Is English football's time over?

Is England’s time as a major footballing power over?

Is England’s time as a major footballing power over? None can deny English clubs have been dominant in the Champions League, but with Man Utd out of the Champions League courtesy of Real Madrid and Arsenal facing a hard task against Bayern, there could be no English clubs in the quarter finals for the first time since 1996.

As a Chelsea fan, I’m well aware that we rode our luck en-route to the final last season. At Napoli, after losing 3-1 in the first leg to come back and win 5-4 after many had written us off, to Leo Messi’s infamous penalty miss in the semis.

Last season Chelsea and Arsenal were the only teams to reach the last sixteen and Arsenal fell against Milan.

Compare these poor showings to the 10-11 season, where all four English entrants navigated the group stages successfully and had three in the quarter finals, with Man Utd eventually losing to Barcelona in the final.

A couple of years are a massive amount of time in football. Ask Fernando Torres or Harry Redknapp.

But do these diminishing returns in the Champions League signify a power shift away from London and Manchester? For all their money, City just can’t get it right at the highest level, failing to win a single game in this year’s competition becoming the first ever English club to do so.

At the highest pinnacle of the game, there is usually very little between top teams and this ‘blip’ that English clubs are currently going through could be explained away as simple bad luck, that these things even themselves out over time.

With City on course to qualify for the CL again this year, their star-studded squad has another chance to win Europe’s most coveted competition.

If results do continue to slide, the inevitable blame game may come into play, but who will fingers be pointed at?

Will it be argued that the decline is due to the lack of investment at grass roots level? The German and Spanish leagues have a fairly high proportion of home grown players with 53% of players in the Bundesliga registered as home grown.

These two leagues are the ones providing competition at the highest level and English footballs grip appears to be slipping if recent results are to be believed.

There is a distinct lack of English players at the top 4-5 clubs, but the premiership has prided itself on being a multicultural, international league and foreign players have lit up pitches up and down the country for decades now.

The influx of foreign players can’t be used as a factor as English clubs have been cherry picking top footballing talent for a long time now.

Maybe, it is simply the fact that foreign teams have improved and the minuscule gap has been closed, or even surpassed.

English football is in an international malaise at the moment, but it would be wrong to start taking the knives out as we don’t have a God-given right to be in the quarter finals.

One of the reasons football is loved worldwide is its unpredictability, that’s why I can’t honestly say that there has been degradation in the quality of English football, in the last decade at least.

 This season, Arsenal have suffered from managerial woes, City capitulated in the CL, United have relentlessly continued chipping away at the league, (as they do so well) and Chelsea have had a poor season.

With teams such as Tottenham, Liverpool and Newcastle challenging in the Europa League (and Spurs’ 

impressive win against Milan) surely this lends more credence to the EPL being a strong all round league with a lot to offer in continental competition.

I suppose we’ll just have to wait until next year to see what happens in the CL, unless Arsenal manages to overcome the deficit at Bayern, but I think it's too early to write off the big four/five clubs yet.