It's mental here

And so another season draws to a close, and now the panic sets in.

Football fans across Europe are bracing themselves for nigh on three months apart from their beloved football clubs. The hopes and dreams of last August have either been realised or quashed - now considered as well placed confidence, or ludicrous optimism.

The season is well and truly over, and once again there is an air of predictability about the upper echelons of league tables across the continent.

In England Manchester United secured their third successive title, whilst Italy's Inter went one better and recorded their fourth on the spin. At the same time in Spain, Pep Guardiola's Barcelona were busy wrapping up their 20th league title. So no surprises at the end of term awards assembly then.

But here in England, the predictability of the Premier League is making its presence known further down the table than the very top. Further in fact than the top four, with two consecutive seasons ending with the exact same six teams placed at the top of the table.

Concern is growing, especially amongst fans and representatives of clubs outside of the country's now customary top four of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United. By routinely securing the four champions league places on offer to English clubs, the four footballing horseman of the Apocalypse hold a monopoly on the financial rewards given to those competing in the world's biggest club competition.

The money received each year they qualify gives them the necessary power to purchase the players (and pay the wages) to ensure qualification for the next season. Or to put it simply, the rich keep on getting richer and the rest of the premier league falls behind and out of sight.

So how can Tottenham, Everton and Aston Villa break the stranglehold the big four have on champions league qualification? Well, they could follow the Manchester City route of finding themselves a very rich Arab man who likes to use football clubs as something of a plaything. But although admittedly early days, City's indifferent form last year suggest it takes more than a huge injection of cash and similarly large dose of new blood to secure success.

Maybe it's a change of attitude that's needed? How many teams actually go to one of the big four clubs looking, not hoping, for a win? Most will travel to these grounds praying for a corner, let alone a solitary point. The current vogue for playing one forward supported (or completely isolated by in most cases) by attacking midfielders has done little to help teams ambition away from home.

Maybe the threat of relegation in today's debt-laden premier league is too much of a burden for teams to consider risking defeat for the possibility of a famous victory. Maybe I'm being overly romantic, but as football fans surely we'd prefer to see our teams attack the best our country has to offer and suffer the consequences than put 10 men behind the ball and grind out a dull 1-0 defeat?

It seems to me that not enough managers are willing to take the kind of risks Messrs Ferguson and Wenger do away from home. It's somehow become acceptable for 16 teams to accept defeat against an elite of four clubs. Maybe all this talk of the Haves and the Have nots is a red herring? Maybe all it needs is a little more PMA? Maybe it's all in the head?

Whatever it is, something needs to change quickly before the English Premier League becomes as predictable as our friends' North of the border.