It’s a question that has boggled even the most knowledgeable minds in world football over recent times, as the Great White Sharks of our English leagues transform into tiny minnows as soon as they hit foreign soil.
Why is this so? We see these clubs perform excellently week in, week out against teams of, admittedly, lower caliber than their European associates, so why can’t they do it the Champions League?
Through it’s history, English clubs have 12 European Cups to their names, compared to the 14 for Spain, 12 for Italy and 7 for Germany, and I’m going to come up with some pointers to how they can reclaim those former glories.
Pump Money Into Your Academy
The team that won the Champions League last season featured four academy products in the starting eleven for the final, a total of eight in the matchday squad.
This compares to three academy products in the squad for Chelsea against Tel Aviv last week, two for Arsenal against Zagreb, one for Manchester United against PSV and zero for Manchester City in their home fixture against Juventus. Three of those four teams suffered defeats.
Real Madrid beat Shakhtar 4-0 with four academy lads in their side, PSV toppled United with six academy products amongst their squad. So there’s a pattern emerging here.
So the answer may not necessarily come from putting money into your academy, but why not just have a look at it? Some of the Arsenal youngsters blew us away against good clubs in the Emirates Cup across the summer, but have any of them featured heavily this year? No. Chuba Akpom had a fantastic preseason, in a year where the Gunners are desperate for a goalscorer. Where is he now? He’s up in Hull for the season.
Chelsea are in diabolical form at the back, where nobody has looked good this season. Have they bought anyone in from their academy? No. Do they have 33 perfectly able Premier League quality players out on loan across the world? Yes.
Manchester United are in real, real need for some goals up front at the moment, but instead of giving young, impressive James Wilson a shot, they decided to splurge £36 million, or somewhere to that mark, on Anthony Martial. Wilson could now be set for a loan move.
Now, this is sort of going off our European based track, but surely before spending millions upon millions of pounds on a new striker, a new midfielder, a new centre back, surely but surely you take a look at your under-21 team first? It’s something the clubs really need to take a look at.
Use More English Players
Come on, our English lads really aren’t that bad, are they? This pointer sort of intertwines with the last, but there is no doubt that the more domestic players you have in your squad, the better you do in Europe.
In the Barcelona squad that beat Juventus in the final last year, there were seven Spanish players, a further two who had lived in the country most/all their life. Bayern Munich, who beat Olympiakos 3-0 last week, had eight Germans in their squad. The Real Madrid’s squad that beat Shakhtar had six Spaniards.
Meanwhile, Chelsea had four English players in their squad against Tel Aviv, Arsenal also had four against Zagreb, Manchester United had four against PSV, and Manchester City lost to Juventus with two Englishman.
So you’d probably say that you need maybe six or seven domestic players in your squad to do well in the Champions League.
How do we solve this problem then? It’s pretty simple really. See an English player playing well? Buy him. Scott Dann, excellent form at the moment, doing well for Palace against top teams. Buy him. Jamie Vardy, Callum Wilson, both in inspired form at the moment. Depending on whether they carry it forward, buy them. Ryan Bertrand, Aaron Cresswell, both have had wonderful seasons in the top flight over the past couple of years, buy them.
It’s what happens everywhere across the world. If Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich see a player from their country doing well, they tend to buy him. Look at Jordi Alba, Isco, Sebastian Rode. All good players, all played well and were snapped up by top clubs. English clubs need to learn from this.
Play Your Best Team
Not necessarily the major point on this piece, but if English clubs want to succeed in Europe they need to play their best players. You don’t see Barcelona dropping any of the MSN, and you don’t see Real Madrid dropping any of the BBC, so why should it be different for our clubs? Not the main pointer, but it’s still important.
Stop Selling Your Best Players to Everyone Else
Okay, now this is the underlying point. English clubs have made a habit of selling their best players to the Euro Super Clubs. Admittedly, Bayern are yet to get involved in these shenanigans, but across the years we’ve seen Luis Suarez, Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo and many more jet off Spain bound.
If an English club wants to win another Champions League title, this HAS to stop. English clubs have to stop selling out to these clubs. There is literally no strike force in the Premier League that comes even close to the likes of Messi, Suarez, and Neymar, or even Bale, Ronaldo and Benzema. And frankly, that’s our fault. Half of those six forwards were signed from an English clubs. We’ve made our own poison, if you will. There’s just no beating those front lines. And the answer is just to stop it completely. I’m so pleased that David De Gea didn’t move to Real Madrid this summer. It’s excellent news. It’s certainly a step in the right direction, and if Eden Hazard, Sergio Aguero, Alexis Sanchez and the like could all stay in Britain, that would be superb.
Don’t Buy Players the Giants Don’t Want
Perhaps some sort of reverse from the last point, but if you want to do well in Europe, then don’t buy and start the players that the European Champions don’t even want.
I mean come on; it’s simple logic really. If a club doing well in Europe doesn't deem a player good enough to play for them, why should your club buy them? They aren’t good enough.
We’ll go ahead and use Alex Song as an example – a good example. Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool have all been linked with him over the last two seasons, because he was barely playing for Barcelona. So if he isn’t good enough for one of your European rivals, why is he good enough for you? And let’s be honest, he wasn’t particularly astounding when he played at West Ham either. Well avoided.
It’s why I think Bastian Schweinsteiger will be a poor signing for Manchester United. I mean, if Bayern thought he was good enough, they’d have kept him, wouldn’t they? They’ve got no reason to sell, especially for £7 million. He clearly isn’t near the level he was before.
So there we go, these are my pointers that I reckon the top four sides should follow in order to have a bit more success in Europe. Clubs need to invest in their academies more, sign more English players and play their best teams. On top of that, they need to stop selling their star players to the big European clubs and stop signing the left overs, from the big European clubs. Thanks for reading.
Source: DSG
