Nuno Espirito Santo believes that clubs such as his Nottingham Forest put an end to the era of the 'Big Six' in the Premier League.
Forest Face Manchester United – a member of that group – on the city on Tuesday evening, with the aim of stimulating their bid for Champions League football.
The men of Nuno are also in the FA Cup-Halve Final, while United Winns 13th in the table and only has Europa League-silver work to chase.
While United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Tottenham are the richest clubs, they have confronted with more competition on the field of teams with fewer resources such as Forest, Brighton, Fulham, Aston Villa and Bournemouth.
Forest Boss Nuno said: 'It has changed. This gap no longer exists in such a dominant way. We as clubs have been able to improve and compete except the Big Six.
'It is a matter of recruitment and the competition itself makes players a higher level when they come to the Premier League. It is about the quality of the players, the managers and the quality of the game. '
The Forest season will be one of their most memorable of modern times. Their shootout victory on Brighton last Saturday provides at least one trip to Wembley for this season, initially for the Cup semi-final against Manchester City at the end of the month.
And with five teams that are expected to qualify for next season's Champions League, Forest is in an excellent place. The third placed side of Nuno is seven points free from Newcastle in the sixth, although the Eddie Howe team has a match in hand.
United boss Ruben Amorim must have dreamed of having an impact such as Nuno's on Forest after taking over from Erik ten Hag last November.
Instead, he managed to improve the situation at Old Trafford not to improve the situation in Old Trafford, although Nuno expressed sympathy for his colleague Portuguese.
Nuno flourished in Forest in his first full season after a difficult opening campaign with a long fight against relegation.
He added: 'It is very difficult for someone of us to implement ideas when you become a member (in the middle season). It's a tough job. '
The top scorer of Forest, Chris Wood, missed the victory on Brighton with a hip injury during playing for New -Zeeland during the International Pause and Nuno was Cagey about whether he would recover on time to United.
“It's about being pain -free and then returns to fitness,” Nuno admitted. “We have to judge him day after day.”
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