England’s elite may have fallen behind their counterparts on the continent, but the clubs just below the trophy-or-bust crowd are arguably better than ever. The handful of sides that would have been competing for a place in the Intertoto Cup (back when that was a thing) have gotten demonstrably better in recent years. What used to be a wasteland of clubs not good enough for the top four might be the most competitive part of the table.

A case can be made that those clubs are biggest beneficiaries of the flood of TV money in which the Premier League is currently awash. Manchester United paying an eye-watering sum for a teenager whom no one had heard of? That gets the headlines, but United is merely spending like the clubs with which it wishes to compete. The real development is clubs like Newcastle and Swansea — clubs with no hope of being able to compete for a league title anytime soon — being able to attract the “best of the rest” from around Europe.

Romelu Lukaku, Christian Eriksen, Georginio Wijnaldum, André Ayew, Gökhan Inler, Dimitri Payet – these are all internationals who could easily be playing for top four clubs in other major leagues. Instead, they’re all playing for clubs that only have an outside chance of Champions League qualification. The very best talent in the sport is mostly being hoarded outside of the Premier League, primarily at Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Bayern Munich, but even Premier League clubs with little hope of trophies can have their pick of Europe’s good to very good-level players.

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But that rise in talent is not without its potential losers. Look no farther than Ronald Koeman and Brendan Rodgers. Both Liverpool and Southampton are adjusting to life without their best players from last season and trying to bed in a number of new signings. A few years ago, they would have had room for a settling in period and time to recover strongly enough to be in and around the Europa League places. But now, with the number of teams of Europa League-quality significantly increased, that fall back option can no longer be taken for granted.

While the likes of Arsene Wenger and Louis van Gaal can get away with such kooky experiments like “not signing a single outfield player in the summer” and “playing Marouane Fellaini on a football pitch” without ever being under serious threat of falling out of the top four, others do not share that type of security. The mini-league of fifth through 12th in the Premiership is now immensely competitive, and that could result in some big names failing to finish even in the top half of the table.

Southampton has been a model in recent seasons, but they currently find themselves floundering with only one win in its first six games. Koeman has started tinkering with personnel and tactics already – a far cry for the settled side we saw last year. The Saints’ policy of making everything and everyone available for sale may be finally catching up to them. They have done very clever business in the transfer market since returning to the top flight, and have certainly defied expectations, but with the teams around them showing such collective strength, Southampton may find it hard to repeat last season’s seventh place finish.

To be fair to Koeman, he is only in his second year on the job, and he’s had a second consecutive summer of losing most of the team’s best players from the previous years. Even if Southampton takes time to find its feet — likely at the cost of European qualification — Koeman’s job should be safe.

Liverpool, on the other hand, is a shambles. Unless the Reds’ form undergoes a dramatic (and at this point, unexpected) turnaround, Rodgers may not finish the season as manager.

Like Koeman, Rodgers has also had to adjust to life for the second year in a row without his best player from the previous season. Like Koeman, he is also trying to bed in a number of new signings. Where the key difference lies is that the expectations placed on Rodgers are totally different; expectations that he is completely failing to meet.

A club of Liverpool’s size expects to be competing for Champions League qualification – a feat that looks totally beyond the hapless side on display at Anfield so far this season. Furthermore, Rodgers is now in his fourth year at the helm. Losing Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling in consecutive summers were certainly big blows, but Rodgers has been allowed to reinvest significantly in his squad. That reinvestment has been largely poor and seemingly scattergun. Instead of developing a core strong enough to withstand player losses, he appears to be starting from scratch every summer.

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If the purpose of hiring Rodgers in the first place was to establish a clear and progressive playing style, then that has been a failure as well. At the moment, Rodgers doesn’t even seem to know who his best players are, never mind how they should be lining up.

Finishing around the Europa League places used to be a consolation prize for clubs with greater ambitions. But the rising tide of the premiership’s middle class has removed that safety net, and now two managers who both finished in the top seven last season find themselves struggling to make up the ground on their rivals. Ronald Koeman may be able to survive in this new reality, but Brendan Rodgers likely will not.