Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish says too much emphasis is put on early league positions
Dec 8 2010 by Gregg Evans, Birmingham Mail
ALEX McLeish insists that too much emphasis is put on league positions early in the Premier League season.
The Blues boss feels that teams shouldn’t be judged until the end of the campaign – especially as the quality is continuing to grow in the English top flight.
McLeish reckons that the league is becoming tighter and a series of shock results have proved that any team is capable of recording a win.
Newly-promoted West Brom, Newcastle and Blackpool have all inflicted surprise scorelines on opponents this season – including victories at Arsenal and Liverpool.
Blues have also beaten Chelsea at home and recorded draws against Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester City, which shows that the gap between the so-called big teams and the rest of the league is starting to decrease.
At the same stage last year Chelsea were sitting pretty at the top of the table on 37 points, but this time around Arsenal are leading the way five points shy of that total.
The difference between 18th and sixth place after 16 games last season was 12 points, whereas this time around it’s just eight.
“I think the quality is great and it’s a credit to the Premier League,” said McLeish.
“People start to get paranoid and they start criticising you when you’re in the bottom part of the table.
