Betfair Official Blog

Crusader Neville owes it to league to challenge top four

Click here to view market

The former-England star heads the campaign against a boring league.

Everton captain Philip Neville is leading a crusade against England's top four clubs to stop the Premiership from becoming boring.

The former-Manchester United player feels a duty to the rest of the league to sustain a challenge for a top four place.

He said: "We owe it to everybody in the league to make sure the top four are consistently challenged. It would be a boring league if the same teams finished in the top four every season."

Neville believes Everton's 2005 fourth place finish, which granted them qualification for the Champions League, is proof that the monoply at the top of the table can be disrupted by other clubs.

He said: "We finished in the Champions League position three years ago and that is our aim again."

Everton finished fifth last season, qualifying for the Uefa Cup, but Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool have occupied the top four spots for the last three seasons.

Neville is under no illusions about the need for the chasing pack to expand their squads if they are to sustain a challenge and predicts a summer of activity in the transfer markets:

"A lot of managers are out at the European Championships, looking at players. Once teams start going out of the competition we will see the transfer market hotting up."

Betfair's Barclays Premiership - Top Four Finish 2008/09 market has Tottenham as the most likely team to break into the Champions League places at [4.2]. Everton, Manchester City and Aston Villa all follow on [7.2].