Yeah, if Liverpool were in the same position as Spurs in the League, and they rested their top players and lost a Europa Cup match, i could not give even a single fuck. The chance of winning the Premier League trumps that every time for me.
There is a brewing problem with English clubs underperformance (given their resources) in European competition. Namely the co-efficient.
The European co-efficient, for those that don’t know, takes into account performance by a country’s teams in European competition (CL and Europa) over a rolling period (longer than the current season). The top 3 countries on co-efficient get 4 entries into the Champions League. England are currently in third and Italy, over the course of the last couple of seasons, have narrowed that gap considerably. It looks like England will be safe this year, but next year, they could be overhauled.
In the short term, Spurs probably were right to rest players last night. Let’s say that they did and then they collapsed in the league, finished 4th and England got overhauled by Italy. They’d be back in the Europa, instead of the Champions’ League. Yes, they want to win the league but access to even more money and the potential to get even better players is dependent on regular Champions League football usually.
With the league looking like it is going to be tight for the foreseeable future, any number of clubs could find themselves in 4th in the league over the next few seasons. Collectively then, it is for the best for all of them to take European competition seriously and try to progress. It’s actually an interesting little subplot, in a Tragedy of the Commons-ish way. Everyone will operate in their own self interest, but actually they need to think a little bit about common goals as well. It’s one of the reasons why some clubs are banging on about mid-season breaks, removing replays from the FA Cup and other ideas to lighten the fixture load, so they can pay more attention to the likes of the Europa League.
There are several reasons why English clubs haven’t taken to the Europa League in recent years.
Firstly, the path to winning it has been long and tortuous. The format’s changed over the years, but in the 2009/10 season, it could have taken up to 21 games to win it. English football already has probably the busiest domestic fixture list, with probably more games than any other country in the world. This is due to having a whole extra domestic competition (League Cup/FA Cup, depending on how you look at it) and replays for tied FA Cup matches.
Secondly, financially, the Europa League is a poor relation to the Champions League and the English teams that compete in it are generally more interested in trying to get one of the top four league slots for Champions League football the next season.
Also, Europa League games are on a Thursday, so the following Premier League game for a team that plays in it will be on a Sunday or Monday, rather than on Saturday. Although it may not seem like much from the outside, I’ve heard many managers and players saying it’s disadvantageous for one reason or another.
Given the choice of, say, taking a 5% chance of winning the Europa League against, say, a 25% chance of finishing one place higher in the Premier League, it appears English clubs prefer the latter option.
From this season, though, the Europa League has been spruced up, and the winner now gets a place in the Champions League for the following season. So it’s probably going to be more attractive for English clubs going forward. Indeed, Liverpool could still get into the Champions League next season, despite their league position, if they manage to win it this year.
Also, this week sees the return to the Premier League of a former Arsenal legend. He’s been signed by Sunderland, for whom a space on their right wing has suddenly become available (coughs).
Eboue’s one of my all-time favorite players, and the only Arsenal player for whom I have a name-and-numbered shirt. 
Fair point, but, aside from Onamah the rest of the team have all been starters at one time this season.
Your next post is absolutely spot on, though I’ll add that introducing the third placed CL teams from the group stage further devalues it.
I think it’s funny (in England) how important “winning a trophy” seems to be when we are talking about something like the League Cup and how much teams try to gain access to “europe” through the EPL… but when it comes down to the Europa League the teams suddenly don’t seem to care (I’m looking at you Southampton).
For a league that considers itself the most competitive in the World, it is kind of astonishing how badly they seem to do. In the Champions League there’ll only be Man City in the quarters and then either Liverpool/Man U in the Eroleague.
There will most probably be 3 spanish clubs and 2 german clubs in the CL quarters and there are still 4 Spanish teams in the Euro league and 2 German teams (Dortmund being all but qualified already). Funny as it so often claimed these leagues are one/two horse races.
PL teams don’t do that badly in the EL- just not as well as your Spanish or German sides, but it’s usual to see plenty in the late stages.
But yeah, I also think that this whole *“we don’t really care about EL, if we cared we’d win all the time” *reeks of cheap excuse. Hell, I’ve heard fans of Italian sides claim the same thing for years.
This attitude is rather new. As late as 5 years ago; English sides went deep into UEFA Cup/Europa League regularly. These days, no so much.
I agree the group stage is a bad idea
These things usually ebb and flow. Spanish clubs apart the English league takes second place to no-one in its recent CL record. It did help that for many years 4 English clubs had an oligopoly on CL places. I can virtually guarantee in future years leagues currently viewed as the best in Europe will fall to the wayside then re-emerge after a period of mediocrity.
Guaranteed to be the one losing the final you mean.
2006-Arsenal
2007-Liverpool
2008-Chelsea
2009-Man U
2011 Man U
Any idea when the postponed Liverpool games against Everton and Chelsea are likely to be rescheduled?
But there’s not necessarily any inconsistency here.
For example, if you have two leagues, and one league has three absolutely dominating clubs, and a bunch of also-rans, then that league might end up with more teams doing well in European competition than a league that is stronger overall, but that is also more evenly-matched and therefore more competitive.
Basically, a league that distributes its talent more evenly might be stronger in the aggregate, while a league that concentrates an outlandish amount of talent in two or three incredibly wealthy clubs might do better in Europe but be more unbalanced.
So, in other words: if Premier League teams do well in Europe, that’s because it’s a better league. But if they don’t do well in Europe, well, that’s still because they are a better league.
Well, someone might have made that inconsistent argument, but i certainly never have. Your observation, as least as far as my own point goes, is a straw man.
I was simply making a broader point about talent distribution.
It is possible, for example, for two leagues to have an identical number of excellent, good, average, and mediocre players, and yet to end up with very different distributions of those players. If League A ends up with the excellent and good players distributed fairly evenly throughout the teams, and League B ends up with all of the excellent and many of the good players concentrated in three or four teams, then the relative competitiveness of the two leagues will likely be quite different.
League A will likely be more internally competitive, but might not produce a standout team for an outside competition like the Champions League. League B will probably be very internally unbalanced, but will be more likely to produce one or two dominating teams that do well in European competition.
Note that i have not once used the word “better” in this discussion. If your definition of a better league is one that is more internally competitive, then League A is better; if your definition of better is a league that produces a standout team that wins international competitions, then League B is better. But remember, the initial stipulation was that they both have identical numbers of excellent, good, average, and mediocre players, so in the sense of total talent pool, neither league is “better” than the other.
That is why we have been looking at the Europa League. The 2 or 3 top teams of the less equally distributed league are in the Champions League. You would expect the “also rans” that end up in the Europa League to be average.
If you look at the Europa League the Spanish teams in particular (so not Barcelona or the teams from Madrid) are doing pretty well. Better than the English teams have been doing, even with the supposedly more equal distribution of talent.
At the moment I’m again watching an all EPL game (Everton-Chelsea) and the quality is abysmall, earlier I watched a bit of Barcelona - Getafe. Even without any tension it is a privilege to watch Barca play and strangely enough it even seemed Getafe has more composure and successful passes then the typical English cup tie. But that is just my opinion I guess.
But it is disingenuous not to recognize that English teams, particularly the strongest English teams, habitually field much-weakened teams in the Europa League. For example Spurs made 7 changes to their team this week when playing Dortmund. That you have one of the strongest teams left in the Europa League replace the majority of their best players with bench players and reserves in a last-16 tie against another one of the strongest teams speaks volumes about the will to win the Europa League among English clubs.
In addition Spanish qualification to the Europa league is for the 5th-7th placed teams in La Laga, whereas English qualification is for the 5th placed team in the Premiership and the FA Cup and League Cup winners (or quite often the losing finalist, if the winners have already qualified for the Champions League). This has meant twice in the last 5 seasons that teams relegated to the Championship have qualified for the Europa League.
Actually I realize I made an error Spainish qualification to the Europa League is actually the 5th place team and the winner and finalist of the Copa del Rey. However as the Copa del Rey winner and finalist more often than not qualify for the CL it is usually the 5th-7th placed Spanish teams which appear in the Europa League.
Still a golden God. 18 in the Epl alone this season. One season wonder Harry Kane.
COYS!!!
And Come On You Moose!!! Nice win for Watford, but I’m sure the Gooners will bounce back against Barcelona this week (snicker). Anyone know if Elton John still owns Watford?
Imagine if they do go through.