Few would argue that this Premier League season has had everything you could want and more. We have seen goals and plenty and more dramatic games than anyone would have thought possible.
The games between our elite clubs this season have been especially open and exciting leading to fantastic viewing spectacles for us all. We’ve seen the 8-2 between Man Utd and Arsenal, the 5-3 between Arsenal and Chelsea and Manchester United’s dramatic comeback to draw 3-3 at Stamford Bridge, to name but a few. This open style of play and an apparent sidelining of defensive strategies have cost our top clubs when it has come to European games this season.
On the whole, the Champions League clubs have attempted to take on Europe playing in the same aggressive manner and have mainly come up short. The two Manchester clubs, leading the way in the Premier League were shown to be well short of the mark in Europe, by crashing out of the Champions League at the group stage. United in particular have tried to bulldoze their European opponents with all-out attack, an almost complete reversal from their tactics in recent years, which had yielded phenomenal success. The two Champions League group games against Basel showed how United were unable to take the Swiss apart and were burnt when Basel showed some prowess of their own in attack. Similarly City were shown up in their contests against Napoli in the Champions League group games.
While Chelsea and Arsenal had a fairly safe passage through the group stage of the Champions League, the Round of 16 has highlighted similar deficiencies for our British teams. Chelsea were second best in Napoli in the first leg and have a two goal margin to retrieve next week at Stamford Bridge. Arsenal were played off the park in their 4-0 thrashing in the San Siro against AC Milan, and only retrieved some pride in the second leg due to the obvious arrogance from the Italian giants.
Thursdays Europa League game at Old Trafford highlighted the lack of discipline that has blighted British progress in Europe this year. United approached the game all guns blazing, showing little regard for the obvious threat that Athletic Bilbao carried. This forward thinking attitude allowed an incredibly open game to develop one that would never have been seen from the Red Devils last year. Bilbao showed all their quality and left United cold, with David De Gea acting as a one-man defence. This kind of game has become common-place at Old Trafford against foreign opponents in 2011-2012, with Benfica, Ajax, Basel and Bilbao all causing massive problems for a non-existent United defence at the Theatre of Dreams.
The end-to-end aggressive style that has blessed the games between the Top 6 in the Premier League this year has had a detrimental impact on the success of English clubs in Europe this year. European teams have a strong mind for tactics and are very canny operators in terms of playing on the break and absorbing pressure. The way in which our teams have attacked at will in Europe this year has left them open to the well-planned and well-executed counter attacks of their foreign opponents. Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal have shown frailties defensively on the domestic front and these have also been exploited in European competition. Manchester City have struggled to adapt to top-level European competition with their first crack at it. All in all the English clubs have been shown to be second rate this year, falling well behind the elite of other countries. This has to be attributable, in no small part to the way in which they have attacked with reckless abandon and been picked off at will by the intelligence of their opponents.
Awesome information, refreshing site theme, carry on the good work