English Premier League Clubs Continue to Show Their Superiority

Reviewing the latest round of Champions League fixtures has once again highlighted how far ahead of the pack the “big four” English clubs truly are. Manchester Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool all disposed of their opposition with consummate ease whilst the other top sides of Europe were forced to battle for narrow wins and draws on Matchday 2.

Of course, one could refer to the point earned by CFR Cluj-Napoca after the visit of Chelsea and argue that there is not such a big gap in quality after all, but it would be foolish to overlook the fact that the London side simply had a bad day. Every club is prone to delivering a performance that lacks penetration, as Arsenal duly demonstrated against Hull City last weekend in the domestic league. However, a re-evaluation of the mentality required to win is all it takes to steady the ship when a team possesses that much quality, and the Gunners’ slick passing punished Porto’s inadequacies on Tuesday night.

The fact that Arsenal and Liverpool, the 3rd and 4th best teams in England respectively, defeated FC Porto and PSV Eindhoven, league champions in their own nations, shows the superiority of the English Premier League over other countries. Of course we are already aware of this gap in class; three of the last four teams in last season’s Champions League hailed from England. The other was Barcelona, who offered nothing in their semi-final against Man Utd and are relying heavily on a combination of dodgy refereeing decisions and the mercurial talents of Lionel Messi to guide them through the opening stages of their league and European campaigns.

Both Mourinho’s Inter Milan and Juventus, giants of the Italian game, could only muster draws in their games whilst Bayern Munich and Lyon played out a 1-1 draw, with both teams looking out of sorts in these opening stages of the competition.

So what does this mean for European football? An English club has graced the final of the Champions League in each of the last four seasons, most notably with the all-English affair between Chelsea and eventual winners Manchester Utd last season. It is seen as a disappointing failure in this country if any one of the “big four” does not make it to the quarter-finals at the very least. There has not been this sort of domination of Europe by a nation since the late 1970s when English clubs won the competition five years running from 1977-1982. Would another run like that make the competition stagnant and less enjoyable?

One of the chief beauties of a football game is that the best team does not always win (once again, I refer to Arsenal vs. Hull City). It is this unpredictability that draws people to the game. However, over the course of a season or a lengthy competition such as the Champions League, the best team (or at least one of the best teams) does invariably win. And rightly so: if a club is made up of the most talented players and they play to the best of their ability then no-one can hold that against them. Did anyone begrudge Roger Federer winning Wimbledon five times in a row? No, because he had put in the hard work to become a good player and then simply exercised his talents to achieve his goal. So in a purely footballing sense, I fully welcome English clubs having continued success in European competition.

The only frightening part of English clubs dominating Europe is the financial implications. None of the other nations would be able to keep up with the wealth of the Premier League, but the greater worry is closer to home: the money earned from European success would propel the “big four” even further away from all the other clubs in the football league in terms of both trophies and financial resources. If that were to happen – and it is a distinct possibility -then the only hope of breaking that monopoly would be for the billionaire investors to come and throw their oil money at clubs such as Manchester City or Aston Villa. Then we are left with an on-going transfer merry-go-round as the world’s best players arrive with hugely inflated wage demands and quash any hopes of young local talent coming through. This in turn would basically ensure that the England national team would never compete for a championship ever again.

So with that in mind, let us all hope for a surprise package to cause some upsets in the Champions League this season. I am hopeful of further success for FC Cluj, the team from Romania. With four points from their opening two games against Roma and Chelsea, they have shown they have the bite to potentially be the final nail in the coffin for one of the title hopefuls.