Matt Maher: Steve Parish speaks for every club outside ‘Big Six’

So said Steve Parish this week, in an interview where the Crystal Palace chairman surely spoke for every club currently locked outside the Premier League’s elite.

Parish’s frustration on this occasion was aimed at proposed rule changes to Champions League qualification which could allow Europe’s wealthiest clubs to enter the competition via the back door, regardless of performance in their domestic leagues. Mentioned in this space last week, it feels very much like an attempt to create a European Super League in all but name.

“We’ve gone backwards,” added Parish, when recalling the collapse of the Super League a year ago this month.

“They (the big clubs) are still getting everything they want. There was a spirit of revolution but no-one has taken a penny off them. For some bizarre reason, everyone feels intimidated by making any kind of positive change.”

Clubs further down English football’s pyramid would no doubt retort that as a Premier League chairman, Parish and his colleagues have done rather a good job of cutting off the rest of the domestic game from the riches enjoyed in the top flight.

But there is no question competition for major domestic honours has become increasingly restricted to a select few. Palace’s semi-final defeat to Chelsea last Sunday means the competition will again be won by one of the five clubs who have lifted the trophy in 26 of the 30 seasons since the formation of the Premier League. Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City have, meanwhile, won 28 of the 30 Premier League titles, with Leicester the only team from outside the so-called Big Six (which also includes Tottenham) to have finished in the top-four since 2005.

Such statistics beg the question of what precisely constitutes success for those clubs, Villa and Wolves among them, aiming to eventually break up the hegemony. Just how realistic an ambition can that be? One thing for sure is the challenge isn’t about to get any easier.