Steven Gerrard’s Forlorn GazeFlickr: NUBR

With a record £835m spent in the latest summer transfer window and a TV deal worth an estimated £1.8bn a year, you might expect the Premier League to be the dominant force in European club football. Although if you do, you probably also think ‘Ronaldo’ most commonly refers to a pre-eminent Brazilian superstar of average life expectancy.

However there was a time, the majority of the time, when English clubs were able to justify their billing as powerhouses of Europe: only one Champions League final between the years of 2005 and 2012 did not feature at least one Premier League side. But a recent slide in form from our nation’s finest (and by ‘finest’ I mean imports), has led many (and by ‘many’ I mean Roy Keane), to question the supposed quality of the Premier League. Keane suggested that the British public have been “brainwashed” by the “best brand in the world” into believing in the greatness of the Premier League. Indeed, this may or may not be true. One of the two.

Of course others have rejected this view and suggest instead that the root of the Premier League’s continental problems lies elsewhere. José Mourinho, the fountain of wise words that he is, has argued that TV scheduling is to blame. Whilst other European teams often have matches scheduled on a Friday prior to a continental fixture, English teams are regularly left waiting to play their domestic game until Saturday evening or, even Sunday, in some cases, Mourinho, who has also worked in Portugal, Spain and Italy, notes that “there is something in this country that goes outside my understanding”. And whilst I’m undecided as to whether that actually makes any sense, he may well have a point.

In the same vein, the sheer intensity of the Premier League’s Christmas period (five games in fifteen days for some) has no doubt disadvantaged Premier League players against their well-rested European counterparts, who in stark contrast will have enjoyed a winter break of around two weeks.

So it is hardly surprising that, come the end of the season, England’s Premier League-based players (and Owen Hargreaves) have always seemed to struggle so much for fitness at major international tournaments. This is particularly true when coupled with the fact that the Premier League is widely considered, amongst English pundits serving an English audience, to be the most physically demanding league of them all.

Another school of thought concedes that, although the Premier League’s top sides may not be at the level of those playing in Spain or Germany, this in fact points to the strength in the depth of English clubs. It is argued that the relatively even distribution of revenue amongst Premier League clubs compared with other top European leagues - where deals are negotiated with clubs on an individual basis - has resulted in more formidable ‘lesser sides’.

It is certainly true that top Premier League teams are not afforded the luxury of being able to rest players against such sides, as is the often the case in other leagues. Unless, of course, the year is 2008 and your next fixture is against Derby County.

A crisis, this is certainly not: a successful season this year, and concerns will no doubt subside. Should standards continue to fall, however, and with an OFCOM probe threatening to end an era of prosperity (it definitely won’t), the feeling may be that the tide is just beginning to turn against the Premier League.