Why, with all the investment in the Premier League, are English clubs stuggling in the Champions League?
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| Underperformers: Chelsea after being dumped out by PSG (worldsoccer.com) |
Also published on Varsity Online here
Why are English clubs struggling in Europe? We laud the
“Greatest League in the World”, we say it without a flicker of hesitation. The
most competitive, the most money, the most watched, the most unpredictable. Yet
we can’t hit a barn door in Europe.
So where is it going wrong? Are we lacking the quality? How can the best
league in the world not be amongst the very best on the Continent? Is it
because we don’t have a Winter Break whereas everywhere else does? Is it
because we have too many fixtures? Are English clubs even motivated for Europe?
The answer quite simply is all of these. The Premier League is a victim of its
own fiscal success. Money means fixtures and greater competition is draining –
physically and mentally. But it’s more than this. Compared to Europe’s finest,
the pick of the English bunch does not come close to Europe’s finest crop.
But we have had one winner and two semi-finalists in the last
five years, so is there even a problem?
Let’s not kid ourselves here. The Premier League era of dominance
is undoubtedly on the decline – the facts speak for themselves. In the ten
years after Manchester United’s treble winning success in 1999 at least two
teams from the Premier League reached the quarter finals 10 times out of a
possible 12, with Liverpool and Manchester United picking up the trophy in
this period – with the latter taking on Chelsea in a glorious all English final.
Since then however, even though Chelsea did win the trophy, albeit thanks to a
stunning display of park-the-bus counter-attacking purist-loving football, only
one English side (Chelsea) has reached the semis in the last four years. Before
2010, there were THREE English semi-finalists in the previous THREE seasons.
This season has compounded English misery, with no sides from Albion
progressing beyond the last 16, just as was the case in the 2012-2013 season.
The Premier League attracts some of this biggest names in
world football. Manchester City’s squad during the last five years has been
undoubtedly up there with the very best- Sergio Aguero, Yaya Touré, Vincent
Kompany and David Silva to name but a few of the stellar names who could walk
into any of the biggest sides on the planet. However, the Citizens have
underperformed monumentally on the continental stage. The usual “inexperienced”
tag-line does not wash with a side of such vast financial investment and
talent. In fact, in 2013, City had the highest annual wage budget in the world.
Yes, admittedly, the (ridiculous)
co-efficient system has left them with some nightmare group-stage draws, but to
have never have made it passed the last sixteen since Sheikh Mansour ploughed
his oil-money into the club is nothing less than a scandal. It should not be
happening.
Manchester City are not the only side of course to boast the
talent the Premier League has to offer. Arsenal this season boasted a squad
containing Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, Chelsea with the strongest squad
they’ve had for well over five years, included PFA Player of the Year Eden
Hazard, Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas and Thibaut Courtois. Our Champions League
representatives should be doing better with these squads – especially
considering the teams that made the quarter finals this year consisted of the
perfectly average AS Monaco, Shakhtar Donetsk and FC Porto. To put this in
perspective, Porto’s estimated squad value is £187.35 million, whereas the
value of Arsenal’s is £342.10 million. There is little doubt that English clubs
should be making it into the latter stages of European competition.
Yet we can boast all we like about these big names but the
reality is the very best, the crème de la crème, are not to be found in the
Premier League. Compared with Europe’s powerhouses, Real Madrid, Barcelona and
Bayern Munich, the gap in talent is vast. There has been a seismic shift in the
last five years for where to find the very best in Europe. In Madrid,
Florentino Perez’s return as Club President heralded a new era of
mega-spending, seeking to recreate another ‘Galacticos’ squad. He’s achieved
that and then some. Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Isco, Luka Modric, Toni
Kroos, James Rodriguez and Gareth Bale have all been recruited under the latest
wave of spending at the Bernabeu. Barcelona likewise have responded, with the
tiki-taka generation entering its twilight years, the Catalan giants have
assembled a South American front three that previously would only have existed
in the corners of your dream FIFA Ultimate Team side in Messrs Neymar, Suarez
and Messi. Bayern in Germany have ensured total domination in the Bundesliga by
taking the league’s best talent to add their already formidable roster,
acquiring Lewandowski and Goetze from previous title rivals Borussia Dortmund,
for example.
The best players in the world do not play in England – you
only have to look at FIFA’s (questionable) 2015 World XI. No Premier League
representation whatsoever (although how so-called footballer David Luiz made
the side we’ll never know).
But this does not excuse why the Premier League’s finest
struggle to make it past the last-sixteen without having to loan a National
Express coach and stick it between the goal-posts. Juventus this season have
made it to a Champions League final with a squad that, in reality, should
easily be matched by anything the top four in England have to offer.
So what else is at play here? The answer- is the success of
the Premier League itself. Football fans across the country and the continent
gawked at the sight of the £5bn-plus TV
rights deal recently agreed to broadcast what is marketed as ‘the Best League
in the World’. Unlike on the Continent,
this money is spread far more equally across the top flight’s twenty sides –
you only have to see the recently aborted Spanish football strike to see the
envy this generated. The result is a far more competitive division, with better
quality players and staff across each club, making the games more competitive,
more unpredictable, and of course – with more money riding on them. These are
the reasons neutrals love to watch the Premier League.
But all this investment comes at a cost to our European
performance. Admittedly, the claim the ‘average’ club in the Premier League has
a stronger squad than on the rest of the Continent is a controversial
suggestion. But I will back it up with my squad value statistics. The average
Premier League squad value is £165.5m. La Liga and the Bundesliga trail in its
wake, averaging a squad value of £129m and £105m respectively. TV right
investment is having an impact, and the result is more competitive and more
difficult weekly fixtures – expecting the unexpected. So whilst you may say,
rightly, for example, that the likes of Sevilla and Valencia far surpass their
English equivalents of Everton and Tottenham Hotspur, the gap between them and
the rest of the league is far greater in Spain than in England, and likewise in
Germany. Competitive fixtures are more draining – mentally and physically,
English teams have to work harder for their three points.
Whilst the debate over whether the quality of football in
Spain and Germany is inferior to England’s is perhaps more questionable – the
financial repercussions of the investment most certainly are not. The demand to
see the Premier League created such enormous financial investment- and those
forking out those billions want to watch football as often as possible. So,
whilst the rest of the Continent puts their feet up over Christmas, the Premier
League’s finest endure the gruelling test of the infamous Christmas fixture
list – in the same 49 day break that Bayern had last season, Manchester City
played eight competitive fixtures. Extra competitions, namely the League Cup
and the FA Cup, only add to the physical drain on Premier League squads.
Demands for a Winter Break will only fall on deaf ears – the extra fixtures are
an extra incentive to invest – and this makes the Premier League unique.
Of course, the winter congestion is nothing new. The
previous decade of English relative success after 1999 all had to deal with it.
The difference now however, is a combination of an increasing financial investment
being made by other squads in the Premier League thanks to the exponentially
rising TV rights agreements and also, as aforementioned, trying to compete
against European heavyweights in age of supreme foreign squads.
Will this trend continue? There is no reason to believe so.
Manchester United’s stunning investment should come to fruition, whilst José
Mourinho’s Chelsea, a side that seems to have very few weaknesses anywhere in
their squad, can only get stronger and should pose a greater European threat.
Manchester City are expected to overhaul their squad (again), whilst Arsenal
are beginning to show signs of a consistency clubs need for success on the
Continental stage. With the right additions, there is no reason to doubt that
Premier League clubs will return to the top table of European football.
For now however, the Premier League well and truly is living
in Splendid Isolation. The benefits of such enormous financial investment for
the league domestically are clear. The extra-barriers it puts on England’s
finest to maintain their dominance makes the league more competitive, it makes
it more unpredictable, it also makes it more valuable. The consequence however is at the detriment
of European performance. The argument of ‘bigger squads’ cannot work in this
new era of financial fair play, one that has hit English clubs harder than
anywhere else in Europe – ask Queens Park Rangers fans. With English squads
working harder than the rest of Europe combined with a clear gulf in ‘World
Class’ talent by comparison to the very best in Spain, Germany and elsewhere,
it is no surprise that English clubs are struggling. So, whilst the Premier
League may well be the very best in the world, and whilst we can celebrate that
all we like, the consequence is inferior displays abroad. The Premier League is
thus a victim of its own success when it comes to European competition.
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