Glory Era Over for the Premier League?

For the first time since 1995/96, the Champions League will feature no clubs from the English Premier League in the quarterfinals. This comes following the exits of Manchester United and Arsenal from the recently concluded Round of 16 in heartbreaking circumstances - Manchester City and Chelsea of course had exited the competition before the new year after failing to make it out of the group stages.

The Champions League quarterfinals this year has a very Spanish and German feel to it with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga from La Liga and Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich from the Bundesliga taking on the likes of Juventus, Galatasaray and Paris St Germain.

It appears that a recession troubled Europe has struck back at the English with a vengeance after years of being shadowed by the very wealthy and televised Premier League.

But has the Premier League gone down in standard or have the clubs on the continent lifted their game?

While the standard of the leagues do have some correlation with the number of clubs each league has in the latter stages of the Champions League - the Spanish and German leagues are in a stronger position than the Italian league - the cup do-or-die nature of the Champions League - and the game of football itself - means the best sides often don't end up winning the competition.

Did Chelsea use up all of England's luck last season in winning the Champions League?

We saw that last season with a supposedly inferior Chelsea team beating the apparently superior Barcelona and Bayern Munich by just parking the bus and cancelling out the midfield. And we saw runaway champions, Manchester United lose to an apparently struggling 3rd placed Real Madrid who needed to play containing tactics at Old Trafford to stay in the game.

There's no doubt that the Premier League sides have had a truly golden era in Europe - a Premier League side has made every Champions League final since 2005 until last year except once in 2010. All four Premier League representatives made the quarterfinals in two consecutive years (2008 and 2009) - in those same seasons, 3 Premier League clubs made up the semifinals. This compares favourably with the previous golden era of English football in the early 1980s - let's bear in mind England could only have 2 maximum entries back then.

City will surely see less of these scenes in the future

One must bear in mind that most of that time, the Premier League's Champions League contestants were unchanged - Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, the so-called "big four", made the Champions League every season from 2004 to 2010. Tottenham was the first club to break that quartet and were eventually joined by Manchester City while Liverpool have somewhat fallen out of the running.

However, that constancy definitely helped those sides in their quest to conquer Europe with the certainty of competing in the Champions League through their league positions enabling them to spend a bit more time and energy on winning the Champions League itself. It is also a sign of how good the "big four" were during the first decade of the millennium.

While the race for the top 4 in the Premier League has become far more competitive and made the Premier League even better to watch, one wonders if the fatigue suffered by clubs in a race to stay in front has had a detrimental effect on their European involvements.

Will we see Bale in a Spurs top in the Champions League next season?

Nevertheless, like most things, the Champions League runs in cycles and while the cycle might have moved on from the Premier League, it is likely to come back given the Premier League's financial strength and the fact that the best players still want to go and play in that league. The likes of Manchester City and Tottenham will almost certainly become better in the Champions League with time.

That and a bit of luck would be nice too. Mind you, the Premier League clubs had plenty of that during their golden run so this was always going to be inevitable.