Emphatic defeats dished out by Napoli and AC Milan over the last two weeks has placed the Premier League’s continued presence in this season’s edition of the Champions League in severe doubt. Is this the end of an era?

We may be only halfway through the Champions League Round of 16 but for the two English sides involved, Arsenal and Chelsea, it would seem that the second leg of both their respective ties have been rendered rather meaningless.

Should Arsenal and Chelsea fail to overcome their first leg deficits, Arsenal need to score five unanswered goals whilst Chelsea will need at least two without reply, it will represent the first time that not a single English club has been in the quarter finals of the Champions League since 1996. What’s more six of the last seven Champions League finals have been contested by one English side or more. Liverpool in 2005, Arsenal in 2006, Liverpool again in 2007, whilst 2008 saw the first ever all English final between Chelsea and Manchester United in Moscow. United were in the final once more in 2009, before getting back to the final for a third time in four years in 2011.

Barcelona may be the best side in the world; they defeated English opposition in the 2006, 2009 and 2011 finals, but there is little doubting which European league has boasted the strongest teams collectively in European competition over the last decade.

It is somewhat unfortunate for British football, and in particular Manchester United, that this lucrative period for English football in Europe, certainly their best post the Heysel ban, has fallen in line with possibly the greatest football team ever. Whether or not this season turns out to be a mere blip, it is surely a cause for concern that the Premier League’s two best teams, looking solely at the league table, failed to make it out of the group stage, and the only remaining two look set to crash out at the first knockout round.

This raises the question, are the best English sides getting worse? Or is there simply more competition from leagues such as the Serie A?

It is perhaps a little bit of both. In the Premier League, we have seen a greater spread of talent, caused by the financial clout of Manchester City and, though not to the same extreme, Tottenham Hotspurs. Today, the league’s best players are no longer concentrated into the “Big Four” as they were once termed.

The days where Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United were all seemingly guaranteed Champions League qualification have been swept away by the likes of Manchester City, whose Arab riches have seen them transform from relegation battlers to title favourites in the space of five or so years, and Tottenham, who boast players of the calibre of Luka Modric, Rafael Van der Vaart, Emmanuel Adebayor and Gareth Bale.

This has seen a significant rise in the competitiveness of the Premier League as a domestic competition, which in the long run can only be a good thing, but it has perhaps undermined England’s big achievers in Europe over the last few years by keeping some of the premier talent out of their grasps.

The Serie A is beginning to bear the long term fruit of this competitiveness however. Enjoying it’s own revival with the return of Juventus and AC Milan as real forces domestically, as well as the rise of Napoli as well as others like Udinese and Lazio, league domination is no longer the stroll in the park it has been for the last couple of years for Inter Milan.

Roma too have struggled to compete with the fresh competition from those that usually dwelled comfortably beneath them, and the greater spread of talent across the league has made Italian teams much better equipped to take on the English heavyweights who have dominated the competition for so long.

This isn’t a sob story of course; England’s four representatives in the Champions League this season have played well within themselves, and with only one English team with a slight chance of a quarter final appearance, and this will serve as a harsh but perhaps much needed reminder that nothing but the absolute best will suffice in Europe, regardless of how big or small the clubs you are faced with.

Just ask Sir Alex Ferguson and his players, who followed up last season’s runners up effort with a humiliating exit before Christmas, courtesy of a group which contained Benfica, FC Basel and Otelul Galati. Put it down to injuries, mismanagement or complacency, the fact is none have been anywhere near good enough to warrant a prolonged run in Europe, particularly in the light of the tremendous football the Italians and Spanish have served up in this season’s campaign.

Whether or not this is the end of a real golden period for English clubs in football’s greatest club competition remains to be seen, or just one erratic season remains to be seen, but it is certainly an area that will need to be addressed by the heavyweights of the English game next season.