Is this the greatest ever Premier League season?

SPORTS BROADCASTERS deal in hyperbole. Contests between middling teams are sold as battles with great meaning; lopsided affairs are re-enactments of David v Goliath. No one endures the spiel more than followers of English football’s Premier League. Since its inception in 1992, the competition has become the most popular in the world, thanks in part to marketing that relentlessly reminds viewers of quite how important the matches are. Even by those standards, though, this season’s bombast has been ramped up. A deluge of goals and a title race involving Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool have prompted pundits to call this the greatest Premier League season ever. Are they right?

The claim is not without substance. For the first time since 2013-14, three teams are in the running for the title with just a handful of games to play. After the latest round of matches, Arsenal sit one point ahead of Manchester City, the defending champions (who also have a game in hand), and three ahead of Liverpool. The gap between first and third has not exceeded four points this season.

But such tightness at the summit, though rare, is not unprecedented. In 2013-14 the difference between the top three at this stage of the season (Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City) was also three points. And at the same moment in 1998-99 just two points separated Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea. (Before the Premier League era, the most competitive season ever was probably 1971-72 when four teams were in the running for the title before the final game. Brian Clough’s Derby County prevailed.

The Premier League race stands out when compared with other big European leagues where competition has been lacklustre. In Germany, Bayer Leverkusen have triumphed with five games to spare; as have Inter Milan in Italy. In Spain and France, Real Madrid and Paris Saint Germain respectively have one hand on league trophies already. But in the Premier League it is not just the title race that is exciting: goals are flying in as well. With 44 games remaining, 1,096 have been scored, breaking the record set last season. At 3.3 goals per game, the scoring exceeds that in all other big European leagues.

Officials at the Premier League will see all this as evidence of a job well done. Thanks to a rule change that sought to cut time-wasting, time added at the end of matches has produced more goals and thrilling finishes. More substantially, the league has ensured that its revenues, the biggest in the sport, are distributed relatively equally. As a result, of the 30 clubs with the highest incomes in European football during the 2022-23 season, 14 played in England, according to Deloitte, a consultancy.

All may look rosy at the top of the table, but the bottom, where the teams have been dire, is cause for concern. The sides in the relegation zone—Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton—have conceded 236 goals so far. Their average points tally, 21, is the lowest for the bottom three at this stage in a Premier League season. All three were promoted from the second tier last year, and have struggled to adjust. Should they go down, it would be the first time since 1997-98 that the three promoted clubs have been relegated immediately.

As established clubs get richer, it becomes more difficult for new entrants to displace them. In the past, lowly teams could break through by spending big, often using cash from a rich benefactor. Manchester City, once perennial relegation battlers, rose to the top of the game thanks to the billions spent by their Emirati owners.

Yet that route to success has been blocked by the Premier League’s enforcement of Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), which state that clubs cannot lose more than £105m ($131m) over three years. This season Everton and Nottingham Forest, who are both hovering over the relegation zone, have had points deducted for violating the rules. PSR seeks to ensure financial sustainability for football clubs, but risks cementing the league’s lopsidedness.

Even before that though, regulations could present a more pressing headache for the Premier League. Manchester City are being investigated for violating financial rules during their ascent to English football’s summit between 2009 and 2018. If their guilt is established it would put a huge dent in the competition’s credibility. One that even the Premier League’s marketing machine may struggle to mask.■