Arsenal, Chelsea Show Gap Between England, Europe

Only two English team remains in the Champions League round of sixteen for a third time in four years. Arsenal and Chelsea have shown that gap in quality.

After the recent Champions League match between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain, the discussion of just how far behind the rest of Europe the Premier League teams were when it came to European competition.

As it stands, Manchester United didn’t make it out of the group stage, Chelsea have fallen to PSG and Arsenal are required to score two away goals at the Nou Camp to advance. In other words, it’s Man City from here on out.

Both Barcelona and PSG dominated their English opponents when they played the away leg of their ties. Both teams had 60 percent possession, more shots on target and a higher duel winning percentage. Granted, Barcelona possess the best attacking players on earth and Per Mertesacker and Aaron Ramsey were no match defensively for them.

That shouldn’t really be glossed over and taken as automatic.

Since the mid-2000’s, the balance of power has shifted away from the English clubs and towards teams like Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain that have built domestic franchises.

The Premier League has been too competitive in recent seasons for a team like that to emerge, and as Slaven Bilic said the other day on ITV, the injection of funds into the Premier League top to bottom has made the league undoubtedly the most competitive it has been in recent history.

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Here’s an interesting stat. This is the first time in the past thirteen years of Champions League competition that two English clubs have conceded two goals at home. An English team hadn’t conceded two goals at home in the knockout stage even once since 2010.

It was apparent on both nights in London, Arsenal and Chelsea: the Premier League sides had been competing too hard in recent games because of fixture congestion, and neither of them were ready for a team of that caliber and sophistication. The English sides were simply swept aside.

Another problem that has created gulf is that not only do PSG and Barcelona have the world-class talent that Arsenal and Chelsea can’t attract, but they’re able to bring such talented subs off the bench that can change a game thanks to their accumulation of star players.

When it comes to Arsenal, fans already know how many stars have left in recent years due to “financial issues”. Now that those days are behind the Gunners franchise, though, questions have to be asked.

Arsenal lacked substitutes to change their tactics with when they were chasing the game at home, after repeatedly hitting Marc-Andre Ter Stegen without putting any shots in the corners of the net. Olivier Giroud is still the only forward at the club who prefers to stay in the middle of the field.