Premier League Teams are Exhausted – No Wonder they Cannot Dominate in Europe

There’s a line from a classic film you could paraphrase when talking about Premier League teams and their supposed dominance of European football.

In this competition, you gotta make the money first. Then, when you get the money, you get the power. Then, when you get the power, you get the trophies. Or something like that.

This week has offered a reminder that, while the Premier League certainly has the money and, in the transfer market, undoubtedly has the power, it doesn’t yet have the dominance of European football that some might have you believe.

The Champions League last-16 ties are only at the halfway stage — no team has progressed or exited yet — but no victories in six first legs and an aggregate score of Europe 16-6 Premier League are humbling numbers for English football.

Five of the six were playing away from home, which must be taken into account, as must the circus that is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. However, watching Manchester City be swept aside by Champions League specialists Real Madrid, or Chelsea wilt against last year’s winners Paris Saint-Germain, or even Arsenal labour to a 1-1 draw at Bayer Leverkusen, stirred echoes of previous European campaigns at this time of year.

They looked knackered, frankly — exhausted in both mind and body. Hence, the litany of defensive mistakes and conceding goals in quick succession — Chelsea leaked two late goals to turn a slender PSG advantage into a daunting one, Manchester City were bulldozed by three Federico Valverde goals in 23 minutes and Spurs were 4-0 down after 23 minutes.

Federico Valverde drills in Real Madrid’s third goal against Manchester CityOscar Del Pozo/ AFP via Getty Images

The Premier League is probably still the fastest and most intense league in Europe, and possibly the world, so fatigue inevitably builds as we get towards the business end of the season. Replicating that intensity every single match is impossible and performances will drop off as injuries and tiredness build. We’ve seen it time and again.

For English club teams and the national side, there is a sense that players are at breaking point. Throw in a massive Club World Cup featuring Chelsea and City last summer, the Nations League and bigger Champions League, Europa League and World Cup tournaments to the calendar, and these problems are only going to be exacerbated for footballers already subjected to the grind of a physical, fast-paced division.

Unlike their European rivals, assistance with the schedule is rarely forthcoming. While Chelsea spent their weekend being pushed all the way to the end of extra time by Championship club Wrexham, PSG were given the weekend off after opponents Nantes and the Ligue de Football Professionnel agreed they could rest for the tie, an alien concept in England.

While Bayern Munich cruised to a 4-1 home win over Borussia Monchengladbach, a match moved to Friday night to give them an extra 24 hours to prepare for Tuesday’s trip to Atalanta, Newcastle United and Manchester City went head-to-head late on Saturday evening for their FA Cup fifth-round clash.

But it isn’t just the timing of fixtures that some European clubs are occasionally helped more than English sides — the brutal competitiveness of the Premier League is clearly a hindrance, too.

In a league where even a team, Wolverhampton Wanderers, that was heading for one of the worst top-flight point tallies in history can claim four points off two Champions League sides (Arsenal and Liverpool) in two weeks, the adage of ‘no easy games’ feels like it rings true more than ever.

Even Wolves can make Arsenal’s life hard in the Premier LeaguePaul Ellis/ AFP via Getty Images

On the weekend of January 24-25, Liverpool lost at Bournemouth, Spurs drew at Burnley and Newcastle were beaten at home by Aston Villa. In the Champions League, either side of that weekend, Liverpool beat Marseille and Qarabag (with an aggregate score of 9-0), Spurs comfortably saw off Borussia Dortmund and Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 (their only wins of the calendar year, having gone winless in 12 domestic matches) and Newcastle hammered PSV 3-0 and drew 1-1 at PSG.

At the time, most English clubs were breezing through their European matches, with five finishing in the top eight of the league phase of the Champions League and a record nine then making it through to the knockout stages of the three European competitions.

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Dominance is what La Liga achieved in the mid-2010s, when from 2014 to 2018, nine of the 10 Champions League and Europa League titles went to Spanish clubs (four Champions Leagues for Real Madrid and one for Barcelona, plus three Europa Leagues for Sevilla and one for Atletico Madrid, with Manchester United’s 2017 Europa League title providing the outlier).

Consistently cracking Europe has been beyond English teams, either collectively or individually. Even Pep Guardiola, whose Manchester City team have dominated domestically during his time in England with six Premier League titles in his nine completed seasons, has only guided City to two finals and one semi-final in that time, a record he will struggle to improve given a 3-0 deficit to overturn against Real Madrid.

Pep Guardiola has found the Champions League tough going with CityFlorencia Tan Jun/Getty Images

If Guardiola leaves City this summer, his ratio of umpteen domestic titles but only one Champions League win in 10 seasons will roughly mirror that of Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, who mostly managed when English clubs were considered inferior to their European rivals.

Mikel Arteta, who saw his team ‘Arsenal-d’ by a Bayer Leverkusen corner-kick routine, was asked if their 1-1 draw in Germany was a reminder of how difficult it is to win the Champions League.

“Yes, and how difficult it is to win against any opponent in the competition and especially away from home,” he said. “There is a big factor there. We knew the importance of the game and the difficulty of the opponent and now we need to finish it in London.”

Before that, they’ve got Everton at home. Never an easy prospect. Chelsea and Newcastle may want to rest players this weekend before their second legs next week — instead, they’re playing each other. Spurs travel to Liverpool on Sunday, desperate for points in their relegation battle, while the hosts need points to qualify for next season’s Champions League, and Manchester City are away at a rejuvenated West Ham United, knowing they cannot afford another slip in the title race. It’s relentless.

Arsenal should finish the job in London next week, Chelsea, Spurs and Manchester City could produce miracles in their second legs, Liverpool may come from behind to beat Galatasaray and Newcastle could produce one of the greatest results in their history in Barcelona.

But, as Bayern, Real Madrid and PSG, who share the financial might of Premier League clubs but not their exhaustion, decisively moved through the gears when it really mattered this week, English clubs generally did the opposite. History tells us that’s no surprise.