Yes, definitely, to be honest. I really enjoyed playing the games but it is very difficult. I'm glad I've played in it once in my career and it wouldn't have been doom and gloom if we had got in there, but I'd prefer to concentrate on the league."
When asked whether he was relieved at Swansea City's failure to qualify for next season's Europa League, the response from Ashley Williams was unusually candid. To hear the club captain admit his happiness at avoiding Europe's secondary competition leaves a bitter taste. We have been brought up to believe that footballers want to play in the biggest matches.
It was another punch to the solar plexus of the Europa League. Among Premier League clubs, this is the race that nobody wants to win, the stage on which nobody wants to perform. A fly in the ointment, rather than feather in the cap.
Williams' view is not groundbreaking; he is merely expressing the view of the majority. Ronald Koeman and Mauricio Pochettino have both publicly stated that all engines were go in pursuit of the Europa, but the performance of their players has fallen short of maximum. Thursday night football is viewed as a chore, a cause for concern rather than celebration.
The accusations are clear. Playing Thursday-Sunday football causes a fatigue that hampers league performance, trips to the edges of Europe impacting on the fitness of the squad. Any benefits are therefore rendered negligible.
The English (and Welsh) view is markedly different to that across the rest of Europe. Spanish clubs see the competition as the gateway to the Champions League, with Sevilla the obvious example of how best to use the Europa League to great advantage. Unai Emery's side are looking to retain the trophy in Warsaw next Thursday, combining these two campaigns with consecutive top-five finishes.
"I'm really satisfied with our work and happy for our fans," Emery told Mediaset last week. "We love this competition. Now we must enjoy our success and think about the final. We are unbeaten in the knock-out stages playing against great teams such as Borussia Monchengladbach and Zenit St. Petersburg." Monchengladbach themselves could still finish second in the Bundesliga; Zenit won the Russian Premier league last week.
Serie A clubs have also used the competition to enhance the prospects of Italian clubs in Europe. The presence of Fiorentina and Napoli in the Europa League semi-finals has helped to close the gap on English teams in terms of UEFA's coefficients. The Premier League was the only one of UEFA's eight highest-ranked leagues without representation in the quarter-finals of either UEFA club competition. Keep that up and we are in danger of losing one of our Champions League places.
So what is Williams so scared of? Given the growing gap between the Championship and Premier League and the dirge of quality in the latter's bottom half, Swansea's top-flight status is hardly in doubt. Even the most rigorous demands of the Europa League will not transform a top-half side into relegation fodder.
The stress and strain of Thursday night football is not mythical, of course, but its effects have been overstated to fit the preconception. Swansea gained four fewer points last season than in 2012/13, and it would be a leap to suggest that their 12-game Europa League campaign was the deciding factor.
Their results after the five away games certainly don't prove a problem - two wins and three draws. In the last month of last season, only three Premier League teams took more points than Swansea. The famed Europa League fatigue was conspicuous by its absence.
There are other examples too. Stoke's Europa League campaign in 2011/12 caused them to drop one point and one place in the league, whilst Everton finished fifth in 2007/08 despite making the latter stages of European competition for the first time in 21 years. Tottenham's relationship with the competition is notoriously uneasy, but they finished fourth in 2011/12 despite travelling to PAOK Salonika and Rubin Kazan in the Europa. They beat Liverpool 4-0 and Fulham 3-1 directly after those debilitating trips to Russia and Greece.
Dismissing the Europa League also sets a dangerous precedent. It suggests to supporters that clubs would prefer the steady average over the highs and lows, removing a huge part of football's attraction. The journey becomes tedious when limitations are self-imposed. There is something inherently wrong with a reward for achievement being judged as an inconvenience.
Newcastle managing director Lee Charnley was chastised for his pre-season public admission that "cups were not a priority". If Charnley is merely reflecting the mood amongst his peers, it's a worrying trend.
On September 19, 2013, Swansea City won 3-0 in the Mestalla, inflicting Valencia's worst European home defeat in the last decade. The local newspaper called it 'the most famous win their history'. It ran six hours of live build-up on its website for what was billed as a 'once-in-a-generation' game.
'There have been more important victories in Swansea's 101 years, but there will have been few as eye-catching as this,' WalesOnline beamed. 'It adds another remarkable chapter to their remarkable rise from League Two to the Premier League, Capital One Cup glory and this European campaign.'
Still, much more important to make sure you finish ahead of Stoke and Crystal Palace rather than one place behind them.
Victories such as those are now in danger of extinction, as the Europa League's risks are turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Clubs are blinded by the notion that their finishing position in the Premier League is the be all and end all. We have become sated by bread and butter when there's tastier food in Europe.
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