Euro losses have given the preening Prem a welcome reality check
JUST when you thought the Premier League could not get any more self-important, it comes up with a hall of fame.
The wonderful National Football Museum already has a hall of fame, which has honoured characters such as Justin Fashanu, Rachel Yankey, Alistair Patrickheselton and Duncan Edwards among many others.
There are no age or gender constraints on their inductees. They come from all pockets of the beautiful game.
This Premier League nonsense is a commercial gimmick, of course, from an organisation – well, a collection of clubs – which knows the price of everything.
Maybe Richard Scudamore will be the first to be honoured.
What exactly will be the qualifying criteria for membership of this group?
Presumably, most or all of your career needs to be post1992? Tough on those splendid players who straddled the First Division and the Premier League.
It is harmless stuff and it will drive social media traffic, which, as you may have noticed from comments coming out of Manchester United recently, is a huge deal in the Premier League era. It might also be a fleeting distraction from how the “product” – as those negotiating multi-billion television deals like to call it – has been blighted this season by the farcical implementation of VAR.
But, even in a small way, it is symbolic of how the Premier League is perennially pleased with itself.
Maybe, just maybe, the first phase of games in the Champions League knockout stages has given those who blithely trumpet the competition as the best in the world something of a reality check.
Sure, English football has European bragging rights after providing all four finalists for last season’s Champions League and Europa League competitions and they might yet dominate this time around.
But, until Manchester City stepped up to the plate in the later stages of their game at the Bernabeu, the idea that the Premier League was some way ahead of its European counterparts was exposed as nonsense.
Between them, Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea mustered just eight shots on target in their defeats to Atletico Madrid, RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich.
You would have to fancy Liverpool to turn things around at Anfield, but the facts show that, since the start of last season, Jurgen Klopp’s magnificent European champions have lost SIX of their 20 Champions League matches. In the same time, they have lost only ONE of their 65
Premier League matches. Their win rate in Europe since the start of the 2018/19 season has been 55 per cent.
Domestically, it has been more than 86 per cent.
Outstanding as they are at home, Liverpool should get past Atletico, but Chelsea have not got a prayer in Munich.
Few were shocked Bayern won at Stamford Bridge, but many seemed surprised at just how good they were.
And that is down purely to our own insularity.
How many pundits had a clue about Alphonso Davies?
Not many, if their shock at his pace and ability was anything to go by.
He made 81 appearances for Vancouver Whitecaps and has made 32 for Bayern.
While Davies and his team-mates should cruise past Chelsea again, Real Madrid face a mountainous task at Manchester City. City’s display in Madrid was excellent and you would not be surprised if Pep Guardiola’s side and Liverpool went deep into the tournament.
But this past weekand-a-bit has at least reminded us that there is a wider footballing world out there.
Just as – new hall of fame or not – there was a wider footballing world before 1992.
FIVE weeks after breaking his arm, champion jockey Richard Johnson drove home a winner on his first ride back yesterday. There are a lot of tough sportsmen and women out there but National Hunt jockeys take some beating. Roll on Cheltenham when they get their deserved moments in the sun.