle United's shrunken ambition these days? We shall see.

Certainly the gap appears just too big to breach. As one leading Italian football writer, Giancarlo Galavotti, bluntly put it: 'The top four are very good, but the rest are s**t!'

It's harsh, but worth an argument. If the second tier of English clubs were as strong as we think, would the UEFA Cup Final be between clubs from Scotland and Russia? Only one English club has made it that far in the past seven years — and then Steve McClaren's Middlesbrough lost.

Down in the economy section, which of these clubs — Wigan, Boro, Sunderland, Bolton and one from Fulham, Reading and Birmingham — can seriously entertain realistic ambitions of even breaking into the middle tier next year? Only Sunderland, perhaps, at the expense of West Ham.

The rest will be hoping they prove to be stronger than promoted West Bromwich Albion.

That's all it will take to avoid the trapdoor.

The other two relegation places are already reserved for Stoke City and whoever comes through the play-offs from Hull, Bristol City, Crystal Palace or Watford. They will be picked off like an antelope at the back of the herd.

Survival is the only ambition.

But go back a decade-and-a-half to when Manchester United collected their first Premier League title and you discover they edged out Villa, Norwich City, Blackburn and QPR at the top of the table. That's not going to happen again in a hurry.

Now spin forward 15 years and ask yourself how will the final League table look? Manchester United, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Inter Milan and PSV, perhaps? It's the next logical step.

How Coe puts our pants to shame

Most of us realise superstitions are irrational nonsense.

Yet we cannot help believing our favourite shirt, precious scarf or lucky Y-fronts can somehow tip the balance of a contest played many hundreds of miles away.

I went to a charity sports dinner last week and sat with the sharp and entertaining Sebastian Coe (that's Lord Coe to you lot, by the way) and found he can call upon a superior talisman.

The athletics legend is a fervent Chelsea fan and in absolutely no doubt all the signs point to a victory for his club over Manchester United at the Champions League Final. Why the confidence?

Coe says the match is at the same Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow where he won an Olympic 1500m gold back in 1980 — and that he intends to be at the game clutching his medal for luck.

It's certainly a step up from lucky pants.

Hodgson kept up his end of the bargain

Fulham may yet scramble away from relegation after an extraordinary revival. I hope so.

Although their resurrection has been a surprise, the fact that club chairman Mohamed Al Fayed has tried to claim the credit is less of a shock.

On the day of their crucial game against Birmingham, the media were told he would go into the dressing room to give a team talk. As if that would help.

And afterwards he claimed: 'I promised them a hamper full of caviar and Viagra and it worked.'

No it didn't. Any turnaround is due to their manager Roy Hodgson, a decent, intelligent man with vast experience, who has quietly set about undoing the damage caused by Fayed, who has appointed three full-time managers at the club in just nine months.

Whatever the outcome at the end of this campaign, Fayed would do well to just let his manager get on with the job of managing and leave the jests and meddling in the hamper back at his shop.

Taking the mic

It's awards time and, with the managers and players collecting gongs, allow me to offer up my nomination for commentary moment of the year.

The men (and women) armed with a microphone often receive criticism but it's a difficult job, fraught with egg-on-face potential that is immortalised for all time in Colemanballs collections. So let us celebrate a moment of succinct insight for a change.

And so the winner is (pause for effect, ensure the directors drags it out to around 30 seconds with needless cutaways) Jonathan Pearce.

His spontaneous summary of Arsenal's reaction at Birmingham as they slumped to the turf on the final whistle was pure gold.

With a late equaliser adding insult to the injury earlier suffered by Eduardo, Pearce announced with perfect timing: 'It's as if they have lost the Premier League title and every cup you can play for in one minute.'

How right it proved.

Cue perfection

Whether you consider snooker a worthwhile sport or not (and I do) the game has one undeniable attraction; there are times when it can deliver perfection.

Few other endeavours offer such a tantalising and absolute opportunity.

They all demand excellence; they produce moments of unforgettable magic, but perfection? Even a 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 tennis scoreline masks a missed first serve or a wayward backhand.

On the track, times can always be bettered. And in snooker, perfection is not measured by the subjective opinion of a judge.

Yet, for a while at the World Championships, Ronnie O'Sullivan reached a level of God-like supremacy rarely witnessed in any sport.

In a scintillating spell he notched up a maximum 147 break and displayed a complete mastery of his profession.

His destruction of Stephen Hendry was at least the equal of anything produced by Tiger Woods on the golf course, Roger Federer on court or Michael Schumacher on the track.

Even at their illustrious best, were they ever faultless?