It has not been a vintage week for Premier League clubs in Europe, and that has caused some people to fall over themselves in a rush to become the first to announce English football’s latest crisis.
The full-time whistle had only just been blown at the Allianz Arena when memes flooded social media ridiculing Arsenal’s elimination by Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals. Half an hour later, Erling Haaland’s request to skip extra time and penalties, due to fatigue, was mocked as the competition’s cup holders Manchester City fell to Real Madrid. Arsenal and City were on course to elevate their domestic rivalry to the continental stage in the semi-finals at the end of the month, and blew it.
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Liverpool valiantly fought back against Atalanta in the Europa League’s last eight but could not overcome their 3-0 first-leg deficit, while it was a similar story for West Ham in their 3-1 aggregate defeat to Bayer Leverkusen.
It all means Aston Villa are the only English team into the semi-finals of any European competition this season after their dramatic penalty shoot-out win over Lille in the Europa Conference League. There will be no more talk about coefficient permutations in the nation’s pubs and around its dinner tables. The extra Champions League spots are surely now heading to Germany’s Bundesliga and Italy’s Serie A. No English side will be sneaking into that revamped competition in September via a fifth-placed finish domestically.
It would be too easy to paint this as a disaster for English football, or a sign that Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Jurgen Klopp have taken their eye off the ball as their teams battle each other for the Premier League title.
You could try to place blame on the top flight’s relentless schedule and the tight turnaround between games — which will be eased with the controversial announcement earlier on Thursday that FA Cup replays will be scrapped from next season. Lille and the Paris Saint-Germain were given a weekend’s rest between the two legs of their European quarter-finals by the French football authorities.
Though it is undoubtedly a factor, it has not prevented at least one English club from reaching the Champions League final in five of the past six editions. It is an easy excuse to throw around, which would be taken seriously if clubs had strongly opposed FIFA’s plans for an expanded Club World Cup in the United States next summer, or turned down money-spinning pre-season trips around the globe.
If anybody had cause for complaint it would be Atalanta, who drew 2-2 at home against Verona in Serie A on Monday night and hosted Liverpool 72 hours later.
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The beauty of knockout tournaments is that they spring up surprises and one stroke of luck or misfortune changes the balance of a tie.
All of City’s goals came from outside the box in their 3-3 draw at the Bernabeu in last week’s first leg. They had six shots on target for a combined xG (expected goals) figure, which measures the quality of their chances, of 0.8 according to Opta. In Wednesday evening’s return, they scored once from an xG of 2.7.
Others have forgotten Arsenal only returned to the Champions League this season following a six-year exile that included missing out on Europe altogether in 2021-22, yet they managed to reach its last eight for the first time since 2009-10. Arteta’s squad will learn from this experience.
They may not be the only ones to learn something.
Madrid are one of the biggest remaining cheerleaders for a European Super League. In the mind of their president Florentino Perez, it would bridge the gap between continental teams and the vast wealth of the Premier League. That’s the same Madrid who have won the Champions League five times in the past 10 years and on a record 14 occasions in total and are in the semis again now.
Bayern’s presence as their last-four opponents hardly suggests mainland Europe’s elite are struggling to keep up with their English rivals, especially as Barcelona only failed to progress past PSG because of their own incompetence on the pitch.
This week was surely a sign that, at least on the field of play, these sides don’t need a Super League to help them compete with the Premier League’s big hitters.
That’s not to say much has really changed.
German football is not suddenly resurgent because they have two teams in the Champions League semi-finals — the first time that has happened since 2019-20, when RB Leipzig joined Bayern in the final four.
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The tournament experience of Bayern gave them the edge over Arsenal but their 11-year grip on the Bundesliga title is over and they were eliminated from the DFB-Pokal, Germany’s FA Cup equivalent, by third-tier Saarbrucken in November. It has already been decided head coach Thomas Tuchel is leaving in the summer after little more than a year in the job, and their progress to the Champions League semi-finals barely papers over the cracks of an underwhelming season.
Italy had two clubs in the Champions League semis last season, as Inter beat city rivals Milan to make the final. Yet Inter went out in the last 16 this time, on penalties against Atletico, while Milan finished third in their group to drop down into the Europa League (they were then knocked out of the Europa League by fellow Serie A side Roma). Nobody could accuse Inter of becoming a worse side than in 2022-23 — third in Serie A then, they are 14 points clear at the top now and poised to succeed Napoli as champions.
There is a temptation to draw grand conclusions from these matches: Arsenal are ‘bottlers,’ Guardiola’s over-elaborate tactics are to blame for City only winning the Champions League once; Liverpool cannot handle the wave of emotions during Klopp’s final couple of months in charge.
The reality is far simpler, if hard to accept.
English clubs do not need to conduct a root and branch review.
Arsenal, City and Liverpool were all deservedly beaten but they will be back competing on the Champions League stage again next season.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
