Is our Premier League now a second rate European league?
Chelsea very fortunate to get a draw at PSG and I would not be surprised to see them beaten at Stamford Bridge in the second leg.
Man City totally outplayed against Barcelona.
Arsenal shown to be not good enough against Monaco ( a pretty ordinary side themselves).
How many Man City players would get in the Barcelona, Bayern Munich or Real Madrid squads? My answer would be two; Aguero and Silva.
Maybe two Chelsea players would make the grade; Hazard and Costa.
How many Arsenal or Man U players would get into those squads? My answer would be none. Sanchez is arguably the best Arsenal player and he was not good enough for Barca.
Overpaid Premier League players with no passion or loyalty. Second rate foreign players earning £60K plus a week.
The Premier League is now well behind the Spanish, Germans and French.
Comments
Its not the best league, but its the one with the most marketable reputation.
Truth is that the managers/coaches in the premier league have failed to keep up with their continental counterparts. Teams like Barca, Bayern, Real Madrid and others play a completely different game to the English clubs and its showing by the results. The premier league is no where near the strongest European league and hasn't been for at least 5/6 years.
More importantly we have the best fan base in the world of football. Hence 90 million for coming last in the Premier League if my memory serves me right. Until we change the model of football at youth level that winning at all costs is not beneficial, I'm afraid nothing will ever change.
It's our culture to win at all costs, instead of nurturing ALL our young players, so they improve technically together and play collectively, like Barcelona Acedemy for example.
It's been said for donkey years, managers are in a results business. If we can win ugly aka hoofball and kicking crap out of each other at hundred miles an hour then happy days.
Sorry, rant over.
Who cares about the Premier League? The sooner the top clubs sod off and form a euro league the better.
It's popular to bash the Premier League and the Sky Sports hype machine, but I think it's a stretch to describe the whole league as second rate.
Barca and Real Madrid outperform English clubs because they regularly outspend English clubs. That's all. It's not some magical philosophy, it's not some unique continental appreciation of the modern game, it's the fact that they can spend £75m for Suarez, £80m for Ronaldo and £85m for Bale.
Money talks in football, especially at the highest end when players can be truly one of a kind. Top English clubs spend a lot, and that's why they've had a lot of success in recent history.
Of the last 10 Champions League finals, there were 8 English sides (the highest) and 3 English wins (second only to Spain's 4). The Premier League supplied 3 different winners and 4 different finalists, more than any other nation. This is because the Premier League has more strength in depth, because it does not suffer from the incredible income inequality that is present in La Liga, the Bundesliga, or Ligue 1.
PSG has 3.6 times the revenue of the next most prosperous French club, Monaco. Real and Barca have 3 times the revenue of their nearest rival, Atletico Madrid. Bayern earn over £200m more than Borussia Dortmund.
So, we could "improve" the Premier League by allowing Chelsea and Manchester United to negotiate their own TV rights, taking more money for themselves and less for the Burnleys and Leicesters of this world, and they would possibly have more success in Europe as a result. But we wouldn't have a better league.