I was actually talking to the other half about this just the other day.
I believe that the Champions League should be just that - a European league for the Champions of the respective countries. None of this letting four teams in - just one from each of the leagues, with a qualifying round if necessary. Then four groups of four, top two to a last 8, then knockout to the final.
just a horrible idea, teams have gone out in the group stages from the big three leagues(spain, england, italy) in the group stages because of the other quality in the other leagues. if you have one team per league the champs league would amount to, well, you'd end up with the same enjoyment from a "league" as the semi-finals and the final. Every single year you'd have a spanish, english team in the semi's, along with two from france, italy, germany and a couple others.
The reason you need more than one good team from each league is, its a champions league, not well, essentially what you're proposing in the world champions cup thing that Utd were in, which no one watched, no one cared about and was utter crap.
People say things, its been a big four, no longer can you get lucky and break the top 4. What crap, people were saying that for 5 years BEFORE Ipswich came out of nowhere for a year, we've had a dominant group for decades, that group changes slowly over time.
Arsenal are fast dropping down the pecking order, and only by other managers complete screw up's did we not lose it. Villa were great, until for no apparent reason O'Neill decided to completely change his winning team and formation, by changing formation and the team he started, it didn't win, for ages, but he didn't seem to notice. I think they one a single game in all competitions in like 16 games, dropped a ridiculous number of points, and well. It wasn't that the top 4 was so far clear this year, it was that Villa, Everton, Spurs all cocked up multiple times. Everton cocked up in not having a quality striker and injuries, Spurs and Villa shot themselves in the foot, all 3 are fully capable of breaking the top 4. City are slowly rebuilding, this season is a starter to build on, they simply didn't have time from the take over to buy the squad they needed. Remember that Chelsea got their money a year before Mourinho got there, they spent before he got there and had been spending for YEARS before Ranieri started to spend the Ruski's money.
City haven't had that lead in time, they will move up and will buy players that will bring them up to challenging for the title, looks like Pompie might have the cash to do similarly. Villa are moving forwards, Everton are moving forwards.
The next 2-3 years are set to be the most competitive with the hardest push on the top 3/4 in the past 5 years.
