English clubs appear to be leading the way in Europe, with five Premier League teams winning the same round for the second time this season in the Champions League.
Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle and Tottenham all won their matches this week, with the first four of those teams now in the top eight – the positions they must be in to automatically qualify for the play-offs.
Advertising
Only Chelsea failed to take all three points as they drew a surprise 2-2 at Qarabag on Wednesday, but they still sit comfortably in the middle of the group stage in 12th place.
Until this season, the Champions League had never seen five teams from the same country win the same round of matches. Now teams from England have succeeded twice.
“Five years from now we will look at this period of the next five years as England dominating, I don't see any other way,” Spanish football journalist Guillem Balag told BBC Sport.
Advertising
Bayern are playing very, very well and they can ruin that. PSG will have their moments. I think Barcelona and Real Madrid are behind, but there is no one else.”
So, after such a dominant start, are the English teams favorites to win the Champions League? And how likely is a fourth all-English final?
Why are English teams doing so well?
Arsenal are hoping to win the Champions League for the first time and although it is still early days, they have made a very encouraging start.
Advertising
Bayern and Inter themselves are the only teams with an excellent record at the league stage, sitting in first place with 12 points out of a possible 12.
As well as keeping a clean sheet in each of their four games, they also scored 11 goals – a scoring record surpassed only by Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain (both 14), Borussia Dortmund (13) and Barcelona (12).
Collectively, English teams outperform those from other countries: they won 17 of 24 games, scored a total of 56 goals (14 more than any others) and conceded just 17. This record has only been broken by teams from France, who have three clubs in the tournament compared to England's six.
Advertising
So why are English teams doing so well?
An important factor is the financial strength they have over teams in the rest of Europe, allowing them to spend more on transfer fees and wages to attract top talent.
Television rights have generated huge broadcast revenues for Premier League clubs, with revenues from this source dwarfing those in other countries.
Premier League clubs have spent more in the transfer window this summer than ever before. costs exceeded £3 billion.
Advertising
To highlight the financial power Premier League clubs have compared to the rest of Europe, total spending this year has exceeded that of Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A clubs combined.
More money means clubs can invest in bigger teams and Arsenal are seeing the benefits of spending more this summer to boost their strength as they top the Premier League and sit near the top of the league table in the Champions League.
“Obviously in a knockout competition anything can happen, but in terms of money, talent, coaching, facilities and even talent in the offices, England is the super league of Europe,” Balague added.
Advertising
“Perhaps I'm not saying this out of envy of Spanish football in general, it's just a reflection of what's going on.”
Can a record number of English clubs progress?
This is the first Champions League season to feature six clubs from the same country, and history will be made if all six England representatives reach the final.
Back in 2017, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham made progress, making England the first country to have five teams reach the knockout stages of the tournament.
Advertising
However, only two of those teams – Liverpool and Manchester City – progressed beyond the last 16, while the Reds went all the way to the final after eliminating City in the quarter-finals.
Liverpool lost to Real Madrid in the final.
Opta predicts Arsenal have a 99.8% chance of reaching the knockout stages, Manchester City a 97.4% chance and Liverpool a 95.5% chance.
However, the forecast model is slightly less confident in the automatic progress of the other three teams: Newcastle with 82%, Chelsea with 80.8% and Tottenham with 72%.
Advertising
Former Liverpool midfielder Stephen Warnock told BBC Sport: “I would say that's the case at the moment. [significant what English teams are doing]but it doesn't matter what happens at the moment because we saw what happened last year when Liverpool dominated and finished top of the league and then they were suddenly knocked out by PSG who were rubbish before.
“So at the moment I just don't see what effect it will have unless you get knocked out and it doesn't mean English teams will go through the knockout stage because it all depends on the draw and how you are set up later in the competition.”
What other teams are doing well?
Bayern's Harry Kane has scored five goals in four Champions League matches. [AFP via Getty Images]
Bayern Munich, led by the in-form Harry Kane, boasts excellent results in the league.
Advertising
No team has yet scored more than 14 goals (five of them by Kane) and conceded just three.
Currently, it's mostly the usual suspects occupying the top eight spots – the positions teams need to fill to automatically qualify for the knockout stages – with Inter Milan, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid joining Bayern, with four English teams in those positions.
Azerbaijani club Qarabag are showing that money isn't everything after they held Chelsea to a draw on Wednesday and now have seven points from four games, giving them a good chance of securing at least a place in the play-offs.
Advertising
What will it likely take to get a knockout?
If we take last season – the first to use a league phase format – as a barometer of what is needed to finish in the top eight, then around 16 points from eight games should be enough.
This means teams will likely have to win five out of eight games, which is what Premier League teams will have to achieve this season.
There is much more room to secure qualification for the playoffs, which go to teams finishing between ninth and 24th.
Advertising
Last season, Club Brugge secured the final qualifying spot for the play-offs by winning just three of their eight games and collecting a total of 11 points.
Who is more likely to go all the way?
It's still early days, but Arsenal's superb start gives them the benefit of the doubt that they will go all the way and win the competition.
Opta's forecasts give them a 23.4% chance of winning the Champions League, while Manchester City are predicted to be the second English team most likely to reach the final with 12.5%. Liverpool are England's third favorites with 11.3%.
Advertising
But former Everton midfielder Leon Osman believes the real test of Premier League teams will be knockouts.
He said, “It's great [what English teams are currently doing]But it's only when you get to the playoff stage, where literally one team goes through and the other goes home, that's the real test and that's when the big hitters come in.”
But Osman added that while it is just the beginning, there could be signs that Premier League teams are now finding the right balance between being able to be competitive at home and abroad.
Advertising
“We probably expected this” [dominance] for many years, but it has not yet materialized,” he said.
“Maybe it's the competitiveness of the Premier League that makes it hard to get the two teams together, but maybe they're starting to find the right balance this year.”
What are the chances that the final will be entirely English?
Of the 31 seasons with at least one English team in the Champions League, 16 of those campaigns saw every Premier League representative progress beyond the group stage or first group stage.
Advertising
Of those 16 times, 11 times English teams appeared in the final, with the 2007/08, 2018/19 and 2020/21 seasons having only English-language finals.
But Opta predicts that the most likely final at this stage will be an English team meeting a German team, with Arsenal (38.8%) and Bayern Munich (27.3%) the favorites to qualify.
