General Premier League Thread 2025/2026 - See Post #1 for Mod Note

Didn't see it at the time, assuming it was during a water break…but again even at that

And so is the end of the 25/26 PL season.

In my eyes, it was a season bereft of real attacking quality and good footballing teams. It was the year of set pieces, the long throw, the corner kicks wrestling matches and more set pieces.

Of today's 10 matches, 6 of them had their first goal scored via a set piece. Over half of the games.

16 teams scored today. Nearly half of them (Man Utd, Fulham, Aston Villa, Wolves, Forest, Spurs and West Ham) all scored their first goal via a set piece today. Arsenal scored their 2nd goal via a set piece too.

Arsenal scored from 19 corners IIRC, which set a new premier league record.

Bruno set an assist record of 21 assists. 13 of those came from set piece situations.

Fair play to Arsenal, they finally got the job done after a few years of finishing runners up. They played the system the best and used this new set piece league to their advantage as they were clearly the best at scoring from them, and using their wrestling and NFL routines, but also defending them, and defending in general.

Excellent at controlling the space and the game off of the ball, and that slow mundane possession in the middle third. As a few managers have said recently, they're the best team in the world off of the ball. They only scored 71 goals overall, in the league this season, which is the lowest amount of goals scored by a champion, by a long distance, since Leicester a decade ago.

Over a third of these were via set pieces, but more importantly an awful lot of these were opening goals or go-ahead goals which then allowed them to bring the mundane control game into play. No better example of this was in the recent game against Burnley in which they were basically confirmed champions. Burnley were already relegated and people expected Arsenal to win by a few goals to boost their goal difference in case City beat Bournemouth. Arsenal scored via a set piece and then controlled the game from there on out.

Liverpool never really got a handle on the whole set pieces thing and was a large reason why they suffered so much this season. They sacked their set piece coach and brought in another one which coincided with a big upturn in results racking up a few wins in a row. I was at one game at Anfield which boasted 7 goals and if I remember correctly 5 of them were via set pieces. Overall Liverpool were poor, had multiple injury issues, and the obvious mental drain of losing a teammate in tragic circumstances yet still qualified for next seasons Champions League with what I think is a record low points tally. Which says a lot about the quality of the league.

Here's hoping to a better footballing league next season. A clampdown on the NFL routines & wrestling will be needed though.

I think Arsenal have absolutely no excuse for not defending one for the first time post WWII.

Well one team quite recently won the league at a canter, spent close to 500 million and finished 25 points off the lead the following season so who know..

If the quality of the league is as bad as a lot of people make out, the rest of Europe must be in real bother.

Arsenal finish the season without conceding a penalty or getting a red card. First time either of those has happened according The Athletic.
Bournemouth finish with 18 draws, a record for a 38 game season.

That's incredible really.

To have every single contentious refereeing decision or VAR decision surrounding a red card or penalty fall in your favour. For an entire season.

There was so much talk online from Arsenal fans last year about a PGMOL conspiracy against them. Referees out to get them, etc. Ian Wright had his weekly segment on the Overlap crying about PGMOL decisions against Arsenal. Arsenal fans believed it so much that they sent death threats to Michael Oliver and his family. Were the PGMOL all too scared to make a decision against Arsenal this season?

The genetic composite of all the greatest managers of all time couldn't fix the clusterf*ck that is the Executive team at Chelsea.

A fella who was given the boot after a few months in his most recent position.....well at least his stint at Chelsea will feel familiar to him.

Edit to clarify that this is a commentary on Madrid and Chelsea rather than a critique of Alonso himself who looks like he has the potential to be a great manager. Can see him doing very well again when he goes somewhere else in a few months.

when Liverpool and City were running away with the league I think people were saying it said the quality was lacking.

now that it’s far tighter and unpredictable people are saying the quality is lacking.

conclusion: some people just like moaning about the quality of the league

While there has been some reasonable and fair critique from people who don't like the aesthetic of this Arsenal team for example, there is a whiff of 'the league is sh*te, except when my team is winning, then it's great' from some alright.

I don’t agree with that take on Grealish. If Pep didn’t want him, they wouldn’t have signed him. He was excellent in their treble winning season.

it maybe a stupid take but I think Sunderland would have been better off in Conference next season instead. Much easier group stage to negotiate which will probably allow resting players and much better chance of winning it.

Hopefully you're right. But I wont be looking past this season yet. Delighted to finally win the big league after 22 seasons. Hopefully a first champions league title for the club as well. Arteta has done an amazing job since he came in. Look at the state of the club when he took over, to what it is now. 💪