SOCCER ANGLES:Manchester City's new-found wealth has pushed them into a top tier, but there will be repercussions, writes MICHAEL WALKER

THE TOP four is the top four is the top four. Symmetry dictates we should say that again, and the pressing question as another Premier League season begins is: will this be another top-four season or can someone, specifically money- soaked Manchester City, break the mould? This has quickened August anticipation, though a recent paradox at the apex of the Premier League is that there is undoubted excitement regardless of its predictability. It’s a lockout, but somehow we still have to go along, tap on the glass ceiling and make sure it’s just so.

For the past four years, in fact for five of the past six seasons, the top four has been (alphabetically) Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.

Five seasons ago Everton elbowed their way in at Liverpool’s expense, but the lesson Everton provide is that it’s getting harder, not easier, to join the four tops.

In the past two seasons, when Everton have finished fifth twice, they have accrued more points than when they came fourth. So even that improvement in David Moyes’s team was not enough. Last season Everton came in nine points off Arsenal, with Aston Villa a further point back in sixth, so when Arsenal’s fragility is talked about, it is generally without recourse to these statistics.

Of course, Arsenal could drop by five points given their summer sales to date, and Everton could win five more at a push, but this is not an issue that has sustained fans all summer long, is it?

What is thought, and in a way hoped for, is that Arsenal’s alleged vulnerability will be exposed by the great spenders, Manchester City. City being City, loveable, eccentric, always in United’s red shade despite their blow-up bananas, in England there appear to be only ripples of resentment about what is going on at Eastlands – and all that “Arab money”.

There have been specific grumbles – from Rafa Benitez over Gareth Barry, from Moyes over Joleon Lescott and from Alex Ferguson over the sky-blue Carlos Tevez posters erected in the middle of Manchester. And of course Uefa are unimpressed by City and Real Madrid – as if Uefa’s Champions League is not fundamental to the economic problems across European football.

But beyond, in fan-land, everyday world, it has felt as if England is as much intrigued as irritated by the prospect of City being wealthy and sudden contenders. That City have spent the guts of €230 million on transfer fees alone since the Abu Dhabi grouping swooped has not caused the same level of antipathy nationwide that it sparked when Roman Abramovich took over at Chelsea and started distorting the market. Perhaps widespread City antagonism is on hold.

But within the game it has been simmering and on Thursday came a jibe from up the road in Lancashire that revealed City’s world may have changed in another dimension, one less pleasing to them. The words came from Blackburn’s David Dunn and this is a flavour of what he said: “It’s important we do our best and kick lumps out of them, fairly of course.”

One small statement but quite a big deal. It said that there is a different mood regarding Mark Hughes and the City experiment.

Because the “them” in question are City, who today travel to Ewood Park. Hughes, who left Blackburn for City, will hardly have been expecting a gentle greeting from Rovers, either before or during the game. But Dunn’s words revealed City’s new status and a new reality. Were there no new money, Dunn would not have spoken this way.

So Rovers are to raise their game when the opponents are Manchester City, as well as Manchester United. They will not be alone.

This will have repercussions. There are a lot forecasting that City can break the top-four monopoly this season. The money, the money, is the main reason; in Kolo Toure, Carlos Tevez and Emanuel Adebayor, Hughes looks to have bought well, if very expensively.

As with many former once-cherished players, there is immediate revisionism at Arsenal regarding Toure and Adebayor, as if they weren’t that good really. But they would both be playing at Goodison Park this afternoon if they were still at Arsenal.

Hughes has taken two men from direct opponents in this instance. With Barry he has done the same to Villa – and Liverpool in a way – and he wants to do the same to Everton over Lescott. Weakening others while nourishing yourselves, this is cold, professional business practice. Most un-Manchester City.

Theoretically this calibre of recruit should mean City do not lose at Wigan or Bolton or Stoke – which they did last season. They also lost at relegated West Brom and Middlesbrough. That’s 15 points. Take those this season and City should be in top-five territory. Another eight and it’s last season’s top four.

These are assumptions, yet the outlay since Robinho was snatched from Madrid surely means City now simply must win at Wigan, Bolton and Stoke. Otherwise Hughes is in peril, change may be forced and that generally halts progress.

Manchester City must jump 23 points in a year to leapfrog Arsenal. They begin at Blackburn, nouveau riche once themselves. And it won them a title, never mind a place in the top four.

Coyle's Burnley bridging the gap

THE THINGS they say about Burnley. Punk poet John Cooper Clarke said it was so backwards "the people still point at aeroplanes". On leaving Blackburn, which is 10 miles away, the sign for Burnley has the 1 removed.

But 33 years after they were last there, the top flight hosts Burnley once again and traditionalists everywhere have sighed with quiet satisfaction.

Burnley mean something in the history of English football and, while the town does not possess the population to make the club large, how Burnley have wallowed while the likes of fellow Lancastrians such as Bolton and Wigan – and the detested Blackburn – have prospered is remarkable.

But Burnley are back. Owen Coyle, 15 years on from his one Irish cap as a substitute for Tommy Coyne against the Netherlands, is the manager.

Coyle looks the part. This needs to be said now and remembered on September 26th at White Hart Lane. Burnley's new era starts today at Stoke City, where adrenalin could take them some way, but after that Burnley's next six fixtures are against Manchester United, Everton, Chelsea, Liverpool, Sunderland and Tottenham.

By the end of next month Burnley could feasibly have two points and no confidence.

Coyle will, however, be able to remind his players that last season started with a 4-1 hammering at Sheffield Wednesday, followed by no goals in their next three matches.

Despite that Burnley reached the play-offs, where they beat Reading.

That set up a Wembley final against Sheffield United. Burnley won 1-0.

Good luck to them.