A weekend of emotional farewells had us say goodbye to Goodison Park, Jamie Vardy, Emiliano Martinez, the old Arsenal and very possibly West Ham soon.
EvertonThey could not have requested a more pliable final opponent when the inevitable dread fear was that the lights would be turned off at Goodison Park with that same toxic, destructive post-loss atmosphere which has pervaded these quarters and stunted growth for too many years.
“We’ve not won anything but we’ll go down in history as the last team to win at Goodison,” was a remarkably revealing reaction from Jordan Pickford about the current Everton psyche, but he was right: victory against Southampton was a necessary box to tick.
It was ultimately a day to leave baggage behind in the hope of building towards a bigger, better and brighter future. David Moyes sensed things “coming back together” after “a real break-up” between the fans, the players, the owners and the club and it felt as though Goodison, its memories and what it meant to a great many people provided the path to overdue conciliation.
The positive reception for Wayne Rooney, the applause for Bill Kenwright, the cheers for Graeme Sharp – if leaving that grand old stadium has allowed Everton to heal and mend myriad bridges then it might be worth calling their new home the actual Hill Dickinson Stadium for a bit.
It had to be Moyes in the dugout. It had to be Seamus Coleman wearing the captain’s armband, and it probably had to be him being substituted after 18 minutes because Everton will always be at least a little bit Everton.
But as the manager said, a club which “looked broken and felt broken doesn’t feel like that anymore”. He is as responsible for that shift as anyone and there is no more fitting candidate to lead Everton into a new era than the one who best defined the peak of their last.
David MoyesResisted the temptation, with a live mic in an emotional stadium in the middle of a poignant farewell, to tell the fans that their job now was to stand behind their new stadium. Fair play.
Jamie VardyA 200th goal on his 500th and final appearance, 13 years to the day of his signing for Leicester, ranks about third or fourth on the list of Vardy-based tales which sound a little too good to be true.
The only real shame was that while Nigel Pearson, Kasper Schmeichel, Shinji Okazaki and a few other 5000/1 title heroes were in attendance to mark Vardy’s greatest achievement, that corner of The Hawthorns which has truly defined his Leicester career could not make it.
It was nevertheless the way things had to end: a run on the shoulder of the last man, a clever finish and a probably needlessly aggressive celebration centred around a corner flag, practically begging to be memorialised by a weirdly low-quality statue.
Leicester have been fractured all season and this was no answer to the numerous uncomfortable questions they have been ignoring for too long. But for one afternoon they were united in commemorating one of the great spells of record-setting individual Premier League brilliance.
An uncertain future lies ahead, but there was no harm in setting aside time to remember such an unthinkably bright past.
Leicester
The winner of possibly the first definitive £2.8m game.
Emiliano MartinezIt felt like another emotional farewell, not least because one of the lads in the dressing room surely informed Martinez that if he completed the game against Spurs he would surpass Mark Bosnich for the most Premier League minutes ever played by an Aston Villa keeper.
The clean sheet was a welcome bonus, marking the first time the Argentinean had recorded three consecutive shutouts in the league since March 2022.
That significant defensive improvement has sparked this ridiculous Villa run, with the aberrative defeat to Palace in February a watershed moment. They have conceded as many goals in the nine subsequent league games as they did in those 90 regrettable minutes, since which no side has won more games or accrued more points.
There are deeper reasons behind it – the return of players from injury, improvement in how they work off the ball, a lower defensive line and overall better structure – and Unai Emery deserves immense credit for turning around a season that threatened to peter out.
The frustration that even Champions League qualification will not offset the need to make at least one significant sale is understandable. Martinez, whose stock remains high despite a poor season on a personal level, may yet be sacrificed. But his role in everything up to and including this final push will not be forgotten.
Reece JamesA stunning assist to cap an encouraging few months on an individual level, and set up a high-wire end to this Chelsea season.
It was only the fourth full Premier League 90 James has completed all campaign and Enzo Maresca should be commended for his handling of a player who might well soon crumble under the load of Champions League and international football.
But between the small steps James is taking back towards his best, that picturesque swivel and dink was as heartening as the sudden influx of Liverpool supporters declaring him to have been England’s best and most well-rounded right-back all along. When Chelsea needed inspiration, their captain provided it.
ArsenalThe overwhelming chances are that they would have managed to overcome the final hurdle of Southampton at St Mary’s to secure Champions League qualification, but the idea of Arsenal spiralling out of control and those places a few days after either Spurs or Manchester United bumbled their way into the competition would have been irresistible.
Instead, a preview of the sort of thing they must do more frequently next season: turn just half of those 14 draws into wins and it should ordinarily be enough to land Arsenal in Mikel Arteta’s right place, right time dreamland.
It has been a disappointing end to the season but those post-PSG games set up a fall the Arsenal of old would absolutely have taken. The comeback point against Liverpool and scrappy win over Newcastle has averted potential disaster and proved that this manager and these players remain unified in their hunger and fight.
Their floor is high and this was timely evidence; without either of their first-choice centre-halves, the first-choice centre-forward available for only 15 minutes due to injury and none of their best players quite fit enough for the full game, Arsenal gutted up and held out. The obvious summer objective is to raise the ceiling so everyone is at the same level as Jakub Kiwior.
Nottingham ForestIt always felt as though their run-in could override any inexperience, nerves or fatigue to an extent. Nottingham Forest’s last four Premier League wins have come against the teams in 15th, 16th, 17th and 19th and those points have helped set up a final day shoot-out for possible Champions League qualification.
That is a remarkable achievement for a side which might have been forgiven for another slip at West Ham, so distressing the week must have been with Taiwo Awoniyi’s condition.
But the scene is set for a potential winner-takes-all showdown against Chelsea. Forest, who join the Blues, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City as the only clubs to win 10 or more away games in any of the last five Premier League seasons with supporters in the stands, might genuinely prefer to be on the road. The City Ground, however, will be rocking.
READ MORE: Man City set for Conference League demotion after Forest do their bit to realise our new dream
FulhamThere was undoubted frustration at a season which promised so much but had not delivered enough in the way of tangible progress, so joining Bournemouth and likely soon Crystal Palace in setting a new club-record Premier League points tally represents something meaningful for Fulham.
No manager in Premier League history has ever overseen more substitute goals in a single season than Marco Silva (17), who dragged Fulham over the line when introducing Tom Cairney at the break and Harry Wilson four minutes before he taunted Brentford again.
The Portuguese has also gone unbeaten against the five coaches shortlisted for Premier League Manager of the Season, completing the double over three of them. Silva and Fulham are so weird.
Premier League losers
Manchester UnitedWill literally go an entire Premier League season without winning consecutive games and no-one is bothered.
Newcastle without Alexander IsakIt honestly feels like Newcastle might not be as good without their best player, who also happens to be one of the most effective strikers in world football.
In the four Premier League games Isak has missed this season, Newcastle have scored once. That was an Anthony Gordon penalty in a draw.
It does not bode well for a final day the Magpies must already be dreading. Callum Wilson against the single most motivated form of Jordan Pickford there has ever been feels like a mismatch.
West HamIt seems entirely sub-optimal for a team’s two best players in any game to be among those already announced to be leaving at the end of their contracts in the summer. West Ham can quite easily justify the decisions not to extend the terms of Aaron Cresswell or Vladimir Coufal, but it only really works if more than one of those sticking around start to step up.
Perhaps only Arsenal have a more fundamentally important summer ahead with little room for error, and the Gunners at least have the benefit of cohesion, kinship and a world-class coach entirely suited to the existing squad.
Graham Potter, for all his talents, seems to be increasingly aware of how atrocious a fit he is with these West Ham players.
The change in approach has been too much and the incompatibility for so many is painfully obvious. Jarrod Bowen might be good enough to thrive in any system but without even a semi-competent modern midfield everything is built on quicksand.
Then West Ham’s interminable centre-forward search means that a style predicated on games being decided by the finest margins often backfires. Eight of Potter’s nine losses have been by a single goal and while he is right to point out how “in every game we’ve been competitive”, at some point that becomes an irreversible pattern of failure rather than a tantalising idea of how defeats could suddenly turn into draws or even wins if nothing actually changes.
With the two surviving clubs below them almost certain not to be quite so cataclysmically awful next season, West Ham are the closest to being pulled into a relegation fight. It might take just one more inadequate transfer window, which does not bode well considering those particular failures is how this mess has been so carelessly constructed.
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Sergio ReguilonIt felt like a risk to hand Reguilon a first Premier League start for Spurs since April 2022 in the same week he almost injured Brennan Johnson in training despite being on the same team during a drill, but the two Europa League finalists have been fighting for weeks over who can go to the most unnecessary lengths to entirely torch their domestic season more thoroughly in the name of the most ludicrous Champions League backdoor ever conceived, and one of those sides was always going to go too far.
Reguilon actually fared well enough against Aston Villa and considering his predicament has shown an unreasonable level of commitment to a badge which has wanted nothing to do with him for longer than anyone cares to remember. But it is a great bit that someone contracted to Spurs for five years has won more games for Brentford (five), Atletico Madrid (four) and Manchester United (three) than he has Spurs (zero) over the last three of them.
And that isn’t the half of it. Reguilon has played the most Premier League minutes (196) of any player whose side is yet to score a single solitary sodding goal with them on the pitch this season. His celebration for Mathys Tel’s arse-based stoppage-time consolation in a 8-1 defeat to Brighton on the final day will be biblical.
IpswichTwo points from four games against their historically bad relegated brethren really does seem quite foreboding.
BrentfordIt must be galling to have Fulham do the double over you with four of their five goals contained within seven in-game minutes.
SouthamptonThe record for most defeats in a Premier League season has been equalled, with Arsenal at St Mary’s on the final day between Southampton and history.
Everton fansThe most fitting goodbye to Goodison Park would have been for boos to ring out at the final whistle and the fans bottled it because of woke and Neville Southall’s lovely shirt.
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