There is no doubt that Leicester City leading the Premier League as November prepares to give way to December is a great story. All the ingredients are there, from the relegation escape last season to the managerial appointment many feared might be a mistake to the leading scorer plucked from non-league obscurity just a few years ago.
But, as the Foxes prepare to entertain Manchester United in the unlikeliest of first v second contests on Saturday, does Leicester’s rise prove that the Premier League is the ultra-competitive battleground everyone says it is, a bare-knuckle-type attraction where bottom can beat top on any given day and no concession is given to big names or reputations? Or is it instead an indication that the English top flight is wildly overrated and that practically anyone can get past our so-called European elite and plant a flag at the summit?
The question is raised because initial fears about English football being left behind by the rest of Europe appear to have calmed a little, after three defeats from four games in the opening week of the Champions League. It now appears possible that all four teams might reach the knockout stage after all. Arsenal still have to win in Greece, though at least their fate is in their own hands.
Yet few imagine there will be an English name on the European Cup again any time soon, not when Bayern Munich and the two Spanish giants appear so far ahead of everyone else. Success for English clubs in Europe would amount to doing better than last year and reaching the last eight, or perhaps having a representative in the last four. A decade ago English clubs were regular visitors to the final but the Premier League is not quite at that level any more. Unless, and this is where the argument refers back to the rise of Leicester City, there is something about the Premier League that makes life difficult for clubs taking on opponents from other European leagues.
There might be, for in the last few days Gareth Bale and Joe Hart have independently suggested that the Premier League is so demanding it leaves little energy left for European adventures. Here is Bale on the subject of why English teams have been finding life difficult in Europe of late. “My personal opinion is that the English league is so hard,” he says. “Every team fights until the 90th minute, and over the course of 38 games that takes a lot out of English teams. When we play lesser teams here, it can be 4-0 at half-time and in the second half you don’t have to really graft. At the end of the season we feel fresher. You could say Spain is the best league but the Premier League is probably more competitive. Bottom could beat top any week.”
And here is Hart on a similar theme, following Manchester City’s home humbling at the hands of a supposedly threadbare Liverpool last weekend. “Squads in the Premier League have definitely improved overall in the last few years. There is a lot of money coming in and clubs have spent it well. Everyone is catching up, teams are a lot more adept at looking for a win and getting a result away from home. It is a very competitive league, you only have to try to predict a run of results to see that. Anyone who can pick any single result from a full fixture list on a Saturday ought to give the lottery a try. There are very few bankers.”
Bottom can beat top is a dreadful cliche, of course, and is occasionally true of almost any league. But Aston Villa did manage to hold Manchester City to a goalless draw before the international break, and Sunderland have just gone to Crystal Palace and come back with all three points. Fair enough, Palace are not exactly top of the table, but they did go to Anfield and sock it to Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool this month, the same Liverpool who then went to the Etihad and by both managers’ accounts should have won by more than a 4-1 margin.
Not every league around Europe is like this, and while detractors would suggest that what appears to be competitiveness is in fact inconsistency or ineptitude, there is a certain character to English football that appeals to the viewing public but does not necessarily cross borders and work in other countries. Leicester are in fact a typically English team, even though they are the usual Premier League mish-mash of nationalities. They do not defend particularly well, they have conceded by far the most number of goals of the top five clubs and there are teams in the bottom half of the table with fewer goals against, but they work hard, chase games and have come from behind to win on numerous occasions. How would they fare in Europe? No one knows yet, although when they played Arsenal they not only suffered their only defeat to date they were given a 5-2 hiding on their own ground.
For the toughness of the Premier League to be a factor in diminishing returns in Europe, however, it would have to be the case that life has got tougher for English clubs over the last decade or so. The Premier League has been going for the best part of a quarter of a century now, and it was not exactly easy when Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal were reaching Champions League finals on a regular basis between 2005 and 2012. Sir Alex Ferguson in particular was fond of complaining that Spanish or Italian opponents had it easy and that English fixture scheduling did English clubs no favours.
So can we agree that that much is true? It would certainly appear that clubs such as Crystal Palace, West Ham, Southampton, Stoke and Swansea have improved in recent seasons. Where once the Premier League used to boast a broad middle ground of clubs who were simply satisfied to be there, once enough points had been accrued to allay relegation fears, now there is not so much evidence of league within a league. If Stoke play Arsenal, say, or Southampton travel to Manchester City, it is genuinely difficult to predict who is likely to win, and that can only be a good thing for any league.
Hip hip hooray, though let’s not put out the bunting just yet. There may be a simpler explanation for lack of English success in Europe. Let’s call back those clubs who were doing England so proud in the Noughties. Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. Are any of them as good now as they were then, or has there been a falling-off of quality? I think we all know the answer to that, which just leaves Manchester City. Who are improving, and could arguably go further than anyone this year, but have only been in this game for five years and are writing their European history as they go along.
It took Manchester United virtually the whole of the Nineties to reach a European Cup final, and they already had a strong European tradition. Now turn the last question on its head. Over the last decade or so, have Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Real Madrid become stronger, bigger and richer, almost to the point of outgrowing their domestic leagues? It would seem that they have. Certainly most of the betting money for this year’s Champions League will be going on those three.
The only way for England to compete would be to revert to the days when only a couple of teams would seriously compete for the title (United and Arsenal, or United and Chelsea), two more would quietly nurture European ambitions and everyone else would be cannon fodder. Better the way we are now, surely. It might not be a recipe for success in Europe but you have to say English football looks healthier with Leicester on top.
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