Only one Premier League team managed to win in the first round of Champions League matches. Only one. And once again, the old cliché of the Premier League being “the best league in the world” will be rolled out of some commentator’s tongue this weekend, completely dismissing the events which occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday.
How can a league be called the best in the world when only one of its teams from last year’s top four could scrape a victory? It is an insult to the other twenty-eight teams in Europe’s elite competition.
Some might say that the Premier League is an exciting brand of football, something which the average fan won’t get in Italy’s Serie A. Some might say that most seasons bring a sense of unpredictability regarding who will win the league and who will get relegated to the Championship. These facts are undeniably true; the Premier League is without question the most exciting annual competition in football. But the best? No.
Here is a summary of what happened: Liverpool beat some Bulgarian minnows 2-1 thanks to a penalty in injury time; Chelsea drew a struggling Schalke side at home; Manchester City once again showed their inferiority complex and lost to Bayern Munich again; and Arsenal were woeful against a Dortmund side who get weaker by the season.
The only positive for English football here is Liverpool’s victory. Their return to the top level of European football was much welcomed by their fans and they are probably more than jubilant that their team followed it up with a 2-1 win. But it was over Ludogorets. No offence to the Bulgarian champions, but they are the whipping boys of the competition, and it should not have taken a Steven Gerrard penalty to dispatch of them. If they cannot get a dominating win over Ludogorets then God help them when they face Real Madrid, or even FC Basel.
Jose Mourinho once said to his team, “if you cannot win, then you must not lose.” That theory has been completely been thrown out of the window in Chelsea’s Premier League campaign so far, with some fantastic performances matching some equally brilliant results. And while they were pretty good against Schalke, the West London unit really should have won this game.
The biggest problem with their performance is with Didier Drogba. Why start him when you could have played Loic Remy; a player far superior than the has-been Ivorian? Moreover, this is a team which Chelsea should have beaten comprehensively; the German side are currently sitting third from bottom in the Bundesliga. Not good.
Bayern Munich’s manager Pep Guardiola said to Sky Sports News in a post-match interview: “They played better for the first 20 minutes and we played better for the rest of the game. We deserved that victory.”
Guardiola was just in his remarks. While the score fails to reflect on Bayern’s dominance, the stats do them justice. Bayern managed 21 shots on goal in comparison to Manchester City’s seven. Only two of City’s shots were on target and both of them were in the first half. Once again City fail to live up to expectations and fail to compete at the level they should be competing at. And just to rub salt in the wounds, this was without Franck Ribery, added to that Arjen Robben was only on the pitch for fifteen minutes too.
All of the financial backing from Sheikh Mansour and all of the progress at the domestic level and they still cannot compete with the likes of Bayern, Barcelona, Real Madrid etc. It is becoming pathetic how much their inferiority complex has enveloped them. The Premier League champions have to really buck their ideas up as Roma will not be an easy to team to beat; look at their 5-1 demolition job over CSKA Moscow.
Arsenal were the most pathetic club of the four teams; the “specialists in failure” have struck a new low. More investment, more inspired signings have translated into nothing in what was a dismal 2-0 defeat to Borussia Dortmund – a team not only supposedly inferior to Arsenal, but also a shadow of their former selves; Champions League runners-up just two years ago. It really is a struggle to see how Arsenal are consistently a top four side when they can never step up in the big games (the FA Cup Final doesn’t count; any good team can beat Hull). They should still make it past the group stage but the fact they cannot get a point or a good losing effort to Dortmund really does not bode well for any hope of a good run in this tournament.
It is not a time to be that dramatic, but the recent run of performances in the past couple of seasons suggest that the Premier League’s power on the pitch is in decline. Is there a team that could challenge for Europe’s biggest crown? Possibly Chelsea—they made the semi-finals with a weaker team last season, but apart from that, the answer is a resounding no.
Manchester City, quite clearly, have shown that they are not up to the challenge once again. Their 3-2 win against Bayern last season might just be nothing more than a lucky win. Arsenal are starting to rebuild their squad but after a lacklustre showing in Dortmund, but they will quite simply fail to get beyond the last eight, if that. And Liverpool… well, if they could barely beat a bunch of nobodies then there is no hope of them winning.
It would be highly unsurprising if no English team manages to reach the final for the third consecutive year. And as a result, the UEFA coefficients have reflected this; Spain have become the number one country in the club coefficients, ousting England from top spot. And if Bayern Munich can accomplish what they did in 2013, then England could easily be dropped to third. The “best league in the world” needs a reality check.
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