Champions League: England top of the group stage, but can one of the Premier League clubs win the trophy? Played Won Drawn Lost Points Benitez was right to an extent: this season does look different. All four English clubs are into the last 16, Manchester United and Chelsea as group winners, Arsenal and Manchester City as close runners-up. With the Gunners an unexpected exception, every top Premier League team has looked fallible domestically, each going through poor runs of form and losing matches against sides from the bottom half of the table. But it is England that "won" the group stage, above Germany and Spain. Italy, like last year, are a distant fourth. Champions League 2013-14 country form table In fact, this has been England's best ever Champions League group stage. They have had four teams through to the round of 16 before, but never with so many points behind them, 52 in 2010-11 being their previous best. Furthermore the quartet were only two points off the all-time record for any nation, 55 set by Spain's representatives in 2002-03. Champions League leading countries (year-by-year) Top Country So was last year the blip as Benitez suggested, or is it that we should not be reading too much into group stage success? Probably a bit of both. Taking the former point, it could be argued that in the last campaign United were unlucky to be eliminated by Real Madrid, Arsenal lost on away goals to eventual champions Bayern, Chelsea failed to qualify for the knockout rounds despite taking 10 points from their six group games, and Manchester City were drawn in a group of death with Real, Dortmund and Ajax. However, English clubs did come up short when pitted against the top sides and it could not be debated that the football played by the top German duo in particular was above anything witnessed in the Premier League last season. It remains to be seen it they can make the step up required in the spring when the continent's heavyweights go head to head again, although Arsenal and Manuel Pellegrini's City will take encouragement in the way they avenged home defeats by beating Dortmund and Bayern in Germany. History is not on England's side. On only four out of 14 occasions has the country with the best record in the group stage gone on to produce the eventual champions - although the last time was 2007-08, when United defeated Chelsea in the final. Indeed, in the 2002-03 season when Spain so dominated their groups, it turned out to be Milan and Juventus in an all-Italian final at Old Trafford. Group stage victories do not equate to knockout stage victories. Top Group Stage Country No of teams in Last 16 No of teams in quarters No of teams in semis Teams in final Winners' country n/a So, what do you think? Has "the wheel turned again," as Benitez predicted? Should English clubs be feared in the round of 16 draw, and can one of them go on to win the trophy in Lisbon in May? Or will they come unstuck when the tournament moves up a level? Will an English club win the Champions League this season?