Match Week 38 Recap

In Today’s CleanSheet:

• Headlines 📌

• Current Situation📈📉

• Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥- The Elephant in the Room

• Off Island 🏝️ - Back to the Bundesliga

• Best Bets 💰

Headlines 📌

Drama. “an exciting, emotional or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances.”

• Sunday’s Final Match Day. The Exact OPPOSITE of drama.

  • City scored at 2’ of their match against West Ham and went on to win 3-1 and secure the Title. Energy sucked out at the 2’ mark.

  • Spurs won at relegated side Sheffield United, securing 5^th in the table and a spot in the Europa League.

  • Chelsea, Newcastle and Man United all won and finished in the table in that order.

  • Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton Town all lost. These three teams were promoted to the PL last year and are now headed back to the Championship.

• Straight Back Down. For just the 2^nd time since 1992 all three promoted teams to the PL went right back down to the Championship and they did so in stunning fashion allowing Forest to stay up with the fewest points ever earned yet stayed up.

• Man United. The 8^th place finish was their worst ever, they finished 7th in 2013/14. Their win on the final day this season put them on 60 points, 2 ahead of their worst total, 58.

• Palace. On April 6 Palace lost to Man City, were sitting on 30 points, were right in the middle of the relegation race, and had a brutal schedule remaining - 6 of 7 matches against the top 10 of the Table. What did they do, won all 6 matches against those top 10 teams and drew the other collecting 19 points in the final 7 and finishing 10^th in the Table!

• Still Wasn’t Enough. Arsenal had 28 wins, 91 goals, +62 Goal Differential (all most in club history), but 1 point short.

• 1 Point. 3 of City’s 6 titles under Pep have been by 1 point. Twice over Liverpool and this year over Arsenal.

• Manager Movement. Expect movement among PL managers. Who we know to be out so far - Klopp (Liverpool, Arne Slot is replacement), De Zerbi (BHA, tbd replacement), Moyes (West Ham, Julen Lopetegui will be replacement). Expect additional movement and some surprises.

• Goal of Final Match Day. Of course, the City West Ham match - of course it was West Ham’s Kudus with the goal. (X 15s)

• Foden. Phil Foden, Man City, was announced as the PL Player of the Season - not to be confused with the PL pos.

• Fab 5. These five City players have been there for all 6 titles - Ederson, Walker, KDB, Silva, Foden.

• 1,246 - Most Goals Ever. CS has talked about how this season smashed the record for total goals in a PL season. 3.28 gpg, up from 2.85.

• Final Europe Spots for Next Season Up for Grabs.

  • The Champions League has been decided - City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Villa.

  • Europa League will have 2 spots - one is set - Spurs.

    • Second Europa League spots go to

      • Man United if they beat Man City in the FA Cup Final

      • OR

      • Chelsea if Man City beat Man United in the FA Cup Final

  • Europa Conference Leage will have 1 spot

    • Chelsea if Man United beats Man City in the FA Cup Final

    • OR

    • Newcastle if Man City beats Man United in the FA Cup Final

Current Situation 📈📉

Match Week 38 Recap

Biggest winners on the final day - City (Title), Liverpool (Klopp), Spurs (Europa League), Chelsea (Europe Guaranteed), Forest (Safe).

• City 3-1 West Ham.

  • Foden at 1’ set the tone. Back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

• Arsenal 2-1 Everton

  • Havertz gets the goal the Gunner’s need if City were slip up.

• Liverpool 2-0 Wolves.

  • All Liverpool would need, Mac Allister makes it 1-0 to Liverpool.

• Palace 5-0 Villa.

  • Mateta, first Palace player to EVER score a hat trick at home.

• Sheffield United 0-3 Tottenham.

  • @monsterenergy cam, Kulusevski gets his brace.

• Chelsea 2-1 Bournemouth.

  • Caicedo from mid field brings Chelsea to Europe.

• Brentford 2-4 Newcastle.

  • Isak’s 21^st goal of the season, good for third.

• BHA 0-2 Man United.

  • Diogo Dalot gives MU the lead at 73’.

• Luton Town 2-4 Fulham.

  • Love these camera angles at Luton Town, they will be missed next season.

• Burnley 1-2 Forest.

  • Chris Wood with the brace.

Clean Sheets Counter

Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥

CS was only going to focus on the City Title - stay away from the discussion of financial fair play, pending investigations and any talk of the “legitimacy” of their titles - BUT - that has been the biggest topic of conversation across news and social media since the season wrapped up.

Make no mistake, this team and manager have truly been amazing and, while they are owned by a Sovereign Wealth Fund out of the United Arab Emirates with unlimited funding, their net spend is not the most in the PL. Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal, Spurs and Newcastle have all had a greater net spend than City over the last couple years.

The Context

For background on Financial Fair Play - check out Hot Topic Week 2 from the CS.

City currently face 115 (ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN) FFP charges. There is a hearing set for October 2024 with a ruling expected in early 2025. City have refuted all charges and allegations, and the lawyers for City have backed up the Brinks truck(s) and said we will spare no expense to defend our club. There are reportedly 4 potential outcomes:

• Acquittal;

• Big fine and small points deduction;

• Big points deduction;

• Kicked out of League for a period of time.

REMINDER - Just because you are charged 115 times does not mean they are guilty, just look at US politics today.

The UK government has now admitted that its embassy in Abu Dhabi and their Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office have discussed the charges levelled against Man City by the PL but are not disclosing the discussions to not risk relations with the UAE.

“Pundit’s” Take

Here are some of the takes - a lot of the focus on FFP and not the title.

• Tom Rennie (SiriusXM) - “We don’t want to do this (talk about FFP), the owners of that club made us do this”. Here on X.

• Match of the Day BBC Sport. “Do 115 charges take anything away?” Here on X.

• Well done @TrollFootball. Here on X.

• Lots of this in news articles, this one at BBC Sport. “This is where the elephant in the room must be mentioned because every City success will be accompanied by the narrative that they still face 115 Premier League charges for alleged financial irregularities - charges the club are at pains to stress they strenuously deny.” Here at BBC.

Something to keep an eye on this off season. Pep has said he will be back for next season, hoping to add to the Trophy Case.

Off Island 🏝️

Schauspiel (German for Drama) - The Bundesliga had plenty this weekend.

At the end of 2022/23 season FC Union Berlin surprised many and secured the last Champions League spot in the Bundesliga, quite an accomplishment for the club after just its fourth season ever in Germany’s top league.

Fast forward to 23/24, and FCUB’s expectations were through the roof, but a slow start to the season and then just 2 points in CL group play and the club’s patience was running short. Short enough that they fired well respected manager Urs Fischer in November after a 14-match winless streak. Things got better for FCUB however a 7-match winless streak down the stretch saw Berlin heading into their final match week of the season looking at potential relegation.

To avoid a relegation playoff, FCUB had to win and have Bochum lose. Bochum was losing 1-4 as Berlin had a 1-0 lead until Freiburg evened up the match at 1 at 85’.

Union Berlin then got a Penalty Kick at 93’, and this happened.

Invincibles

Arsenal was nicknamed the Invincibles (wiki) after they went undefeated (26W 12D) to win the PL in 2003/04 and stretched that streak to 49 unbeaten in all competitions.

Bayer Leverkusen has now accomplished this in the Bundesliga (28W 6D) and stretched their streak to 51 matches unbeaten in all competitions.

Here (X) is a 90s breakdown on the greatness of their season.

Leverkusen have…..

• Outscored their opponents 33-5 AFTER 80'.

• 33 goals after 80’

• 15 goals after 90’

• 2 matches remaining for history and a “treble” (3 cups in a season)

  • Europa League Final against Atalanta - Wednesday, May 22.

  • DFB Pokal Final (Germany’s FA CUP) against FC Kaiserslautern - Saturday, May 25.

Final’s You May Want to Add to Your Schedule

Champions League

Finals - London, England - Saturday June 1, 2pm on CBS

Borussia Dortmund (Germany) +450 v Real Madrid (Spain) -180

Europa League

Finals - Dublin, Ireland - Wednesday May 22, 2pm on CBS

Atalanta (Italy) +320 v Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) -120

Europa Conference League

Finals - Dublin, Ireland - Wednesday May 29, 2pm on CBS

Olympiacos (Greece) +206 v Fiorentina (Italy) +128

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