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TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM — So little of Tottenham Hotspur’s season has been pleasant that it caught you completely off guard when something went their way. Joao Palhinha’s header hit a post, came back to his feet, hit Jordan Pickford’s stud and then just rolled over the line. Roberto De Zerbi sprinted down the line like one of the former managers who failed here.

Spurs have at least escaped the worst news. For those who pay exorbitant prices to watch football here, that is reason for enormous cheer because what’s the point if you can’t take joy in the momentary exceptions to a nine-month drudgery?

And for one afternoon at least, Spurs looked like a Premier League team with conviction. They hassled a half-paced Everton without the ball and hurt them with it. Mathys Tel made Jake O’Brien look clumsy and unresponsive. Micky van de Ven swept up behind and Pedro Porro and Djed Spence took turns to flee down the right wing.

There were lots of performative screams after tackles by players who have spent far too much of the season not making enough of them. There were some nerves when news filtered through that West Ham had scored. But mainly it was… competent? Lo and behold, it worked. Note to self: try this again.

Tottenham fans have done all they can this season to try and force change, on and off the pitch: bus welcomes, pre-match and post-match protests, begging underperforming football misanthropes to be better and angrily telling them that they are letting everybody else down. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t – but they earned the right to cheer in exultant relief.

Those who pay to wear this shirt, rather than get paid or charge others, are the only ones who get that pass. Those trusted as guardians of the club have not earned that privilege. This is a construct entirely of their own making, a self-implosion that took Spurs from the Champions League to the edge of the Championship in months.

You might consider “Big Six” to be an outdated moniker in the age of Aston Villa overachievement and Newcastle United owned by the Saudi state; it isn’t. The latest revenue figures cover 2024-25, a season when Spurs weren’t even in the Champions League. Their revenue was £581m, a full £190m above any club outside of that VIP club. “Big” refers to income generation and thus advantage, not performance.

Which is just as well, really, for that hints at the great scandal of this Tottenham Hotspur failure. The clubs within the established financial elite don’t just have the greatest spending power as a one-off. But when they get things wrong repeatedly, they remain insured against the worst calamities because of that spending power.

Despite all of those advantages being carved into stone, Spurs have finished in the bottom four of the Premier League in consecutive seasons. This is not a club in financial disarray and so forced into austerity and slumping as a result. Tottenham were given a golden ticket and they are left with only scraps of dog-eared paper.

To finish 17th once with this club and this team is careless – to do so twice is an act of gross negligence. And it can only be on the leaders: Enic, Vinai Venkatesham, Johan Lange. Different managers, different styles, different players, same grim mood. Those at the top of the food chain determine the survival of those below them.

Where is the realistic faith in this improving? If you can mess this up this badly twice, despite so many warnings and so many mileposts along the sorry journey, why would it suddenly click now? Relegation, although a sorry indictment of pathetic underperformance, would have forced the entire thing to be ripped up. The fear is that deeply unimpressive people will now try to tweak their way out of this.

If so, Tottenham will make little progress. They may get a few less injuries, win a few more games and have a manager who stays a few months longer than the others. It seems unlikely that they will find themselves in this position again, although we said roughly the same a year ago and it got worse.

But until the leadership changes, either through being forced from their positions of power or by being forced to confront their own failures head on with systemic change that begins immediately, this is deckchair rearrangement on an industrial scale.

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Arsenal may have already clinched the 2025-26 Premier League title, but there is plenty still to play for in several hotly contested fixtures across the country today as another enthralling season in England’s top flight reaches its final act.

Multiple spots in Europe are still up for grabs, some between clubs going head to head this very afternoon, while at the other end of the league table Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham take to the field in their respective homes knowing only one of them will survive relegation.

There is a full slate of games kicking off at the same time, as is customary for the last day of the campaign, and we’ll have eyes on the action across the country to deliver all the latest updates and expert analysis, right here.

Follow The i Paper’s live blog for updates from the final day of the 2025-26 Premier League season.

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There is no such thing as an undeserving champion, at least not until independent commissions or courts make their judgements. But holding out for 22 years, finishing as runners-up three years in a row and combining it with an impeccable run to a Champions League final all at once? That counts as a biggie.

Glorious triumph is viewed through two prisms, both quite different to the other. The first is as a simple mark of success, an in-the-moment judgement. In this snapshot in time Arsenal were the best and nobody can argue it.

The second is triumph as the completion of a redemption arc and it’s often here where the sweetest fruit can be picked. It asks us not just to look at where champions got to, but where they came from. Only Leicester City’s arc is more storied in the Premier League’s last 20 years than Arsenal in 2026.

This campaign hasn’t just been the culmination of very good players doing very good things. It is the final step of a 20-year journey since Arsenal moved to the Emirates Stadium. That coincided with Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal finishing outside the top two for the first time in eight years and the rapid disintegration of modern rivalry with Manchester United. First Arsenal fell, then United did.

Those post-Highbury years were noisy in the wrong way, enforced comparative austerity as reality bit and supporters griped. Until 2013, Arsenal had even never spent more than £15m on a player. Chelsea, the face of new power, signed 11 for more than that before Arsenal did for the first time.

Instead, Arsenal became the inadvertent face of elite club atrophy, a club that players left to win major trophies rather than joined. The seven straight last-16 exits from the Champions League: hard-luck stories against Barcelona, AC Milan and Monaco before the 10-2 aggregate defeat to Bayern Munich that felt like a club’s soul being burned. This is all for all of that.

This title is in part a victory of circumstance, although that is a compliment. Arsenal surely performed better in 2023-24 – more points, more goals scored, more fun had along the way but far less at the end. The difference is that Manchester City didn’t get 91 points this season. You put yourself in the right position enough times and you pray that at least once it will be enough. Arsenal flourished through the “buy a ticket, win the raffle” principle.

This has not been a vintage Premier League season, in terms of quality or entertainment. But why would Arsenal give a damn about that? They built a squad that they believed could be controlled and consistent and they were proven spectacularly right. They became a mirror of the league itself and that’s why they won.

There will be questions around the style. Arsenal will likely be the lowest-scoring Premier League champions since 1992-93. They continually maximised the advantages of attacking set pieces in an industry that hasn’t quite worked out how to deal with them. Their manager shunned the tactical idealism of Wenger in favour of arch pragmatism. Arteta too was proven right by the end result.

All season we have been reminded that the Premier League is tightening up, a true anyone-can-beat-anyone season. The financial gaps clearly still exist, but English football’s economic dominance dictates that even the worst clubs in the division have several excellent footballers. The team in 16th has Elliot Anderson, for goodness sake.

Which makes Arsenal’s ruthlessness more impressive. Manchester City, with the deepest squad and the best coach, dropped 23 points in 28 matches against teams outside the top six and lost three times. Liverpool, the defending champions, dropped 32 points and lost six times. Arsenal dropped 10 points and were unbeaten. That was the difference.

This was a triumph of mentality, then. Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard, the two supposed attacking jewels, have started 25 and 16 league matches, Kai Havertz just seven. Viktor Gyokeres struggled for most of his first campaign back in England.

And Arsenal did this with their only previous experience being heartache and unrequited ambition. Of the 11 players with 20 or more league starts, none had ever won a title in a top five European league. The manager hadn’t either, as a player or a manager.

Most of all, we thought we knew what Arsenal were. It was always a constructed parody to declare them bottlers; these things usually exist in shades of grey. But to come so close and finish so far has to colour your psychology.

After the defeat at home to Bournemouth, Arsenal stared their own failure in the face once again. This title is for that too. Never overlook the resilience to accept that people doubt you and to prove them wrong while the world watches your struggle as a sport within the sport. And we’re supposed to criticise the method of this feat?

Read more

• Daniel Storey: Arsenal took your hate and won the title with it
• Seven controversies that won Arsenal the title

I hope that Arsenal supporters enjoy this title to its full extent. Winning major trophies should be a familial experience but this season has contained more than a whiff of us vs the haters, like the Father Ted “And now we move onto liars” speech. Live in the moment. Forget the Champions League final, at least for a day or two. Bask in the realisation that a superpower has been toppled.

And when thoughts of the future are permitted, let them only be tinged in red, white and gold. Arsenal have won a league title. They have seen off Pep Guardiola. They have built from so far back and the length of the fight means that they are best placed to fight many more.

A new, post-Guardiola age of the Premier League is beginning. Arsenal will start it as the champion club. And nobody will remember how it was won in five years’ time.

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WEMBLEY STADIUM — “Spygate!” a Middlesbrough fan shouts at his mates on Wembley Way while half-hidden in a bush.

The group crack up, the surrealness of this day translating to giddy excitement, as though they’re all up past their bedtime, their parents yet to spy the clock.

Spygate, aka one man behind a tree with his phone, is the reason Boro are here to face Hull City in this Championship play-off final and why Southampton are not.

There has never been a build-up like this in 40 years of the play-offs. “Challenging and overshadowed by events off the pitch,” is how English Football League chair Rick Parry put it in the match programme.

Quite.

“It doesn’t feel real, this,” another passing Middlesbrough supporter says. The sight of thousands descending on this stadium is an arresting sight on any given matchday, but for a final your side weren’t even playing in as recently as four days ago? That disbelief reaches a whole new level.

Holidays, weddings, anything but watching this match. Any previous Bank Holiday plans were rendered irrelevant now one match stood between their team and the Premier League, and you didn’t need binoculars to see the joy on Boro faces.

This was a bonus, and they weren’t going to let the occasion pass them by, nor forget how they got here.

Boro were riding on the high of a remarkable reprieve having lost their semi-final to Southampton before the Saints were expelled for cheating, found to have spied on numerous Championship rivals – including Boro – this season.

Hull City meanwhile were the lesser-spotted innocent team in all this. They had reached the final fair and square back on 11 May, beating Millwall, and it would be eight days before learning they would in fact face Boro and another day before Saints’ appeal was rejected.

A fixture with so much riding on it only confirmed on Wednesday. A final that has evolved into the £200m game, and here were Boro chasing that ultimate prize on the back of a three-game winless run.

Just as bizarre was the realisation this scandal might not be over if Boro won. The prospect of legal action had been exclusively reported by The i Paper on Tuesday.

So to kick-off – 90, 120 or more minutes away from a result that may still be contested.

Hull were looking to become the first sixth-placed side to earn promotion via the play-offs since Blackpool in 2010, and though rightful finalists it was still unexpected 12 months on from surviving relegation on goal difference.

They had defied stats and expectation to get here. They boasted the worst defence of any top-half Championship side this season, and had won just one of their final seven games before the play-offs, but they were then watertight against Millwall.

Here, Hull were up against it early on. With both teams attacking towards their own fans in the first half, Boro were in the ascendancy, dominating possession as many thought they would.

Read more

Premier League: Sunderland relegated and Thomas Frank the hero: Our worst takes of the season

Kevin Garside: England can forget winning the World Cup with this squad

The biggest chances for both came just before half-time, with Oli McBurnie’s header hitting the bar for Hull before David Strelec shot a whisker wide.

It wasn’t a thriller, but this fixture rarely is given what’s at stake – there were 22 goals in the previous 14 Championship play-off finals. All that mattered was that one moment as the game began to stretch in the 29C heat.

That moment arrived in the 95th minute, with extra time beckoning but never coming as McBurnie pounced on to the loose ball and sent the Hull side of Wembley into dreamland.

"Oli McBurnie, he's got the EYE OF THE TIGER!" pic.twitter.com/mbu5sxtTVc

— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) May 23, 2026

McBurnie had unfinished business in the Premier League, he told The i Paper earlier this month, and now he was scoring the decisive goal to get them there after Boro goalkeeper Sol Brynn fumbled the ball in his direction.

The scenes on the pitch, the delight and despair in the stands, are what play-offs are really about, not scandals. Now Hull are going up, Spygate can’t taint that. The easiest outcome for the EFL has the Tigers roaring their way back to the north-east, and back to the promised land for the first time since 2017.

Cut to scenes of Ilicali hugging loved ones up high in a Wembley box. His summer is just beginning – and his lawyers can take it off.

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There are no certainties in football but some of our pre-season predictions have aged like milk.

With the season drawing to a close, our writers look back at their most questionable calls.

I got everything wrong

By Daniel Storey, chief football writer

I picked all three promoted clubs to go, which was thick. I predicted Liverpool to win the league, which was thick. I predicted Maxim De Cuyper to be the signing of the season, because I tried to be a hipster and was thick.

Liverpool champions

By Kevin Garside, chief sports correspondent

Fooled by Liverpool’s conquest of the summer transfer window. The overhaul was too disruptive. Florian Wirtz struggled with the tempo of the Premier League, Alexander Isak never got going, Jeremie Frimpong was lost somewhere between right-back and wing and Milos Kerkez was not trusted by Arne Slot. Only Hugo Ekitike hit the mark. Add in the decline of Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk and Liverpool did well to avoid Chelsea’s dysfunctional fate.

Sunderland to go down

By Michael Hincks, sports writer

Through the gap in my fingers I noted my August prediction had Brentford finishing 16th and Chelsea coming fourth. Worse though was putting Sunderland 20th. Hindsight makes it easy to be critical, but I realise I had not fully appreciated the transformational work of Black Cats owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus. Sunderland were not merely another promoted club destined to go back down – as had been the case the previous two campaigns for all three teams – but snatching their Premier League place in the play-off final blinkered me into thinking, lazily, that they would go straight back down.

Thomas Frank to finish top eight

By Kat Lucas, football news editor

The hill I will die on is that this would not have been quite such a faux pas had Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison not been out for his entire reign. And yet – I believed Frank would bring the missing ingredients defensively that deserted Spurs in the final days of Ange Postecoglou. What I underestimated was the extent to which Brentford’s processes had helped foster a magic formula there – one that was never going to translate at Tottenham.

Liverpool’s ‘all-timer of a window’

By Mark Douglas, northern football correspondent

Scrolling through my WhatsApp messages for a story last week, I spotted one that said “Richard Hughes has had an all-timer of a window”. I know I wasn’t the only one who got this so badly wrong but what looked like Liverpool genius has turned out to be an absolute shocker.

How could the self-styled smartest guys in the room not notice the trend towards a more muscular brand of football? Or that signing talent only works if you get character to match? Alexander Isak deserved to fail for his conduct. Liverpool should have discouraged it but didn’t – and paid the price. Arne Slot seems to think one window will correct it but they look absolutely miles off it.

Man Utd should have appointed Frank

By Pete Hall, north-west football correspondent

As a Manchester United supporter, I was somewhat jealous when Tottenham moved quickly for Thomas Frank. I really felt United had missed out on a tactical flexible manager who could do great things at Spurs. From the press box at the Etihad in August, as Tottenham played Manchester City off the park, I was totally sold. That was as good as it got.

Read more

• Daniel Storey: Arsenal took your hate and won the title with it
• Kat Lucas: The four ways Arteta transformed Arsenal from bottlers to champions

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After all the noise, the sad social media posts and the slightly overblown announcement, can we all agree on one thing at least?

None – if any – of those who dropped out of the squad would have been starters when England’s campaign kicks off in Dallas against Croatia on 17 June. Some might not have got even a minute over the seven weeks Thomas Tuchel hopes his England team are in North America.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no decisions to make. Three stick out: centre-back, left side of a forward three and right-back. Here’s the formula to unlock England.

Jordan Pickford

For the first time before a tournament there might actually be a case for a new keeper given Pickford’s recent form has been fairly ordinary. James Trafford has played well when given an opportunity and is the future. But Pickford has big game, big tournament experience so gets the nod.

Reece James

If fit, England have one of the best right-backs in the world in James – whose dead-ball prowess also gives him an edge over his rivals. Tino Livramento worries me as his understudy – his form and fitness have been iffy, to say the least.

John Stones

He might not have played much but he’s the natural partner for Guehi in the centre of defence if he’s over his fitness issues. In fact, he’ll be coming in fairly rested. Has never let England down and in the heat, his comfort in possession could be an asset.

Marc Guehi

One of four automatic picks in the side. Consistently good for club and country, absolute no-brainer.

Nico O’Reilly

There is always a player who breaks out in a World Cup cycle and O’Reilly is one. Even as recently as November I thought Lewis Hall would swipe the left-back slot (he can count himself very unlucky not to be in the squad) but O’Reilly has the game understanding and ability to make the competition his own.

Elliot Anderson

I’m not quite as sold on Anderson as everyone else for the attacking midfield role but he’s been brilliant over the course of the season and a straightforward qualifying campaign. Against the world’s best I still think there’s a question mark over him, which might make for fascinating viewing.

Declan Rice

I sometimes think Rice is asked to play within himself for England, where he’s primarily a holding midfielder. He has a different role with Arsenal and plays better for them. But he’s so ego-free, he’ll do it for England.

Marcus Rashford

This was Anthony Gordon’s position – and then Bayern Munich came along. Sorry, I can’t understand the agreement Newcastle have come to with Gordon where he has played once since March.

If it’s club-led, Gordon should be telling them he needs to perform. If it’s Gordon-led, he can’t complain that Rashford – who ended the season well with Barcelona – is the choice.

Jude Bellingham

Come on, who else? I like Morgan Rogers and he’ll keep Bellingham on his toes but Jude’s Jude. The argument that he has too much ego for an England side he’s frequently saved with stellar performances doesn’t wash. If we’re to go deep, we need him.

Bukayo Saka

His return to form is timely. In terms of attacking impact he’s done it for England across several tournaments and his workrate and discipline are underrated.

Read more

• Kevin Garside: England can forget winning the World Cup with this squad
• Bobby Manzi: The reasons behind Adam Wharton’s controversial World Cup snub

Harry Kane

You’d get hauled into the Tower of London for dropping Kane but – and stick with me here – I do have concerns. At Euro 2024 he looked jaded and barely made an impact. In the heat of the US, can he press as England need him to?

But he’s the best goalscorer England have had for a generation and scores even when not playing well. I just hope Tuchel’s given more thought to building a team to get the best of Kane than Gareth Southgate did two years ago.

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Thomas Tuchel has been bold with some surprise names included and omitted from his 26-man England squad for this summer’s World Cup.

Tuchel has said he would be willing to drop the most talented players if it was right for the team, but the decision to leave Cole Palmer, Harry Maguire and Phil Foden at home is especially daring – proof that the German is willing to stand by his forthright words.

In-form Morgan Gibbs-White is unfortunate to miss out, while Crystal Palace’s Adam Wharton is another surprise absentee. Manchester United midfielder Kobbie Mainoo is named, with Saudi-based Ivan Toney possibly the most staggering inclusion. Bayer Leverkusen’s Jarell Quansah and Newcastle defender Dan Burn keep Maguire out.

England squad in full

Goalkeepers: Jordan Pickford, James Trafford, Dean Henderson

Defenders: Marc Guehi, Dan Burn, Jarell Quansah, Ezri Konsa, John Stones, Tino Livramento, Reece James, Nico O’Reilly, Djed Spence

Midfielders: Declan Rice, Kobbie Mainoo, Elliot Anderson, Jordan Henderson, Jude Bellingham, Morgan Rogers, Eberechi Eze

Forwards: Noni Madueke, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Gordon, Harry Kane, Ollie Watkins, Ivan Toney, Bukayo Saka.

The 7 biggest calls

• Harry Maguire – Out
• Kobbie Mainoo – In
• Djed Spence – In
• Ivan Toney – In
• Cole Palmer – Out
• Phil Foden – Out
• Trent Alexander-Arnold – Out

Other notable omissions: Lewis Hall, Morgan Gibbs-White, Adam Wharton, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Danny Welbeck, Levi Colwill, Fikayo Tomori, Luke Shaw, Jarrod Bowen.

Tuchel has got this badly wrong

This squad has certainly got people talking. Some huge calls from a manager famed for not being afraid to upset the applecart.

While on the face of it, leaving generational talents like Foden and Palmer at home appears a seismic move, both have been out of form for too long for their lack of influence to be easily rectified in a few World Cup group games.

Of the most stellar names to miss out, 66-cap Maguire, one of Manchester United’s most consistent players this term, is the one Tuchel has got badly wrong.

When Maguire sat down with journalists at St George’s Park in March, the thrill of being back in the England fold for the last set of friendlies was etched all over his face. He beamed with pride at being recalled. The fact, after so many caps, it still meant this much to him was heartwarming to witness.

Maguire should not only be in the squad, he could easily have started against Croatia on 17 June. His leadership on and off the pitch is vital and is a key reason United executives were so desperate to tie the 33-year-old up to a new contract.

Read more

• Our writers’ Player of the Year: Bruno Fernandes, Antoine Semenyo, David Raya
• Daniel Storey: Arsenal took your hate and won the title with it

He openly admitted in March that he had changed with age to focus solely on the team and not on the individual. Maguire insisted he would be willing to go to the US and play one minute of action all tournament – if he could still help the team in any way, perhaps even offering younger charges advice, he would.

In a tournament that could come down to goals from set pieces, as knockout football often does, Maguire offers more aerial threat than any of his counterparts too.

For a nation that has produced many in the pantheon of central defensive greats, this is arguably the weakest group in English footballing history. Maguire’s absence makes a mediocre set of options look worryingly short.

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