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Featured Sport News

Will England rule Europe again?

Author: Sir David Smith
Date: 20/03/2009

For the second season in a row four Premier League clubs will be in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and, according to the betting experts, in 12 months' time it will happen again.

In the past four campaigns, the Premier League has provided nine of the 16 semi-finalists in European football's premier competition, five of the finalists and two of the winners.

Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea have dominated English football for the last five years and now they are threatening to do the same in Europe.

Only Barcelona and possibly Bayern Munich seem capable of stopping England's dominance this year with the three Italian representatives in the last 16 being blown away by their Premier League opponents.

Real Madrid's embarrassing capitulation to Liverpool earlier this month also gave rise to the theory that Spanish football, as well as that played in Serie A, is falling way behind the money-fuelled excellence of the Premier League.

Finance certainly seems to be the main reason for the English sides' current dominance.

The various television deals, huge attendance figures and marketing potential combine to make the Premier League the richest in the world.

The best players and best coaches have all been enticed to England with the stars once again showing in the last few weeks that their physicality and technique are currently unchallenged.

It has certainly helped that in the past five seasons, the same four clubs have qualified for the Champions League, helping the big money that is currently in the Premier League to be split between those teams.

In contrast, Spain in the same period has produced nine different Champions League qualifiers, Italy eight and Germany six.

There is little surprise therefore that England's big-four have dominated Europe and Aston Villa's recent slump appears to have ensured that the status quo will continue into 2009-10.

Villa's downturn in the last month is probably the most disappointing feature in what is rapidly once again becoming a procession of a season.

Martin O'Neill's side undoubtedly appear to be paying for starting their campaign more than eight months ago with an Intertoto Cup encounter against Odense and their comparatively small squad has not been able to cope with the pressure of being pace-setters in the race for a top-four spot.

O'Neill has been unwilling to use many of his fringe squad members and it is no surprise to find that Villa have used the fewest number of players of the 'top-five' clubs.

That has let in Arsenal who, with the likes of long-term injury victims Cesc Fabregas, Tomas Rosicky and Theo Walcott either back or close to a return, are now on course for yet another top-four finish.

Unless Roman Abramovich decides he's had enough of Chelsea or Liverpool's ownership battle takes a turn for the worse, the Premier League's top-four clubs look set to dominate Europe for a while yet.

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