Raphael Kanu
The 2024-25 Premier League season is over! Though Liverpool were crowned champions almost a month ago and the respective relegations of Southampton, Ipswich Town and Leicester City looked on the cards for even longer, there was still some business to be settled Sunday.
With all 20 teams playing their final match of the campaign at the same time, there was still qualification for the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League at stake.
Manchester City’s 2-0 win at Fulham secured them third place and booked their place back in Europe’s top competition for next season by finishing third, behind champions Liverpool (who drew 1-1 with Crystal Palace at Anfield) and Arsenal (who won 2-1 at Southampton).
They will be joined by UEFA Conference League finalists Chelsea after they won 1-0 at Nottingham Forest, and Newcastle United, who snuck into the Champions League for a second time in three years despite losing 1-0 at home to Everton.
Newcastle can thank Aston Villa for allowing them to finish fifth, as a 2-0 loss at Manchester United condemned them to sixth place and with it a place in the Europa League. But spare a thought for Forest, who at one point were a surprise name in the title mix, but end the season in seventh place — a highly respectable finish for a club that battled relegation last season, but not what it was dreaming of in January.
Man United’s historically bad Premier League campaign was not quite as historically bad as it might have been, as their win against 10-man Villa moved them up to 15th, while Tottenham Hotspur, the team that beat them in Wednesday’s Europa League final, finished 17th after losing 4-1 at home to Brighton & Hove Albion.
And so Liverpool’s players were finally able to lift the Premier League trophy in front of their supporters at Anfield on the final day of the season, the first time that has happened since 1990 and as expected, there were joyous scenes.
Arne Slot’s side 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace did not matter to the home fans who all stayed on after the final whistle to watch the trophy presentation.
There had been one when Jurgen Klopp’s team won the title in 2019-20, only for the outbreak of the Covid pandemic to mean those title celebrations were held without fans at Anfield, making Sunday’s celebrations in front of the Kop all the more special.
