Is The Big Six Era Over?

Struggling is not a word that you would associate with the English football giants of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur but the landscape at the top of the English football pyramid is rapidly changing. Financially, the elite may always rise above, but on the pitch, stereotypically smaller clubs like Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth, and Brighton are dreaming of Europe.

Decline Of The Giants

Since the creation of the Premier League in 1992, the Premier League title and European places have been achieved by a select few, with Blackburn Rovers, Leeds United, and Leicester being the outlying anomalies. Income, fans, players, pull – it’s an ever-going unbreakable cycle that keeps the unhinged ‘big six’ on their pedestals at the top of the Premier League table year by year.

However, one way that the circle could be broken is by the mistakes of those clubs. The fall of Manchester United has brewed since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson but winning is now merely a forgotten identity as the legends of yesterday watch on in dismay. 8th place in the Premier League last season under Erik ten Haag and now trailing the European places by 13 points sat in 14th place in the Premier League under manager Ruben Amorim. With the disconnect between players and fans, a boiling point has been reached in Manchester, and it looks like a very long road before they can re-become the dominant force they once were.

Elsewhere, in North London, times have reached a new low, 17 years without a trophy, and promised big things in the second season of Australian Ange Postecoglou. 13th in the Premier League table – struggling to fulfil their potential. Constant inconsistency has been the way to describe Spurs in recent years, runners-up in the 2019 Champions League, 7th in the 2020/21 season, and 8th in the 2022/23 season. Now without talisman Harry Kane to fall back on, the Lilywhites are at a stalemate, with fans wanting the owner out and Daniel Levy hesitant to pay the large sums needed to strengthen his squad. On the pitch, Spurs have yet again crashed out of the FA and Carabao Cup’ in back-to-back games. In a stadium fit for legends like Jimmy Greaves, Ledley King, and Glenn Hoddle, the ecstatic feeling of lifting a trophy feels a way away in Tottenham.

Rise Of The Underdogs

But as the elite fall, those below must benefit and that is an idea that isn’t too familiar in Nottingham. Once a European giant under Nigel Clough, Nottingham Forest are back in the Premier League after a 24 hiatus and back in contention for Champions League football. Promoted in 2022, Forest spent their first two seasons back in the big time fighting for survival at the bottom of the top-flight. Under the leadership of Nuno Espirito Santo, the Reds are now reaching new heights that their fans could not have dreamed of.

Last season, Man City won the Premier League, finishing 59 points ahead of Nottingham Forest.

After today’s win, Forest are now 4 points clear of City and sitting comfortably in the Champions League spots 👏 pic.twitter.com/7BqEQ4BkZi

— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) March 8, 2025

The 2024/25’s overachievers sit 3rd in the table with their electric attack being the key to their success. 33-year-old Chris Wood leads the way in scoring 18 goals, while Morgan Gibbs-White, Callum Hudson-Odoi, and Anthony Elanga make up the speedy trio behind. On the other hand, Forest’s solidity at the back has also been the foundation for greatness as Matz Sels leads the Premier League for clean sheets (11) and the physical central defensive pairing of Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic continues to impress. Espirito Santo’s side are a clear example of the recent success of ‘smaller’ clubs in the Premier League and the breaking of the ‘Big Six’.

Joining Forest in the Championship’s promoted class of 2022 was Bournemouth. Playing in a stadium that holds just 11,307, many would say that playing in the Premier League is an overachievement for the south coast side. However, not for Andoni Iraola’s side, three years into their second stay in England’s top-flight, the Cherries are having their best season in the club’s history.

Sat in 7th place, Bournemouth have had a historic season as they look set for a record Premier League total; recording-breaking 11-league-game unbeaten run and historic wins over Arsenal and Man City this season. The Cherries have demonstrated the ability and importance of investing in youth after deals for players such as Milos Kerkez and Illia Zabarnyi have pushed the club forward. Bournemouth’s quick, aggressive, and attacking style under Iraola has captured plaudits from many around the nation, and with just three points separating them from European football, they contain to prove people wrong.

Ownership Differences

In the modern-day, when it comes to ownership it’s harder to look further than Todd Boehly’s takeover at Chelsea. Taking over from Roman Abramovic, the American joined with pressures of immediate success and trophies. But Boehly had his ideas, contradicting the norm, similar to the art in American sports of ‘drafting’ as Boehly stamped down the transfer policy of signing young players with potential.

Within his first months at the club, Chelsea’s new owner splashed the cash, signing Raheem Sterling from Manchester City, Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli, Wesley Fofana from Leicester, and Marc Cucurella from Brighton. Despite these signings not exactly hitting the ground running in London, Boehly’s spending didn’t stop, placing colossal price tags on the young talent of Mykhaylo Mudryk and Enzo Fernandez.

Nonetheless, money isn’t everything in football and that was significantly shown here – spending big is great, but you must spend it wisely. The Blues would go on to finish 12th in the American’s first year at the club, then finishing 6th, and now the London club sit 5th as they continue to develop as a new and young identity. Boeley’s time at Chelsea is one example but the chaos of owners at football’s elite clubs has been a huge part of the decline of the Big Six.

Moneyball

The act of Moneyball is a philosophy and idea that has become ever-present in the modern football market. A strategy that allows for stereotypically smaller clubs to work smartly in the transfer market, investing smaller fees into young players and selling them for a high profit, then allowing them to improve. A clear example of this is Brighton and Hove Albion.

Brighton paid £56.9 million to sign Alexis MacAllister, Marc Cucurella, Yves Bissouma, Leandro Trossard, Benjamin White, and Moises Caicedo, and have sold them for a combined £331 million.

Over a quarter of a billion pounds profit on just six players. pic.twitter.com/2H7wZSqDo9

— Alfie | HITC Sevens (@HITCSevens) August 11, 2023

Brighton, a typical team that operated in the depths in and around League One and the Championship but in recent times have broken into the Premier League’s European places. You cannot say Brighton without thinking about the word ‘scouts’, finding the hidden gems of the Moises Caicedo’s, Alexis Mac Alister’s, and the Leandro Trossard’s of the world. However, being a club the size of Brighton, it is never a question of whether players will leave but simply when. Big clubs snapping up their young and upcoming talent, but Brighton utilised their newly found resources to make the club even better, signing Joao Pedro, Carlos Baleba, and Pervis Estupinan.

Among several other reasons, Moneyball is a gigantic reason for the breaking of the Big Six in the Premier League and the strengthening of the teams sat just below them as more and more talent are acquired in the English top-flight. If this season is anything to go by, the Big Six might be fading away on the pitch, but off it, they will always have their advantages.