West Ham and Fulham in £15m transfer race for Panathinaikos star striker Fotis Ioannidis

ONE year perhaps there will be a visit from the football gods and a team will fight their way out of the Premier League forest of also-rans.

Nottingham Forest did so, under Brian Clough 46 years ago, champions and then twice winners of the European Cup before they fell to the unwritten law of “your time’s up, pal”.

Even in the brief history of the Premier League, Blackburn in 1994-95 and Leicester City eight years ago were champions — then came that immutable law again and both are now residing in the Championship.

Wonders do happen. Manchester City had won only TWO titles in the First Division before, wading in a tide of oil money, they swept to the first of their seven Prem crowns.

It could, I suppose, happen to Forest Green Rovers, but I doubt it.

No, there are unofficial guarantees in the future of our league football and they are held by the presumptuously named Big Six, with one or two wealthy others knocking at the door.

You have to believe, don’t you, and I do — that my team could be hammering at the door along with the likes of Aston Villa and another of the liquid-gold clubs, Newcastle United.

However, an elite section is not as it should be in the best possible world.
Despite our ambitions at the London Stadium, the people who run the game must at least try to bring more clubs back into the big-time picture.

Since the rebel rich blithely tried to join a European Super League and were scuppered by their supporters, the game has moved further towards the wealthier and successful clubs.

So now the task should be to try to prevent the cliff edge that is forming, not between the top flight and the Championship, but between the top six in the PL and the rest.