Premier League winners and losers: Liverpool hero, Potter fury, Chelsea cast-off, Amorim’s lie
Liverpool should not have had a free run at Alexis Mac Allister. Chelsea will probably try to sell their best defender again. And Graham Potter is furious.
Premier League winners
Liverpool
Premier League winners in a quite literal sense – and here’s how they did it.
Alexis Mac Allister
But in the specific context of the Spurs thrashing it was heartening to see Mac Allister given some time in the spotlight as the game’s best player.
That inability to really pigeonhole him as one specific type of midfielder surely contributed to the lack of competition Liverpool faced in signing him. Any team heading to Brighton with cash in hand at that time had eyes only for Moises Caicedo as a defensive midfielder with unmatched potential, but Mac Allister might have been the more complete player hiding in plain sight at about a third of the cost.
His goal against Spurs underlined a latent attacking spark and seven tackles emphasised his remarkable Argentinean grit.
“Moving to Liverpool was the best decision I have ever made,” Mac Allister said during the title celebrations. It should embarrass the rest of the Premier League that it was basically the only decision he had to make.
And this was the week he forced his way into the Premier League XI of the season.
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Wolves
Vitor Pereira was deliberate in his wording when imploring Wolves not to repeat their recent transfer tricks. The Portuguese stressed the importance of “keeping almost all of the players” because he knows Matheus Cunha will surely leave, but he realises that £62.5m cash injection should safeguard his squad from further sales.
A further positive for Pereira is that Wolves seem to have cracked the code somewhat in terms of signing players without the input of Jorge Mendes, or at least corrected a course which has previously seen them almost sunk.
Marshall Munetsi and particularly Emmanuel Agbadou have been excellent January additions, Andre could be the next cab off the rank destined for a far richer club, and Rodrigo Gomes has acclimatised well even if he will eventually need to do more than score in comfortable 3-0 wins over Leicester.
And in Jorgen Strand Larsen they have found an excellent centre-forward focal point who can help carry this attack into a new era. He is the highest-scoring new signing in the Premier League this season and only three players across Europe’s top five divisions have a higher percentage of shots on target (60.4%).
It is a massive ask to replace the creativity of Cunha, but Larsen is more than ready to shoulder more responsibility if and when the ball arrives in the right positions.
PL table since Wolves appointed Pereira
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Trevoh Chalobah
The underappreciation of Chalobah remains a faintly baffling case.
There can’t be many 25-year-old centre-halves in the game capable of playing different positions, with substantial Premier League experience and plenty of European nous – including a season spent in a foreign division – who are so routinely overlooked and neglected by their country and parent club.
Chalobah has played 220 first-team games split between 14 different managers and five separate teams, spending no more than 14.5% of his senior career under any one coach (Danny Cowley tops the list with 32 matches).
There is hope Thomas Tuchel – for whom he played 31 times in what is by some distance his most settled period at Chelsea – can open the door to parlaying a 53-cap England youth career into overdue full and proper representation.
But there can only be praise for a player who continues to knuckle down and work so hard in the face of unnecessary obstacles. Enzo Maresca is the latest to realise the combination of those virtues and Chalobah’s ability is a blessing to any elite squad, even if it does feel as though Chelsea will still see the other side of this coin and try to cash in for that filthy pure profit lucre yet again instead of recognising the importance of keeping such an asset despite a tempting multiplication in value.
It does beg the question as to why, if Maresca “knew that he could help us”, he was sent out on loan at the start of the season. But that goal-creating tackle-pass on Beto underlined the importance of recall clauses at least.
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Fulham
Not since December 2023 have Fulham either won or lost three consecutive Premier League games. Their best winning streak this season is two, as is their longest run of defeats. And only Liverpool have gone longer at any point without a win.
They are a fundamentally weird club, as underlined by the sudden emergence of free agent Ryan Sessegnon as a fine Antonee Robinson replacement. The 24-year-old has scored four goals and assisted two in eight Premier League appearances since making his first since in late February, and left-back was the fifth different position he has been utilised during that spell.
Sessegnon is behind only Mo Salah – ’twas ever thus – for combined goals and assists per 90 of those with more than 400 minutes this season. Perhaps spending five years at Spurs is enough to frighten any player into realising their potential.
Kieran Trippier
Eddie Howe was understandably “devastated” to lose Lewis Hall to injury in March but the vindication of a winter transfer decision will have helped ease the manager’s pain.
It would have been no shock to see Trippier leave in January. There was interest from Turkey in a player who had scarcely featured but offers were resisted for an individual whose role in the dressing room will be tough to replicate.
And there is mounting proof he still has plenty to offer on the pitch. This is Trippier’s longest run of Premier League starts in over a year and Gareth Southgate will have watched those deliveries for the second and third Newcastle goals on a loop.
With a contract expiring at the end of next season, it might be worth letting Trippier’s transformational spell at St James’ come to a more natural end than a mid-season Galatasaray panic sale.
Brighton
It will be a close-run thing but Yasin Ayari’s stunning strike against West Ham has given Brighton a chance. They have pulled level with Arsenal for the most different scorers in the Premier League this season (16 each) and can claim the crown outright over the next four games.
Brajan Gruda seems like the safest bet but Lewis Dunk could continue his resurgence with a goal and if worst comes to worst, Bart Verbruggen can be sent up for a corner on the final day.
It is a genuine achievement of sorts for Brighton, whose previous best for most different scorers in a single Premier League season was 15 in both 2020/21 and 2022/23.
One might argue that spending about £200m almost exclusively on forwards should generate such an increase in shared output but that has not always been the case and Fabian Hurzeler has done well to harness it.
Premier League losers
Graham Potter
It is difficult to recall a manager being broken quite so quickly by a club. If Potter’s players were as expeditious in closing Brighton down when they came within 30 yards of goal as he was in ruthlessly stamping out any notion of pulling positives from another late self-destruction then they might have held on for a spirited draw or even cathartic win.
Across a 155-game career as a Premier League manager Potter has almost systematically said precious little of interest and instead insisted on his coaching doing the talking. But by snapping back in his post-match press conference – even though the “if you want me to swear, I can swear” was incredibly Southgate – he showed a brand of helpless frustration we have not seen before.
That should worry West Ham. In his first words as manager Potter referenced how “there are some very strong foundations in place to build on”, but this is worse than the regrettable Lopetegui reign and in a matter of months that supposedly solid structure already seems to be on the brink of collapse.
Only the relegated three have accrued fewer points, won fewer games or scored fewer goals since his appointment. One aspect of Championship clubs coming up to go straight back down has been the relative rise in standard of Premier League teams across the board but the Hammers will be starting next season at a significant disadvantage to Leeds and Burnley in terms of momentum and could easily be dragged into that fight.
Potter losing his cool a week after Nicklas Fullkrug laid into his teammates is painfully revealing. Both only joined the club this season and have already seen more than enough to render them furious.
The manager said when he replaced Lopetegui that “it was important to me that I waited until a job came along that I felt was right for me, and equally that I was the right fit for the club I am joining; that is the feeling I have with West Ham United”. It feels increasingly as though he was horribly mistaken on both fronts and simply settled out of panic after nearly two years away.
Spurs
The record for most Premier League defeats suffered by a team who stayed up is 21, set by Aston Villa in 2019/20. Spurs are on 19 with four games remaining and it would be a genuine shock if they did not lower that bar.
If they could somehow manage it while finishing 17th and scoring a few goals that would be great. Another record within reach is the lowest Premier League placing with a positive goal difference, set by Manchester City in 16th with +1 in 2003/04. Spurs, 16th on +6, are on the brink of history.
It’s just who they are, mate.
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Everton
The only Premier League defeats of the second Moyes era have come against the teams currently 1st, 4th, 5th and 7th, and there remains the tantalising prospect of Everton finishing above Manchester United and Spurs this season, as well as West Ham, from which the manager would naturally derive immense personal satisfaction.
But that initial wave has undeniably diminished. Everton have one won of their last nine games and only relegated Leicester (16) have failed to score in more games than their 15. While Beto losing the ball for Chelsea’s winner was sub-optimal, arguably more damaging was his inability to affect the match at the other end.
Those difficulties in chance creation and finishing were well-established and oft-lamented under Sean Dyche; Everton will be the lowest-scoring survivors for a second successive season. After securing safety with great comfort, fixing that – maybe with some ‘marquee’ signings – will be a substantial test of the Moyes regime.
Leicester
Almost as wide as the gaping chasm where Leicester’s defence should have at least theoretically been against Wolves is the hole in the logic of these final weeks spent sleepwalking back into the Championship.
Relegation should be a perverse release, a weight off the shoulders and a chance to acknowledge that as much as things have gone wrong, opportunity abounds to rebuild and refocus away from the glaring Premier League spotlight.
But Leicester have piled misery on top of misery. A manager whose future seems to depend on the result of a blinking contest with the boardroom is picking players who hope to escape this summer, while using the carrot of delivering a proper send-off to a club legend whose exit has already been announced.
It is a depressing final chapter in the story of Jamie Vardy, and if Ruud van Nistelrooy thinks this squad will be motivated to give him a happy farewell having been entirely unenthused by the prospect of fighting for survival, he is an even worse fit for these players than previously thought.
Wout Faes
A very strong shout among the worst defenders in Premier League history. Leicester will surely sue for false advertisement if they can bear to watch the second and third Wolves goals back.
Ipswich
The formality of relegation had been long overdue for some time but it was fitting that the confirmation arrived with a red card attached.
Ben Johnson was the fifth different Ipswich player to be sent off in the Premier League this season, more than any other club. There are echoes of Burnley last season, who had seven red cards under Vincent Kompany, who himself was dismissed from the touchline in a game against Chelsea.
Kieran McKenna has avoided that ignominy but it encapsulates an inexperience and naivety Ipswich have found difficult to overcome. A team already fighting uphill to stay in the Premier League cannot afford to shoot itself in the foot quite so often.
Ruben Amorim
There are completely valid arguments to be made over rhythm and consistency, but Amorim pledging to “take risks with the kids” and sticking to it for one game was curious.
Of course, the Portuguese cannot win – please do try and stifle your laughter in the back – because writing off the Premier League completely to simply rack up more defeats in that competition cannot be good for confidence, momentum or the history books.
But when they have been so consistently poor in the Premier League anyway it seem counterintuitive to keep throwing full-strength sides out to draw or be beaten when the results don’t really matter beyond generating a bit more prize money to spare Sir Jim from serving yet more redundancies.
And when Amorim already prepared a “play the kids” excuse which will always connect with this fanbase, particularly with more obviously important games on the horizon, it is strange to chuck 15 cursory minutes at Chido Obi-Martin and consider that box ticked.
Kyle Walker-Peters
Robbie Savage remains the face of The Derby Season but it is difficult to think of a single Rams player who was quite so laughably far better than that record-breakingly awful squad.
While there are a few candidates for that role at Southampton, Walker-Peters feels like the most egregious case of a player being undeservedly dragged into a mess he is doing more than anyone to try and clean up. He joined Saints two months after they were top of the Premier League table and will leave them dead last, five years and almost 200 appearances later.
Walker-Peters was once more out on his own against Fulham, completing more than twice as many dribbles as any teammate and generally locking down his side defensively. There is no better free agent pick-up available to any level of Premier League club this summer, with the England international offering wonderful cover for the elite and a reliable starter at any echelon below.
Many more will leave St Mary’s this summer but none can do so with their head held quite as high as Walker-Peters.
Bournemouth
The laptop nerds will point out the context of game state but Manchester United had not had so many shots in a Premier League game in exactly a year, when they mustered 27 against relegated Burnley, until they faced Bournemouth.
Andoni Iraola should be embarrassed.
