The English Football Thread

[TheHulk 2,402]

Bournemouth are a disgrace of a football club, got red as well.

[LAM09 7,043]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

world class goal by Marmoush

amazing technique

Kepa getting beaten from distance (arguably goal of the season but still). Name a more iconic duo.

[nyikolajevics 2,689]

8 minutes ago, LAM09 said:

Kepa getting beaten from distance (arguably goal of the season but still). Name a more iconic duo.

Chelsea & expensive striker signings.

[LAM09 7,043]

4 minutes ago, nyikolajevics said:

Chelsea & expensive striker signings.

Chelsea and GK signings under current ownership. The list could probably go on. 😄

Edited May 20 by LAM09

[Special Juan 28,088]

There was no way Bournemouth were ever getting anything here...shit can of a football team, already on the beach and spent 90 minutes plus walking and watching City pass around them

[Vesper 30,081]

The Athletic’s end-of-season awards, 2024-25: Men’s football

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6336642/2025/05/20/athletic-end-of-season-awards-2024-25-men/

The Premier League title has long since been won and the battle to avoid relegation was also decided weeks ago, leaving the fight to qualify for European football in 2025-26 as the major outstanding issue of this season.

As the 20 clubs of the domestic top-flight prepare to wrap up their league campaigns over the next week, including Sunday’s 10-game final day, The Athletic’s team of experts have been voting in our annual end-of-season awards. These cover the Premier League, the Championship and also the big competitions in Europe.

We have done the same for women’s football — you can find out about them here.

But without further ado, let’s reveal the winners in the men’s game…

---

Premier League Player of the Season: Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)

 

Mohamed Salah set standards nobody could get close to as he propelled Liverpool to the title.

The prolific Egyptian flourished under new head coach Arne Slot, breaking the record for most goal involvements in a 38-game Premier League season (46 and counting). The previous best was 44, achieved by Thierry Henry of Arsenal (2002-03) and Manchester City’s Erling Haaland (2022-23).

Salah, who is also on the brink of winning his fourth Premier League Golden Boot in eight seasons as the division’s top scorer, has tormented top-flight defenders. As well as netting 28 league goals, he has also been the champions’ most creative force with 18 league assists.

Across all competitions this season, he has 33 goals and 23 assists in 51 appearances — climbing to third place on the club’s all-time scoring list with 244. He’s signed a new contract to replace the one that was expiring this summer too, so Premier League defenders face having to deal with him for two more years.

Premier League Young Player of the Season: Morgan Rogers (Aston Villa)

Morgan Rogers is a unique footballer. He is nimble and fleet of foot, but is seemingly built of concrete.

His physicality has created a rare type of attacker — a brilliant ball-carrier who is hardly ever outmuscled. Combine all of this with a developed end-product and you get a 22-year-old who is a critical cog in manager Unai Emery’s Aston Villa system.

Few players enjoy a rise as swift or sharp as Rogers’ has been, going from a so-so midfielder at Middlesbrough in the second-tier Championship and during a string of previous EFL loans, to an England international and elite playmaker in less than 18 months.

Premier League Manager of the Season: Nuno Espirito Santo (Nottingham Forest)

 

There are a few managers who have earned their place in Nottingham Forest history by inspiring truly remarkable transformations in the club’s fortunes. Brian Clough took Forest up from the second tier in 1978 and over the next three seasons made them not just domestic champions but kings of Europe — twice, Frank Clark followed another top-flight promotion in the early 1990s by swiftly earning UEFA Cup qualification and Steve Cooper took over a team fighting relegation to the third tier in September 2021 and within nine months had the club back in the Premier League after 23 years away.

With the job he has done at the City Ground since replacing Cooper in December 2023, Nuno Espirito Santo has more than earned his place among that group.

Forest spent the previous two seasons fighting against relegation. Many pundits predicted back in August that it would be the same story again. But Nuno has proved Forest’s doubters wrong.

There’s been a battle alright, but of a much more enjoyable kind for the team and their fans.

After they climbed to third in the table before Christmas, it seemed Forest were on course for a top-five finish and Champions League place. While they might have stuttered slightly over the race’s final furlong, they have still qualified for Europe for the first time in three decades and could still cross the line in the top five to return to the continent’s elite they conquered under Clough.

Nuno has given Forest an identity again, a mentality that has seen them beat Liverpool, Manchester City, Aston Villa and Manchester United (twice) this season. He has allowed their fans to dare to dream that nothing is impossible.

Premier League Team of the Season

 

Nottingham Forest spent a lot of time and money trying to find a reliable goalkeeper, and in 2024 winter-window buy Matz Sels they finally found their man. No Premier League keeper has more clean sheets this season than his 13 and few, if any, have been as important to their team.

Champions Liverpool provide 50 per cent of our all-star team’s back four. The departing Trent Alexander-Arnold added six more assists to his Premier League total, while his Anfield captain Virgil van Dijk is the league’s top-goalscoring central defender (25) since he came to the English top flight with Southampton in 2015. Talking of goals, Arsenal’s set-piece devourer Gabriel retains his position from last year’s XI, with Bournemouth’s overlapping-run merchant Milos Kerkez completing the quartet.

Arsenal are represented in our midfield three too, with the increasingly influential Declan Rice bouncing back from that much-debated red card against Brighton in August to dominate games on both the domestic and European stages. Meanwhile, Liverpool provide the incredibly consistent Alexis Mac Allister (five goals and five assists in his first Premier League season for the club, and now the same again in year two) and Ryan Gravenberch, whose conversion by new head coach Arne Slot into a No 6 was one of the tactical shifts of the campaign.

Up front, we have Salah, a player who must now own more records to do with scoring and/or assisting than most other footballers have actual goals. The Egyptian is joined by Alexander Isak — just the third Newcastle player to hit 10+ goals both home and away in the same Premier League season — and Chris Wood, who after a sensational season with Forest (20 league goals so far) is now the record Premier League goalscorer for both them and Burnley. And if that doesn’t earn you a spot in a team of the season, then what does?

snip

[Vesper 30,081]

[Vesper 30,081]

[KEVINAA 129]

Today at Wembley at 3pm uk. The playoff final for final spot in the PL Sunderland vs Sheffield United

 

On Wednesday 18 June at 9am the PL FIXTURES RELEASE DAYfor 2025-26

[Vesper 30,081]

Sunderland upsets Sheffield United 1 2 on a 95th minute game winning goal by a teen sub Tom Watson

EPL bound

[Vesper 30,081]

Sheff U blew SO many sitters and chances

they should have won by 4 or 5 goals

[Vesper 30,081]

Sunderland went into the playoffs with 5 straight defeats

no team has even won the playoffs even losing 3 in a row before they started the play-offs