Liverpool’s success in 2018-19 is the only time an English Premier League team has won the UEFA Champions League in the past eight seasons.
Spanish La Liga sides have generally dominated, with Real Madrid winning four and Barcelona one during this period. Defending champions Bayern Munich have won it twice since Chelsea did in 2011-12.
With the Champions League resuming this week as the Round of 16 gets underway, the Premier League has three representatives remaining.
And according to recent research from Betway, there’s a very good chance one of those may win it. The most valuable squads in European football often go far in this competition. To back that up, the 16 remaining clubs all make the current top 18 highest-valued squads.
The graphic below shows that Liverpool and Manchester City currently rank one and two among the most valuable squads.
Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane are each valued at €120 million in Liverpool’s €1.1 billion-rated squad, which is narrowly ahead of Manchester City’s €1.06 billion. It’s the latter who are the current runaway Premier League leaders though.
Behind both Premier League sides are defending champions Bayern Munich, but their €891.4 million squad is some distance behind.
How do the Premier League sides look?
Manchester City (3/1)
Pep Guardiola’s side have been made joint-favourites with Bayern Munich to win the Champions League for the first time in their history.
City are currently on a 15-game unbeaten streak domestically and have a seven-point lead over Manchester United below them, also with a game in hand. This should allow the Spanish coach to rest his star players ahead of important Champions League ties.
The Citizens face Borussia Monchengladbach in the Round of 16, a tie they are widely-expected to progress from, particularly with the defence looking much stronger since signing Ruben Dias.
Liverpool (15/2)
The last English team to get their hands on the trophy are Betway’s third favourites. However, Jurgen Klopp’s side are currently going through their worst form of the season, making a weak attempt of their Premier League title defence.
Virgil van Dijk has been a huge loss in central defence and the Reds would need to pull off a huge shock to win the Champions League with Jordan Henderson and Fabinho playing centre-back.
However, should Mohamed Salah, Sadio mane and Roberto Firmino find their form again between now and the end of the season then you cannot afford to write off the six-time champions of Europe.
RB Leipzig up next should be one of the ties of the round and well worth finding a Champions League stream to watch.
Chelsea (20/1)
Of the 16 teams left in the Champions League, Chelsea have spent the most in the transfer market as shown in the graphic earlier.
The West London club replaced Frank Lampard with Thomas Tuchel last month. The only previous time they won the Champions League was when they switched manager during the season. Defending champions Bayern Munich also did the same last season.
Chelsea do have plenty of talent in their squad, but the likes of Timo Werner, N’Golo Kante and Kai Havertz have all failed to live up to expectation so far this season. There are signs they have improved defensively in recent weeks under the German coach, compared to Frank Lampard.
Atletico Madrid in the Round of 16 could spell the end for the Blues though…
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