Season's end. Or is it?

When does the season end?

Well, depends on which league your team is in. It could be the end of April, first week of May or the third week in May. Or your team could reach the play-offs in which the season ends in the last weekend of May. Or if your team gets to a European final, then it could extend into June.

And the whole thing starts again either on the second or third weekend of August.

Except this year, there's a World Cup, and with 48 teams, its got not only more games, but will take longer to finish.

Just for the record, I have no idea when the first game is in the World Cup, or who even is in England's group.

Let me check:

The first game seems to be on the 11th June, and the final is on 19th of July. That is something like six weeks. And for me our road trip begins the day after the final.

Looking back, its been quite the season.

Arsenal became Champions of England for the first time in 22 years. In the end winning the title by seven points after Man City failed to win either of their last two games: drawing one and losing one, while Arseanl won all of their last five.

Manchester United improved on last season's 15th finish by finishing this season 3rd. Villa were forth despite a long and successful European campaign. And Liverpool finished 5th, so qualified for the Champion's League, though sacked manager Arne Slot anyway.

Pep is leaving Manchester City a year before his contract was up, but at United, Ruben Amorim was sacked early in the new year, and Michael Carrick was interim manager at first, but after guiding them to 3rd, has been given a three year contract. He will last until United's next dip in form when the club will panic and sack him.

Bournemouth finished sixth, and so qualified for the Europa League, but newly promoted Sunderland finished seventh and joined them. Bright finisnied eighth and made the Conference.

Chelsea's experiment with signing the world's best young talent for sky high fees on long contracts has been shown to have failed, as their frm tanked in the run-in and so finished tenth. Chelsea sacked manager Enzo Maresca on New Years day after he complained that the clubs functions were stopping him from managing. Liam Rosenior was brought in from Strasbourg, as they're both owned by the same company. (dont ask). And he was sacked on the 22nd April with the team apparently not willing to play for him. Xabi Alonso has been brought in for the new season, and time will tell on how that will go with another manager with firm ideas and tactics, and headstrong egotistical senior players.

It will be nothing if not interesting.

Newcastle finished twelfth, after a good showing in the Champion's Leadue, their squad wasn't good or deep enough to challengs on four fronts. Losing star striker Alexander Isak, who went on strike to force through a £125 million in the last week of the window, leaving the Magpies a striker short.

Before the season started, I thought that the three promoted teams would all go back down, as happened in the two previous season, arguing that no team could be so badly run to be in danger of relegation after three years of over £100 million per annum in TV money. But step forward Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Ham and Tottenham Hotspur. But one of those did survive.

Wolves have been selling their best players each season for a few years, and not really replacing them. That into December, they only had two points and were in danger of becoming the worse ever Premier League team. But they did begin to win, nowhere enough games, and ended the season in 20th and last place with 20 points, having won just three games all season.

Burnley showed that having conceded less than twenty goals in getting promoted in the Championship the previous season was no preparation for a season in the Premier League, and so finished 19th, conceding 75 goals, soring just 38, so winning 4 games and ending with 22 points. They sacked Paul Parker when it was inevitable they were going down, so will rebuild again.

That leaves us with the two London teams, West Ham and Spurs.

Spurs finished 2024-25 season in 17th place, one place above the relegation places, but some 13 points clear of the team below them by 13 points. Senior management must have thought they couldn't be that bad again, could they? Yes they could.

Both teams won ten games each, but for Spurs many of those was in the warm autumn sunshine. They only won three home games all season, one of which was the last game, which ensured their survival. They had an injury crisis for sure, but some teams, like Norwich had worse, and kept winning.

Ange Postecoglou was sacked last summer despite winning a European trophy, and was replaced with Thoma Frank from Brentford, who left the well run west London club for the bin fire that is New White Hart Lane. Frank was sacked in February with the worse win percentage in the club's Premier League history. He was replaced by Igor Tudor, who had saved several Italian clubs from trouble previously. He won only one game in seven games and left by mutual consent after the death of his father. He was replaced by Roberto De Zerbi, who steered them to safety.

West Ham meanwhile went from crisis to crisis. After a poor start, Graham Potter was sacked and replaced by former Nottingham Forest manager, Nuno Espírito Santo. He had been sacked after falling out with Forest's billionaire owner, but took the West Ham job. In the spring there was an improvement in form, and as they and Spurs competed in a death dive to see who would go down, all was going wel until they lost 3-0 against Brentford, and swapped places with Spurs who won their first league game of the year the same day. West Ham were relegated despite winning 39 points, the highest points total a relegated team had achieved in over a decade.

The season was marked by the coming back into fashion of the long throw and goals from corners, which resulted in most games much jostling between defenders and attackers. Also there was a sizeable reduction in goals from open play, making the Premier League much less enjoyable to watch. Whether this was just a blip or something more permanent remains to be seen.

In the Championship, Frank Lampard's Coventry City were promoted as chammpions, despite a major wobble early in 2026. He was made Manager of the year by the LMA because he's Frank Lampard. He's now being tipped to take over another Premier League club, but the Chelsea berth is taken. I have nothing against him, but that whoever he manages becomes "his" club is more than annoying. I can't argue he did a great job building on what Mark Robins had done previously.

Ipswich finsihed second, rather stumbling over the line at the end of the season, though they stuffed Norwich both home and away, which shows nothing lasts forever. MCKenna is being tipped for other clubs too. We shall see.

Hull went up via the play-off, beating Middlesborough after Southampton were kicked out fo "spygate 2". They finished sixth, and only got into the top six on the last day with an undesrved win against Norwich who outplayed them. But they have a resilute attitude which was fine in the second tier, might not work in the Prem.

Norwich had quite the season. Liam Manning was appointed in the summer. A Norfolk boy and Norwich supporter and former season ticket holder, he had done well in getting Bristol City into the play-off in 2025.

But it was not to be.

Under Manning lost all of their first seven games under him, and won their first home point once he was sacked and replaced by Philippe Clement. Under him, players that seemed to not know what footbal was, were coached into a coherent unit, despite a string of injuries, at one time numbering 17 (seventeen), beat that, Spurs. And club captain and centre forward, Josh Sargent, went on strike to force a move back to North America.

Norwich just fell short of a run into the play-offs, which was probably a good thing, but look good for next season, if they can keep hold of Philippe Clement.

Anyway, enjoy the eight days until the start of the World Cup.