Premier League elite given brutal reality check – we’re not as good as we think we are

Two draws and four defeats for English clubs in the last 16 of the Champions League has again demonstrated the excellence of Europe’s elite teams

In the immediate aftermath of the phoney, interminable first phase of Champions League football this season, barely a moment’s airtime went by without some pundit or other lauding the dominance of English clubs. There were even debates on whether it was good for European football. Honestly.

Dominant? These are English clubs from a Premier League that has failed to provide a finalist for Europe’s blue riband competition in the past two seasons.

Dominant? These are English clubs from a Premier League that has provided only one semi-finalist in those two seasons.

Seriously, do we just overlook the fact that dominance normally refers to superiority over a considerable length of time? Since the Premier League’s inception, English clubs have won the Champions League on seven occasions, Spanish clubs have won it 13 times.

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Since the Premier League’s inception, English clubs have won the Europa League/UEFA Cup five times, Spanish clubs have won it on 12 occasions. Seriously, do we overlook the fact that the Premier League provided only two of the top 20 in the 2025 Ballon D’Or voting (Gianluigi Donnarumma and Viktor Gyokeres were there, but for their performances with Paris St Germain and Sporting Lisbon respectively)?

There are, indeed, a lot of very good players in the Premier League but a lot of the best players do not operate here. The best striker in the world right now? Probably Harry Kane or Kylian Mbappe, one in Germany, one in Spain.

And you could go right through the positions and build a sensational team without any Premier League representation. Ah, but the Premier League is the most competitive league in club football, they say.

Yes, it is very competitive but no more so than any other major European league. Ah, but the beauty is that on any given day, any team can beat any team, they say.

Well, technically, that is true, of course. But, realistically, it is not.

Last season, the bottom three clubs played a combined 114 Premier League matches and won 12 of them. Four of those wins were in games against each other. Last season, the bottom three teams in La Liga played a combined 114 matches and won 21 of them.

The English coefficient in Europe is high because Premier League clubs always go reasonably deep into all competitions. And that is because the financial might of the Premier League means more of its teams can afford to spend a lot of money on players.

That the Premier League is the richest in the world – by far – is beyond question, that is for sure. But the grand institutions of Europe – Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Paris St Germain, and so on – can compete on a financial level and can compete on many other levels. That is why the six English clubs did not win a Champions League game this week and of the four defeats, three were hammerings.

There is a kudos you get from playing for Real Madrid that you might not get playing for, say, Chelsea – no disrespect to Chelsea. Players who have experience of club football in different countries do confirm that the Premier League is the most physically demanding competition in European club football. That is probably indisputable.

But whether that equips teams well for the challenges posed by the elite in these later stages of the Champions League is seriously open to question. There is a chance the Premier League might still be well represented in the last eight of the Champions League.

Arsenal should get the job done against Bayer Leverkusen and Liverpool are quite warm favourites to overturn the one-goal deficit against Galatasaray at Anfield. And to have two teams in the quarter-finals would be a decent achievement … but it would also be a reminder that we are not as good as a lot of people think we are.

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