Manchester City and English clubs in the champions league - where is it going wrong?

Does this mean she's shut up?

Good book this:



Served me well.

English teams briefly dominated the CL when their spending was reckless and they could buy the best players. Now that the best players are in Spain or elsewhere in Europe they have better teams and play better football than in the Premiership. 
As regards Chelsea, their success was built on a solid defence and Mourinho gambled on it staying solid which it hasn't.
Arsenal are simply not ruthless enough and are no better than average in some areas of the pitch including defence.
City are weak at the back, especially when Kompany is out as Spurs demonstrated at the weekend.
If there was one aspect that pervades English football, it is that the defences are not as good as their top European counterparts and quality forwards will score against them.

I think it goes a lot deeper than not having the best players, the issues our club sides come up against when they face the best in Europe mirrors the national team whenever we play a half decent rival. I think the quality of coaching in this country and as such the conditioning and game intelligence of players has been completely outstripped by teams on the continent. If you watch the really top teams in Europe (and increasingly the good teams like PSG, Juve and Dortmund) the very top of the Premier League looks well behind.

One excuse is that there are no easy games in the Premier League, so our teams are more used to a 90 minute battle every week rather than the stroll in the park Barca/Madrid/Bayern get every weeks, they're used to controlling possession and carving out opportunities in a way that our teams aren't.

Who knows, but we need to change the mindset of our top teams to coaching and improving players rather than chucking money at a new bunch every summer. If we don't improve soon we'll lose our 4th champions league spot to Italy.

wanderlust wrote:English teams briefly dominated the CL when their spending was reckless and they could buy the best players. Now that the best players are in Spain or elsewhere in Europe they have better teams and play better football than in the Premiership. 
As regards Chelsea, their success was built on a solid defence and Mourinho gambled on it staying solid which it hasn't.
Arsenal are simply not ruthless enough and are no better than average in some areas of the pitch including defence.
City are weak at the back, especially when Kompany is out as Spurs demonstrated at the weekend.
If there was one aspect that pervades English football, it is that the defences are not as good as their top European counterparts and quality forwards will score against them.

God, how nice it is for someone on here to post a good response. 

I am going to disagree with you though.
Let's start with Man City, they are the most under-achieving team in the champions league. They have spent crazy money, players like Aguero, De Bruyne, Sterling, Yaya Toure, Fernandinho, David Silva, Otamendi, Bony, etc, all cost over £30m and are all top quality - and further more they have all played football in different countries. So why are they so shit in the champions league?
Chelsea you are right, Mourinho built them from the back with a top keeper and rock solid defence and as you say this season they cannot defend for toffee. But Mourinho DIDN't gamble on it being solid, he tried so hard to get John Stones and made a late bid for Marquinhos of PSG. But surely Cahill, Zouma and John Terry are good enough centre backs to do better than they are, afterall Crystal Palace have only conceeded 7 goals with defenders who are of far less quality than those three.
Arsenal have so many quality options in midfield and attack, they should be dusting teams like Olympiakos and Dinamo Zagreb. Sanchez, Ramsey, Walcott, Oxlade Chamberlain, Cazorla, Ozil, Wilshere, Giroud are all of good strong quality. 

I have to agree with bwfc, it is not the players but the coaching - but despite that managers such as Pelligrini, Mourinho, Wenger, Van Gaal, etc. are surely some of the best managers in world football based on pedigree.

They're on freeview tonight.

Are united playing at home tonight. Bloody traffic coming back from rugby was a nightmare

Being a Salford lad Johnny, i thought you'd of known that they are at home against the Germans.

Proper Bolton fan you.

Utd 1 down

scottjames30 wrote:Being a Salford lad Johnny, i thought you'd of known that they are at home against the Germans.

Proper Bolton fan you.

Id of googled it scott but id rather the missus find granny porn in my search history than man utd

City are on freeview 59 at the moment.

boltonbonce wrote:City are on the ten minute freeview on playboy at the moment.

Dirty buggers

Probably should be on 69 then.

boltonbonce wrote:Probably should be on 69 then.

I did mean to change that to 69 as well.