It has not been a vintage week for Premier League clubs in Europe, and it has sent some rushing to become the first to announce English football’s latest crisis.
The full-time whistle had just 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 ridiculed 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.
Liverpool fought back valiantly against Atalanta in the Europa League last 16 but couldn’t overcome their 3-0 first-leg deficit, while it was a similar story for West Ham in their defeat accumulated 3-1 against Bayer Leverkusen.
All this means Aston Villa are the only English team to progress to the semi-finals of a European competition this season following their dramatic penalty shootout victory over Lille in the Europa Conference League. There will be we will no longer talk about permutations of coefficients in pubs across the country and around dinner tables. THE additional Champions League places are surely now heading to the German Bundesliga and Italian Serie A. No English team will sneak into this revamped competition in September by finishing fifth nationally.
It would be too easy to paint this as a disaster for English football, or as a sign that Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Jurgen Klopp have taken their eyes off the ball as their teams compete for the Premier League title.
You might try to blame the elite’s relentless schedule and tight deadlines between matches – which will be alleviated with the controversial announcement earlier Thursday that FA Cup replays to be removed from next season. Lille and Paris Saint-Germain have been granted a weekend off between the two European quarter-final matches by French football authorities.
While it is undoubtedly a factor, it has not stopped at least one English club reaching the Champions League final in five of the last six editions. It’s an easy excuse to make, one that would be taken seriously if clubs had strongly opposed FIFA’s plans to expand the Club World Cup to the United States next summer, or refused trips lucrative pre-season events around the world.
If anyone had reason to complain, it would be Atalanta, who drew 2-2 at home to Verona in Serie A on Monday night and hosted Liverpool 72 hours later.
The beauty of knockout tournaments is that they create surprises and a stroke of luck or misfortune changes the balance of a tie.
All of City’s goals came from outside the box in last week’s 3-3 draw at the Bernabeu in the 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 the return on Wednesday evening, they scored a goal on an xG of 2.7.
Others have forgotten that Arsenal only returned to the Champions League this season following a six-year exile that included a complete absence from Europe in 2021-22, but they managed to reach their last eight for the first time since 2009-10. Arteta’s team will learn from this experience.
They may not be the only ones to learn something.
Madrid are one of the biggest remaining cheerleaders of a European Super League. In the mind of their president Florentino Perez, this would bridge the gap between continental teams and the immense wealth of the Premier League. This is the same Madrid that has won the Champions League five times in the last 10 years and a record 14 times in total and is in the semi-finals again.
Bayern’s presence among their last four opponents hardly suggests that continental Europe’s elite are struggling to keep up with their English rivals, especially as Barcelona failed to get past PSG due to their own ineptitude in the field.
This week was surely a sign that, at least on the pitch, these teams don’t need a Super League to help them compete with the Premier League’s big hitters.
That’s not to say that much has really changed.
German football is not experiencing a sudden resurgence because it has two teams in the Champions League semi-finals – the first time this has happened since 2019-20, when RB Leipzig joined Bayern in the last four.
Bayern’s tournament experience gave them the edge over Arsenal, but their 11-year hold on the Bundesliga title ended and they were knocked out of the DFB-Pokal, the equivalent of the German FA Cup, by Saarbrücken , third division, in November. It has already been decided that head coach Thomas Tuchel will leave this summer after just over a year in the job, and their progress to the Champions League semi-finals barely masks the cracks of a disappointing season .
Italy had two clubs in the Champions League semi-finals last season, as Inter beat rivals Milan to progress to the final. Yet Inter went out this time in the round of 16, on penalties to Atletico, while Milan finished third in their group to qualify for the Europa League (they were subsequently eliminated from the Europa League by their Serie A compatriot, Roma). Nobody could accuse Inter of becoming a worse team than they were in 2022-23 – third in Serie A at the time, they are now 14 points clear at the top and ready to succeed Napoli as champions.
It’s tempting to draw big conclusions from these matches: Arsenal are a “bottler”, Guardiola’s overly elaborate tactics are responsible for City winning the Champions League only once; Liverpool cannot handle the wave of emotions during the final months of Klopp’s tenure.
The reality is much simpler, although difficult to accept.
English clubs do not need to carry out a root and branch examination.
Arsenal, City and Liverpool were all deservedly beaten, but they will be back on the Champions League stage next season.
(Top photos: Getty Images)