The crash of the English teams in Europe

The English Premier League is the most competitive division in the world. But why when it comes to participation in European tournaments, English clubs look very weak and defeat from modest teams, teams without serious title ambitions…

The example I am going to give you is the first two rounds of The Champions League group stage. Four English teams are playing in the most prestigious European tournament: Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City.

To begin; Arsenal is the brightest example for the English crash in Europe. The Gunners lost twice in their first two games. The more shocking thing was that they did it against Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiakos. So, Arsenal’s chances to take place in the 1/8 finals don’t look as good as they did a month ago. It is obvious that Arsene Wenger’s team have serious problems in defense and it will be a pure miracle if The Gunners take something from their matches against Bayern Munich. The Bavarians seem to be

Chelsea started well, beating 4-0 Maccabi Tel Aviv, but when they visited to Portuguese Porto, Chelsea’s weakness in defense was shown as they lost 1-2. Dynamo Kyiv is a good team and The Blues can have difficulties when playing against the Ukrainian club. However, I think The Londoners will hardly miss the next phase of The Champions League but this match deepened The Blues’ crisis and it can affect on which team they will meet in the 1/8 finals.

The Red Devils lost 1-2 to PSV Eindhoven in their first group stage match; then they won 2-1 vs Wolfsburg but they definitely didn’t deserve the three points as they gave the initiative to their opponents who just had a lack of luck in front of goal. The participation in four tournaments can finally leave Manchester United without a single trophy this season if they don’t improve their performance away from home and finally keep their lead when they are in front. Van Gaal realizes that; as the manager said that The Red Devils need to improve in order to win a tournaments or a cup this season.

What to say about Manchester City? The lost 1-2 to Juventus proved The Citizens are still not ready to fight for The Champions League trophy. This defeat led to another one in The Premiership which showed the lack of confidence in Pellegrini’s players. In the second round Man City won 2-1 vs Borussia M’gladbach but it wasn’t a persuasive performance. Aguero saved again Citizens’ ambitions, scoring in the last minute of the game.

In summary, the English teams struggle against teams without traditions, without too many quality players; which comes to show all the English clubs aren’t good enough to compete with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich for example. So it won’t be surprising if there are no English clubs in the quarter finals of the tournament. What can be done? Underestimating must be forgotten by all the English clubs because they are showing ‘haughtily behavior’ on the pitch when playing against teams like Olympiakos for example.