Chief Executive Richard Scudamore usually pops up about now to claim another possible “best-ever” EPL season.   And the “top-four” clubs of recent vintage being closer to the pack than usual will doubtless be cited as the reason why it is the “most exciting.”   But what Scudamore won’t be saying is that Chelsea et al have dropped their performance levels to more closely match the Aston Villas, Tottenhams and Manchester Citys of this world. The “most-exciting” simply means “lowest quality” when it comes to the battle for EPL honours

This homogenisation of standards seems based on two factors. One, defending which Keystone Cops choreographers would condemn as haphazard and, two, the increasing number of “horrible injury lists” among EPL clubs.

With such large squads, half-dozen or so injuries shouldn’t matter. But Manchester United’s recent travails are a clear example that it does.

But why this epidemic of football injuries? Are medical teams throughout the EPL simply rubbish? Or, are there TOO… MANY …GAMES?

A number of managers, led by the inevitable Arsene Wenger, complained that clubs had to fulfil fixtures the midweek before Christmas. Now, none of them were party to the decision which made that necessary. But I’ll bet they’d have made that decision had they been there.

The EPL was formed as an 18-team league, with 34 league games, as opposed to the 22-team and then 20-team, 38-game league which eventually emerged.

In a 38-week season, with most EPL sides capable of a four-game FA Cup run if the draw was kind, such midweek fixtures became necessary. With a 34-game EPL season, well…you do the maths.

Still, without these extra fixtures, most EPL clubs would either be in massive debt, or reliant on mega-rich owners pumping in £740m every six-and-half years in order to survive. And none of us would want that, would we?