The Premier League teams competing in the Champions League suffered a nightmare week in the first legs of their round-of-16 ties. So, can an English team still win the competition?
Heading into this week, UEFA Champions League success for one of the English teams almost felt likely.
Beyond the fact that the Premier League’s contingent had a numerical advantage, with six teams competing in the Champions League this season and all six having progressed to the last 16, there was also, apparently, a widening quality gap with Europe’s other leagues.
The league phase reflected this fairly well, with Arsenal strolling to a perfect record in finishing first, Liverpool and Tottenham in the top four, and Chelsea and Manchester City also achieving top-eight finishes to avoid the play-off round. Newcastle were the worst-performing of the English sides, and even they came 12th and were just two points off the top eight. They also eased past Qarabag in their play-off to make it into the round of 16.
The Opta supercomputer was convinced of the Premier League’s might. On Tuesday afternoon, before a ball had been kicked in any of the knockout games, in 10,000 supercomputer simulations of the rest of the campaign, a Premier League team won the Champions League significantly more times than teams from any other league.
Arsenal made up most of that number, winning the Champions League in more than one in every four simulations (26.7%), but Liverpool (11.4%) and City (11.1%) were also considered serious contenders. Chelsea (6.4%) and Newcastle (3.6%) had a decent chance, while Spurs (0.7%) were outsiders. In total, English sides were given a 59.9% chance of winning the Champions League this season.
Then Tuesday and Wednesday happened.
First, Liverpool lost 1-0 at Galatasaray, then Spurs fell to a humiliating and damaging 5-2 defeat at Atlético Madrid. Newcastle very nearly beat Barcelona but were pegged back by Lamine Yamal’s stoppage-time penalty and ended up drawing, meaning they too need a win in their return leg (though they could fall back on penalties if needed).
On Wednesday, three strong English teams were in action, but all suffered disappointing results. Arsenal needed an 89th-minute Kai Havertz penalty to rescue a draw at Bayer Leverkusen in the early kick-off, before City were beaten 3-0 by Real Madrid and Chelsea collapsed to lose 5-2 at PSG. It was the first time in Champions League history that two English teams had lost by 3+ goals on the same night.
With 16 goals shipped, English teams conceded more goals than ever before in a single Champions League gameweek. Spurs, Chelsea and City conceded 13 goals between them, and the record before this season was 11 (three times, all in seasons with four English teams in Champions League action). Those three broke the record all on their own.
In all, it was a terrible week for English clubs (but perhaps a good one for European competition, although that’s a conversation for another day). Three of them must now beat some of the best teams in Europe by at least three goals in next week’s return legs to stand any chance of progression.
You probably don’t need telling that doing so is unlikely. Of the 51 instances of a team losing the first leg of a Champions League knockout tie by 3+ goals, only four have progressed, and one of them was helped by the now-defunct away goals rule (Roma vs Barcelona in 2017-18).
Even for the teams that avoided being thrashed, their first-leg results were disappointing. Arsenal were expected to cruise past Leverkusen and ended up fortunate to come away with a draw; Liverpool would have hoped for far better than another 1-0 defeat at Galatasaray, and despite a good performance in the home leg, Newcastle have a lot of work to do at the Camp Nou next week.
The Opta supercomputer’s numbers reflect the Premier League contingent’s failure across the board. Each side’s chances of winning the Champions League dropped after the first leg.
City were the biggest ‘losers’, as their hopes plummeted to just 2.3%, a fall of 8.8%. Liverpool (-6.8%) and Chelsea (-5.6%) also both saw significant drops in their chances of Champions League glory.
Arsenal’s chances fell to 22.1%, a decrease of 4.6%, meaning they are no longer the favourites to win the competition, falling behind Bayern Munich (26.3%). Meanwhile, the chances for Newcastle (-1.0%) and Spurs (-0.6%) became even slimmer than they already were.
Overall, after the first legs were played, English teams now win just 32.5% of the supercomputer’s simulations, a fall of 27.4%. Through a single set of fixtures, the chances of a Premier League team winning the Champions League were almost halved.
Few could have foreseen this capitulation, and finding an explanation for it is difficult.
There is a chance fatigue played a part, with the Premier League the only major European league that still persists with its busy winter schedule without a break for the players. That may have played a part in Spurs’ error-strewn performance in Madrid (although reserve goalkeeper Antonín Kinsky, playing his first game in five months, can hardly claim to have been tired), as well as Arsenal’s disjointed attacking display at Leverkusen, both City and Chelsea crumbling, and Newcastle conceding late on.
Including the Club World Cup, Chelsea (53) and City (50) have played more games this season than any other teams in Europe’s top five leagues. Since the CWC, meanwhile, Newcastle (48) and Arsenal (47) lead the way for games played.
The six English sides were also extremely wasteful in attack, while their opponents were not. The Premier League teams scored six goals from 65 shots worth 8.4 xG across their six first-leg fixtures, and conceded 16 goals from 66 shots worth 9.7 xG.
Game state played a part in those numbers – for example, as the above graphic shows, the vast majority of Spurs’ chances came after they had gone 4-0 down – but, clearly, there is a need to be clinical at this level, and the English teams were not. If you don’t take your chances and you give your opponents a helping hand, you are punished.
That five of the six English teams were away also has to be considered, while the only team who played at home in Newcastle, currently 12th in the Premier League, were very unlucky not to beat the La Liga champions.
There is still a decent chance of a Premier League team winning the Champions League this season, but they will all need to be far better in next week’s return legs to have any hope whatsoever.
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Six Games, No Wins: How the Premier League’s Chances of Champions League Glory Were (Almost) Halved Opta Analyst.
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