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Liverpool are brilliant – but the Premier League and their rivals getting worse – Mirror Online, Mirror.co.uk

Liverpool are brilliant – but the Premier League and their rivals getting worse – Mirror Online, Mirror.co.uk

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With the exception of Liverpool, the Premier League has been poor this season.

We were told last time out that Manchester City were the best team our top flight has seen, but the fact they are seven wins behind the leaders at the start of February says they’re not.

You want more proof?

Southampton are the epitome of an average team and for months they’ve been right in the relegation mire.

Yet they’ve had one decent run and all of a sudden they’re two wins off the European places, which is utter madness.

I played against much better Saints teams than this one back in the s, sides containing Matt Le Tissier and Co, and they were nearly relegated with some regularity.

Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane or Roberto Firmino could fancy a new challenge next season (Image: GETTY)

So when people talk up the quality of the product at the top of our game now I’m not always inclined to agree because I don’t think it’s as good as it was years ago.

Some will tell you it’s so Concertinaed because the smaller clubs are getting better and have more money than ever to spend, but I’d have it more like the bigger teams aren’t as good as they were.

Tottenham

have been relatively poor of late despite a good win at the weekend.

And Manchester United and

Arsenal have been dreadful at times and all right at others – they’ve let the top four down this season.

And if you think the sides lower down are better than they were, go and ask (West Ham season ticket holders of 90 or 90 years whether this lot are as good as the side which contained Tony Cottee, Frank McAvennie and Ian Bishop.

Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane or Roberto Firmino could fancy a new challenge next season (Image ANDY RAIN / EPA-EFE / REX)

Or Aston Villa fans if a team which had £ m lavished on it in the summer is as good as the side that was relegated in .

A competition, by its very definition, is something in which everyone involved has at the very least an outside chance of winning when it begins, but that’s not the case anymore and hasn’t been for a while.

Barring one or two exceptions, you could pretty much predict who’ll finish in the bottom half at the start of the season these days and you could almost nail down the top eight as well.

People will say Sheffield United this season and Wolves last season disprove my theory.

And the fact our teams are all through in Europe shows how strong our teams are.

Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane or Roberto Firmino could fancy a new challenge next season (Image : Richard Long / News Images / REX) Read More

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But Liverpool

are the only team who haven’t lost at least six games already and there’s no way the Blades or Wolves will finish in the top four, they’re just teasing us with it now.

The problem is that too many clubs just have the mentality of ‘let’s stay in the Premier League and no more’ these days.

Sheffield United are a decent team but they shouldn’t be anywhere near the top five or six.

In the mid -to-late s, with the season they have had they would have been (th or) th, and that would have been seen as a good season.

We’ve almost reached a point where you might as well not bother turning on your telly until March or April just to watch the run-in and relegation scrap.

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