In European football, money talks. The Premier League has plenty of it. Power in the transfer market? That, too. But trophies? That’s where the myth of English dominance starts to unravel.
This week’s Champions League last-16 first legs have offered a cold, statistical slap. Six games, no wins for Premier League clubs, and an aggregate score of Europe 16, Premier League 6. No one has gone out yet, no one is through, but that is not the return of a league supposedly bestriding the continent.
Yes, five of the six ties were away from home. Yes, Tottenham Hotspur remain their own travelling circus. But watching Manchester City brushed aside by Real Madrid, Chelsea fade against Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal grind to a 1-1 draw at Bayer Leverkusen carried a familiar feeling. This is the time of year when English clubs so often hit the wall.
They looked spent. Not just heavy-legged, but drained in the head as well. The evidence was there in the errors: Chelsea conceding twice late on to turn a manageable PSG deficit into something far more daunting; City blown away by three Federico Valverde goals in 23 minutes; Spurs 4-0 down inside the same span. These are not the numbers of fresh, sharp sides.
The Premier League remains probably the fastest, most intense domestic competition in Europe — perhaps in the world. That intensity sells subscriptions and fills stadiums, but it also exacts a price. By the time the season reaches its decisive stretch, fatigue has piled up. Injuries mount, performances dip, and trying to reproduce that relentless tempo every three days becomes a fantasy. We have seen this pattern before, with both club sides and the national team.
This generation of English-based players is being pushed to the limit. On top of the league grind comes a swollen calendar: a major Club World Cup last summer involving Chelsea and City, the Nations League, expanded Champions League and Europa League formats, and a World Cup that has grown fatter and more demanding. Those additions do not land on a blank page; they land on already overloaded legs.
Elsewhere on the continent, some clubs receive help. In England, that notion barely exists.
Chelsea, for instance, spent their weekend being dragged through extra time by Championship side Wrexham in the FA Cup. PSG, by contrast, did not play at all; Nantes and the Ligue de Football Professionnel agreed to postpone their match so Luis Enrique’s side could rest before facing the Londoners. In England, such accommodation feels almost unthinkable.
In Germany, Bayern Munich’s 4-1 win over Borussia Monchengladbach was shifted to a Friday night, buying them an extra 24 hours to prepare for a Tuesday trip to Atalanta. In the same window, Newcastle United and Manchester City were knocking lumps out of each other late on Saturday evening in an FA Cup fifth-round tie.
It is not only about fixture timing. The sheer competitiveness of the Premier League cuts against its clubs in Europe. There really are no easy games.
Consider Wolverhampton Wanderers, a side heading for one of the worst top-flight points totals in history, yet able to take four points in two weeks off Champions League participants Arsenal and Liverpool. That old cliché about every match being a battle feels more accurate now than ever.
Look at the weekend of January 24-25. Liverpool lost at Bournemouth. Spurs were held at Burnley. Newcastle were beaten at home by Aston Villa. Sandwich those results between European fixtures and a different picture emerges. Either side of that domestic stumble, Liverpool thrashed Marseille and Qarabag 9-0 on aggregate. Spurs beat Borussia Dortmund and Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 — their only wins of the calendar year after 12 domestic games without victory. Newcastle hammered PSV 3-0 and drew 1-1 away at PSG.
In Europe, English clubs were cruising. Five Premier League sides finished in the top eight of the Champions League league phase. A record nine English teams reached the knockout stages across the three UEFA competitions. It was tempting then to declare England’s supremacy — the best teams, the strongest league, the new centre of power.
The numbers at the sharp end do not back that up.
Across the last five Champions League seasons, four of the 10 finalists have come from England, with two winners: Chelsea in 2021 and Manchester City in 2023. Spain matches that tally of winners, with Real Madrid lifting the trophy in 2022 and 2024.
The Europa League tells a similar story. Over the past five finals, three English clubs have reached the showpiece, but only one has won it — Spurs last season. Spain again has two winners in that span, Villarreal in 2021 and Sevilla in 2023.
This is not dominance. It is competitiveness at the top table, nothing more.
True dominance looked like La Liga in the mid-2010s. Between 2014 and 2018, Spanish clubs won nine of the 10 Champions League and Europa League titles. Real Madrid took four Champions Leagues, Barcelona one; Sevilla claimed three Europa Leagues, Atletico Madrid another. Only Manchester United’s 2017 Europa League triumph interrupted the procession.
English clubs, as a collective, have not managed anything similar. Nor, individually, have their standard-bearers. Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City have bent the Premier League to their will — six titles in his nine completed seasons — but Europe has proved more stubborn. In that time, City have reached two Champions League finals and one semi-final. With a 3-0 deficit to overturn against Real Madrid, improving that record this season looks unlikely.
If Guardiola leaves City this summer, his decade in England will resemble Sir Alex Ferguson’s European record at Manchester United: a stack of domestic titles, but just one Champions League. Ferguson operated in an era when English clubs were widely seen as inferior to their continental rivals. The perception has changed; the return has not.
Mikel Arteta, whose Arsenal side were undone by a Bayer Leverkusen corner routine in their 1-1 draw in Germany, was asked whether the result underlined the scale of the Champions League challenge.
“Yes, and how difficult it is to win against any opponent in the competition and especially away from home,” he said. “There is a big factor there. We knew the importance of the game and the difficulty of the opponent and now we need to finish it in London.”
Before that second leg, Arsenal face Everton at home. That fixture rarely comes filed under “straightforward”. Chelsea and Newcastle might like to rotate this weekend before their European returns; instead, they play each other. Spurs go to Liverpool on Sunday, clawing for survival in a relegation fight, while Jürgen Klopp’s side chase the points they need to reach next season’s Champions League. City, meanwhile, travel to a revitalised West Ham United, knowing another slip could cost them the title. There is no let-up.
Could the narrative still twist? Of course. Arsenal should complete the job in London. Chelsea, Spurs and City all have the talent to conjure something remarkable in their second legs. Liverpool might yet overturn their deficit to Galatasaray. Newcastle could leave Barcelona with one of the finest results in their history.
But this week, when Bayern, Real Madrid and PSG — clubs with financial muscle to match the Premier League elite but without the same accumulated exhaustion — shifted smoothly through the gears, English sides stalled. The pattern is familiar, the warning clear.
Until English clubs turn power and money into a sustained run of European trophies, the talk of dominance will remain just that: talk.
