We’re starting to think Liverpool might win the league. And you know what else? We genuinely think Southampton will get relegated. Those hot takes and more in this bonus midweek edition of Winners and Losers.
Winners
Liverpool
It is done. It was probably already done. But now there is no doubt whatsoever. What remains of this Liverpool season, in the Premier League at least, is but a coronation. A celebration tour. For the first time since 1990, Liverpool will be champions of England with fans in the ground to enjoy it.
They have been the best team in the country all season by a comically wide margin. It has been a deeply flawed and often quite undignified Premier League season behind them, but this will concern Liverpool not one jot.
The clearest indication possible of their absolute dominance has been the way the seal has been put on it this week. Because it really was a week where it looked possible that things might go the other way. Liverpool faced Man City and Newcastle, while Arsenal had West Ham and Nottingham Forest.
It wasn’t wild to think a five-point swing was possible from that set of games. But it was pretty wild to think it might be in Liverpool’s favour. As Liverpool calmly and efficiently put down with minimal fuss and nonsense two teams who may very well finish in the top four, their supposed rivals flailed around desperately in securing a solitary point and not a single goal.
Liverpool are as superior to the rest this season as they themselves were in 2020 and City have ever been. To do that in the first season under a new manager is huge. Only the turning of attention to the latter stages of the Champions League if and when required looks capable of preventing Liverpool’s already gargantuan lead extending further.
If this is goodbye for any or all of the Contract Three then it’s a spectacular send-off.
Mo Salah
No goals this time, but another assist for the bulging collection and later confirmation that with the title, Golden Boot and Playmaker awards all pretty much in his back pocket, he is now just out here completing side quests, like playing passes to Luis Diaz that defy the laws of physics.
Manchester United
On the most drab of technicalities, that being that they undeniably did in fact win their game. Did it offer any real encouragement that a corner has been turned? Did it hint at a brighter future ahead? Did it balls. It was the same old sh*t, but it was one of the type where it all turns out okay in the end.
A result of some significance, because a defeat to Ipswich that looked all too possible after Patrick Dorgu lost the entire run of himself would have just slightly opened the door to United possibly doing the funniest thing possible.
That door is now firmly if entirely unconvincingly shut, leaving United free to spend the rest of the season focusing on their tallest-dwarf competition with Spurs, one that will be fought on two fronts: the bottom half of the league table, where the fallen pair now sit together on 33 ropey points apiece, and the season-salvaging crack-papering potential offered by a Europa League knockout stage that holds tantalisingly few demons.
Manchester City
For the second season in a row, City emerged victorious from a curious game in a curious atmosphere at a ground that had long held some powerful hold over them.
Last season the Spurs fans celebrated along with the City fans as Arsenal’s title chances went up in smoke. This season Spurs simply no longer really care about a league season long since stripped of any potential for positive outcome but now also one that carries no threat of a disastrous one.
For the first 45 minutes, though, this was actually quite a good Man City performance. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, of course, because we know they can still be quite good sometimes. What we doubt is whether they can again be very good for months on end like they used to.
A second half that could easily have seen a half-interested Spurs, luxuriating in the opportunity from both a league-table and availability perspective to actually rest some players, salvage something offered further hints at City’s continued vulnerability.
A win’s a win, though, and after the ease with which Liverpool swatted them away at the weekend a necessary one to keep some kind of forward momentum in a season still in danger of absolute unravelling.
It is now also undeniably a season that brings with it the prospect of City, despite absolutely everything, still finishing second. And you have to concede that would be funny.
Erling Haaland
Some player when your bad seasons are the ones where you only manage to score your 20th league goal of the season in February.
Fulham
Absolute scamps, are Fulham. Only Liverpool have taken more points off teams in the top half this season, but this week the Cottagers managed something they’ve generally and inexplicably found rather harder: beating the dregs.
Their 2-1 win at Wolves still offered a reminder of the sort of antics Fulham have produced this season because it made us think of the reverse fixture which they contrived to lose 4-1. You guys!
And such is the nature of a squabble over European places that legitimately involves half the table, there remains a reasonable chance that Fulham can still do something truly extraordinary: they are still only four points away from fifth place and its probable Champions League prize, and there is precious little compelling evidence that any of the other teams involved in this are any better equipped than Fulham to capitalise.
Brighton
See above, frankly. Only Liverpool and Fulham have taken more points off teams in the top half than Brighton.
And such is the nature of a squabble over European places that legitimately involves half the table, there remains a reasonable chance that Fulham can still do something truly extraordinary: they are still only three points away from fifth place and its probable Champions League prize, and there is precious little compelling evidence that any of the other teams involved in this are any better equipped than Brighton to capitalise.
Victory over fellow Champions League dreamers Bournemouth in a six-pointer is huge, and the recent rediscovery of the winning touch is massive for a team that has lost fewer league games this season than anyone bar the top two.
Chelsea
Doctors should be able to prescribe home games against Southampton to any ailing club in need of a pick-me-up. Does the inevitable thumping win that ensues mean anything at all, really? Maybe not, but it’s still nice, isn’t it? Winning games?
Crystal Palace and the 50-point glass ceiling
A hugely satisfying 4-1 win over Aston Villa is a fine thing in and of itself, but there was more to it than just a nice big win over a Champions League club for Palace. For one thing, home wins have been scarce this season at Selhurst Park, so a big one was always going to be welcome.
For another, there is now an undeniably pleasing neatness to Palace’s nine wins, nine draws and nine defeats from their 27 games.
That does make the last two goals a bit disappointing because had it stayed 2-1 they’d have had a level goal difference too, but perhaps we ask too much.
The main reason Tuesday night’s win was so significant, though, is that it lifts Palace’s points per game this season to 1.33, a number that if maintained across the remaining games would take Palace to 50.67 points. If you know, you know.
Brentford’s performance art
There appeared a very real chance that Brentford might win a home game and thus destroy the neat pattern of only winning at home for the first few months of the season and then only winning away for the rest of it they’ve spent so much time carefully cultivating. Crisis averted in the unlikely form of Jake O’Brien.
Derby County
Still in with a credible shout of ridding themselves of infamy. It really might be all eyes on Leicester v Southampton in the first week of May.
Losers
Arsenal
For the third straight year, Arsenal’s title chase comes up short. And this year it’s come up very short, very early.
For the club that so obviously needed a striker or forward of some sort or other in January to have secured nobody at all and then see the title dream extinguished completely less than a month later on the back of one point from two games featuring 33 shots of which only three were on target and none were goals is a bit too on the nose even for Arsenal.
The challenge now – and it is a significant one – is for Mikel Arteta to somehow rally his weary, depleted troops. They do at least have a week off before the first leg of their Champions League last-16 clash with PSV. It is a tie they need to win now if only for their sense of self-worth if not particularly for a compelling belief that the trophy itself can be won.
Because if that were to go wrong, Arsenal’s current total lack of forward thrust could yet see them dragged into the indignity of a top-four scrap they understandably believed was beneath them. In every sense.
The injury problems Arsenal have suffered do of course offer significant mitigation to their current struggles, as well as necessitating a significant reappraisal of Kai Havertz’s qualities for some, but there is still a sense of negligence and carelessness about the way Arsenal have left themselves hostage to so obvious a fortune.
The winter transfer window is never easy, and a perfect solution was unlikely to present itself, but they had to do something. It was already clear then and has only become more so that the gamble in sticking was far greater than the gamble in twisting.
But let us not pretend Arsenal’s failure this season is all down to misfortune. It’s a fairly blunt instrument for sure, but when a table of results against teams in the top half explains away essentially the entirety of Arsenal’s deficit it becomes hard to ignore as the root of this season’s failure in the end to even really properly challenge.
Aston Villa
Suddenly find themselves as low as 1oth after the highs of the late, late win over Chelsea were followed by a thumping defeat at Selhurst Park.
It’s been the story of Villa’s league season, one that has never really had any great momentum to it. Not since September have they managed more than two league wins in a row, and every time a corner appears to have been turned they find another cul-de-sac.
Those three early-season wins were followed by a run of one win in eight. A pair of back-to-back wins in early December by a run of one win in four. And the two wins that kicked off Villa’s 2025 have now been followed by one win in seven.
They are still only four points off fifth given the chaotic nature of this season, but having played a game more than all their rivals have plenty of work to do while also trying to do something they’ve struggled with all season: juggling league form with other commitments.
Unai Emery
And Unai Emery cannot escape all criticism. The Mailbox came for him after the Palace defeat in a way we’ve not seen since the dog days of his time at Arsenal.
Nobody doubts the man’s CV or the work he’s done in turning Villa from relegation battlers into a Champions League side. But they have taken a huge PSR gamble on wages, and it really cannot be worth it if all it delivers is a mid-table league finish and a Champions League quarter-final.
Villa’s struggles post-Champions League games have been well documented, but this defeat at Palace highlighted the other major flaw in Emery’s side this season. They are quite simply a totally different beast away from Villa Park.
At home they boast a record that stands up against any in the land, but away from home the story is very different. Only the cast-adrift bottom four have fewer points on the road – and Wolves only two fewer – while even more damningly only those four have defensive records as bad as or worse than Villa’s.
Emery’s mid-block and high line is all too often all too easily picked apart when Villa leave the comfort of home. This was their fourth three-goal defeat away from home in 13 games. It cannot be good enough.
Newcastle
No particular shame in being airily and dismissively outplayed at Anfield this season, but it does extend a slightly worrying league run for Newcastle as well as sow plenty of doubt for a Carabao Cup final that is only just over two weeks away.
After a run of six straight wins over Christmas and the New Year lifted Newcastle right back into Champions League contention, a run of four defeats in six subsequent games has left them in a dicier spot.
It’s true that nobody below the top two is doing a particularly convincing job at this time of nailing down a top four/five finish, but Newcastle’s misfortune in this round specifically has been to see those around them capitalise on the Magpies’ unsurprising defeat at Liverpool.
Forest taking a point off Arsenal as well as wins for City and Chelsea have exacerbated the impact of a defeat that, in isolation, is of no grave concern. Even Bournemouth’s defeat is only partially good news for Newcastle because it brings Brighton into striking range.
This is a European race being contested by flawed teams and one that will by definition feature plenty of ebb and flow. But this was a painful couple of days for a team who may in fact be the most flawed of the lot.
Ipswich
A(nother) huge and very possibly final opportunity missed to give us a real relegation fight. There is no great surprise in the fact Ipswich are going down, but there is a real sense of ‘What If?’ around it. They have looked a better side than Southampton this season, obviously, but also for the most part Leicester despite a points tally that says otherwise.
Ipswich have been able to compete more often and for longer in a greater number of games, but just haven’t been able to turn enough of those performances into something tangible. And few of those are going to sting harder than defeat to a United side at their lowest ebb and in self-destructive mode.
Patrick Dorgu
A monumentally stupid thing to do and one that could and should have had more significant consequences for a club, team and manager that absolutely do not need any more significant consequences at this time.
Alejandro Garnacho
Again with the significant consequences.
Tottenham
Say what you like about Ange Postecoglou, he is not a manager who conceals his intentions. Three straight Premier League wins had given Postecoglou and Spurs breathing space in the league and, with players slowly returning from injury, the freedom to do something that has been unavailable to the Australian for several months: resting and rotating his players.
Even so, the sight of a Spurs team featuring neither of its two best players this season – Dejan Kulusevski and, extraordinary a thing as this is, Djed Spence – and an even rarer rest for captain Son Heung-min signalled clearly just where Spurs’ priorities for this season now lie. HINT: It is not in the Premier League.
They didn’t play that badly, in truth. There have certainly been grimmer efforts in North London than this, and they could easily have snatched something late on after Postecoglou had taken full advantage of the rare privilege of looking along his subs’ bench and seeing all manner of actual footballers rather than regens sitting on it.
But so harrowing a league season has it been for Spurs, albeit one that no longer carries even the faintest whiff of complete and utter catastrophe, that all eggs now rest in the Europa League basket. It really is sh*t or bust for this season and perhaps the entire Postecoglou Project.
Win the Europa League and you quite reasonably lay claim to Spurs’ best season in 40 years. Fail to do so, as is far more likely, and you have to try and explain Spurs’ worst season in 20 years.
It is a great chance, though. This is an alignment of circumstance that Spurs may never again be able to enjoy. League games that literally do not matter, and a European competition to win in which there really is no team they should fear. Even the injury crisis becomes a positive if Spurs find themselves able to call on players who will be less fatigued than usual for the closing months of the season.
Spurs’ last three trophy-winning seasons – an era that takes us ludicrously/hilariously all the way back to 1991 – have been accompanied by league finishes of tenth, 11th and 11th.
The point is this: if there is even the most tenuous possible way to feebly contend there exists a Spursy way to win a trophy, then this is it.
Bournemouth
Just a really bad time to lose a couple of games that looked pretty winnable on paper. Of all the teams still in there scrapping for a European spot Bournemouth are perhaps the one in least urgent need. But that might also make them the one most likely to spend years and decades rueing it should they end up missing out.
Wolves
Should still be fine, but losing at home to Fulham represents a significant missed opportunity to put the relegation fight to bed once and for all. A five-point lead is probably enough; an eight-point lead would have killed it dead.
Unlikely to be any more than a temporary issue, though, because in a couple of weeks they’ve got…
Southampton
Oh god, just the total abject futility of it. We know you always have to be careful comparing the lived-in present with the rose-tinted past, but we’re trying to remember that Derby season in 2008 and it surely wasn’t just as overwhelmingly and thoroughly depressing as this, was it?
Did every single Derby game have this feel you get with Southampton of it already having 3-0 vibes before it’s even 1-0?
Just what is the point of any of this? Do we really have to make them go through the motions of playing all the remaining games? Who wants this? The Southampton players are making it abundantly clear that they don’t.
Still, Chelsea away is a tough old game in any season, isn’t it? We’re sure their next fixture offers some kind of respite oh wait no it’s Liverpool away. F*cking hell.
