The Premier League has long bummed itself up as the best league in the world.
To be fair, for the last two decades, its teams’ performances in Europe meant the guys in charge could do so with some justification.
Now, however, it’s finally time for the Premier League to stop blowing its own trumpet and start considering what has gone wrong.
For the first time in 22 years, no English team has made it to the quarter-finals of either of European football’s big two club competitions.
The best League in the world? Not a chance. Not these days.
It’s all a far cry from six years ago, when the Premier League provided three out of four Champions League semi-finalists for the third season on the trot.
The season before that, 2005/06, Arsenal were beaten in the Final, and the year prior to that, Liverpool won the thing after knocking Chelsea out in the semis.
These were the glory days the era when all this “best League in the world” chat started.
Make no mistake, those days are gone now.
That Manchester City crashed out of the Champions League to Barcelona is no disgrace in itself.
That Chelsea fell to huge-spending Paris St Germain, similarly, isn’t particularly horrifying.
Arsenal slumping to Monaco is probably more of a shock but, like Paris St Germain, the team from the Principality isn’t short of a bob or two.
But taken together along with Everton’s Europa League defeat to Dynamo Kiev it simply doesn’t look good.
The post-mortem has already started, with some folk calling for a winter break to allow players to attack the second half of the season with fresh legs.
I just don’t buy that one and I suspect the fans would hate it.
I think the simple truth is that while the Premier League as a whole is getting richer, the very top teams in Europe are catching up.
When the new TV deal kicks in, the Premier League will soar back to the top, I’ve no doubt.
But while the rich get richer, I worry what it all means for Scotland’s top clubs.
Celtic have been lagging behind in financial terms for years and it’s only going to get worse.
That, for me, is more of a problem for BRITISH football than the Premier League’s temporary slump.
My only hope is that somebody, somewhere, can find an answer.
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