Man City reigns supreme: Club-by-club review of the Premiership season

LONDON (Reuters) – Manchester City won their third straight Premier League crown after Arsenal’s title challenge collapsed, big-spending Chelsea could only finish in mid-table and 2016 champions Leicester City were relegated.

Following is a summary of the campaigns of the 20 top-flight clubs, listed in order of their final positions:

1) Manchester City: While City trailed Arsenal by eight points as late as mid-March, Pep Guardiola’s side so mercilessly sliced through opponents over the final few weeks that it felt as if they had just been toying with their London rivals, like a cat plays with its prey.

The team described by pundits as a “machine” and a “monster” captured their fifth Premier League title in six seasons with three games left to play, giving Guardiola some breathing room with both the FA Cup and Champions League finals on the horizon.

City were led by Norwegian bulldozer Erling Haaland, who scored an astonishing league-record (36) goals in his debut season. But teamwork remains the cornerstone of mastermind Guardiola’s style.

2) Arsenal: The last six weeks aside, Arsenal enjoyed a massively positive season as they proved the pundits wrong to threaten a first league title since 2004, only to buckle in the home straight under pressure from a relentless Man City.

There is an argument that Arsenal blew a rare opportunity, with City starting relatively slowly, Liverpool off the pace and Chelsea nowhere, and manager Mikel Arteta will be all too aware that standing still this summer is not an option.

Arsenal’s young squad was eventually found wanting with an injury to William Saliba in March having a catastrophic effect on their defense for the run-in.

Having brought Champions League football back to the Emirates, Arteta should expect big financial backing to strengthen the squad this summer with West Ham United midfielder Declan Rice seen as a key target.

3) Manchester United: Erik ten Hag’s first season as manager has been encouraging with a top-four finish in the Premier League, the League Cup trophy and a place in the FA Cup final to show for it.

With little to celebrate since Alex Ferguson’s departure in 2013, there is a feeling of optimism again at Old Traffod because Ten Hag has shown far more tactical acumen and man management skills than any of his recent predecessors.

Old Trafford has become something of a fortress once again but embarrassing capitulations at Brentford, Manchester City, Liverpool and Sevilla proved that the Dutchman has plenty more work to do.

4) Newcastle United: The speed at which Newcastle have broken up the established big six has surprised even the club’s most optimistic fans.

When Eddie Howe took charge in November 2021 in the wake of the takeover by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the club were winless and mired in a relegation battle.

Now they are making plans for a return to the Champions League after a 20-year absence and there is a sense that the club’s upward trajectory will grow steeper.

5) Liverpool: The Reds’ season failed to get going until it was far too late and despite a sprint finish they could not salvage a top-four spot.

Whether it was a hangover from their efforts to achieve an unprecedented quadruple last season, their failure to adequately replace Sadio Mane, key injuries in their forward line or an aging midfield, Liverpool looked leggy and off the pace for much of the campaign.

Liverpool regained some of their old steel late, embarking on an 11-match unbeaten league run that included seven straight wins but a Champions League place still remained agonizingly out of reach.

6) Brighton & Hove Albion: Not even the departure of much-loved coach Graham Potter for Chelsea could derail a big breakthrough season for Brighton & Hove Albion, which ended with a first qualification for Europe and the possibility of millions to come in player transfers.

The south coast club have become the template for those outside of the Premier League’s top six, picking up players cheaply and selling them on at a huge profit while developing their eye-catching football under new coach Roberto De Zerbi.

7) Aston Villa: Aston Villa’s decision to perform a hard reset by sacking coach Steven Gerrard in October after six losses in their opening 11 Premier League games paid off as Unai Emery came in and delivered European football for next season.

Given that Villa were 17th when Gerrard was shown the door that was no mean feat. Villa were thrashed 4-0 by Newcastle United just after Emery’s appointment, but by the time the two sides met again in mid-April they were a side transformed, winning 3-0 at home.

With stability restored, the 1982 European Cup winners will be setting their sights on the Europa Conference League next season.

8) Tottenham Hotspur: A shambolic season for Tottenham ended without a full-time manager, sporting director, missing out on Europe and with a squad requiring major surgery.

Talisman Harry Kane could hardly be blamed if he decided to look elsewhere with the club seemingly going backwards.

Former coach Antonio Conte’s often disparaging remarks about the squad and the club’s lack of winning culture were eventually vindicated with an eighth placed finish. Kane’s 30 goals apart, there were no positives for Tottenham whose top-four challenge proved an illusion.

9) Brentford: Brentford’s second season in the Premier League turned out even better than their first, the Bees finishing comfortably in the top half of the table and ahead of West London rivals Chelsea and Fulham.

Thomas Frank’s impressive but inexpensively-assembled side celebrated big wins over champions Manchester City (2-1), Manchester United (4-0), Liverpool (3-1) and Chelsea (2-0) along the way.

10) Fulham: A top-half Premier League finish for the first time in 11 years will give Fulham fans hope that they can finally shed their reputation as a ‘yo-yo club’ flitting between the top flight and the second-tier Championship.

Serbian striker Aleksandar Mitrovic put a calamitous 2020/21 Premier League season behind him to spearhead their charge, repaying Marco Silva’s faith in him with 14 league goals despite an eight-match ban late in the season.

11) Crystal Palace: Palace were aiming to avoid relegation when Roy Hodgson took the reins in March but the fact that they have earned a comfortable 11th-placed finish is testament to the remarkable turnaround engineered by the former England manager.

When Palace sacked Patrick Vieira, they were three points above the drop zone after a 12-game winless run in the league. They also struggled for goals, having scored only 21 times in 27 games at that stage.

Eberechi Eze, who struggled for minutes under Vieira, spearheaded Palace’s dramatic upturn in results with six goals as Palace won five and drew three of their 10 games under Hodgson to end any lingering fears of relegation.

12) Chelsea: The Blues’ big-spending American owners have had a first season to forget after buying the club in a deal worth 4.25 billion pounds a year ago. They ended up finishing 12th – one of their lowest positions ever in the Premier League.

Their early-season decision to fire Champions League-winning coach Thomas Tuchel and replace him with Brighton & Hove Albion’s Graham Potter proved disastrous – despite more than 500 million pounds ($631 million) lavished on a host of new players – and Potter was himself fired in April.

Former Stamford Bridge hero Frank Lampard was drafted in for the remainder of the campaign but he won only one of his 11 games with the same lack of cutting edge in front of goal dogging his time in charge.

Former Tottenham Hotspur coach Mauricio Pochettino in the hope of transforming their expensive squad into a force in the 2023/24 season, without Chelsea’s usual distractions of European football after their 12th-placed finish, the worst since 1994.

13) Wolverhampton Wanderers: An ultimately comfortable 13th-placed finish fails to adequately tell the story of a turbulent season in which Wolverhampton Wanderers spent weeks flirting with relegation, had two managerial changes and struggled in front of goal.

Wolves had sacked Bruno Lage in November with the club in 18th spot. Steve Davis was named interim boss until the end of the season, but failed to impress before being replaced by Julen Lopetegui, under whom Wolves won nine games to secure safety.

14) West Ham United: West Ham are into their first European club competition final in 47 years and will fancy their chances of winning the Europa Conference League final against Fiorentina in Prague on June 7.

But whether continental success is enough to save manager David Moyes after a disappointing domestic season remains to be seen.

15) AFC Bournemouth: In their first campaign back in the top flight since 2019/20, Bournemouth nearly dropped back into the Championship when they were rock bottom in March before Gary O’Neil engineered a remarkable survival bid for the south-coast club.

Bournemouth had sacked Scott Parker when they were thrashed 9-0 by Liverpool and O’Neil was named interim boss before taking up the role on a permanent basis, a decision the club nearly regretted when they lost six in a row in all competitions after the World Cup break.

A 3-2 loss in the 97th-minute at Arsenal would have deflated most bottom clubs but O’Neil picked up the pieces and guided Bournemouth to six wins in nine games -- including victories over Liverpool and Spurs -- to seal their top-flight status.

16) Notingham Forest: Forest’s reaction to their Championship promotion playoff win over Huddersfield at Wembley at the end of last season, and end of a 23-year exile from the top flight, was to plunge into the transfer market with an incredible 22 summer signings, adding a further nine in the January transfer windows.

In the end, the verdict on the near-complete overhaul of their squad has to be positive as they managed to stay up after spending more time in the bottom three than out of it.

17) Everton: A last-day home victory over Bournemouth had the home fans in delirious mood but when the dust settles it will be seen as another dire season for a club who have spent 700 million pounds on players in the last six years yet almost been relegated for two seasons in a row.

They will now stretch their record of spending more years in the top flight than any other club but the team needs radical surgery if they are to avoid going through the same pain next year.

18) Leicester City: Champions seven years ago in one of the greatest stories ever told in English football, Leicester City must now contemplate life in the Championship following their home win against West Ham United that was not enough for safety.

Foxes fans may be wondering how they got here having celebrated a first ever FA Cup final victory in 2021, but former manager Brendan Rodgers spotted trouble as early as September when he hit out at chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha for failing to refresh the squad, claiming “this isn’t the club that it was a couple of years ago.”

19) Leeds United: Leeds’s return to the Championship was confirmed when they lost against Tottenham Hotspur in their final fixture at Elland Road to finish 19th and end a turbulent season that saw them have double the number of managers (four) than away wins (two).

Having won promotion at the end of the 2019/20 campaign playing high-octane, attacking football under the guidance of Marcelo Bielsa, they ended this season with barely a whimper.

20) Southampton: A spiritless, soulless season saw Southampton slide out of the Premier League with barely a whimper. A campaign that saw Saints deploy more managers than outand-out strikers tells its own story, and the bizarre three-month tenure of Nathan Jones as boss encapsulated Southampton’s surreal lurch from crisis to crisis.

Finishing rock bottom of the Premier League with a paltry 25 points, Southampton lost 25 of their 38 matches and must hope for an instant reset to stand any chance of coming back up quickly from the Championship.