re: Is Liverpool still a "big" club?

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There's definitely more parity in England, but parity can often lead to worse quality all around. (Waves at the NFL)

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I'd buy the parity argument if the teams played at a high level. The top teams generally don't. The tactics are worse in the league as a whole compared to the late noughties, and the only teams with real positional sense going forward and defensively are Tottenham and Chelsea. The relative parity of the league helped the league from 2005 to 2011 or so. There were 8 straight finals, not that long ago, where an English team featured, and the parity isn't that much greater, in a sense. I mean, you could argue that there is a great degree of difference from having 4 teams (meaning 20% of the league) to six teams (meaning 30% of the league) competing for the title, but the context of each of those seasons does away with the notion of parity, as some of those teams in the top echelon of the league (read Arsenal, with one of the other teams rotating in) were absolutely horrible.

I think the parity angle is an easy explanation, but I don't think it makes sense if you look at it closely, especially in the context of those seasons.