Former Three Lions manager Fabio Capello has had a dig at the Premier League, and professes to know exactly what is going wrong to cause England’s failure in Europe.
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The Russia manager claims that the lack of real “champions” in England has made the quality of the top-flight “modest”, which hasn’t given teams the essential experience to challenge the greatest teams and players in Europe, such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
The 68-year-old said: “I wouldn’t say it’s a crisis, that’s a strong word,” as quoted by the Mirror.
“I’d say that it’s a low period, related to a number of factors such as players who play in the Premier League who have won championships, but are not champions.
“There’s no [Lionel] Messi, [Cristiano] Ronaldo, [Manuel] Neuer or [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic.” he said.
“If you always play tennis against a modest opponent you’ll never improve, the absence of big players doesn’t help others grow.”
While some may quash the words of Capello as nonsense, does the Premier League boast any “global superstars?”
Among the biggest names in England’s top-flight must go to the likes of Wayne Rooney, Sergio Aguero, and Cesc Fabregas, to name but a few – and, while these players certainly pose a challenge to the very best, they do not possess the same feared status as Messi, Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic on the pitch.
Nonetheless, he also blamed a fixture pile-up for failure, “Also, they play too much. Boxing Day fixtures are beautiful, but they have a price.”