Roy Hodgson and Luiz Felipe Scolari should have seen it all by now, yet the Premier League has still contrived to confound in recent weeks. Between them the pair have sent out sides from Porto Alegre to Orebro, Kuwait to Copenhagen, but as two of the most travelled coaches currently in the English game convened for a pre-match cuppa in the home manager's office at Craven Cottage on Sunday, it was the congestion caused by heightened competition that fuelled the conversation.
Some 14 clubs are covered by 10 points in the current league table with the only two gaps between teams unbridgeable by a single result, separating second from third and sixth from the rest. "Felipe was saying that, in this league, there simply are no easy games," said Hodgson. "The fact that there has been no breakaway by the 'big four' so far is testament to the general quality of the league this year. Each team has been spending more money to improve. Each team Scolari has come up against has been well organised tactically, has worked hard for each other and has had good players. The division looks as if it is going to be tighter than we sometimes imagine it will be this year."
There is intrigue more commonly associated with the Championship in this season's top flight. Clubs have sprung into the top half or slumped into the relegation zone with wonderful elasticity. Hull have been a breath of fresh air and are a heady eighth, yet their 27 points represent no guarantee of survival with the cut-off only seven points away. Everton have won only twice at home but sit sixth.
Wigan have veered from one win in seven to claim six victories in their last seven and propel themselves from the drop zone into contention for European qualification, all within a month. Steve Bruce has been left to preach caution and dream of continental competition in the same breath.
There is certainly no real security to be had as yet in a top-half position going into the new year. The Premier League used to be considered to be three divisions within one. This year the middle section – from which Uefa Cup qualification and a prolonged domestic Cup run was considered a fine achievement – has either been eroded courtesy of the credit crunch, with clubs keener to shed players on considerable wages, or been swallowed up by the habitual stragglers. Hull City, Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion all spent relatively heavily in an attempt to compete at the higher level. There is no Derby County and, now that the Baggies have revived, no obvious cannon fodder to be had.
Add to that the financial constraints at, say, West Ham United and Portsmouth, which have helped to drag them into the mix, or even the managerial insecurity that saw early-season departures from Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur, both of whom would have considered themselves capable of much more than they have achieved to date, and there has been glorious unpredictability to the division. Manchester City have felt in limbo ahead of the big spend. Clubs such as Fulham and Sunderland have already lavished out considerable amounts, while the elite's propensity to draw with the unfancied and take points from each other has served to ensure they remain almost within sight, even if that remains a gap too far to bridge.
"There is a chasm developing now between the top three and the rest of the Premier League," said Gary Megson after seeing Bolton Wanderers deflated at Liverpool on Boxing Day. "The top three have played 55 games this season and lost five, many of those between each other."
Yet they have drawn games in which they would normally have breezed to success, perhaps struggling with the new-found intensity of the division after midweek Champions League ties. "I look at the 'big four' and see them drawing because they are tired up here [in their heads]," said the England coach, Fabio Capello after the elite quartet went almost three weeks from December 6 without winning a game. "The division is more competitive and teams like Aston Villa have emerged. For those in the Champions League, to win all the games when you play Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday is difficult because the competition is very strong, mentally."
Certainly Villa and Everton are suggesting they could ruffle feathers in that top bracket. Below them it is a free-for-all with every team capable of nullifying and infuriating the best, as if infused by some new tactical maturity. Scolari is not alone in being surprised as West Ham and Newcastle, for instance, have boasted the resilience to dent his own side's title challenge, even if they have then gone on to implode against lesser lights. "People talk about us dropping too many points at home [to Fulham, West Ham, Hull and Stoke] but we come up against opposing teams who are organised and prepared," said the Liverpool first-team coach, Sammy Lee. Sometimes even those recently considered also-rans have proved impenetrable.
Fulham's draw with Chelsea on Sunday extended their unbeaten run to nine games, yet Hodgson spoke of "not resting on our laurels" in the aftermath, aware as he was that his side are only six points above the cut-off. In a division as congested as this no one feels safe.
