The Leicester City story is one of determination, passion and commitment, but their success has come at the expense of England’s biggest clubs.
Neither Leicester nor Tottenham, the current top two, finished in last season’s top four.
Reigning champions Chelsea are having the season from hell, languishing in mid-table, Manchester United have had problems for some time now, Arsenal seem to find new ways of bottling their title challenge, and Manchester City just gave up after the news of Pep Guardiola’s appointment next season, winning two of their last seven games.
Is this a turning point for the English game? Do the Premier League’s top managers need to be replaced to prolong English dominance in Europe?
City seem lucky to have possibly the best manager in the game today, Guardiola, set to take the helm.
The expected departure of Louis van Gaal makes way for former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho in the red half of Manchester. Chelsea again needs a new manager, and Antonio Conte seems a suitable replacement, having won three Serie A titles with Juventus, as well as announcing his retirement from Italy national coach after the Euros.
With the arrival of such quality in management, could the English game’s dominance return?
An English team has not won the Champions League since 2012, when Chelsea defeated Bayern Munich on penalties.
If you want to win the league and perform well in Europe, you need a manager who knows how to go the distance. Guardiola has won two Champions League trophies with Barcelona, while ‘The Special One’, Mourinho, boasts two Champions League titles as well, with Porto and Inter Milan.
Van Gaal, while successful with the Dutch national team, was unproven in the English Premier League and couldn’t handle the task of Europe, crashing out of the Champions League and Europa League this season.
Quality managers such as Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte could prove vital for the survival of the English game on the continent.
144
Roar Guru
certainly and i appreciate your observations Players, culture and many other factors come into fruition but then again its up to the club itself and the manager to play these players to the best of their ability. Sometimes you can't get it out of a footballer, but players would drop anything to come play for Pep Guardiola and that in itself is a marketing product for players, regardless.
Batou
Guest
So Pelegrini and Van Gall out, Guardiola and Conte in and english football goes straight to the top? Mourinho was already in the EPL at the start of this season, at the champions no less, and that didn't go well did it. Van Gall and Pelegrini may not be quite on the same level as Guardiola (although let's not get too excited about what he did at Bayern because he inherited the champions league holders when he went there and hasn't won it since), but they are no chumps and both had top level experience. There's a lot more to English football's current struggles in the champion's league than the quality of managers. In fact, that is probably the least of their problems. The physical nature of the league and more competitive games mean that no team in the EPL can afford to take it easy on the weekend with an eye to a mid week champions league match. I also don't think that any team has a squad quite good enough to win it at the moment either. There are probably a whole stack of other reasons as well (language, culture, tax rates, many others).
144
Roar Guru
I could be, the issue is that the Premier League is growing in population of these rich bandwagon riding fanboys!
Batou
Guest
Bollox. Just off the top of my head Alex Iwobi started for Arsenal (and scored) on the weekend. Also played against Barca during the week. There are plenty of talented british players playing for the top four teams as well, many of whom came to those clubs as teenagers. Harry Kane is the top scorer in the league and has been at Tottenham since he was fifteen or sixteen. He spent some time at Arsenal academy before that; the one who got away:( Plenty of other examples too. Tim is right to an extent though, there isn't a team with the core players from their academy like that great Manchester United team of the late 90s/early 2000s. Not sure about that list of players for Barca and Bayern though. Xavi, Kroos and Schweinsteiger are no longer at those teams and Alaba has been at Bayern since he was in his late teens and is not exactly an academy product, although he may have been polished off in their youth system (similar to many players at top english clubs).
Batou
Guest
What an odd thing to say. I'd say it's a fair bet that fans of those four clubs will be paying an unprecedented amount of attention on the champions league and won't be napping through it. I think you are confusing 'english football fans' with rich club bandwagon riding fanboys. They are not the same thing.
144
Roar Guru
If the eventual entrants are Arsenal, leicester, tottenham and City, or possibly West Ham I think english football fans will take a long nap and probably won't wake up again for a few months.
Mark
Guest
There is a very genuine prospect next year's English entrants for the Champions League will be Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal and West Ham. Two of them have not been in it in recent memory...if ever. Tottenham have made it once in recent memory, and did pretty well to make the quarter finals until they drew Madrid and got thumped. Their recent thumping from Dortmund is a worry for them, though. Arsenal seem content with making the Round of 16 every year. Does not inspire a lot of confidence for English football fans.
144
Roar Guru
Chris, Sure it is interesting and it's got some riveting matches and stories - But ask an English person who is a follower of the premier league and i'm sure they'd disagree As i explain, the English teams in Europe are performing poorly and the big teams are... not playing like big teams. So i could only imagine the frustration of n English football fan from the UK. Unless your a Leicester fan, i think their pretty happy now, although i'm worried about what might happen once they enter the Champions League
144
Roar Guru
The spark in youth development in England quickly faded away. The best i see nowadays is still possibly in Manchester United i.e Marcus Rashford or James Wilson. Or Everton who over the past three years have developed Four players that play for the England national team (Stones, Barkley) and U-21 team (Galloway, Browning) You wouldn't be able to name me a player that has come through the youth academy of a top four english club and be playing for their first team or another Champions League club. As opposed to a team like Barcelona - Christian Tello on loan to UCL team Porto - Real Madrid - Loaning players to Europa League teams. This is not seen anymore through young players in England because they believe that the real challenge is abroad.
Chris
Guest
Yeah premier league is the best league because really any team can beat any other team and does so regularly. Even when Manchester United was winning it most years it would rarely be by many points and rarely would there be blow out score lines. Somewhat similar to the Bundesliga. I think the next few years will be very interesting with financial fair play coming in properly.
Tim
Roar Rookie
Well said. If English clubs are to dominate Europe, they need to recruit better or develop word class players from their own academies. Having most of the top coaches in the world will not result in dominance when the vast majority of genuine top players are in Barcelona, Madrid, Munich etc who don't need. The core of Barca (Pique, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi) and Bayern (Lahm, Alaba, Schweinsteiger, Kroos, Mueller) consisted of academy graduates. None of the top English academies have come close to producing this amount of quality for their senior teams since Fergie's Man Utd team of Scholes, Beckham, Giggs etc.
Freycinet1803
Roar Rookie
I think the term "best league in the world" is generally applied to the EPL because of it's competitive nature more so than having necessarily the best teams: Ligue 1 - PSG have already wrapped up the league (4th in a row) La Liga - Barca or Real Madrid? Atletico or another team might give it a crack every now and then. Bundesliga - Bayern Munich (won 12 of the last 20), Borussia Dortmund about the only other team to consistently challenge them Serie A - Juventus won last 4, and then one of the other Milan teams might challenge Primeira Liga - In it's whole history only twice has the title not gone to the big 3 (Benfica, Porto or Sporting)
Mark
Guest
If English clubs think a round of managerial musical chairs is all it will take to return them to dominance in Europe (as short lived as that dominance was), before they know it they will lose the 4th Champions League place to Italy. Overpaid and significantly overrated players are the bigger problem. Too many people drinking their own 'best league in the world' Kool-Aid. After the quarter final round, there will not be an English team left in Europe.