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We are all used to talking about the big four, but has the big four just become the big two? Since the 2005/06 season the top two of the Premier League have always been Manchester United and Chelsea except for 2008/09 when Liverpool beat Chelsea to second place.
Since Chelsea’s injection of millions in the early 2000s they have been slowly improving to this date and are now consistently one of the best teams in the league. Manchester United have always been a massive team, and in the last five seasons have not finished outside the top two. In the last ten seasons they have only finished outside the top two three times, and that was back when Arsenal were a stronger force.
The emergence of the top two has not necessarily been and improvement of United (maybe of Chelsea though), but can be more attributed to the retrograde of Arsenal and more recently Liverpool. Arsenal hit their heights in 2004, but since then have been considered the third or fourth best team in the league. Liverpool have slowly been getting better over the last decade, but a disastrous 09/10 season set them back a lot, with the likes of Manchester City and Tottenham looking to get into the top four this year. Manchester United and Chelsea however have been consistently challenging for the title for some time now and it is hard to see them falling outside the top two.
So what does this mean for everyone looking at making football bets this season? If you look at the Premier League win market, Chelsea and United are up there as the favourites. However it’s too difficult to pick out which one of the two will win it. That is where the “top two” market at Betfair comes into play. Chelsea are listed in the top two market at odds of 1.54 and Manchester United at odds of 1.74. These are pretty good odds considering Manchester United would have won you this bet 5/5 times in the last five years and Chelsea 4/5 times in the last five years. Added to this, the odds you get are better than you would get for either one of them winning a match in the Premier League. If you don’t mind sitting tight for a season and putting the money you would have bet for either side over the whole season on this long term market, then this could be a higher value market for you.
