The Premier League is the 'best league in the world' - so why is it home to just one world-class attacker and no midfielders?

There was a time when the Premier League simply couldn't afford to sign the very best players in the world. Back in the 1990s, when the breakaway competition was still in its infancy, big names only really moved to England at the tail end of their careers (Ruud Gullit, Gianluca Vialli and Gianfranco Zola), or after struggling elsewhere for one reason or another (Eric Cantona, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp). Hard as it may be to fathom in the current economic climate, Italy was the centre of the footballing universe and the game's top talents nearly all played in Serie A.

Money can no longer be held up as an excuse, though. On the contrary, it makes the paucity of top-tier talent in the Premier League all the more shocking. Over the past 25 years, the Premier League has become a financial colossus, as underlined by its unprecedented level of dominance in the transfer market.

EPL clubs spent a record-breaking £3.5 billion ($4.6bn) during the summer window - more than all of their counterparts in Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga combined. And yet the Premier League has still struggled to attract the game's very best players while at the absolute peak of their powers.

The Ballon d'Or, for example, may be little more than a popularity contest but it's actually quite reflective of star power for that very reason, and it's telling that only three Premier League players have won the prize since the turn of the century: Michael Owen (2001), Cristiano Ronaldo (2008) and Rodri (2024).

Granted, the Premier League obviously boasted some other truly world-class players during the periods in question but it's telling that the likes of Thierry Henry, Luka Modric, Gareth Bale, Luis Suarez and Eden Hazard all ended up moving to Spain - just like Owen, Ronaldo and, most recently of all, Rodri. Furthermore, of those named above, only Henry, Rodri and Hazard could be said to have spent their prime years in England, with the latter leaving Chelsea at 28.

Consequently, there is simply no getting away from the fact that while the Premier League may be the most popular league in the world, Barcelona and Real Madrid remain the pinnacle of the profession for the majority of players from around the globe.

There are obviously numerous cultural, climatic and linguistic reasons behind the lure of La Liga's top two teams. Certainly, for the majority of South America's prodigiously gifted players, Madrid and Barcelona are - and always have been - the dream destinations. However, even England's finest footballers hold Real and Barca in the highest esteem.

Liverpool-born winger Steve McManaman, who won two Champions Leagues with Madrid, says he couldn't turn down the opportunity to "wear that iconic white strip", while another former Kop idol, Owen, told GOAL, "You think you're gonna be a Liverpool player for life but then you think, 'Oh my God, it's Real Madrid – I'll regret this forever if I say no.'"

Trent Alexander-Arnold recently experienced the same conflicting emotions before rather revealingly deciding that his Ballon d'Or prospects would be best served by swapping Anfield for the Bernabeu, but Jude Bellingham "didn't think twice" about signing for Madrid when he got the call from Florentino Perez - even though the much-coveted midfielder could have had his pick of Premier League clubs.

As for Barcelona, both Marcus Rashford and Anthony Gordon have referred to their respective transfers to Camp Nou as a dream come true, with the latter admitting that he'd wanted to play for the Catalans since the age of three.

Whether one believes that or not, there's no denying that English players are now more willing than ever to move abroad. Just look at the case of Harry Kane.

The striker's preference may have been to remain in his native England when Tottenham Hotspur finally agreed to sell him in 2023 but there weren't many people who believed that he'd actually join an overseas club - and yet Kane has revealed that his decision to sign for Bayern Munich was partly inspired by David Beckham's transfer to Madrid 20 years previously.

"He was my idol," Kane told TNT Sports. "We went to the same school, we grew up in the same area, he was England captain when I was growing up. So I wanted to follow in his footsteps [by playing abroad]. I know it's not something that many English players do, but it's the best thing I've ever done."

Clearly, attitudes are changing, even among the older generation, while Bellingham's career trajectory illustrates the benefits of moving to the continent at a young age. The fact that the only two Englishmen in our World-Class Club play for foreign clubs should be of concern to the Premier League, but the overall lack of elite attacking talent is far more worrying.

The Premier League may be the most-watched championship on the planet but's no longer particularly easy on the eye. The atmosphere in the grounds is great, but the quality on the pitch is not. The focus on athleticism has only intensified in recent years, with the emphasis now very much on physique over technique - which is what made Arsenal such fitting champions last season.

Mikel Arteta and his players personify the Premier League's principle values: strength, pace, power, conservatism and cynicism. They've essentially made 'The Beautiful Game' all about winning ugly - and reaped the rewards by winning a first title since 2004, which is why Arsenal's game plan, which relies heavily on set-pieces, has become a blueprint that rivals have embraced. The net result was a significant decrease in goals from open play in 2025-26 and, in such a restrictive environment, it's obviously difficult for offensive players to excel.

There has been some encouraging early signs that this season could be different, with certain sides playing with greater freedom, including Arsenal to a degree, but there's no denying that Haaland is the league's one undisputed superstar, which makes Manchester City's present predicament all the more intriguing.

In the wake of last week's earth-shattering news that the eight-time EPL winners have been found guilty of breaching 114 of the competition's financial rules, there's suddenly a very real chance that the Norwegian No.9, who's so good and so engaging that he even cracked America during the summer, could leave the Etihad at the end of the current campaign. Haaland is already being linked with Barca and Real Madrid (obviously!) and his exit would be a disaster for a competition already crying out for a Kylian Mbappe and lacking a Lamine Yamal. Indeed, Arsenal's proposed signing of Vinicius Junior generated so much excitement in England because nobody could really remember the last time a Premier League club had signed one of the very best players in the world while still in his prime.

Again, the competition is not short on thrilling talents or promising players. When fully fit, Alexander Isak is a superb striker, the maverick that is Rayan Cherki makes any Man City game worth watching, while the likes of Rio Ngumoha and Max Dowman signify the strength of under-age football in England.

However, there remains the very real fear that the Premier League is too punishing, that it's become something of a victim of its own success, in that the very intensity that makes it so attractive to TV audiences across the globe is now hurting the protagonists of the unrelenting action, the players.

Arteta's tactics may be far too pragmatic (as we saw during last season's Champions League final) but he had a point when he said that his players are never going to be as "fresh" as their Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich counterparts at the tail end of the season because of the ridiculously competitive nature of the Premier League.

"We are comparing two different worlds," the Spaniard said, and it's fair to say that Madrid and Barca, such is their dominance of La Liga, are also blessed with far more opportunities to give their most important players some invaluable time off. For instance, the brilliant Bukayo Saka would definitely have arrived at this summer's World Cup in far better shape had Arteta been able to do rest Arsenal's 'starboy' as regularly as Luis Enrique rotates Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Ousmane Dembele in Ligue 1.

However, it's not as if the gruelling intensity of the Premier League is going to drop anytime soon. As the summer transfer window hammered home, England's biggest clubs are trading among themselves more than ever before, so obsessed have they become with buying 'Premier League-proven' talent. Consequently, we're now seeing ordinary players moving for extraordinary fees (Savio, Liam Delap, Mateus Fernandes, Elliot Anderson) - which will obviously do absolutely nothing to improve the general quality of Premier League football.

An awful lot of people are aware of this rather depressing prospect. But the EPL is big business now and the show must go on - even if that means that ratings might eventually start to dwindle without more world-class performers to entertain the masses.