Matchday Pundit | May 2026
It has been a while since we sat down and put pen to paper properly on this blog, and I want to make sure we do this season full justice. Because if there was ever a campaign that deserved a deep, thorough, unhurried look, it is the 2025-26 Premier League season. This was not just another year of football. This was a seismic reshaping of the entire landscape. Arsenal champions after 22 years. Pep Guardiola gone after a decade. Mohamed Salah saying goodbye to Anfield with tears on his cheeks. Tottenham nearly going down. West Ham actually going down. Aston Villa Europa League champions. Sunderland qualifying for European football for the first time since 1973. Nottingham Forest going through four permanent managers in a single season. Bruno Fernandes rewriting the record books. Bournemouth reaching Europe for the first time in their history. Managers across the division coming and going like they were catching trains.
Pull up a chair. We are going through all of it.
Arsenal: Twenty-Two Years of Hurt, Finally Ended
Let me start here because this is, above everything else, the story of the season. Arsenal are Premier League champions. Their 14th top-flight title. Their fourth in the Premier League era. Their first since Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles in 2003-04, a team that has lived rent-free in the head of every Arsenal fan for over two decades, simultaneously a source of pride and an impossible standard to live up to.
Mikel Arteta has done it. After three consecutive seasons as runners-up, after leading the table for stretches that left Arsenal supporters daring to believe before the inevitable heartbreak arrived, after 562 days spent sitting at the top of the Premier League table across the last four seasons combined without a single title to show for it, the Spaniard finally got his hands on the trophy he and this club deserved. He is the first Arsenal manager to win the league since Wenger himself, and watching him lift that trophy was one of the most emotionally charged moments English football has produced in years.
The final standings tell the story cleanly. Arsenal finished on 85 points, with a record of 26 wins, 7 draws and 5 defeats. Manchester City were second on 78 points, seven points adrift. The title was confirmed with a game to spare after City could only manage a 1-1 draw at Bournemouth on a Tuesday evening, handing Arsenal the championship as spectators. The following Sunday, they completed the trophy ceremony with a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park, lifting the Premier League trophy in south London. There is something wonderfully theatrical about that. Football writes its own stories.
The way Arsenal won this title sparked genuine debate throughout the season, and I think it is worth engaging with honestly. This was not free-flowing, expansive, eyes-alight football. Arteta’s side were built on a defensive foundation of exceptional solidity. They conceded just 26 goals across the entire league season, the fewest in the division by a considerable margin. David Raya won the Golden Glove for the third successive season. Gabriel Magalhaes was as commanding as any centre-back in the league. The Saliba and Gabriel partnership at the heart of the defence was the best in the Premier League. Declan Rice was immense throughout.
But here is the number that truly captures what Arsenal achieved beyond just clean sheets. They became the first team in 34 years of Premier League history to complete an entire campaign without receiving a single red card and without conceding a single penalty, in the same season. Never done before. Not once, by any club, since the competition was founded in 1992. In four of their previous six seasons, Arsenal collected at least four league red cards, including six the season before last. What changed this year was not just organisation. It was a maturity and a discipline that became a genuine competitive advantage at decisive moments.
Critics, including Thierry Henry, were not shy in noting that the style of play was not always a pleasure to watch. Set-pieces became an Arsenal weapon, and they leaned on structure and organisation over spontaneity and flair. Arteta never apologised for it, and why should he? The Premier League has never awarded bonus points for beauty. Guardiola won six titles playing some of the greatest football this league has ever seen, but one trophy reads the same as any other in the record books.
In Viktor Gyokeres, Arsenal had a player who gave them genuine cutting edge once he settled into life in north London. The Swedish striker arrived from Sporting in the summer as part of a significant overhaul that also brought in Martin Zubimendi and Eberechi Eze among others. His debut season in England was a rollercoaster. The start was slow enough that critics questioned the transfer. But the second half of the season was a completely different matter. Gyokeres finished with 21 goals in all competitions and became the first player to score 20-plus goals in all competitions in his debut Arsenal season since Alexis Sanchez in 2014-15. Wayne Rooney named him his signing of the season on the BBC, and that feels about right.
Bukayo Saka, meanwhile, continues to be one of the most complete players in English football. This season he became just the second youngest player to reach both 50 goals and 50 assists in Premier League history, at 24 years and 255 days. The only player younger when achieving that landmark was Wayne Rooney. Saka was a leader in every sense of the word this season.
The April wobble cannot be ignored. Arsenal had built a nine-point lead at the summit and then, over a bruising stretch of results, the lead collapsed. A 2-1 defeat at Manchester City looked catastrophic. The lead shrank to two points. For the fourth consecutive season, it felt like we were watching the same painful story. But the difference this year was the response. Four wins in a row after that City defeat, combined with City dropping points against Everton and then Bournemouth, was ultimately the margin. Championship teams find a way when it matters. Arteta’s Arsenal finally found theirs.
Arteta was rightly named Premier League Manager of the Season.
Arsenal in Europe: A Champions League Final on the Horizon
The domestic title is one thing. What Arsenal also achieved in Europe this season is genuinely extraordinary and deserves its own treatment.
Arsenal won all eight of their Champions League league phase matches, the first club in the history of the competition to achieve a perfect record in that phase. They conceded just four goals across those eight games. It set the tone for a European campaign of real substance. In the round of 16 they drew 1-1 in Leverkusen before winning 2-0 at the Emirates to progress 3-1 on aggregate, with Eberechi Eze and Declan Rice scoring the decisive goals. In the quarter-finals, Kai Havertz came off the bench to score a stoppage-time winner in Lisbon, and a goalless second leg at home sent Arsenal through 1-0 on aggregate against Sporting CP. Then came the semi-final against Atletico Madrid: a 1-1 draw in Madrid, before Saka’s goal just before half-time at the Emirates in the second leg edged them through 2-1 on aggregate. Arsenal have not been in a Champions League final since 2006, when they lost 2-1 to Barcelona in Paris. They have never won the European Cup in their 139-year history.
On Saturday May 30 they face holders Paris Saint-Germain at the Puskas Arena in Budapest. PSG beat Arsenal at the semi-final stage last season. They are reigning European champions and chasing back-to-back titles. Arsenal are the underdogs. But this club has spent four years learning how to be uncomfortable and come through it anyway. One more win and Arteta completes the most remarkable season in this club’s 139-year history. The whole of north London is holding its breath.
The Pep Era is Over: Guardiola Leaves Manchester City After Ten Extraordinary Years
If Arsenal’s title was the story of the season, Pep Guardiola’s departure from Manchester City is the story of the decade. After ten years, 20 major trophies, and a fundamental reimagining of what English football can look like at its absolute best, Pep is gone
.
He arrived at the Etihad in the summer of 2016. Six Premier League titles. The club’s first Champions League in 2023, part of a historic treble. A domestic treble in 2019. The record-breaking 100-point league campaign in 2018. He leaves as the most successful manager in Manchester City’s history, with 423 wins from 593 games at a win ratio of 71 per cent. His teams scored 1,422 goals and conceded just 520 across his entire tenure.
His final season, while not a Premier League triumph, ended with a domestic cup double. Manchester City beat Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley, and then beat Chelsea 1-0 in the FA Cup final thanks to a moment of brilliant improvisation from Antoine Semenyo, whose backheel flick from Haaland’s cross was one of the great FA Cup final goals. That cup double brought Guardiola to 17 major trophies at City, or 20 when you include the Community Shield, UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup. A fitting full stop on a decade.
He triggered a break clause in his contract, choosing to leave a year early on his own terms. His explanation was honest and without theatrics. He said he had felt it for a while. That the process had told him it was time. His farewell statement was quintessentially Pep. “What a time we have had together. Don’t ask me the reasons I’m leaving. There is no reason, but deep inside, I know it’s my time.”
City responded by renaming the North Stand at the Etihad as the Pep Guardiola Stand and commissioning a statue of him. Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said Guardiola had not only made Manchester City better, he had made football better. That is not sentiment. That is an accurate statement of record.
Guardiola takes up a role as Global Ambassador for the City Football Group, giving technical advice and working on specific projects across the group’s worldwide clubs. Whether that is a stepping stone back into management at some point, nobody can say. But for now, English football’s most influential presence in a generation walks away from a dugout, and the division will take years to comprehend what that absence truly means.
Liverpool: A Difficult Season and a Painful Goodbye to the Egyptian King
Liverpool defended their title with a campaign that, by their own standards, was a significant disappointment. They finished fifth on 60 points, a drop of 24 points compared to their title-winning 2024-25 season. They scored 23 fewer goals and conceded 12 more. Arne Slot keeps his job, but the questions about whether he is the right man to sustain Liverpool at the highest level have not gone away.
The season was framed by two storylines at Anfield, and both were deeply personal.
The first was the departure of Mohamed Salah, the greatest player Liverpool have had in the Premier League era by any reasonable measure. Salah announced in March that he would leave at the end of the season, a year before his contract was due to expire. His final year at Anfield was turbulent in ways nobody wanted. He was dropped for a stretch of games late in the calendar year, which led to a remarkable impromptu interview where he told reporters the club had thrown him under the bus. He was left out of the squad for a Champions League match. His relationship with Slot deteriorated publicly in a way that was genuinely uncomfortable to watch for a player of his standing and contribution.
He returned to the squad after the Africa Cup of Nations, but the brilliance of his 29-goal 2024-25 season was no longer in evidence. Seven league goals and six assists in 26 appearances in his final campaign. What saved the farewell was the final day itself. Anfield was extraordinary for Salah’s last game against Brentford. He assisted Curtis Jones in a 1-1 draw that secured Champions League qualification. He was substituted off in the 73rd minute to a standing ovation that shook the stadium. He stood on the pitch with his daughters as You’ll Never Walk Alone cascaded down from every stand. Then came the tears. 257 goals in 442 matches for the club. Two Premier League titles. A Champions League. Records that may never be touched. His final words to supporters were simple and true. “I will always love this club. I will always support it.”
Andy Robertson also played his final Liverpool game that same afternoon. Another nine-year servant taking his bow. A genuinely emotional day at a club that understands its relationship with its greatest players.
Aston Villa: Europa League Champions, Emery Makes History Again
There is another English club with a major European trophy to show for this season, and they deserve considerable recognition. Aston Villa won the UEFA Europa League, beating German side Freiburg 3-0 in the final in Istanbul, ending a 30-year trophy drought at the club and claiming their first continental silverware since the European Cup in 1981-82.
Goals from Youri Tielemans, Emiliano Buendia and Morgan Rogers gave Villa a dominant, commanding victory. Unai Emery is now the most successful manager in Europa League history with five titles to his name — three with Sevilla, one with Villarreal, and one now with Aston Villa. Every one of those clubs has the letters “Villa” somewhere in their name. Football is gloriously strange sometimes.
Villa finished fourth in the league on 65 points, and their Europa League triumph secured Champions League football for next season regardless of domestic position. This club, which was in the Championship play-offs just a few years ago under Dean Smith, will compete in the Champions League next season as Europa League holders. What Emery has built at Villa Park in under four years is one of the great modern managerial achievements in English football.
Sunderland: The Feel-Good Story of the Season
If Aston Villa provided the European glory, Sunderland provided the season’s great romantic narrative. The Black Cats, promoted through the Championship play-offs in May 2025 after eight years away from the top flight including four seasons in League One, not only survived their first season back in the Premier League. They finished seventh and qualified for European football for the first time since 1973. European football. For the first time in over 50 years. Sunderland will be in the Europa League next season.
Their manager, Regis Le Bris, was named in shortlists for manager of the season awards for good reason. Granit Xhaka as captain and conductor, Enzo Le Fee as the creative force in midfield, Brian Brobbey leading the line. The squad had remarkable cohesion and purpose all season. They beat Tottenham twice. They did the double over Chelsea. They finished with 54 points, a tally only ever bettered by six other promoted clubs across the entire history of the Premier League era.
The qualification was confirmed in genuinely dramatic fashion on the final day of the season. Sunderland started the day outside the Europa League spots, beat Chelsea 2-1, and when Bruno Fernandes scored for Manchester United against Brighton simultaneously, Sunderland climbed into seventh and Europe. The Stadium of Light erupted. Fifty-two years in the waiting, and it arrived on the last afternoon of the campaign. Football can be extraordinary when it wants to be.
Bournemouth: Europa League Bound and a New Chapter Begins
While Sunderland stole most of the European qualification headlines, Bournemouth also deserve enormous credit. They finished sixth on 57 points, qualifying for the Europa League for the first time in the club’s entire history. Andoni Iraola’s three-year project at the Vitality Stadium delivered its greatest achievement on the final day of his tenure, because Iraola departs at the end of the season after choosing not to sign a new contract. He leaves Bournemouth having transformed them from a mid-table Premier League side into a European club, and that contribution should be celebrated loudly.
Marco Rose, the experienced German coach who has worked with Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Monchengladbach, RB Salzburg and RB Leipzig, has been appointed as his successor on a three-year deal. Rose has worked with players like Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham and Dominik Szoboszlai during his career, and brings an aggressive, pressing style that should suit what Bournemouth have built. It is a smart appointment for a club now looking to establish themselves in European competition.
Nottingham Forest: Four Managers, One Season, and Survival
If Sunderland was the feel-good story, Nottingham Forest was the cautionary tale. Forest, who finished seventh last season and qualified for the Europa League, somehow managed to go through four permanent managers in a single Premier League campaign, a record in the history of the competition.
Nuno Espirito Santo, who had delivered that European qualification, was sacked after just three league matches in September after falling out with owner Evangelos Marinakis. Ange Postecoglou came in next and lasted 39 days before being dismissed after eight winless games across all competitions. Sean Dyche was the third appointment, provided some stability, but was sacked in February after 114 days in charge with Forest sitting 17th. Vitor Pereira, the Portuguese coach who had briefly been at Wolves, was appointed fourth and steered Forest to 16th and safety. The European adventure this season also ended in the semi-finals of the Europa League, which at least was some compensation for the chaos in the dugout.
It is extraordinary. Last season, seventh place and European football. This season, 16th place and four managers. The volatility of owner Evangelos Marinakis’s decision-making has been laid completely bare.
Bruno Fernandes and the Season’s Greatest Individual Performance
The individual award that generated the most conversation was Bruno Fernandes winning Premier League Player of the Season for Manchester United, and this time it was the correct recognition for a genuinely historic campaign.
Fernandes broke the all-time Premier League single-season assists record with 21 assists across the campaign, surpassing the previous mark of 20 jointly held by Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne. He scored nine goals alongside those 21 assists, giving him 30 direct goal involvements in total from 35 appearances. He was the first Manchester United player to win the award since Nemanja Vidic in 2011. He also won the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year, the full sweep of major individual honours.
The creative numbers behind this season are staggering. Fernandes created 136 chances in the league. The next highest was Dominik Szoboszlai with 78. That is not a gap. That is a chasm. Even more remarkably, he spent much of the first half of the season deployed out of position in a deeper midfield role by the then manager Ruben Amorim, and he was still accumulating assists at a historic rate. When Michael Carrick arrived and restored him to his natural position, the numbers became something else entirely. The 21st assist, which broke the record outright on the final day against Brighton, was greeted by his teammates mobbing him on the pitch. They knew they were watching something that had never been done before in English football. It placed him alongside Messi and Thomas Muller as the only players in European football’s top five leagues ever to reach 21 assists in a single season. It is one of the great Premier League seasons.
The Golden Boot and Individual Honours
Erling Haaland claimed the Golden Boot for the third time in four Premier League seasons, finishing the campaign with 27 goals, five ahead of Brentford’s Igor Thiago who scored 22. Haaland was directly involved in 35 goals from 35 appearances when you include his eight assists. He is now one short of equalling the record of four Golden Boots shared by Thierry Henry and Mohamed Salah. Manchester City’s young midfielder Nico O’Reilly won Young Player of the Season, a breakout campaign that earned him a place in England’s World Cup squad.
The Relegation Battles: West Ham Down, Spurs Survive by Their Fingernails
The battle at the bottom produced a final day of real drama.
West Ham United are relegated. After a continuous Premier League presence stretching back to 2011-12, the Hammers are going down to the Championship. On the final day, West Ham beat Leeds 3-0 at the London Stadium. It was not enough. Tottenham beat Everton 1-0 at home, staying two points clear of the drop zone. Jarrod Bowen was in tears at the final whistle. “This club deserves to be in the Premier League. Our aim now is to get back.” The image of Bowen in tears will endure for Hammers supporters.
Burnley and Wolverhampton Wanderers were the other two relegated sides, both confirmed before the final day. Wolves finished bottom on just 20 points, with an almost unfathomable 41-goal deficit and only three wins across the entire campaign. Their 19-game winless run was as bleak a season as any club has endured in recent Premier League memory.
Tottenham’s survival story deserves its own chapter. They came into 2026 without a single Premier League win all calendar year, sitting one point above the relegation zone. Thomas Frank had been sacked. An interim came and went. Then Roberto De Zerbi was appointed on a five-year deal with seven games remaining to save Spurs from their first relegation since 1978. De Zerbi pulled it off with eleven points from six games, including the crucial 1-0 win over Everton on the last day. James Maddison said afterwards that without De Zerbi’s arrival, relegation was certain. He would know. Tottenham are safe, but a complete rebuild at every level is the task ahead.
Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City come up from the Championship. Coventry, managed by Frank Lampard, won the Championship title with 95 points, a joyous achievement for that club.
New Faces in the Dugout: The Most Dramatic Summer of Managerial Change in Years
The managerial picture heading into next season has been transformed almost beyond recognition, and every situation deserves proper attention.
Manchester City: Enzo Maresca Inherits an Empire
City have moved quickly by appointing Enzo Maresca on a three-year contract. The Italian is not a stranger to the club, having served as Guardiola’s assistant during the treble-winning 2022-23 season and previously managed City’s under-23 setup. He knows the culture and the demands. But there are complications. His time at Chelsea ended in acrimonious circumstances in January 2026, with the club sacking him despite three and a half years remaining on his contract. Compensation discussions are ongoing. City fans do not want that background noise dominating what needs to be a focused first season in the post-Pep era. Maresca is an intelligent, tactically progressive coach. But stepping out from Pep’s shadow into a squad that will almost certainly lose key players this summer, while the 115-plus financial charge proceedings continue to hang over the club, is a weight of circumstance that would challenge anyone. There is absolutely no guarantee of success here.
Chelsea: Xabi Alonso Arrives with Real Power
The appointment of the summer is Xabi Alonso at Chelsea on a four-year contract starting July 1. The club has deliberately given him the title of Manager rather than Head Coach, a distinction not used at Stamford Bridge since Jose Mourinho in 2013. The signal is clear: Alonso has genuine influence over recruitment and footballing direction, not simply a brief to pick the team on Saturdays.
Alonso forged his reputation at Bayer Leverkusen, where he delivered the club’s first ever Bundesliga title in unbeaten fashion, one of the great coaching achievements of recent football history. His Real Madrid spell was brief and ended in January 2026. Chelsea moved decisively. The fact that this is the manager many expected to go to Liverpool makes the appointment even more significant for the wider landscape. Chelsea finished 10th this season through a chaotic succession of managers. With Alonso, the potential is genuinely exciting. Given four years, proper backing, and structural authority, he can make Chelsea title challengers again. That is what his coaching record suggests.
Manchester United: Michael Carrick Confirmed
Carrick has been confirmed as head coach following Ruben Amorim’s troubled 14-month tenure. He came in as interim and made enough of an impression to earn a two-year contract. United finished third this season, and much of that was down to Fernandes producing a historically brilliant campaign. The rebuild continues under a man who understands the club from the inside. Expectations need to be calibrated carefully, but there is a foundation to build on.
Tottenham: Roberto De Zerbi and a Rebuild
De Zerbi signed a five-year deal, saved Spurs from relegation, and has committed to staying regardless of what comes. The rebuild required is enormous. But he is an excellent coach with a clear identity and genuine Premier League experience from his Brighton years. Given time and structural support, he can make Tottenham interesting again.
Bournemouth: Marco Rose Takes Over from Iraola
Andoni Iraola leaves after three transformative years, and Marco Rose, the experienced German coach, takes over on a three-year deal. Rose’s high-intensity, pressing style is considered a natural successor to the football Iraola built. Bournemouth go into next season as a Europa League club for the first time in their history. Managing that transition will be the great challenge.
Final Thought
Every season has its defining images, and this one gave us several that will endure. Arsenal lifting the trophy at Selhurst Park, 22 years in the making. Pep in the Etihad dugout for the last time, his decade of dominance complete. Salah weeping on the Anfield turf, his daughters beside him, the Kop roaring in tribute. Jarrod Bowen in tears as West Ham’s relegation was confirmed. John McGinn lifting the Europa League trophy in Istanbul for Aston Villa. Granit Xhaka and the Sunderland players running towards their supporters at the Stadium of Light, Europe finally theirs again after half a century. Fernandes being mobbed by his teammates on the final day as the assists record fell.
What I keep coming back to is this: English football is at a genuine inflection point. For a decade, Pep Guardiola at Manchester City was the gravitational centre around which everything else orbited. That era is over. What replaces it is genuinely unclear, and that uncertainty is not a weakness. It is the most exciting thing about this sport.
Arsenal have shown they can win a title. Alonso at Chelsea has the profile and the authority to create something special. United are rebuilding under a club legend. Liverpool have serious questions to answer after a poor season and the exits of Salah and Robertson. City enter an uncharted new era. Villa are Europa League champions with ambition intact. Tottenham have a five-year project just beginning under De Zerbi. Sunderland and Bournemouth are European clubs for the first time, proof that this league’s capacity to produce new stories has not diminished.
Three different clubs have won the title in the last three seasons. Next season, I genuinely cannot tell you who wins it.
That is not a problem. That is a gift.
Matchday Pundit — Back where we belong.
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