Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal are not as strong as English quartets of recent seasons as the Champions League reasserts itself

No one in England can complain about the monotony of the Champions League anymore. It had been a smug lament that was really more of a boast about the domination of our clubs. Those times seem distant in a week when three of the four representatives might be eliminated in the group phase. The tournament has suddenly reasserted itself against the Premier League sides.

An element of surprise has returned. Manchester City, given the scale of the budget, were supposed to impose their will. Instead they are at the mercy of events since they may still be knocked out even if they beat Bayern Munich. Any onlooker will have begun to accept that our domestic football cannot be quite so challenging as we supposed until very recently. City themselves will testify to the shock of the experience.

While this is the club’s debut season in the modern form of the European Cup, there appeared to be substantial sophistication in the Serie

• Newcastle chase Santon as replacement for José Enrique
• Traoré has QPR medical, Benayoun in talks over Chelsea exit

The Internazionale full-back Davide Santon has opened talks with Newcastle United, according to his agent. The 20-year-old, who is also wanted by Roma, is among Alan Pardew’s targets as he looks for a replacement for José Enrique, and Santon’s agent Claudio Vigorelli has claimed negotiations are under way.

He told Corriere dello Sport: “At this time, there is no possibility that Santon can join Roma because right now the aim is Newcastle.”

Santon has been with Inter since 2008 and made 16 appearances in all competitions during the first half of last season before going on loan to Cesena for the second half of the campaign.

Newcastle have turned to him after failing to agree a deal for PSV Eindhoven’s Erik Pieters. The Holland international played in Sunday’s 6-1 Eredivisie demolition of Excelsior with the Magpies yet to agree a fee with his club after a lengthy pursuit.

The Arsenal defender Armand Traoré is believed to be undergoing a medical at Queens Park Rangers. The left-back has made only one Premier League appearance for Arsenal in the last 15 months – Sunday’s 8-2 defeat to Manchester United – and seems to be surplus to requirements despite the club’s lack of defensive cover.

Yossi Benayoun appears to be on the verge of leaving Chelsea. The midfielder has spent only one minute on the pitch this season, and is likely to find opportunities limited further following the arrival of Juan Mata from Valencia. Benayoun wrote on Twitter: “negotiating with several team [sic] … news soon.”

It has been reported that Benayoun would be included in an offer for Tottenham’s Luka Modric and Newcastle have also been linked with the Israel captain, who moved to Stamford Bridge from Liverpool last summer on a free transfer.

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No one wants to face the Spanish champions but there are other tough tests in Friday’s quarter-final draw

The opportunity for vengeance is never far away for the leading clubs in the Champions League. They are often clustered together, as they will be in the draw for the quarter-finals. The prospect of Chelsea and Barcelona being pitted against each other once more comes readily to mind. It did not take much coaxing for Stale Solbakken, the manager of the FC Copenhagen side knocked out at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, to contemplate such a tie.

“If they can handle them in the Camp Nou,” he said of Chelsea, “they have a better chance than Arsenal because of the physique of the team.” The Premier League club seethed over the refereeing of Tom Henning Ovrebo two years ago when the semi-final was won by Andrés Iniesta in stoppage time. It is far from inevitable that the clubs will collide this time but eminence does keep the elite jostling one another.

Beyond the Premier League perspective, there is the possibility of José Mourinho’s Real Madrid and the Barcelona of Pep Guardiola being locked together. Interest would be intensified by the contrast in style as well as yet another clash of those two cities’ cultures. If Mourinho, in his first campaign at the Bernabéu, will struggle to overhaul Barcelona in La Liga, he is capable of coming out on top in a two-legged tie. Anyone foolish enough to write him off should reflect on the 3-0 defeat of Lyon and the fact that Mourinho’s Internazionale were the undoing of Barcelona last season.

The notion of being pitted against the Catalan club intrigues everyone, although Sir Alex Ferguson knows that too much appreciation of them can lead to an inferiority complex. “I don’t think it’s good tactics to go into how good they [Barcelona] are or show apprehension,” the Manchester United manager said. “I don’t think that’s our way. You have to face whoever comes along and we have got experience of playing Barcelona recently. We knocked them out in the [2008] semi-final and then lost the [2009] final to them in Rome. So we’ve got the experience of being there and it’s all the same players they’ve got.”

There will be trials ahead even if the draw does not concoct such glamour. Schalke, for instance, accounted for Valencia, Shakhtar Donetsk showed prowess by crushing Roma 6-2 on aggregate and Tottenham Hotspur were mature when keeping their nerve to knock out Milan with the only goal of the tie. Given the complete lack of knowhow in the competition that Harry Redknapp’s team had at the outset, the speed with which they have adapted is remarkable.

The holders, Inter, also gave everyone pause for thought when going to Munich and pulling off a 3-2 victory over Bayern. When they took the prize last May, it was regarded as proof of the alchemy that the then manager, Mourinho, has mastered. There have been two successors to him, with Rafael Benítez making way for Leonardo, but the latter has now added to Inter folklore. The situation, after all, had looked beyond recovery when Bayern beat them 1-0 at San Siro. Inter are within five points of the Serie A leaders, Milan, and have a momentum that is also bearing them onwards in the Champions League. Many of the quarter-finalists will feel that their time has come to flourish.

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