Has the Champions League started to disappear? Read where it's gone to!

The Champions League in England and English football is going through a little bit of an identity crisis at the moment. The relative lack of success of English teams in the last few editions is a major factor. After the successes of the years 2005 to 2009 when we had six finalists (and two winners) in five years, there have only been two finalists since.

Manchester City have really struggled with the competition ever with the money they have spent, the stars at their disposal and their success domestically. Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero have not had an impact.

Last season Liverpool were a huge disappointment and this season has seen some very mixed results in the early group stages. There seems to be a real threat to our fourth place in the competition from Italy.

But it's not just the drop in results that is affectng the competition. It happened with the FA Cup when coverage left the terrestrial channels for a more obscure channel. It was one of the reasons that the competition lost some prestige and excitement.

Now that the Champions League has moved from ITV and Sky completely, the competition has lost some visibility. I feel that the newspapers cover it less, the sports news on the BBC and ITV pay it less attention and it disappears from view a bit more. The little erosion of visibility makes a big difference. I don't always watch the group games with great vigour but I'm not really watching much at all this year. When the knockout starts I might feel differently but the fate of English clubs will have a bearing on that.

The two Manchester clubs is rate about 50-50 before this weeks games, with Chelsea at 60-40 and Arsenal currently at 40-60 after the first three rounds. The problem can be with qualifying second in the group and a horrible Round of 16 draw. I love to see English clubs test themselves against European greats such as Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. But meeting these teams too early in the competition has been part of out relative failure since the last English winner - Chelsea in 2012.

Let's look forward to a successful and exciting Champions League this season and some good progress for the English clubs.

Can you pick a better England team from those playing every week?

I've been looking at the next England squad for the upcoming internationals in October and there are more and more problems mounting for Roy Hodgson in his future selections. Only ten to fifteen years ago Sven Goran Eriksson would see a player playing for a Champions League team as the main criteria for being selected for the team, if not the squad.

We haven't got a great record in this year's Champions League as it is, especially after last night's poor showing by both Arsenal and Chelsea, but even ignoring that fact we have a very small pool of players that are starters for Champions League teams. For that matter we have very few players that are starters for Premier League team at the moment.

Below are the players that could be possibly considered as England internationals that actually started for their clubs in the last round of Premier League fixtures-

Manchester United
Chris Smalling
Michael Carrick
Wayne Rooney

Manchester City
Raheem Sterling

Tottenham Hotspur
Kyle Walker
Eric Dier
Harry Kane

West Ham United
Carl Jenkinson
James Tomkins
Aaron Cresswell

Arsenal
Theo Walcott

Leicester City
Jamie Vardy

Everton
Phil Jagielka
Ross Barkley

West Bromwich Albion
Saido Berahino

Crystal Palace
Scott Dann

Liverpool
Nathaniel Clyne
James Milner
Daniel Sturridge

Aston Villa
Scott Sinclair
Jack Grealish

Southanpton
Ryan Bertrand
James Ward-Prowse

Swansea City
Jonjo Shelvey

Chelsea
Gary Cahill

Newcastle United
Jack Colback

Stoke City
Jack Butland

Now, of course this is a snapshot and it ignores players such as Joe Hart (slight injury worry) and the likes of Phil Jones, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Keiran Gibbs that suffer with rotation at their clubs.

I'd like to think that being first choice for your team is a pre-requisite for selection for the national team, and based on that criteria here is my England team for the next internationals, whilst looking to the future.

Jack Butland
Nathaniel Clyne
Gary Cahill
Scott Dann
Aaron Cresswell
James Milner
James Ward-Prowse
Jonjo Shelvey
Raheem Sterling
Jamie Vardy
Harry Kane

I know that there's a lot of attacking intent in this team, and I'd look to a 4-3-3 formation with Vardy and Sterling working back along the wings to provide cover for the midfield three of Shelvey, Milner and Ward-Prowse. I think that we need to get over the early hurdles at European Championships and World Cups and this consistent failure is because of a few reasons-

Too little competition then too much competition
We have gone through many qualifying competitions where we've had no real opposition to stretch us and make us think about how we approach games and play the game. WE then go from this straight into a competition where we play good teams and fail. The FA has tried to deal with this for the upcoming European Championships by setting up friendlies against Spain and France and reports of friendlies against Germany and the Netherlands. I think that's all we can do as a nation to prepare. But we need to take the friendlies seriously and out out our best team, play competitively and try to win.

Not enough preparation time
This is a problem that's brought about by the popularity of the game and the money-making activities of the Premier League and the Premier League clubs. Chasing the dollar by having post-season tours, pre-season tours and friendlies does damage the quality of the product by increasing the quantity. This is going to have to be part of a root-and-branch review of the game at the top level and something will have to give - either the FA Cup, the League Cup, the Europa League, dropping the number of teams in the Premier League or limiting the off-season activity of clubs. I can't see any of these things happening.

Picking players that play
This is the idea from the list above. I have looked at players that play football for their clubs week-in, week-out as potential representatives of their country. There are 27 players in my list above and they would make a reasonable international squad. More importantly they would make a squad of players that are playing football at the top level in the country and you can filter the 27 down to the 11 with the best form to move the country forwards. I always liken the situation to the way Greece won the European Championships in 2004 with a team of "nobodies." But they were a team that worked hard together, knew their game plan and won by playing to their strengths.

We can do this with the work-rate of Vardy, the speed of Sterling, the goals of Kane and the possession of the midfield 3. If Greece did it, then why can't we?

Welcome - this is me!

Welcome to the first of my blogs on football - a lifelong passion. I suspect that there are many thousands of blogs on football out there and I'm not setting out to be different in a quirky way. All the views I express here are my own thoughts on current events in football, changes I think will help the game and my views.

This is a short introduction, to lay my cards on the table at the outset. I'm a Sunderland fan, but not one of those that hates everything in black and white. I am a passionate and positive supporter of my club and I don't need to feel hatred or vitriol towards our nearest rivals. I want all the North East teams to do well (the few that are left in the league.)

This blog will be a mix of reactions to action or stories that prick my interest, analysis of matches, teams and tactics plus my thoughts in where football as a whole goes from here. I've played to a reasonable level and attended well over 200 league and cup games plus friendlies and testimonials, so I've got a good background knowledge of the game that the world loves and I think I've got some insights to share that will be different from the stuff you usually read in the newspapers.

Hope this inspires you to at least have a look at some of my upcoming blog posts.

Thanks for reading this far!