Is the idea of the ‘Big Six’ well and truly dead?

• Teams like Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Brighton & Hove Albion have broken into the Premier League’s top six in recent seasons
• Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea have all finished out of the top half recently
• More teams are challenging the established ‘Big Six’, who have dominated the top flight for a decade and a half

Going into the international break, the Premier League’s top three didn’t look too out of the ordinary. Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur in that order is fairly par for the course, even if it’s much brighter reading for Tottenham than last season’s league table. 

Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United sit fifth, seventh and tenth respectively, and it perhaps says a lot about their recent success, or lack of it, that nobody is going to bat an eyelid at their places, either. So, does the concept of the ‘Big Six’ still make sense? 

Back in the 2000s, there was the ‘Big Four’ of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Man United, and they were joined by Man City and Tottenham to make the ‘Big Six’ around the end of that decade. The 2010-11 season was the first time in Premier League history that these six teams took up the top six places in the league table, and until the 2022-23 season, there was only one occasion that a different team broke into the top four, Leicester City, when they won the Premier League in 2015-16.

But then, in the 2022-23 season, a newly minted Newcastle United finished fourth and Brighton & Hove Albion ended the season in sixth. Aston Villa pipped Tottenham to seventh, and a place in the Europa Conference League, and Chelsea were way down in 12th. 

The following season, Villa finished fourth, with Newcastle in seventh knocking Man United to eighth, and the season after, both Tottenham and Man United capitulated completely to finish 17th and 15th respectively. Newcastle were fifth, Villa sixth, and Nottingham Forest seventh. 

And, while it’s still early days, if the current season were to finish now, we’d have Bournemouth in fourth and Crystal Palace in sixth. 

It’s harder for other teams to break through

What Chelsea and Manchester City did in the 2000s by shaking up the established order with billionaire owners can’t be replicated in the same way because of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR). 

Newcastle were taken over by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in 2021, and they’ve spent considerable sums of money on players, including Alexander Isak, Nick Woltemade, Anthony Elanga and Sandro Tonali, but they’ve also had to sell players to comply with regulations.

And some of the other teams to threaten the ‘Big Six’ have found themselves in similar situations. Villa and Forest have both had to sell assets or rein in their spending. But for a team to have a chance of breaking in, they need to either take a risk by spending big or become extremely well-run.

People joke about Brighton’s apparent ability to cherry-pick the best young talents from South America before selling them on eight-figure sums two or three years later, but their strategy has helped them develop. Teams like Bournemouth and Brentford operate in a similar way, the latter in particular often described as a ‘Moneyball’ club with their buy-low, sell-high approach.  

But how sustainable is it to keep this conveyor belt of talent running? Teams like Southampton and Leicester eventually proved unable to keep replacing their best places, and they’re currently both back in the Championship. Wolverhampton Wanderers are another team who looked as though they might be able to challenge the top clubs for a few years, but they’re now mired in another relegation battle amid fan discontent with their owners. 

The ‘Big Six’ always bounce back

As for the ‘Big Six’ themselves, it does feel as though there’s always a chance for them to get back to success even when they’re struggling. Man United have endured a dreadful 12 years since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, and last season was the nadir, but they have the history, standing, and revenue to simply go again. If Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee don’t work, simply go and buy Benjamin Sesko and Bryan Mbuemo. 

Even in the post-Fergie era, they’ve only finished out of the top six three times, and they’ve finished second twice. Last season notwithstanding, they’ve had a record that a team like Villa or Brighton would be pretty happy with. 

Chelsea finished 10th in 2015-16, with two Premier League titles either side, and they finished 12th in 2022-23, in their first full season under new owner BlueCo, but they seem to be finding some stability once again. Tottenham could even have gone down last year if not for the three relegated teams being particularly poor, but they’ve taken Thomas Frank as head coach from Brentford and made some eye-catching new signings, and they’ve made a good start to the new season. 

If anyone is going to challenge the ‘Big Six’ over a long period of time, Newcastle are surely the main contender, even if it could take them a while to consistently challenge at the top while juggling the demands of domestic and European football. Having finished in the top six for two years in a row, and seventh the season before that, Villa could continue to challenge too. 

But as Leicester know all too well, finishing fifth two seasons in a row before coming eighth and then going down the year after, nothing is guaranteed. The ‘Big Six’ might get challenged, and could maybe be considered a ‘Big Seven’ with Newcastle now, but they’ll be incredibly tough to break up.

Click here for our Discounted Account Offer. Access updated previews and analysis on up to 5 tournaments for 30 days.