When Manchester City finally conquered Europe, they were barely in Europe. Now, for a rather different reason, they might not be next season. City’s long-awaited Champions League triumph, in 2023, came in Istanbul’s Ataturk Stadium, a few miles from Asia. Now they are in their 16th consecutive Champions League campaign. It threatens to be their last for a while, given the potential punishments after being found guilty of a century and more of charges levelled by the Premier League.
If an era ends for City, the sense may be that apocalyptic predictions of two other ages never came true. City did not dominate Europe, which some suggested was inevitable: a constant presence in the Champions League knockout stages, they won the competition once and reached one more final. And the notion that the English clubs, furnished with Premier League finances, would be unstoppable, could go with them.
Perhaps it already should have done, given City’s last two Champions League campaigns ended in the rounds of 24 and 16 respectively. They used to top Uefa’s club coefficient and stand sixth now, based more on points picked up between 2022 and 2024 than since then. Take them out and it leaves only Arsenal among the English representatives in the top seven; arguably the Gunners should be alone from the Premier League in the top tier of favourites already, alongside Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Real Madrid.
But it is a sign of strength in depth that the Premier League has delivered five Champions League finalists in the last eight seasons, in Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, City and Arsenal. When the same five clubs secured top-eight finishes in the league phase of the competition last season, it prompted hyperbolic rhetoric about English dominance. Come the quarter-finals, however, and only Arsenal and Liverpool remained, and the latter were emphatically dispatched from the competition by PSG.
And in this hypothetical – but very feasible – scenario of a Champions League without City, where does the English challenge come from? Arsenal, obviously; whether or not Mikel Arteta’s side take the final step by winning the competition, it is easy to envisage them in the business end of it on multiple occasions. Liverpool, maybe: they have come first and third in the league phase in successive seasons and only exited to Paris Saint-Germain in each; yet a team in transition feel far from the redoubtable outfit who powered to three finals under Jurgen Klopp.
But beyond that? The standard at many of the moneyed clubs has dropped. In the last 13 years, Manchester United have often struggled to qualify for the Champions League and, already, look unlikely to be in it next year. They have only reached the last eight of Europe’s major club competition twice since Sir Alex Ferguson retired.
In the Clearlake Capital era, with or without Todd Boehly, Chelsea only have one top-five finish in England; that may change now, but despite winning the Club World Cup, have regressed dramatically as a continental force in a time when they spent around £2bn on players. Perhaps Xabi Alonso will alter that, but there is no guarantee. Tottenham spent like Champions League challengers in the summer but have consecutive 17th-place finishes and are now in the relegation zone.
Of the upstarts, Aston Villa have a Europa League trophy and a Europa League specialist, in Unai Emery. They acquitted themselves very well in their last Champions League campaign: beating Bayern, reaching the quarter-finals, giving PSG a scare. Yet that felt the best-case scenario for the clubs without the turnovers or recent histories of the Premier League’s regular powers. They punched above their weight.
In any case, that Villa team has broken up now and a new-look side may not be back in the Champions League next year; they and Newcastle show it is hard to qualify in successive seasons. Newcastle also illustrate the difficulties of excelling in both the top English and European competitions at the same time.
It could be an issue for a newcomer next year. Take City out, factor in the faltering starts of United, Villa and Spurs, and at least one of the endearing overachievers could find themselves in the Champions League. At this early stage, Brighton, Brentford and Everton occupy three of the top-five spots. That could be a welcome change in some respects, but is unlikely to petrify Bayern or Barcelona.
Even when more familiar faces are involved, the recent evidence is that Premier League money can equip its teams to win league-phase games; less so knockout fixtures against the elite, or even the second tier when the exhausting effects of an English season take hold in March or April and they encounter fresher opponents. With fewer of the supposed superpowers involved, perhaps the Premier League sides would be likelier to end up outside the Champions League’s top eight and in the knockout play-off round.
In many a previous campaign, the English coefficient has been built around the points City accrued. The chances are that, with their purchasing power, the Premier League contingent should still pile up enough points in the Europa and Conference Leagues, as well as the Champions League group stage, to ensure they have five places in the premier competition most years. But if the idea of English dominance has long been overblown – with just three Champions League winners in the last 14 years and seven in the last 42 – it could disappear altogether in a world without City.