“There are wholly unrelated and individual reasons why England’s clubs all failed to achieve positive results this week in the Champions League. There always are. Arsenal throwing away a 3-0 lead at home was a freak result (in statistical terms, at least), Liverpool seemed to play for a narrow defeat in Madrid, Chelsea weren’t under any real pressure to win at Maribor and Manchester City … God knows. But a look at recent seasons suggests that these shocks should no longer come as a surprise. Since leading UEFA’s country coefficient rankings in 2007-08 — the year of the all-English Champions League final in Moscow — Premier League clubs have slowly but steadily chalked up less impressive results in European competitions.” ESPN