With the money on offer abroad, a winter break and silverware almost guaranteed, no wonder players are shunning our big clubs ΣΣ
The tills do pretty good business in the Boutique PSG on the Champs-Élysées, but the rumour that the match-worn shirts of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Angel Di Maria and Edinson Cavani smell of aftershave rather than perspiration holds as much truth as the suggestion that Ligue 1 is competitive this season.
Or any other season, for that matter, judging by the vice-like grip which Paris Saint-Germain have imposed on French football since Qatar Sports Investments began to pump its millions into Les Parisiens in 2012.
PSG have won the last three French championships and, having moved 17 points clear of second-placed Angers with a 5-1 victory against Lyons at Parc des Princes on Sunday, might even make it four in a row before spring arrives in Paris.
But while the Premier League basks in the self-satisfaction of being Europe’s most competitive top flight this season, there is now a growing sense of alarm within the boardrooms of some of English football’s biggest clubs that the freakish nature of this campaign will only add to the problems they have faced in the transfer market in recent windows.
Bournemouth securing back-to-back league victories against Chelsea and Manchester United is box-office news for the Premier League, just as Newcastle defeating Liverpool 2-0 was earlier this month.
The Leicester City fairy tale is another story which stops the clocks in Tokyo, Cape Town and Sydney, but it is not all good news, certainly for those who wish to see the world’s best players performing in English football.
One senior figure at a top Premier League club confided recently that some elite players, and their representatives, now
Why gamble on a 38-game slog when trophies are as good as guaranteed in Paris or Bavaria?
regard a move to the richest league in the world as a risk not worth taking.
When the money on offer at PSG or Bayern Munich is almost as eye-watering as the wages being signed off at Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge or the Etihad Stadium, why gamble on a 38-game slog, with no winter break, for only the possibility of silverware when trophies are as good as guaranteed in Paris or Bavaria?
Manchester United had their fingers burned in this respect with Di Maria, who is now thriving with PSG in Ligue 1 following his summer move from Old Trafford, less than a year after becoming the British record transfer by completing a £59.7m transfer from Real Madrid.
While the Argentine started like an express train in a United shirt, he quickly faded – for both on and off-field reasons – and found that he could not even coast through an FA Cup fourth-round tie against League Two Cambridge United due to the competitive nature of the lowly opponents, who forced a replay at Old Trafford.
Di Maria’s United team-mates would also note how the winger would go to ground, clutch an ankle or knee and then cast a quick glance to the bench to see whether his problem was alarming enough for Louis van Gaal to send on the physiotherapist.
English football proved unforgiving for the 27-year-old, just as Radamel Falcao will not be urging any Colombian team-mates to move to the Premier League in the wake of his reputation-burning spells with United and Chelsea, but life in France is a dream for Di Maria.
PSG have won 15 and drawn three of their 18 league games and Di Maria can look forward to winning a title medal, maybe even a Coupe de France too, while his wife can spend afternoons eating macaroons over afternoon tea at Ladurée.
And so it goes for Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Müller at Bayern, two players for whom United would have paid the earth, in transfer fees and wages, this summer only for the pair to choose another season of trophy-collecting at the Allianz Arena.
Bastian Schweinsteiger has taken the plunge by leaving Bayern for United but, at 31, the midfielder was surplus to requirements under Pep Guardiola and, with some games this season ending with the German bearing the expression of a marathon runner who has just finished second, it makes you wonder if he would have found it quite so tough against Hoffenheim or Mainz.
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the Bayern chief executive, has already voiced concerns that English clubs, further financially strengthened by a new £5.14bn broadcasting deal from 2016, will begin to raid the Bundesliga for talent and offer astronomical wages to lure the best young German stars to the Premier League.
La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 will also be at the mercy of clubs such as Watford, Norwich and Swansea – hardly the Premier League’s superpowers – plucking their rising stars away, but there is a difference between the good and the very best.
The elite will continue to be able to choose between PSG, Bayern, Real Madrid, Barcelona and England’s heavyweights, but when was the last time an English club fended off such powerful rivals for a new signing?
Sergio Aguero, perhaps, when he left Atletico Madrid for Manchester City in 2011, but impressive as Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Özil have been for Arsenal this season – and Cesc Fabregas for Chelsea last term – all three of those players were happily offloaded by Barcelona and Real.
Luis Suarez, in contrast, grew tired of playing out of his skin for runners-up medals at Liverpool and traded Anfield for a treble in his first season at Barcelona.
As for Paul Pogba, he could have had his pick of Chelsea or City last summer, but chose to stay at Juventus in order to move to the Nou Camp in 2016.
So while English football may collectively roll its eyes at PSG’s procession in France and Bayern’s dominance in Germany, the pats on the back about the unpredictability and drama of this season’s Premier League may be missing the point.
The Premier League is fantastic, the envy of the rest, but in an era when the superstars want medals to match their status, why risk three years of nothing at United, Liverpool or Chelsea when they serve silverware on a plate elsewhere?
Only Moyes could cavil at Özil’s impact for Arsenal
David Moyes was never a fan of the “Dithering Dave” nickname bestowed on him by those Everton supporters who had grown weary of the Scot’s perceived indecision when pursuing a new signing, but he did himself few favours on Sunday by suggesting that “the jury is still out on Mesut Özil”.
Özil has 13 assists for Arsenal this season and is performing like a player who could inspire his team to the title, but he perhaps does not match Leon Osman’s work rate or head the ball like Phil Jagielka enough for Moyes’ tastes.
Saint-Etienne omen means England’s chips may be up
When England wrap up their Group B fixtures at Euro 2016 with a game against Slovakia in Saint-Etienne on June 20, the chips will be down for Roy Hodgson and his team in more ways than merely securing passage to the second round.
The Stade Geoffroy Guichard, which produces its own energy with solar panels installed in 2007, is also powered by bio fuel generated from recycled chip oil, so let us hope there are no gags about Hodgson being French fried after the game.