Premier League clubs face daunting test of their resources as the Champions …

But there is a mounting sense that the cycle of English economic power is

weakening, as Sheikhs and oligarchs pump money on to the continent and the

likes of Real, Bayern and Barcelona exploit their vast commercial potential

around the planet.

The Premier League’s policy of conquest-by-overseas-TV-rights and pre-season

tours is being matched by their biggest competitors, who are now more

skilled at promoting the mega-fame of their best players.

In the new celebocracy of football, Barcelona start a new European campaign

with Lionel Messi and Neymar in a kind of Argentine-Brazilian shotgun

marriage that seems to be going well.

Real Madrid’s new opiate for the masses is Ronaldo, Bale and Isco. Their

centre-forwards, Benzema and Morata, might be wise to take a good book in

case Ronaldo and Bale monopolise the attacking play.

In a wrecked economy, and a largely two-team league, Barcelona and Real are

often accused of concealing the underlying weakness of La Liga. To which

Spain might respond: can Mesut Özil joining Arsenal

match the starburst over the Nou Camp and the Bernabéu?

In ear-shot of Roy Hodgson they might also mention that 58.7 per cent of

starters in La Liga games at the weekend were qualified to play for Spain,

compared to 32 per cent in England.

Not that the Premier League clubs are suddenly impostors at this level.

United can still aim Robin van Persie and Wayne

Rooney at Bayer Leverkusen, Shakhtar Donetsk and Real Sociedad; Manchester

City’ s underwhelming start to the season is not ascribable to

failures in the transfer market (on the contrary, City did the best of the

early business); Chelsea

won the title in 2012 and have turned back to Jose Mourinho, who was

victorious with Porto and Inter Milan; and Arsenal, who are perennial

also-rans, have started their domestic programme with ‘jam today’ rather

than tomorrow.

The purest excitement, though, is generated beyond these shores. With the rise

of the French monoliths (no more égalitaire), Paris St-Germain start out

with Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic across their

forward line.

Last year’s finalists are hardly impoverished either, despite the complaint by

Matthias Sammer, Bayern’s director of sport, that Guardiola’s team were

“emotionless” and “lethargic” in their 2-0 win against Hannover  96 on

Saturday.

With that victory Bayern extended their unbeaten streak in the Bundesliga to

30 matches. Their possession rate was 68 per cent. Yet such are the

standards set by last year’s German treble-winners that Sammer thinks he can

detect a brief dropping off in a comfortable win.

Thomas Müller, the Bayern forward, thinks it is simply a question of locating

that “extra two or three per cent.” Since the current competition was born

in 1993 no Champions League winner has retained the title 12 months later.

This is Guardiola’s uber-challenge.

Dortmund, not Bayern, lead the German table, after a 6-2 win against Hamburger 

 SV. Robert Lewandowski, their senior striker, praised Henrikh Mkhitaryan

and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – or “Micki and Auba” – their two new signings

and called Dortmund “really impressive.” The omission in all this is the

Italian representatives, who have embraced the new mainstream of quick,

creativity-based play.

So the outlook for the Premier League quartet (plus Celtic) is more forbidding

than at any point in recent memory.

The faintly listless start to the league campaign here is also shaping

impressions of how the two London nominees and the Manchester candidates

will fare in such a talent-rich competition.

The £630 million spent by English clubs over the summer did not raise

self-esteem. Instead it focused attention on the shortage of superstar

signings compared to France, Germany and Spain.

The Premier League knew this would happen. They never expected their new

empire to be impregnable. Evolution was always prominent in their thinking.

Harvard business school models taught them that standing still is regression.

This time, more than ever, the European combat will tell the truth about the

Premier League’s strengths and flaws.

Before a ball is kicked, the imagination spins.

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