Resting on laurels has cost English teams in Europe
By: Rob | April 7th, 2010So as well as Arsenal last night, Man United have gone crashing out of the Champions League at the Quarter-Final stage, meaning that for the first time in 7 years there isn’t an English club in the Semi-Final of the Champions League. After solid dominance of that tournament over recent years, it makes a change. And the Premier League has to take a look at itself for sure.
Obviously the first things people will point to are the obvious – Arsenal were knocked out by the unplayability of Leo Messi, while Man United would have gone through were it not for an inspirational strike from Arjen Robben.
But those things just hide the deeper flaws. The truth is, the Premier League had begun to rest on its laurels, and had begun to get a bit too comfortable in its position at the top of Europe’s top leagues (where it arguably still is).
Lets have a look at the season from the Big Four’s perspectives. Liverpool sold players, Hyppia and Xavi Alonso in particular stand out as big losses. Both were understandable transfers – Hyppia was ageing, and Alonso went for big money out to Madrid.
But they were replaced with? Alberto Aquilani. A player who Rafa Benitez doesn’t trust to actually play. In other words, he thought he could sell off two first team players, not really replace them, and be fine.
He’s been proved hugely wrong of course, and even a Champions League spot is looking a big ask for Liverpool. They went out of the Champions League in the first round, in shambolic fashion. Previously, even when they slumped in the league, they could pull it out of the bag in the Champions League.
Arsenal are obviously an ongoing project. I have an awful lot of respect for what Wenger is doing at Arsenal, but about now is where question marks will surely be raised about when the end game is going to come.
The problem is when the players reach a certain age, they have a desire to leave the club and move on the pastures new – see Hleb, Flamini etc.
In the summer they of course sold two of their most experienced players – Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayour. Of course both were going to the African Cup of Nations (though Adebayour didn’t play, obviously that couldn’t be forseen), so Wenger was taking a calculated risk, and making alot of money.
And he replaced Toure with Thomas Vermaelen who has been an undoubted success. Nicky Bendtner isn’t good enough to play for Arsenal though, not if they want to be a side in the Top Four.
Wenger does need to break into the chequebook, just for one or two smart signings of more experienced players, and then surely, Arsenal would be world beaters.
Man United – well obviously the most important point to look at is the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo. Obviously it was a heck of alot of money, and we were glad when the transfer went through, so we could stop hearing what every man and his dog thought about the move, but United have undoubtedly missed him.
The problem now is that they rely so heavily on Wayne Rooney. That’s been fine up to a point as Rooney has stepped up to the plate in terms of replacing Ronaldo, but that United felt the need to play him when he clearly was quite a way from 100% match fit, says an awful lot about just how much they’ve come to rely on him.
It needn’t have been that way. Alright so the Glazers wanted some of the Ronaldo money for debt reasons, but that United spent under £20m to replace Ronaldo – on Valencia and Michael Owen – has surely been a step backwards.
They could easily have bought in a third, top quality player with the money. Maybe a winger for the other side (Nani might have looked good tonight but he’s been on-and-off, and those were his first goals in over a year) or a striker to take some of the strain off of Rooney. It pains me to say it, but Berbatov has not cut the mustard.
As for Chelsea, well things have got stale. Yes, they’ll probably win the Premier League, yes they may well add the FA Cup, but there is no doubt that team is approaching its Used By date.
Again though, a refusal to shake things up, has cost them. They didn’t get a load of luck with the referee against Inter, but Inter were the better team and deserved to go through.
Chelsea need a shake up from top to bottom if they want to start progressing in Europe again, break up this side – that was largely formed under Jose Mourinho five years ago – and start afresh. Only the incredible talent of a few players has kept things going for them.
In the long run being knocked out of the Champions League was probably a good thing for all of them. They can take a good look at themselves, stop taking a Semi-Final berth for granted, and get on with trying to win it next season. Maybe some fresh blood in there won’t hurt in the long run either.
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Category: Big Four
Comments
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Good post. EPL fans have been caught up in the media hype thinking they are untouchable and could never lose. Anyone who watches football outside of england realizes there are a hell of alot of good teams and players. Footy doesnt revolve around the epl. Now there isnt an english club left in the final 4 and the majority of the bigger teams are ladened with debt .. is the bubble going to burst? Ronaldo was an insanely huge loss for man utd .. i think the next will be vidic.
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This will not surprise any regular readers of the Arsenal Offside, but . . . Bendtner’s a lot better than you give him credit for. 11 goals in 26 appearances for Arsenal this season is a decent return rate, especially given that only 17 of those were starts.
8 goals and 4 assists in his last 10 games. One of only 4 players to have scored 5 or more goals in the Champions League this season (the others? some dudes named Messi, Ronaldo, and Rooney). And he’s 22. Still a work in progress, to be sure, and his finishing and first touch are still really poor at times. But he works incredibly hard, he’s getting better every match, and I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss him out of hand as a guy who can’t be a valuable contributor to a top 4 side.
He’s not world class. And he may never be. But he takes a lot of criticism for someone who’s 7 years younger and has a better goal return rate than the £30 million man Dimitar Berbatov.
In terms of the actual point of your article, I don’t know that it’s “resting on its laurels.” I think it’s a conflation of things — a lot of clubs like Chelsea and Man United had been spending like drunken sailors for a couple of years (see, e.g., Shevchenko, Andrey, and Berbatov, Dimitar), and racking up some debt. That debt started to become a problem just as the pound declined precipitously relative to the dollar.
That meant that English clubs were at a marked disadvantage relative to continental clubs, since they would have to pay substantially more in transfer fees and wages than their continental counterparts. Also, stiff English tax rates, warmer climates, and more beautiful women made the continent a better place for players like Ronaldo to ply their trade.
I don’t know — it’s some kind of trend, but it’s cyclical. The English clubs are still some of the very best in the world, and will bounce back next season, I have no doubt.
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I don’t mean to sound like too much of a fanboy, but I second everything Martin wrote above.
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sorry, not trying to start a debate here- but what “laurels” exactly are you talking about? is going deep into the competition the real sign of “domination” by a league as you call it? The english teams still only WON 2 CL trophies in 10 years. I guess it depends on what people measure if they want to use the word “domination”. Also, in terms of quality of the teams & really dominant display- neither times did the english winners really annhilate the opponents- yes, pk wins count- but they dont show a team to be really superior or dominant.
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mimo–
In 2007-2008, 4 out of the 8 quarterfinalists were English clubs, and not a single English club was knocked out by a non-English club, including an all-English final. I challenge you to find any other league/nation which was so taken over a Champions League/European Cup. The “dominance” was probably always overstated, but I don’t see how you could claim that Premiership sides weren’t the best set of clubs in the Champions League over a 3-4 year span for a while there.
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@Martin- I agree that overall the english teams were the tougest opponents in CL in recent times. but my point was about “laurels”. I can only think of real trophies in the cabinet as laurels.
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No, winning isn’t the only way to rest on ones laurels, success, and the expectance of that success to continue (success can be reaching the Semi-final of the Champions League if you like), is the very definition of resting on ones laurels.
Martin – as always, you make a good point. The pound-to-Euro factor has of course had a big influence, but as the clubs in power, it shouldn’t have had such an effect as it has had.
As for Bendtner – I like him actually, he has a certain charm. But you can’t tell me you’d be happy if he was the only striker at Arsenal full time, he’s an impact player from the bench at best if Arsenal are playing one up top.
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Technically we replaced Adebayor with van Persie, who I rate as a player. Bendtner is playing where RVP would be. Other than that, you make good points. Even though Arsenal are out I’m kind of excited about seeing clubs from four different countries duke it out. Also, I think it shows that boatloads of debt is going to be a huge factor in coming seasons, and we’re already seeing some of it now.
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I don’t know if you will see the same four always qualifying from the EPL like you have in the past years and I think that gave the League a big advantage to have success in Euopean play. It is much harder to get to the semis when you have two or three new teams in the CL competition from your League because the experience factor just isn’t there.
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ED, that is so true regarding the experience factor. In La Liga, we have one team that simply outclasses every other team in getting-eliminated-in-the-Round-of-16 experience. Their players have completely changed in the last six years but that kind of Champions League loser mentality is now so ingrained in the club’s core that their expertise in getting dumped out early simply transcends generations. That’s the type of experience that money can’t buy. No… that’s institutional.
What? El Clasico is coming up and el Morbo is at full effect
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if this year’s Liverpool was on last year’s level, then I’m sure they’d be the one English team in the semis.
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Fulham hasn’t rested on it’s laurel.
Mainly because it never had one to begin with!
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I really don’t think there’s very much wrong with Arsenal, Man U, or Chelsea. Sometimes you get an unlucky draw or are unlucky on the day. Big deal. It would be frankly BORING if English clubs, especially the same ones, were always in the semifinals. I’m glad to see some other countries’ clubs in the final four. It’s not like the Italian clubs or the Spanish clubs are dominating either.
I think the real story is this: Liverpool have fallen off the wagon because of their lack of resources and arguably bad moves with the money Rafa did have. They are the one English club that consistently punches above their weight in knockout football. When Gerrard and Torres are healthy, they are hard for anyone to beat over two legs, and have shown that repeatedly the last 5-6 years. But they are on a slide.
Likely taking their place next season will be Manchester City, and if City do clinch 4th, there’s likely to be another spending spree aimed at bringing 3-4 or world class, Tevez-impact like players to City over the summer. City’s owners have no intention of Champions League qualification being a one-off or of not being able to compete for the title and in Europe at the same time. The next wave of investment in City has the potential to dramatically reshape the power structure in the EPL in a permanent way.
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