Arsenal, Manchester United and Newcastle United a breath of fresh air in Premier League title race after Manchester City and Liverpool duopoly - Stuart Rayner

We might be into January but it is important to remember the campaign is not yet halfway through. Many is the time people have prematurely trumpeted "the most open title race in years" only for it to boil down to the usual two-horse race in the new year. But at this stage at least, the signs are pretty good for a more competitive league than we have had for a while.

There has been a downside to the consistent brilliance shown by Manchester City and Liverpool in the last four years, and that is how difficult it has been for anyone else to get a look-in.

Whoever you support, it is not healthy for English football.

To watch Newcastle United over the last two weekends, when they were held 0-0 at home by Leeds United, then knocked out of the FA Cup by Sheffield Wednesday, did not feel like a first viewing of the new world order but the league table shows the Magpies are amongst the pigeons, and that is a good thing.

Even a "Big Seven" is better than a "Big Six".

For too long, City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal have had it all their own way.

They have a good season, putting their financial muscle to good use, finish in the top six, qualify for Europe and the gravy train continues. It has become a not-very virtuous circle.

There is a big gap between the money in the Europa League compared to the Champions League but it is still a decent cushion to the rest, trailing behind, desperately trying to catch up.

Apart from its thrilling final, what made last year's World Cup so good was the number of shocks – Morocco and Croatia in the semi-finals, Argentina losing to Saudi Arabia en route to winning the competition, Belgium and Germany bombing in the group stage, Japan making mugs of Spain.

Still no team has retained the trophy since Brazil in 1962. European champions Italy did not even qualify.

Unpredictability is what makes sport so joyful and yet with every passing year, football is doing its damnedest to minimise it.

Bean-counters do not like unpredictability. Relegation – from an actual division or the Champions League – messes with the balance sheets big clubs have tried so hard to skew in their favour. Hence the constant background muttering about relegation-free European Super Leagues, or teams being allowed to qualify for competitions on the back of their pasts, not their present, the fight to cling to parachute payments.

Because people would rather watch mighty Italy than an over-performing Morocco, right? Wrong.

Take the team colours and badges out of it, and Arsenal winning this season's Premier League would be great.

They are hardly Cinderellas at this ball, aristocrats with 13 league titles and 14 FA Cups. But neither are they Manchester City or Liverpool.

For Mikel Arteta to lift the Premier League trophy, the first Gunners manager to do it for 19 years, would be vindication of the patience so badly lacking throughout English football, which saw 55 of its 92 clubs change managers in 2022.

Many is the time in the Spaniard's three years in charge when the calls for his head have gone beyond the numpties of Arsenal TV, but the board have resisted. Even just being in the title race this season would be a fitting reward, to actually win it even better.

Chelsea, fretting already over whether Graham Potter is cut out to manage a big club, would do well to take note.

A board's job is to identify the qualities that make a manager worth employing and then stand by him.

It was remarkable given how long Huddersfield Town viewed Danny Schofield as a future manager how quickly they lost faith once he became an actual one. You either go for a quick fix and judge him on short-term results or employ someone to oversee a "project" to use the horrible buzzword and give them time.

If Chelsea's hierarchy really are fidgeting 18 matches in, perhaps they thought Potter's first name was Harry.

The source of Newcastle's emergence – millions of Saudi petro-dollars – is far from romantic but at least someone is shaking things up. And at least they have not done it by hurtling down the Galactico route, picking an unglamorous manager in Eddie Howe – they might have been forced into keeping him by how well he has done – and signings more on the shrewd than flashy side of the line.

Manchester United are no plucky underdogs but if they can follow the lead of Everton and, for 45 minutes only, Chelsea, and make another chip in City's veneer on Saturday, it gives more hope to the rest.

Even if they do, you would have to be mad to write off Pep Guardiola's men.

But hearing Leeds coach Jesse Marsch talking about how difficult it was to compete in the top European leagues without obscene amounts of money and writing off his team's chances of winning the FA Cup was depressingly prescient.

Another Leicester City, a team from beyond the European elite, is what we really want to see on the sponsor's gaudy podium a couple of Mays a decade.

Making that something more than a pipedream should be English football's goal.