Former winners Chelsea and Manchester City will be back on the Champions League stage next season and Newcastle have scraped through but there was a dark cloud over the Midlands where Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest missed out.
With title and relegation issues long settled, the focus on the final afternoon of the English Premier League season was on the battle for lucrative Champions League places.
When the dust settled, EPL champions Liverpool, runners-up Arsenal, 2023 winners Manchester City, Chelsea, who took the continental crown in 2012 and 2021, and Newcastle were left looking ahead to Europe’s glitziest club competition.
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They will be joined by Australian Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham, who have qualified by winning the Europa League.
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The bitterest taste was for Aston Villa, squeezed out on goal difference by Newcastle after a controversial 2-0 defeat at Manchester United. They are set to complain to the Premier League about the selection of match referee Thomas Bramall.
They had been on course to qualify, despite having goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez just before half-time, until Amad Diallo struck 14 minutes from time.
Moments before that, Villa, who reached this season’s Champions League quarter-finals, thought they had taken the lead only for Morgen Rogers’ goal to be ruled out as referee Thomas Bramall ruled the ball had been kicked out of goalkeeper Altay Bayindir’s hands.
Bramall blew for a free-kick before the ball crossed the goal-line, so VAR could not intervene. United added a second through Christian Eriksen’s late penalty.
Unai Emery, the Villa manager who confronted Bramall after the final whistle, said: “It was a mistake, a big mistake.”
Villa captain John McGinn, whose side will now compete in next season’s Europa League, added: “The decision is incredible. When VAR came in everyone wanted the correct decisions. You watch rugby, if a try’s given and even the referee’s awarded it, and if it’s wrong , it’s overturned.
Aston Villa manager Unai Emery (left) speaks to referee Thomas Bramall after the Premier League match at Old Trafford, Manchester. Picture date: Sunday May 25, 2025. (Photo by Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
Aston Villa manager Unai Emery complains to referee Thomas Bramall after the Premier League match at Old Trafford. (Photo by Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
“I know it’s the rule, I’ve seen before a couple of times but it’s so hard to take, especially when the impact on the team and the club is so big.”
Villa’s official complaint over the referee is based on his perceived lack of big-match experience rather than the decision itself.
Chelsea’s visit to Forest, who had spent most of the season in Champions League places, was billed as a winner-takes-all, and so it proved with the Londoners edging a 1-0 win, with defender Levi Colwill supplying the key moment six minutes into the second half.
That all meant that Newcastle qualified despite a 1-0 home defeat by Everton. There were fewer dramas for Manchester City, who went to Fulham needing a draw but made absolutely sure with a 2-0 win with goals from Ilkay Gundogan and Erling Haaland.
Elsewhere, Liverpool needed a late equaliser from Mohamed Salah, his 29th league goal of the season, to avoid an Anfield defeat against FA Cup winners Crystal Palace, who had gone in front through Tyrick Mitchell.
Arsenal also left it late before securing a 2-1 triumph at bottom club Southampton, who earlier in the day announced that Will Still, who is leaving French club Lens, will be their new manager as they prepare for Championship football.
Martin Odegaard came off the substitutes’ bench to deliver an 89th-minute winner for the Londoners.
Tottenham suffered a major Europa League victory hangover as they slumped to a 4-1 home defeat by Brighton.