IT’S a two part Unwrapped, of sorts, all on the merits, or otherwise, of the Europa League.
In part one Rob Gutmann was joined by Stuart Wright, Paul Senior and Serafino Ingardia in the TAW den. Then Neil Atkinson spoke to Julien Laurens from BT Sport up the TAW Tower. Then we spliced it together LIKE MAGIC.
Europa with real Europeans. Get on us.
Great piece with JL very thought provoking in terms of why we are seeing a definite lack of craft and guile in the EPL compared to La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A and possibly Ligue1, and I can’t help thinking back to before the English golden age of 77-85 when we bossed the European Cup along with Forrest and Villa and then there’s the most recent times between 99 to 2012 when to a lesser degree LFC the Mancs and Chelsea were all victorious whilst all also suffered UCL final defeats. Since 2012 theres been a definite see change of decline in European comps and when JL was talking about French academies developing clever youth players, it gets you thinking what has changed in our game.
It’s clear when we cast our minds back to the above golden eras that all the clubs were packed with British players, naturally less so from 99 however if we consider the lack of British genuine top players now, then is this a coincidence or is it sadly pivotal to the current decline. Naturally it would take better authorities than us mere mortals to decipher the reasons for such a drastic u turn especially when it coincides with a Period of such financial riches and wealth within the English game which to me makes the situation more alarming as normally it goes in cycles especially between la Liga and EPL clubs to dominate Europe and currently it’s clearly La Ligas turn. However for me right now I certainly don’t anticipate our League clubs to be winning any Euro Cups any time soon.
Looking forward to tonight’s game. Rodgers leaving many first 11 behind, means we’ll get to see the fringe players in action. Who will no doubt play with more energy, pace and guile that the usual dross. Even if we come back with no points, at least the players will have given us something to get behind.