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Leeds United: Premier League is going backwards - ex-Whites boss O’Leary
English clubs are facing up to their worst season in the Champions League since 1996.
Not since that year, when Blackburn was the Premier League’s sole representative in Europe’s top club competition, has an English club failed to make the quarter-finals.
The disastrous first legs suffered by Arsenal and Chelsea in Italy, combined with the Manchester clubs’ failure to make the knock-out stages, means that there is now every likelihood of a last-eight made up purely of continental sides.
It is in stark contrast to the years from 2007 to 2009, when in each of the three seasons, three of the four semi-finalists were English: either Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.
For David O’Leary, who managed Leeds to the Champions League semi-final in 2001, the change is down to a simple reason: the quality of the top Premier League sides has slumped.
United boss Sir Alex Ferguson disagrees, insisting the English clubs will be dominant again, but O’Leary is concerned that the need to keep the Premier League established as the most exciting brand of football in the world has made the values of simple defending expendable.
O’Leary told Press Association Sport: “The quality of the Premier League has not improved - if anything it has gone backwards.
“Chelsea have gone backwards, Arsenal have gone backwards, Liverpool are not a challenge any more.
“I think even Sir Alex would not view his current United side as his best crop so it was a fantastic achievement to get to the Champions League final and win the league last year.
“Manchester City have had an unbelievable amount of money to spend but they are still emerging.
“We have got carried away with it - I’ve just come back from Dubai and the only football they really get excited about is the Premier League. Defending-wise the top teams are conceding too many goals and that really hurts them in Europe.
“Think of the Chelsea side under Jose Mourinho with a young John Terry and Frank Lampard - a really strong team; think of the Arsenal side of a few years ago or Manchester United when Cristiano Ronaldo was there. Are they as good [now]? No way.”
Raymond Verheijen, the experienced Dutch coach who worked under Guus Hiddink for many years before becoming assistant to the late Wales manager Gary Speed, was blunt in his assessment after Arsenal’s 4-0 humbling by AC Milan last week, saying: “Milan just needed 45 minutes to once again prove the point that the quality of football in the Premier League is getting lower and lower.”
Ferguson, however, disagrees and believes that English sides are merely at the bottom of a cycle that sees particular countries dominate in Europe at different times and that the Premier League clubs are not “on the slide”.
The United manager said: “First of all, success in Europe can sometimes go in cycles. Spain had a great cycle about 10 years ago when Valencia, Deportivo, Villarreal, Real Madrid and Barcelona were all dominant. There were three of them in the semi-final one year.
“We have had a great cycle in the Premier League for the last eight years with teams getting to the semi-finals and finals. I don’t see that subsiding. I think the English teams will still be dominant.
“We have had a bad year this year. We have in particular - I can only judge myself. We are disappointed with how we have done. Arsenal and Chelsea have had disappointing results but both clubs have had injury problems and you can’t expect them to get the best results without their best teams.
“It is maybe a little bit disappointing season but to my mind, it is not definite that we are on the slide.”
The longer-term issue for English clubs is the UEFA co-efficient which governs the number of clubs they have in the Champions League group stage.
If Premier League clubs repeat the failure next year and Italian Serie A sides continue to improve then England could face a real threat of their allocation being cut from four places to three.
One off-season is manageable, but the warning signs are there.
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Comments
There are 13 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
steven742
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 12:51 PMtownsend's gone back didnt like it up here! maybe too cold for him
steven742
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 12:11 PMBramley - you keep saying your leeds through and through but then rip into anyone that doesnt share the same view has you! everyone is entitled to have there say and not shot down by the likes of you.
walter wark
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 11:22 AMSeriously - Who cares what O'Leary thinks? Waste of space.
MPMLEEDS
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 09:09 AMWhat concerns me in this article is this line "The United manager said: First of all, success in Europe can sometimes go in cycles."........This being a Leeds UNITED link on the website, i dont think they should be relating to a certain scotsman as the UNITED manager!!!! Perhaps in the not too distant future, The UNITED manager talking about champions league football will be the proper UNITED manager Neil Warnock!! ON & ON!!! ha
OzTyke
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 03:46 AM2003 to 06 at Villa, then nothing until 2010 for a year in Dubai. We played exciting footy under O'Leary. I think in retrospect that he was very unlucky at Leeds and is unfairly associated with Ridsdale's crazy excesses and even loonier finance deals. The nightclub incident was totally out of his control too, although he made a major error by coming out with the On Trial book when it was all still so raw, but judged purely on football matters he was very successful. His dismissal after running sixth a couple of times, and replacement by Venables just shows how off-the-planet our Board was at the time. I didn't think he'd done much subsequently at Villa, but apparently they had ownership issues behind the scenes too, so perhaps DO'L hasn't been fully appreciated. After all, Martin O'Neill could manage no better than sixth place at Villa either, and yet everyone raves about him.
-15NeverForgotten
Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 12:30 AMGenuine question, what has he (O'Leary) being doing for the past 10ish years apart from playing golf?
Gogol
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 11:40 PMTo comment 6: You beat me to it! Bramleywhites' posts are garbage and the one here is no exception. Pitiful.
RichC
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 10:54 PMBramley Whites why have you insulted someone just because of a made up name? It's neanderthals like you that give the rest of us a bad name.
OzTyke
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 10:08 PMI hope David O'Leary wasn't paid for his "insightful" contribution.
bramley whites
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 08:55 PMWhats with the pity towards the scum lufcbcfc lol says it all ! you dont no what you are you plug keep your scum comments for bcfc local paper ! your posts not welcome with pity to the scum ! im leeds through and through. im leeds through and through ! lufcbcfc hasnt a clue what he is lufcbcfc hasnt a clue what he is
AndrewFlynn
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 08:48 PMLOL Headingleywhites - I think that's what Bates is looking for!!!! But look at Norwich - I think you are on to something!
Headingleywhites
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 08:13 PMIf the premier league IS going backwards - do you think it will reach us ? Or are we going backwards just as fast ?
lufcbcfc
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 07:57 PMWell David, could it be something to do with a global recession and clubs not having the millions that you failed with. Clubs are going under now, big clubs!. If they don't spend they don't attract the best foreign players. I think that all the top European leagues will struggle not just the premier. True about Man. U. though! They haven't got one player that could walk into the Barcelona team. Very sad!
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