I do think the depth of the teams in the Champions League has improved a lot too. I didn't think we (Spurs) had improved that well in that area but it seems the addition of Sanchez has done a lot there in freeing up Dier to be depth for either CB or CDM, though we are still a little light up top imo. The depth improvement for City is obvious, Chelsea's has gotten worse and I think that shows as they are doing the worst in their group despite having an easier group.
I think the the quality wasn't necessarily better but just that a lot of games in the Premier League are just more physically taxing, however that is not really an excuse, premier league clubs know what their schedule is like and should've adjusted to it years ago like they have this season if that was really the issue.
Again, that was one of the excuses, and I disagree with that. Premiership teams dominated Europe when the teams were quality. Period. Teams cover roughly same distance/match in all top leagues, and they have similar # of matches, too.
These excuses were wrong back then and still are wrong. They are essentially saying "our league is better that is why we are poor", nonsense really.
On the other hand, a simple explanation works a lot better. Premier League has had a dreadful period when the likes of ManU were coached by Moyes. Those years were poor, really poor, and in fact, that helped Leicester win the league. The same Leicester would struggle to finish in top 4 this season. The league been clearly improving in the past year or so, and you can see from the quality of football as well. Therefore, it is not a surprise that European results have also gotten a lot better as well. And all of a sudden, you don't need any excuses such as winter break (which was hilariously used even in September, i.e., for CL group stages in the past 5-6 years).
