What's happening to English football?

So this season if we look at how English clubs have fared in Europe. Let's look at the two best teams in the Premier League..

Previously

Man City .. didn't even make it out of their Champions League group
United were the same and put out by Basel
Same with Tottenham .. never even made it out of their Europa group finishing behind Paok Salonika and Rubin Kazan

Chelsea already look beaten by Napoli

Arsenal .. papped out by Milan

And we've got the top two teams in the Premiership playing in the Europa League tonight. United completely destroyed at home by Athletic Bilbao, after City were beaten by sporting lisbon


Doesn't quite fit in with what I hear every week on Sky about the Premiership being the only place to be in world football.

To be fair to Spurs they didn't take the Europa League seriously

Our defence is shit, we need Vidic.

Is this why you were dying to see us lose

The Maestro wrote:Man City .. didn't even make it out of their Champions League group Debut season in Europe and given the group of death, was always going to be tough for them
United were the same and put out by BaselShit form
Same with Tottenham .. never even made it out of their Europa group finishing behind Paok Salonika and Rubin KazanThey played their B team in the Europa League

Chelsea already look beaten by NapoliSo many problems on and off the pitch, Chelsea were always going to lose the first leg, second leg still to play

Arsenal .. papped out by MilanLol, they were brilliant in the second leg and probably should've gone through

The Maestro wrote:So this season if we look at how English clubs have fared in Europe. Let's look at the two best teams in the Premier League..

Previously

Man City .. didn't even make it out of their Champions League group
United were the same and put out by Basel
Same with Tottenham .. never even made it out of their Europa group finishing behind Paok Salonika and Rubin Kazan

Chelsea already look beaten by Napoli

Arsenal .. papped out by Milan

And we've got the top two teams in the Premiership playing in the Europa League tonight. United completely destroyed at home by Athletic Bilbao, after City were beaten by sporting lisbon


Doesn't quite fit in with what I hear every week on Sky about the Premiership being the only place to be in world football.

City had one of the most difficult groups of recent memory and are largely unexperienced in the competition, and were playing with a fairly newly "constructed" team with a troublemaker that didn't really seem to help the situation.

We were terrible, but eh, it happens.

Chelsea are far from beaten.

Arsenal were a flick and 20 minutes of Chamberlain away from going through.

City got 10 points, which was enough to qualify in every other group except the one we were in.

1 bad year. Doubt it'll be as bad next time round...

Lux wrote:1 bad year. Doubt it'll be as bad next time round...

Been declining every season since 2009/10.

Zzonked wrote:City got 10 points, which was enough to qualify in every other group except the one we were in.

That is rather unfortunate.

No excuses, they play in the richest league in the world but have been completely shown up in Europe this year.

Kuled wrote:Is this why you were dying to see us lose

The Maestro wrote:Man City .. didn't even make it out of their Champions League group Debut season in Europe and given the group of death, was always going to be tough for them
United were the same and put out by BaselShit form
Same with Tottenham .. never even made it out of their Europa group finishing behind Paok Salonika and Rubin KazanThey played their B team in the Europa League

Chelsea already look beaten by NapoliSo many problems on and off the pitch, Chelsea were always going to lose the first leg, second leg still to play

Arsenal .. papped out by MilanLol, they were brilliant in the second leg and probably should've gone through

Every nation would have its excuses though. Apart from Tottenham none of your points are valid. Man City simply weren't good enough, 'shit form' is hardly an excuse, Chelsea's problems are a part of their identity so you can't act as if the Napoli game was an unfair representation of them and 'should have' is always used to describe Arsenal. But they never do and were never going to go through that tie.

England's best teams are decidedly average.

Barton wrote:

Lux wrote:1 bad year. Doubt it'll be as bad next time round...

Been declining every season since 2009/10.

Evidently, but Sky are brilliant at propoganda so you'd never know.

The Maestro wrote:So this season if we look at how English clubs have fared in Europe. Let's look at the two best teams in the Premier League..

Previously

Man City .. didn't even make it out of their Champions League group
United were the same and put out by Basel
Same with Tottenham .. never even made it out of their Europa group finishing behind Paok Salonika and Rubin Kazan

Chelsea already look beaten by Napoli

Arsenal .. papped out by Milan

And we've got the top two teams in the Premiership playing in the Europa League tonight. United completely destroyed at home by Athletic Bilbao, after City were beaten by sporting lisbon


Doesn't quite fit in with what I hear every week on Sky about the Premiership being the only place to be in world football.

People who believe those guys are retarded.

It's overrated simply as that. Italian & Spanish football is ahead of English football atm, I know this is a English based forum but it's the truth.

In La Liga there's more than just Barcelona & Real Madrid but the two of them are just that good that it makes the rest look bad, the two of them who are also considered as the Champions League favourites.

Quality wise La Liga is far superior, play much better football.

I like the excitement of the Premier League though.

Barton wrote:

Lux wrote:1 bad year. Doubt it'll be as bad next time round...

Been declining every season since 2009/10.

Man Utd were finalists last season?...

No league can sustain 3 semi finalists every season....especially when you consider the spending of other teams across Europe.

A decline from 09/10 isn't that bad....it might say something i.e. England does not dominate Europe any more....oh well. It's only been 2 seasons since 09/10 (so a declining stat doesn't mean much......), and last year English teams did well, the draws hardly helped as Man Utd took out Chelsea...and Spurs and Arsenal lost to Madrid and Barcelona, hardly a bad way to go out.

This season wasn't nearly as impressive....but it can't get any worse .

On the point of the propaganda surrounding the league, did you hear the commentators last night trying to talk Pep Guardiola into the Premiership? Then they questioned whether Messi could cut it in England.

And notice if anyone turns in a good performance against an English team they immediately talk about which of their teams will buy them.

Guardiola is thinking about quitting Barcelona though. Not necessarily to an English team....but you can't blame the press for thinking he would, it's an obvious place to go.

I think that any player who isn't at a top top team is always going to be linked when he plays well...and usually they do end up moving, not necessarily to the Premier League though.

hume7 wrote:To be fair to Spurs they didn't take the Europa League seriously

Yea cause that is an excuse.

If the BPL was as strong as sometimes pundits want it portrayed you would never hear such nonsense, we don't care about playing in Europe. Yea your squad isn't good enough so you give up already.

I hope it becomes a pattern, but FFP might see some changes to Europe scene as a whole, hope that is the case the BPL dominance before has been quite boring, its nice to see Italy having a go again. I think it will be a random large league doing that every year now. Even if one of the teams are Inter who is more or less playing the worst football they have in 10 years this season.

Muhkoo wrote:Yea cause that is an excuse.

If the BPL was as strong as sometimes pundits want it portrayed you would never hear such nonsense, we don't care about playing in Europe. Yea your squad isn't good enough so you give up already

Spurs could easily have won their group. But they haven't taken the Europa league seriously for years. They play really young and inexperienced players..the kind who go out on loan to Championship teams or lower. They could easily put out their strongest team...and they would get further than the group stages.

It doesn't have to be an excuse, they don't care so there's no need for an excuse, it's just a fact .

It's not as if Tottenham played their reserves. They played a good side in their match against Paok and got beat. Excuses like "didn't want to win" are idiotic.

The Maestro wrote:It's not as if Tottenham played their reserves. They played a good side in their match against Paok and got beat. Excuses like "didn't want to win" are idiotic.

Gomes, Corluka, Gallas, Bassong, Rose, Lennon, Livermore, Modric, Pienaar, Defoe, Kane; Subs: Cudicini, Bale, Falque, Walker, Townsend, Fredericks, Carroll
You call that good? Only Modric and Lennon are starters in that.

Kuled wrote:

The Maestro wrote:It's not as if Tottenham played their reserves. They played a good side in their match against Paok and got beat. Excuses like "didn't want to win" are idiotic.

Gomes, Corluka, Gallas, Bassong, Rose, Lennon, Livermore, Modric, Pienaar, Defoe, Kane; Subs: Cudicini, Bale, Falque, Walker, Townsend, Fredericks, Carroll
You call that good? Only Modric and Lennon are starters in that.

To be fair considering how shit pundits like to make teams from places that don't include Spain or England that team should of been more than enough.

and if we go by their FIFA ratings they should have slaughtered them.

Kuled wrote:

The Maestro wrote:It's not as if Tottenham played their reserves. They played a good side in their match against Paok and got beat. Excuses like "didn't want to win" are idiotic.

Gomes, Corluka, Gallas, Bassong, Rose, Lennon, Livermore, Modric, Pienaar, Defoe, Kane; Subs: Cudicini, Bale, Falque, Walker, Townsend, Fredericks, Carroll
You call that good? Only Modric and Lennon are starters in that.

Gallas was just coming back for long term injury aswell, same with Pie face.

We should have done better with the teams we played but we didn't give a shit about our group. Clearly more focused on the league and Cups.

Fairly certain we played a wingers as fullbacks when PAOK beat us That might have been against Rubin though.

Edit: Yeah it was. Fredericks was played as a RB and Townsend a LB. That's how seriously we took it, played a rookie RM as a fullback on one of his 1st senior appearances

I shit you not, stoke are our saviours. Someone wrote about it, look.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1094219-stoke-city-the-saviours-of-english-football

Only city have a valid reason, rest just arent elite eams.

How are we already beaten by Napoli?

Start. wrote:How are we already beaten by Napoli?

Because i started a petition.

Big_Lad_Pardew wrote:

Start. wrote:How are we already beaten by Napoli?

Because i started a petition.

Big_Lad_Pardew wrote:I shit you not, stoke are our saviours. Someone wrote about it, look.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1094219-stoke-city-the-saviours-of-english-football

Stoke are just a over physical team that fouls the other team of the park.

Mourinho tactics if you will.