Is English Football facing a decline?

After Chelsea F.C's lacklustre performance at the hands of P.S.G in their Champions League quarter final second leg tie, I found it hard to believe that as good a side P.S.G are, the French League is surely far inferior to the Premier League? With their away goal advantage Chelsea would be seen as the side who had the upper hand on the night, and with the 31st minute red card for P.S.G's star man Zlatan Ibrahimovic, you would come to the obvious conclusion that Chelsea would definitely see out the tie on their home patch. However this was quite the contrary as Chelsea, even with the advantage of an extra man, could not keep up with the fast paced, high intensity, quality football that P.S.G were displaying on the night. For me this was bound to happen at some point to an English side in Europe. After consistently watching European sides such as, Villareal, Shalke, Roma, and Wolfsberg it really highlights how far behind the English game has fallen to these arguably lesser clubs.

The key for me is the intensity of play for these sides, they play with more intensity, more drive and have more of an attacking persona than any English team I have watched in the last few seasons. If we look at goals scored from each of the 4 Divisions that are known to be of the best footballing quality in the world, we can see that the English Premier league the average team scores 2.7 goals a game, from La Liga, 2.75, from The Bundesliga, 3.16, and from the Dutch Eredivisie, 3.2 (SoccerStats.com). These average goals have a huge impertinence on the way in which teams play, in a more positive and attacking way. And if you look at the teams in the last 5 years who where in the Champions League finals there where only 2 English teams in these finals. In comparison to the 5 years previous where there where 6 teams out of 10 in the 5 finals. This is a clear indication that English teams are now struggling to keep up with other European teams, and it is crucial that we ask ourselves why.

It is Spanish and German sides who are arguably the best in European and International football at the current time. The issue of money cannot be implemented into their dominance, simply because the money within English football is still far superior, mainly due to TV rights etc. And one cannot argue that the quality of players is different from the Premier League to the La Liga. The premier league is blessed with audacious world class talent such as; Sergio Aguero, Alexis Sanchez, Eden Hazard, Yaya Toure, and Mesut Ozil. Taking Messi and Ronaldo for outliers in this argument, La Liga possesses players of equal quality; James, Pedro, Vietto, Busquets, Modric for e.g. The true issue between the distinction in quality for me lies at the fact of the winter break. Most European leagues engage in a winter break from the beginning of December through to the new year. This break gives players the time to recuperate, recharge their battery's and visit family and friends and generally let their hair down. In the English game due to the money and the power of the media it is unlikely that we will ever see a winter break. Players are not robots, they need time to rest after long gruelling seasons and world cups and European championships coming around every other year, if the English league had a rest period I feel we would see a significant increase in not only European competition but also International competitions also. 

In conclusion, there is no doubt in my mind that the quality is there in the English league for me and everyone else to see, take Arsenal for example, they had 4 world cup winners within there squad at the start of the 2014/15 season, and this therefore is evidence that the quality does exist. The impedance is on money and the Barclays Premier League's TV rights pay Billions of pounds each year to English clubs, and the clubs rely on this income to keep attracting the best players around the world, and they count not essentially afford to have a winter break, as a huge amount of live Football is broadcasted in the winter time. Even when we take away the factor of European Cups and amount of goals scored per game, its easy to see that teams are playing better football than us, and that is as simple as this argument gets. But they are able to play this more intense and high quality brand of football as they have more energy, because they are given a winter break. If English football was to engage in a winter break then we would indefinitely see a difference and a positive improvement in the intensity of play and therefore quality of football. Football teams across Europe are only going to improve, and there is a certain level of fitness where you cannot be any fitter. If the English game does not integrate a Winter break, even if it is just 2 weeks instead of 4, I can see U.E.F.A removing the 4th place qualifier from the Premier league and awarding it to a country who plays better quality football. This would be catastrophic for the English game in an economical perspective and may lead to English football going back to square one, and not being able to attract the best football personnel worldwide.

Ryan Crow (C)