What the FA Cup reveals about English clubs in Europe | OneFootball

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Ryan Reynolds and Snoop Dogg might these days be far more visible near the top of European football than Michel Platini – a sentence that would have been absurd in 2008 – but some of the most senior figures at that level still quote the former Uefa president when a particular concern about the Champions League is put to them: “The English are like lions in the autumn but like lambs in the spring.”

First uttered during the “big four” era, that Platini comment was repeatedly raised at some of the engagements around the recent Financial Times Business of Football Summit. It was, of course, in reference to the fact that the Champions League this week has an unprecedented six Premier League clubs in the last 16 – but only two have actually won it in this decade.

Real Madrid have still won the trophy more times in this millennium, with eight, than all of the English clubs combined, at six.

The weekend’s action from the FA Cup, a competition commonly seen as having suffered the most from the Champions League’s growth, actually offered an appropriate illustration of how Platini’s pithy summation has generally played out.

To begin, the ties themselves highlighted the sheer flow of money into the English game, driven by the Premier League’s international popularity.

On late Saturday afternoon, there was a match between Wrexham and Chelsea, which was also a game between two very different forms of capitalist ownership now dominant in English football. It’s not the kind of thing often discussed on TV.

Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are now the smiling Hollywood-dentured faces of an ownership that includes private equity group Apollo, whose “asset” came close to rivalling that of Clearlake.

If it sounds curmudgeonly or cynical to reduce a genuinely great FA Cup tie to this, the wider point is obviously about how the Champions League operates.

Chelsea’s frenetic 4-2 victory at Stok Cae Ras could still provoke significant discussions for English football – especially now that we have an independent football regulator tasked with considering the long-term dynamics of ownership – but none, admittedly, as grave as those prompted by the Saturday night game.

Then, as Manchester City once more dismissed Newcastle United, Abu Dhabi’s major sporting asset enjoyed another victory over that of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, at a time of tension between the two states. You could even argue that “sportswashing” now works so effectively, and these ownerships have become so normalised, that this element isn’t even mentioned any more when they meet in the world’s most traditional cup competition.

And yet much of Europe just looks on with envy. They see only the revenues that have made English football so powerful.

As for the relatively underwhelming recent Champions League record, the FA Cup went some way to explaining that, too.

So congested is the English calendar, and so stretched the first-team choices, that basically all of the Champions League clubs naturally made considerable changes. Rhythms were broken.

Chelsea were there for the taking, only for contentious decisions to go against Wrexham. The argument will linger that this tie taking place a round earlier, when VAR wasn’t used, would have seen Wrexham through.

Liverpool still look disjointed without Florian Wirtz, although a spikier Arne Slot could take encouragement from a revenge 3-1 win over Wolves following the Premier League defeat just three days beforehand.

Newcastle were the club that wanted the FA Cup most out of the remaining Champions League teams, but it might end up being instructive that they were again beaten so easily by a second-string City. Pep Guardiola’s 10 changes may well point to the club now having the strongest squad in Europe after the January signings of Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi.

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Newcastle's head coach Eddie Howe walks off the pitch (AP)

Arsenal’s own ample squad, for example, faced a tougher test against Mansfield Town.

Nigel Clough’s side have rightly been the heroes of the cup so far, only to be upstaged by Southampton and Port Vale.

In defeating Premier League sides in Fulham and Sunderland, respectively, they of course showed what the FA Cup is all about. But they also showed what the Premier League’s European problems are about.

With Fulham, and certainly Sunderland, it wasn’t the usual case of mid-table clubs being inexplicably dismissive about the cup. Both saw an opportunity this season and wanted to seize it. And while they both made changes, most of those were influenced by the sports science concerns and injuries that come with such an intense Premier League schedule.

It’s not a case of giving first-team players a rest because you can. A naturally inconsistent Fulham couldn’t keep the edge they had shown in beating Tottenham Hotspur. Roles were reversed, to a degree. Fulham now had something to lose.

All of this made them susceptible to an upset, in the same way England’s Champions League clubs become more susceptible to getting caught out.

On that, though, there is a considerable flip side.

None of Europe’s elite look like “super favourites”, to use Arsene Wenger’s quote about the teams that emerge as obvious European champions-in-waiting.

Real Madrid are injury-ravaged themselves. While it has been said in many of their victorious seasons that they didn’t initially look good enough – raising the risk of ever writing them off – there are many more campaigns where they simply go out early. It actually happens a lot. This looks like it could be one of those. It would be surprising if they eliminated City.

Barcelona have Lamine Yamal going to another level, but they also have a defensive line playing inexplicably high. It looks like a fracture point in the entire team, where every game becomes a high-wire act. Newcastle could exploit that if they somehow recover some intensity amid a general staleness.

Paris Saint-Germain, meanwhile, have not ramped up in the way they did by this point last season, and on Friday lost at home to Monaco. Of note might be how Luis Enrique saw a similar drop-off in 2015–16 from his treble-winning 2014–15 Barcelona side. Even Bayern Munich, who probably look the most dangerous, were dismissed by Arsenal in the group stage.

The last two examples of course raise a relevant point. Last year, PSG were also dismissed by Arsenal in the group stage, only to look a totally different side by spring and knock them out in the semi-finals.

That can easily happen. The Champions League has enough examples. A team can just go through the gears. The quality is there.

Right now, though, it’s hard not to feel that the European clubs just don’t have that potential. Too many issues are too hardwired.

That can also just happen. There have often been off-seasons throughout the European Cup’s history, which usually allow a surprise winner. Borussia Dortmund in 1996–97 was a case in point.

It’s just been all the rarer in eras when there has been such a concentration of wealth.

The English clubs this season may not even need to be lions in spring.

Everyone else in Europe, however, would warn them of the danger of that kind of thinking.

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