At first blush, it might seem reactionary. With England’s top two clubs crashing out of the Champions League at the group stage and its remaining two representatives in danger of falling at the first knockout round, the narrative of a Premier League in decline was entirely predictable. Not since the 1995/96 tournament, which featured only 16 teams – and only the champions from each league represented – has an English side failed to reach the quarterfinals. Recent seasons have seen England feature heavily in the latter stages, producing three semifinalists not once but twice (in 2007 and 2009), as well as seven finalists and two champions in the last seven years. It’s a pattern of excellence that makes this season’s mediocrity all the more jarring.  

For those who were paying attention, however, the questions were being asked some time before the disappointments of 2011/12. At the very least, watching Manchester United secure last season’s league crown by an eventual margin of nine points with what appeared their weakest team in half a decade cast into sharp relief the drop in standards at the upper echelons of the English game. The hype surrounding the “Big Four” of United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool might have provoked yawns and eye-rolling from many quarters, but their domination of the top flight from the middle of the 2000s onwards was very much real – between 2003 and 2009, only Everton broke their stranglehold on the Premier League’s top four places. Their success was not limited to domestic matters either, as all four clubs made at least two Champions League semifinals and one final during that period, with Liverpool (2005) and United (2008) emerging triumphant overall.  

The argument has been made that these things are cyclical, with Italy and Spain enduring similar peaks and troughs over the last several years. On a more basic level though, England’s current dip has a far more pointed explanation. In the same way as the Big Four’s exploits were the driving force behind the Premier League’s self-designated status as The Best League in the World™, their inability to build on that success (for varying reasons) has cast serious doubts over that oft-repeated boast.  

United’s case might be the most frustrating as far as its followers are concerned – paradoxically, given that the Red Devils have easily been the decade’s most successful club, as they were in the nineties. 2010/11 saw them claim their fourth league title in five seasons, a period during which their owners, the Glazer family, have haemorrhaged tens of millions of pounds a year out of the club to service the nine-figure debt which resulted from their leveraged takeover in 2005.  

Ferguson’s eye for a bargain (think Cristiano Ronaldo, Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, and Javier Hernandez) and the squad strength and winning mentality he cultivated in previous years have helped maintain the club's high level of achievement even as stars like Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, Edwin van der Sar, and Paul Scholes have departed without being truly replaced. When they do spend big, it tends to be on younger players, who offer higher resale value and command lower wages than more established names. While the likes of Hernandez, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, and David de Gea, as well as youth-team products Tom Cleverley and Danny Welbeck, have flashed varying degrees of star potential, the overarching effect is that the quality of the United squad has been eroded at a time when the club’s sporting and financial success should be allowing it to compete with the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona. The continued reliance on old stagers like Scholes (who had to be begged out of retirement) and Ryan Giggs in midfield is a microcosm of the current situation, with only Vidic and Wayne Rooney the only world class talents at Ferguson’s disposal.  

At Chelsea, one could argue that the problems began with the acrimonious exit of manager Jose Mourinho, who led the club to successive league titles in 2005 and 2006. Despite the massive advantage afforded by Roman Abramovich’s roubles, the Blues would not return to the top until 2009/10, four years and four managers later. The man who led them to that title, Carlo Ancelotti, has since been shown the door, and his replacement, Andre Villas-Boas, appears on borrowed time as the club faces its worst season of the Abramovich era.  

Villas-Boas’ problems stem in large part from the clash between his preferred philosophy and that of the old guard (John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, and Petr Cech) which has remained entrenched since Mourinho’s tenure, but here again the issue of star names not being adequately replaced crops up. With Abramovich unwilling or unable to maintain the stratospheric spending of his early years with the club, a few isolated big-money purchases have been unable to stave off decline. The likes of Ricardo Carvalho, Arjen Robben, Claude Makelele, Michael Ballack, Nicolas Anelka, and Alex have all left since the Mourinho years, while Terry, Lampard, Drogba, and Cech have suffered dips in performance. Spaniard Juan Mata, signed last summer, and £50 million white elephant Fernando Torres are the only proven stars to come into the fold of late, while the strength in depth which was once so fearsome has also suffered.  

Arsenal’s malaise can be blamed on the stubbornness of manager Arsene Wenger, the frugality of the current ownership group, or both, depending on who you ask. The upshot is more straightforward, with the following players exiting the club since their memorable unbeaten season of 2003/04: Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Ashley Cole, Sol Campbell, Fredrik Ljungberg, Robert Pires, Gilberto Silva, Mathieu Flamini, Jens Lehmann, Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Toure, Gael Clichy, Cesc Fabregas, and Samir Nasri. Not all of those departures appeared crippling at the time, but each has at some point been a key squad member at the very least, yet experienced replacements have rarely been acquired. In some cases that replacement has been promoted from within – Clichy took over from Cole at left-back, for example – but over the years that constant drain of talent has taken its toll.  

Wenger has been forced (or forced himself) to lean heavily on young players who lack the know-how and mental strength that comes from winning experience. That fragility has helped produce what looks like being a seventh successive season with silverware, and with each barren year the players Wenger has nurtured into stars inevitably cast their eyes elsewhere; skipper Robin van Persie is likely to follow the example of Fabregas and Nasri before him, and young Jack Wilshere could well continue the cycle in a few years. The fact that a team that was once United’s only credible challenger now seems satisfied with a top-four finish tells its own story.  

Liverpool’s only sustained title challenge in recent history came nearly three years ago, but despite the often unfair treatment of manager Rafa Benitez by the English media, he did establish the club as regular Champions League participants and established a sound foundation for further success. The spine of the team that finished second in 2008/09 has since been devastated, with midfielders Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano packing their bags for Spain, Torres making his ill-fated move to Chelsea, and club stalwarts Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard seeing their influence reduced by age and injury. With Boston-based Fenway Sports Group wresting ownership from the club to end the disastrous reign of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, the Reds’ outlook appears somewhat rosier these days, but a serious of big-money buys have thus far failed to deliver (Andy Carroll being the most notorious example).  

In sum, the top end of the league has lost a staggering amount of world class talent over the last five years, with several other stars (to those mentioned earlier add Rio Ferdinand and Michael Essien) no longer playing to their previous high standards. With a few exceptions (Luis Suarez joining Liverpool, Chelsea adding Mata, Rafael van der Vaart and Luka Modric at Tottenham) only Manchester City, powered by petrodollars, have been able to significantly redress the balance. That has led to a more open, unpredictable league at the expense of the concentration of talent and depth which allowed the “Big Four” to excel at the domestic and continental level.