What is wrong with the Premier League?
Arsenal. Out.
Chelsea. Out.
Manchester City. Out.
The English Premier League is the most popular league in the world. The league is home to the biggest brands in soccer. The clubs in the Premier League spend more money bringing in players than all the other league in Europe. So why is the league performing so poorly on the biggest stage?
Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester City have all now been eliminated from the Champions League. This means that the world’s biggest league will go another year without winning the most prized possession in club soccer. Even the much maligned Portuguese and Italian leagues still have representatives in this year’s competition. In fact, in the past decade, only two times has a Premier League club won the Champions League. This is inexcusable for a league that will bring in an estimated €6.9 billion broadcasting deal in 2016.
Premier League supporters will state that the league is still the best because of its depth. They believe that the middle-tier teams in the England are stronger than the middle-tier teams in the Germany or Spain. While this still may be true, can we really still believe the Premier League is the top league when its top clubs are being schooled year after year by the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, and Bayern Munich?
So, why is this happening? Lack of ambition? Players? Coaches? Style of play? Premier League clubs are spending more money now than they ever have. Premier League spending has increased every year since 2010. Furthermore, the Premier League is home to many of the top players in the world, including: Ángel Di María, Yaya Touré, Eden Hazard, Diego Costa, Sergio Agüero, Alexis Sanchez, and Vincent Kompany. Moreover, the Premier League boasts some of the best managers in the world, including: José Mourinho, Arsène Wenger and Louis van Gaal. Finally, while the top clubs in England may lack some of the flair the Spanish clubs have, they still play with plenty of possession and creativity.
In conclusion, I’m not sure what is wrong with the Premier League. Their owners are ambitious. The league has plenty of world-class players and coaches. The facilities are top-notch. The teams are playing progressive, attacking soccer. Perhaps this is just a bad spell for the Premier League. Or, perhaps the other leagues have closed the gap on the Premier League for good. As a Premier League fan, I hope that the league will rise to the top once again, but it does not look likely.
Yeh, insightful analysis. Perhaps, PL teams remain under pressure dfor domestic title
Following up on James’ opinion, because the Premier League has a stronger middle-tier teams, the top PL are more pressured than those in other leagues to stick with the “best” 11 players in every game. This works against the PL teams in two ways: the first team players are more prone to burn-outs or injuries in the second half of the seasons, and the fringe players are more willing to leave their clubs, often to non-PL teams.
The only top PL team that can afford to rotate their first eleven are Manchester City, whose game system I think is limited in competing for the Champions League. Their key players at the moment are Sergio Aguero, David Silva, and Yaya Toure; the former plays best in a 2-striker system, while the latter two play best in an attacking role in a 1-striker system. To accommodate the three players, they are forced to play 4-4-2 with Aguero on top, Silva on the left, and Toure on center, which leaves them defensively vulnerable against teams like Barcelona or Bayern Munich – ones with players of equal quality, but with much better balance in their formation. City tried a one-striker system in the Barcelona Second-Leg with Aguero on top and didn’t perform well, which shows that they are still tactically limited to compete against such teams in the CL.
To expand on John Shin’s remarks on the unique pressures on EPL teams and their use of the starting 11 more heavily, it has often been said that the style of play in the EPL is more physical and grueling on the players’ bodies than any other league. Due to the physicality of their own domestic league, it may also be a factor that the style of play and a resulting increase in the number of overall injuries within the league has affected the EPL teams in their Champions League campaigns. See here for an interesting slideshow on Bleacher Report that comments on the physical toughness of the various European leagues. (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1732200-ranking-europes-top-leagues-on-physical-toughness/page/6)
To comment on the original post, when one looks at the UEFA coefficient for all European leagues, which “are based on the results of each association’s clubs in the five previous UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League seasons,” it becomes evidently clear that perhaps the EPL isn’t so far behind. (http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/). In fact, English teams fair rather well, and are second only to Bundesliga teams. It may be the case that while they are able to get results in the group stages, but ultimately are eliminated during the knockout stage. This trend could indicate that their indeed is some sort of burnout as a result of other undetermined factors, but it certainly gives more credence to James’s and my hypothesis of higher injury rates.
I think it is very interesting that the Premier League struggles so much in the Champions League, however, I feel like one reason this could be happening is due to the gap in rigor between the English League in comparison with others.
I think we should take a look at other European leagues. Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga has lost 4 games in 4 seasons in their domestic league and will finish top of the table for the third time this season barring catastrophe. Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid are consistently the only three contenders in La Liga. In France, PSG spent twice as much as any other club in Ligue 1. Juventus has a 14 point gap on Roma, and historic powerhouses such as AC Milan and Inter have fallen out of the picture.
Meanwhile, the Premier League consistently has atleast seven teams (Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, Man United, Liverpool, Everton, Tottenham) contesting for Champions League spots, along with teams this season like Southampton who are breaking into the fight for the top four. In a league where domestic play is so remarkably competitive, it’s probably significantly harder to compete in Champions League matches where you have to travel midweek and rest players for the weekend games.