Four English clubs were eliminated from the UEFA Champions League this week, but that’s fine, and any talk of a crisis is massively exaggerated.
It’s been a bad couple of weeks for English clubs in the UEFA Champions League, with results over the past two days confirming the exits of four of them at the last-16 stage.
Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham and Newcastle saw their European campaigns ended across Tuesday and Wednesday – though in most cases the real damage was done last week.
All four of them conceded at least five goals across two legs, with Newcastle and Chelsea shipping as many as eight each, and as such, Premier League representation in the Champions League went from six teams to two over a single round.
In many areas of the media and social media, the response has been to begin something of a post-mortem.
Some have framed it as a shocking “collapse”; others have asked “what went wrong for the English clubs?” as if one country taking most of the UCL quarter-final spots is the norm.
However, these responses arguably represent an overreaction.
Look at each individual Champions League last-16 tie that involved an English team and ask yourself, how many resembled foregone conclusions?
Focusing on those who’ve been eliminated, were any of those outcomes really that surprising?
Chelsea have been up and down all season; they’ve got the youngest average starting XI age in the competition (24 years, 82 days), and they were playing against the defending champions, Paris Saint-Germain, who also benefitted from having the prior weekend off before the second leg.
Man City faced the most successful team in European Cup history, Real Madrid, who had also eliminated them in three of the past four seasons before this. City haven’t exactly been a picture of consistency in 2025-26 either.
Newcastle are, according to the Premier League table, only the ninth best English team this season and they were up against the very best La Liga has to offer, reigning Spanish champions Barcelona.
And Tottenham, amid their worst domestic season for a generation, were drawn against the third best team in Spain and Champions League stalwarts, Atlético Madrid.
Even if City or Chelsea were considered slight favourites ahead of those ties, it’s not like they’d have been looking at their respective opponents like progress was anything close to assured.
From some of the reactions to the eliminations of English clubs, you’d think the Premier League was in crisis, but that’s simply not the case.
The fact there were so many English clubs in the last 16 in the first place is evidence enough.
No nation had ever taken up six spots in the Champions League round of 16, with the results of English clubs already virtually assuring fifth place in the Premier League will once again secure qualification to the UCL league phase next term.
Victories for Arsenal and Liverpool this week took English clubs’ average coefficient score to 23.847, which is what Spain finished 2024-25 with while earning the second extra Champions League qualification ticket.
Furthermore, with Arsenal and Liverpool ultimately going through to the Champions League quarter-finals relatively comfortably, the Premier League still has representation in the competition.
And “only” having two sides in the Champions League quarter-finals isn’t unusual.
This is the fourth successive campaign in which two English clubs have progressed to the last eight of the competition.
For some onlookers, concern may be focused more on the heavy nature of some of the aggregate defeats rather than simply that English teams were eliminated.
That is a bit more understandable given Madrid beat City 5-1 across the two legs, PSG were 8-2 aggregate winners over Chelsea, and Barcelona stuffed Newcastle 8-3 on aggregate.
The early red card for Bernardo Silva in City’s second-leg defeat to Madrid means you can justifiably say there were extenuating circumstances for that tie. As for Chelsea, their shots actually generated more expected goals (xG) over the two legs (2.83) than PSG’s (1.99), suggesting the French champions were simply far more ruthless and clinical with their finishing.
The topic of domestic quality has also come into the debate. While the Premier League’s standard is extremely high, and higher on average than any other European league according to the Opta Power Rankings, there’s an argument this causes a knock-on effect in Europe.
The theory is the Premier League is so competitive and physical that teams perhaps feel less compelled – or able – to rotate their squads, potentially meaning players aren’t as fresh for midweek European exploits.
Yash Thakur / Data AnalystOthers will feel that’s simply an excuse, and that may be fair enough.
Ultimately, the teams who went out were all given tough draws relative to their own quality. But when you have six sides from one nation in the last 16, some are bound to face stiff opposition. The more representatives you have, the likelier it is you’ll see some eliminated.
Although it was the first time any nation has seen four teams eliminated at the same stage of the Champions League in a single season, you need to have had as many as four in it to set such a record. And there are still two sides left.
Furthermore, when considering the integrity of the competition, it’s a good thing that some of the English clubs went out.
The optics would have been poor for the Champions League as a tournament if the majority of the quarter-final places were taken up by Premier League teams, and it would’ve added further fuel to the belief that the English top flight is essentially the ‘European Super League’ many of its clubs fought to extinguish.
Make no mistake, it has been a tough couple of weeks for the English sides. But that’s fine, and any talk of a crisis is hyperbolic nonsense.
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Four Out, Two Through: England’s UCL Last-16 ‘Collapse’ Not the Crisis it Seems Opta Analyst.
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