European Football - Friend or Foe

       Over the next three days six from the top seven teams last will compete in European football be it either Champions League or Europa League.  I am sure most people are aware of the term 'Continental Hangover' meaning teams play worse than normal after a mid week European game.  But watching this weekends performances by this years teams in Europe I was wondering if there is some form of 'Continental Jitters' teams not performing the game before the trip into Europe.  I decided to go and have a look at the results of Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Fulham before, after and between their European adventures.

      Well lets start with the reigning league champions Chelsea.  They lost 6 games in total last season, 2 of them came before and 1 came after Champions League matches.  So lets put that into context, Chelsea only played 8 Champions League matches last season after going out to the eventual winners, Inter, in the first knockout round.  That means that 16 matches would of been before, after or between Champions League matches, so they lost 3 if those 16 compare to 3 from the remaining 22.  Chelsea don't really show any signs of Continental Hangover or Jitters, the sides they lost to were Man City twice and Aston Villa.

 

      Now lets take a look at Manchester United.  They lost 7 games in total last season, none of them came before, 4 came after and 1 came between Champions League matches.  So lets put that into context, United played 10 Champions League matches last season after going out to the eventual runners-up, Bayern Munich, in the quarter finals.  That means that 19 matches would of been before, after or between Champions League matches, so they lost 5 if those 19 compare to 2 from the remaining 19.  Manchester United do indeed show some signs of Continental Hangover, the sides they lost to were Liverpool, Everton,  Villa and Chelsea twice.

 

      Now lets take a look at Arsenal.  They lost 9 games in total last season, 2 of them came before, 3 came after Champions League matches.  So lets put that into context, Arsenal played 12 Champions League matches last season after going out to Barcelona, in the quarter finals.  That means that 19 matches would of been before, after or between Champions League matches, so they lost 5 if those 21 compare to 4 from the remaining 17.  Arsenal show some small signs of Continental Hangover and Jitters, the sides they lost to were Chelsea, Spurs, Sunderland, Manchester United and City.

 

  Now lets take a look at Liverpool.  They lost 11 games in total last season, 4 of them came before, 4 came after Champions League or Europa League matches, they never lost a match between the two legged Europa League matches.  So lets put that into context,  Liverpool played 6 Champions League matches after finishing 3rd in their group, they then played 8 Europa League Matches.  That means that 24 matches would of been before, after or between Champions League and Europa League matches, so they lost 8 if those 24 compare to 3 from the remaining 14.  Liverpool show some signs of Continental Hangover and Jitters.

 

       And finally lets look at Fulham.  They lost 16 games in total last season, 3 of them came before, 3 came after and 3 of them came between Europa League matches.  So lets put that into context, Fulham played 19 Europa League matches last season after going out in the final to Athletico Madrid  That means that 27 matches would of been before, after or between Europa League matches, so they lost 9 if those 27 compare to 7 from the remaining 11.  Fulham don't really seem to show signs of Continental Hangover or Jitters they just didn't have a big enough squad to cope, their worst run actually came when they weren't playing in Europe.  They lost 5 in row in December and January.

     Well looking at this data the is possibly a case for Continental Jitters but as with most of these ideas it doesn't really affect the top teams it only affects the teams that don't have strong enough squads.