Find a Football Team

Sandy Baltimore scored either side of a Catarina Macario header as Chelsea soared to a domestic treble in the FA Cup final

• Live scores | Get in touch! Email Emillia

Manchester United’s road to the final:

R4: Manchester United 7-0 West Brom

R5: Wolves 0-6 Manchester United

QF: Manchester United 3-1 Sunderland

SF: Manchester City 0-2 Manchester United

When the Goodison Park history books are printed, they will show Iliman Ndiaye scored the final two Premier League goals at the grand old stadium. It was not an afternoon about the actual football as Goodison said goodbye to men’s football, mercifully, for the home support, with a simple win for Everton against Southampton.

No one cared about the quality on show, which was a relief as the match felt like a sideshow. Ndiaye lit it up, however, and walked off with the match ball despite falling one short of a hat-trick. The forward was the difference, ensuring the final memories for those who stayed faithful to Everton through the thick and often thin in recent years were rewarded with a fitting end.

• Midfielder criticises Fifa for timing of competition
• Final home game on Tuesday is ‘going to be weird’

Kevin De Bruyne has revealed he “probably won’t play” for Manchester City in this summer’s Club World Cup, with the Belgian critical of Fifa for staging the competition when contracts are still running.

City’s decision not to offer De Bruyne fresh terms means Bournemouth’s visit to the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday and Sunday’s trip to Fulham on the final day of the Premier League season will be his final games for the club he joined 10 years ago. City play their three Club World Cup Group G games in June and De Bruyne’s deal finishes at the end of that month, so he could participate.

• Sheffield Wednesday’s Danny Röhl also in running for job
• Cleverley and Still recently lefts roles at Watford and Lens

Southampton’s search for a new manager has led them to hold talks with Tom Cleverley and Will Still. Danny Röhl, the Sheffield Wednesday manager, is also in the running for the job.

Southampton are looking to rebuild after their relegation to the Championship and are thought to have identified a handful of leading candidates to manage them next season.

• Premier League updates from the 2.15pm BST kick-off
• Live scores | Table | Top scorers | And email Dominic

The players are out and we’re almost ready …

One win in their past six Premier League games amounts to a run of form that Nottingham Forest may rue if Champions League qualification eludes them. They really cannot afford another slip-up now, given other teams have surged beyond them. The silver lining today is how good Forest have been on the road this season, with only Liverpool winning more away games.

• All the action from the 4.30pm kick-off at the Emirates
• Live scores | West Ham v Nottm Forest – live

Jonathan Wilson takes Arsenal’s temperature

Mikel Arteta also spoke of “having to play for the sixth time this season with 10 men”. Written down, that could be seen as further criticism of his squad, but the tone suggested this was a bizarre misfortune that had befallen Arsenal when in truth the wild lunge that brought Mikel Merino a second yellow card at Anfield was as clear a booking as there could ever be. Arsenal have lacked discipline, their record of six red cards not only the worst in the league, but at least twice as bad as all but two other sides.

• Moroccan has career-best 55 appearances this season
• Believes Europa League ‘fighting spirit’ absent in league

Noussair Mazraoui has revealed that cutting out fizzy drinks has helped him to make 55 Manchester United appearances this season, the most of the defender’s eight-year career. Mazraoui’s 48 games for Ajax in 2018-19 constituted his previous highest number. With two matches left he could end on 57 and the 27-year-old explained why.

“I’m not drinking any sodas any more – fizzy drinks,” he said. “It changes a lot because of the sugar; you don’t get it in your body any more. So just water makes a huge difference eventually. It was just to try to see if there’s any difference. I know sugar is really bad for your body but it’s really nice to have a little drink of it with dinner.”

Wednesday’s all-English Europa League final in Bilbao is a huge game that shows football still has a sense of humour

The best thing about football is what a silly, mercurial game it is. You can have all the money or political clout in the world. You can put in place meticulously thought-out projects. You can think and prepare and invest and plan, and football will still spit out a Europa League final between Tottenham and Manchester United. Strategise that.

Thousands will travel to Bilbao without tickets, many will end up sleeping rough, the phone network may collapse. It will be chaotic and anarchic and at its heart will be a game between two teams desperate for victory, whose presence in the final is utterly bewildering. And in that bonkersness may lie brilliance.

• Madrid meet sought-after 20-year-old’s release clause
• Defender had been on radar of a host of top clubs

Real Madrid have completed the signing of the Bournemouth centre-back Dean Huijsen. The 20-year-old defender, who has also been targeted by Chelsea, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Newcastle, will join the Spanish club at the end of the season after they agreed to pay a £50m release clause.

Real tried to sign the Netherlands-born Spain international when he was a youth player at Málaga and have continued to track the former Juventus and Roma defender’s progress. Huijsen’s footballing idol is Sergio Ramos, the former Spain and Madrid defender. After a loan spell at Roma, Huijsen signed for Bournemouth in July 2024.

The departure of the men’s team from the ground marks the end of an era for many. Will new hosts Everton Women continue its legacy?

Jamie Yates was heavily medicated, in a secure mental health unit, and in the middle of a breakdown when he had a profound dream. He was back in Liverpool, walking with his daughter along the tightly packed terraced streets which surround Goodison Park, home of the football club he had supported all his life.

When he left the hospital he took out a map, drew a half-mile radius around Everton’s ground and started looking for somewhere to rent.

Sound the tram bells, unleash the smoke plumes from the Tasty Jerk shack – Crystal Palace have finally won a major trophy

As the final whistle was blown at Wembley there was a moment that seemed to stretch out and become frozen in time. The Crystal Palace players collapsed where they were standing, crumpled across the grass like a battle scene fresco. The colours made it beautiful, red and blue against the deep green, new optics, new names, the unstyled celebrations of players unused to these moments, Jean-Philippe Mateta face down, Will Hughes flat on his back, arms spread like a snow angel.

There was a rush of noise as the clock began to tick again. And that was that. Sound the tram bells, unleash the smoke plumes from the Tasty Jerk shack – 119 years into Crystal Palace’s existence this mercurial club with the clanky corrugated stadium has finally won a major trophy.

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports

• FA inquiry into Brazil midfielder has lasted over two years
• ‘Stress, pressure, can manifest itself,’ warns manager

Graham Potter has revealed the investigation into whether Lucas Paquetá breached betting rules is taking its toll both mentally and physically on the West Ham player.

The Football Association’s inquiry into allegations Paquetá deliberately got himself booked in four matches, which he denies but which could leads to his being banned for life if found guilty, has lasted more than two years.

• Dortmund pip Freiburg by beating Holstein Kiel 3-0
• Sporting hold off Benfica to win Portuguese title

Borussia Dortmund cruised past relegated Holstein Kiel 3-0 to finish fourth and snatch the last Champions League spot for next season, in the best comeback of the last seven matchdays in Bundesliga history. Niko Kovac’s Dortmund won six of their last seven matches to climb from 10th to fourth in the standings and finish on 57 points, two ahead of Freiburg, who lost 3-1 at home to third-placed Eintracht Frankfurt and drop into the Europa League.

Dortmund, needing a three-goal win to be guaranteed a top-four finish irrespective of results in the other games, got off to a dream start when Serhou Guirassy converted a third-minute penalty for the lead. Kiel were then left with 10 players when Carl Johansson was sent off with a straight red card but the hosts could not make the extra man count until the break.

AFC Wimbledon secured their place in the League Two playoff final thanks to an early strike by Josh Neufville. The Dons will face Walsall at Wembley on 26 May for a place in League One.

With the veteran striker David McGoldrick ruled out because of injury, and Alassana Jatta missing through suspension after being dismissed in the first leg, the Notts County manager, Stuart Maynard, was forced to make changes with Maï Traoré coming in to lead the attack.

• Jimmy Thelin condemns assault on Jack MacKenzie
• Unused substitute needed stitches to head wound

The Aberdeen manager, Jimmy Thelin, has described the head injury to defender Jack MacKenzie from an seat thrown by his own fans after the 2-1 defeat against Dundee United as “totally unacceptable”.

Home fans invaded the pitch at Tannadice after the final-day win clinched fourth spot in the Premiership and a place in Europe, unless Aberdeen beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup final. MacKenzie, an unused substitute, was struck by a seat thrown from the section holding Aberdeen fans and was given lengthy treatment before being taken away in a wheelchair with a bloodied bandage around his head and stitches were required.

• Mikel Arteta: ‘There’s been a transformation in his body’
• Forward could feature against Newcastle on Sunday

Mikel Arteta has said Kai Havertz’s determination to return from a hamstring injury ahead of schedule has led to the forward destroying every physical metric at Arsenal’s training ground.

Havertz was expected to miss the rest of the campaign after tearing a hamstring in February but the German has pushed himself hard during his rehabilitation and could ease Arsenal’s attacking problems by proving his fitness for Sunday’s home game against Newcastle.

Influential football writer and novelist hailed as a doyen of sports journalism during his seven-decade career

Brian Glanville, who has died aged 93, was a football writer of unique stature and a figure of extraordinary industry in papers and publishing for nearly seven decades.

For 33 years he was the football correspondent of the Sunday Times, with whom he continued to work until he was 88. He produced thousands of match reports and features and was a pioneer in giving greater coverage to the international game, attending all World Cups from 1958 to 2006 and using his gift for languages – he spoke Italian almost perfectly, as well as French and Spanish — to write for other newspapers, magazines and agencies across the world. His fellow sports journalist Patrick Barclay once remarked that “most football writers fall into two categories: those who have been influenced by Brian Glanville and those who should have been”.

Magpies can steal second from the Gunners on Sunday and Eddie Howe says club has ambitions to kick on this summer

Assumptions can be inaccurate, unfair and sometimes downright dangerous. Eddie Howe and Newcastle have had their fair share of often lazy theories – about the manager’s future and the limits of the club’s potential – but they travel to the Emirates Stadium on Sunday having trampled all over assorted hypotheses.

Should Newcastle win, Arsenal will have been beaten an unprecedented four times by one team in a single season and St James’ Park executives should feel sufficiently confident to start sprucing the stadium up for Champions League combat in early autumn.

Dean Henderson was man of the match for Crystal Palace, while it was a difficult day for Omar Marmoush and Manchester City

Dean Henderson Superb double save from Marmoush penalty and Haaland follow-up, then Echeverri’s added-time chance, though handball means he should have seen red before all of this. 10

When Callum McGregor lifts the Premiership trophy on Saturday, it will be four decades since a team other than Celtic or Rangers won the top flight

This Scottish football season featured a debate surrounding the possibility of reconstruction. Would 10, 14 or 16 be the ideal number of Premiership sides, as opposed to the present dozen? There was, however, a tartan elephant in the room. Scotland has been operating a one, one-and-a-half or two-team league for far longer than is healthy. There is no indication that can change. Distress signals should have been raised long ago.

Celtic’s match against St Mirren on Saturday will precede receipt of the Premiership trophy. For Celtic, this is a 12th title in 13 seasons. The likely defeat of Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup final on Saturday week will secure a sixth domestic treble since 2016. Cliche suggests Celtic and Rangers joust for honours, and occasionally they do. This, however, is an unprecedented spell of Celtic dominance.

In a game that now takes itself too seriously, FPL evokes the fun, pain and obsessiveness that once underpinned fan culture

Only two weeks to go. That’s the mantra. Two more weeks to endure the familiar trauma of logging on to the fantasy football app, picking a team, celebrating the wise decisions that have led you to create an unbeatable unit, watching the weekend’s football disabuse you of this notion, then repeating the whole thing again.

It’s supposed to be a game, but Fantasy Premier League (FPL) is more like a lifestyle. Or a second job. Or even exactly like being a professional footballer: the focus, determination and relentless commitment should really be rewarded with a weekly salary, preferably in the five figures. But no, instead we have to make do with a brief appearance of a green arrow next to our team name or, more likely, a red one.

Winning Sunday’s FA Cup final after an unbeaten WSL season would mean a domestic clean sweep but US international really wants a Champions League

It is a testament to the standard set at Chelsea that an unbeaten Women’s Super League season, a League Cup win and, should they triumph over Manchester United at Wembley in the Women’s FA Cup final on Sunday, a domestic treble will still not leave them satisfied.

“That’s what makes this environment and this team so special,” says Catarina Macario, who was viewed as so prodigious a talent that the London side signed her in June 2023 from Lyon even though she was yet to return from an anterior cruciate ligament injury. “We’re never satisfied with just winning, we want to be dominant in how we play and there’s definitely room for improvement in that. That’s something that we have to take into next season and know that this is what we need to work even harder on to be able to achieve every single one of our goals.”

The striker belted out the Neil Diamond classic as the Bundesliga champions celebrated their league win. The trophy is the first bit of major silverware for Kane

One of the most beloved Italian clubs of the past 40 years now face a long way back to return to glory days

It was not meant to go like this. On a Tuesday evening on the outskirts of Naples, Sampdoria – one of the most beloved Italian clubs of the past 40 years – slipped into Serie C with a whimper – the first time in the club’s history that they have been relegated to Italy’s third tier.

At the final whistle, following a dismal goalless draw at Juve Stabia, Sampdoria’s players wept on the pitch. Back home, fans of the club’s intercity rivals, Genoa, spilled out on to the shared streets in celebration, setting off fireworks, chanting “Sampdoria is no more”. That is not quite the case, but it’s going to be a long way back for Il Doria, who have long been more accustomed to battling with Juventus than Juve Stabia.

• Asencio and three former Madrid youth players accused
• Gran Canaria incident in 2023 involved ‘a female minor’

The Real Madrid defender Raúl Asencio and three former youth players at the club could face trial in connection with the alleged filming and distribution of a sexual video that has left two women, one of them a minor, with symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

In a statement released on Wednesday, a judge on Gran Canaria said he had concluded his preliminary investigation into the recording and distribution of the incident, which is alleged to have taken place in a private area of a beach club on the island on 15 June 2023.

• Fifa ‘under an obligation’ to see ‘human rights are upheld’
• Group including ex-Fifa adviser makes official complaint

A group of leading lawyers has submitted an official complaint to Fifa, alleging the governing body has failed to follow its own human rights rules in relation to the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia. The 30-page complaint has been filed via Fifa’s official grievance mechanism and calls for immediate action in five areas.

The complaint has been authored by Fifa’s former anti-corruption adviser Mark Pieth, the Swiss lawyer Stefan Wehrenberg and the British barrister Rodney Dixon, who submitted a report to Fifa a year ago warning of the risks of awarding the tournament to the Gulf state.

Assistant referees need more scope to use their common sense as opposed to simply relying on VAR

It was an accident waiting to happen. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could see the potential for the International Football Association Board’s offside protocols in the era of the video assistant referee (VAR) system to cause serious injury. Needless collisions are inexcusable. It should not have been allowed to reach the point where we are wondering whether Nottingham Forest’s Taiwo Awoniyi being placed in an induced coma will act as a red flag for the authorities.

Injuries happen. What is not acceptable is the safety of players being compromised as a result of technology warping the game and officials being instructed not to flag for offside if a goalscoring opportunity is on the cards. Thankfully, he was reported to have woken from his coma on Wednesday evening.

Stormy Anfield reaction to news of full-back’s exit on a free gives Liverpool coach a choice to make as trophy lift nears

A large portion of Liverpool’s match‑going support delivered a damning verdict on Trent Alexander-Arnold’s career choice on Sunday and, in one short sentence, Virgil van Dijk explained perfectly why there is no need for an encore when the champions return to Anfield to collect the Premier League trophy on 25 May. “There’s a lot more players that also deserve an amazing day,” the Liverpool captain said. There is no division or dissent on that score.

Arsenal’s visit to Anfield should also have been one long celebration, as well as an opportunity to demonstrate the gulf between the Premier League’s first and second-placed teams this season. The first half played out exactly that way. Arsenal may have produced a reaction that increased Mikel Arteta’s anger before Alexander‑Arnold’s introduction – “I hate reaction, I like action” – but the party was over as soon as the Real Madrid‑bound defender replaced Conor Bradley in the 67th minute.

Murals of McTominay in Naples? Don’t rule that out with the volatile manager who never stays long despite serial success

There’s always a Tottenham exception. Since leaving Siena in 2011, since he got his first break with a club that had a realistic chance of winning trophies, Antonio Conte has won league titles with Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. Going into Sunday’s matches, with three games remaining, his Napoli lead Inter by three points. In a decade and a half he has won a trophy with every club he has managed, apart from Tottenham.

Maybe Tottenham simply aren’t a club that had a realistic chance of winning trophies. Certainly it’s not as familiar to them as it is to Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. Napoli were Serie A title winners the season before last. Conte led Tottenham for 17 months and although he has the fifth-best win record of any Spurs manager, although he took them to fourth in his first season, having replaced Nuno Espírito Santo in the November, and although they were fourth when he left in March 2023, by the end the situation was so toxic as to be unsustainable.

While Fifa’s chief of global development focuses on offside toes and noses, VAR needs a helping hand somewhere else

Five years ago, Fifa’s chief of global development, Arsène Wenger, outlined his bold plans to change the offside law.

“The most difficult [issue] that people have [with VAR] is the offside rule,” he said. “You have had offsides by a fraction of a centimetre, literally by a nose. It is the time to do this quickly.

Our cartoonist details some notable moments from the 133-year history of one of Britain’s most iconic stadiums

• Buy a copy of this cartoon in our Print Shop
• David’s latest book, Chaos in the Box: buy it now

Opinionated football journalist, who has died aged 93, loved the sport but detested much about the modern game

Brian Glanville, who has died aged 93, was what Groucho Marx might have been had the old master of the one-liner shown any interest in football. I doubt if the greatest soccer scribbler of them all – the London-born son of a Dublin dentist and an Old Carthusian expensively educated in literature and song – met Groucho (Brian knew a host of famous people), but their exchanges would surely have blistered the paint off the walls.

Nobody swore so elegantly as Glanville, who hovered in the press box like Banquo’s ghost, the gathering’s invisible conscience, ready to deliver a scathing observation, relayed, sotto voce, to a nearby colleague like a chorus baritone in one of his favourite operas.

Elegant player and legendary coach looks back on some of his finest moments at ‘iconic’ Goodison Park

Standing outside a pawnbrokers on Goodison Road, waiting for his dad to emerge through the crowd after the match, a young Colin Harvey could not have imagined what lay in front of him. Standing in the same place today, the great Evertonian would face a statue of himself immortalised alongside fellow members of “The Holy Trinity”, Howard Kendall and Alan Ball. Time has not diminished the 80-year-old’s wonder at his life and legacy at Goodison Park.

“How do you go from being a kid watching Everton from the Boys’ Pen to having a statue on Goodison Road?” he says, with genuine astonishment. “If someone had presented me back then with a history of my life in football I’d have said: ‘Don’t be silly, nothing like that is ever going to happen to me.’ But it did. When I was told the statue was going to be made it was one of my proudest moments. I’ve had a fantastic football life and it amazes me when I look back on it.”

Dan Ndoye’s goal secures a 1-0 win over Milan and sparks scenes of joy in the Piazza Maggiore once again

Vincenzo Italiano knew there was a little bit of poison in the chalice offered to him last summer but accepted it anyway. The opportunity to manage Bologna was a chance to lead a Champions League team for the first time in his career. It was also an invitation to become the public face of a project that had nowhere to go but backwards.

What could he possibly do to improve on the work of the previous manager, Thiago Motta, who led Bologna back into Europe’s top club competition for the first time in 60 years? Italiano would not even have the same group of players to work with. Joshua Zirkzee, the top scorer, was on his way to Manchester United and the newly capped Italy defender Riccardo Calafiori to Arsenal. Lewis Ferguson would be out for months with a cruciate ligament tear.

Twenty years after the club’s takeover a look at some of the most striking evaluations during their tenure at Old Trafford

Initial percentage of Manchester United bought by Malcolm Glazer in May 2003 – by the end of the year it stood at 15%.

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!

It’s been a while since we felt something. The Premier League has barely been about the Premier League of late, all the focus on who qualifies for Bigger Cup, Liverpool’s title secured in the Jurassic Period, relegation sorted when those three teams were promoted from the Championship a year ago. The Women’s Super League was also lacking in jeopardy when it wrapped up last week, the key question being whether Chelsea would remain invincible. This weekend of FA Cup finals arrives in a time of desperate need: give us some of that so-called magic, please.

The annual congress is the single most important body to ensure good governance of international football [and] 210 member associations have traveled from all over the world to participate at this congress here in Paraguay, expecting professional leadership and dialogue at the highest level. I understand the frustration and disappointment from European Fifa members, and we feel sorry for the excellent hosts in Paraguay. We now expect Fifa to explain this situation to its members and ensure that the voices of the member associations are heard and respected going forward” – Norway Football Federation president Lise Klaveness explains why she was among eight European members of the Fifa Council to walk out of congress in protest at the late arrival of Gianni Infantino, who had been schmoozing with Donald Trump in the Middle East amid accusations from Uefa that he was pursuing “private political interests” ahead of responsibilities to football. Well aren’t we just shocked.

With regards to Ajax’s massive implosion and PSV’s hot streak at the end of the Dutch season (yesterday’s Football Daily), I am reminded of the phrase: ‘It’s better to be lucky than good.’ Nothing epitomises that more than the PSV captain, Mr De Jong. No, not Frenkie, Nigel or Siem but Luuk!” – Michael Glogower (and no other mean readers).

With reference to your comment that Edgeley Park is currently the closest league ground to the River Mersey (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition), I’ve always preferred the answer when you limit the question to Premier League grounds – the answer being Old Trafford. Obviously, also about to become an ex-fact once Everton move into their new gaff” – Andrew Payton.

While I realise this week marks the last men’s game at Goodison Park so we are newsworthy, I was surprised to see Everton FC mentioned in almost every section of yesterday’s missive! Davy Klaassen’s former employer in the main headline text, Quote of the Day from Colin Harvey, letters, on the edge (breakout section), on Bramley-Moore dock becoming the closest ground to the Mersey, and FA Cup final quiz with Joe Royle as last English manager to win. I respect the commemorative nature of the Toffees’ inclusions – but then in Memory Lane you showed an aerial view of Lens FC’s ground and not Goodison. An opportunity missed! Has anyone outside the top six featured in every section of Football Daily? I am sure The Knowledge knows!” – C Hawtrey.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

Emily Husband, one of only two female coaches in the league, can create history against Melbourne Victory on Sunday

The Central Coast Mariners weren’t supposed to crash the A-League Women grand final, but they face Melbourne Victory at AAMI Park on Sunday.

Two years ago they didn’t even exist. The Mariners’ women’s programme was in its 13th year of inactivity after being mothballed for financial reasons (serious concerns over the ever-impecunious club’s viability still linger). On the field, they made a celebrated return for the 2023–24 season, riding the wave of momentum born from Australia hosting the 2023 Women’s World Cup to stun Victory in an elimination final, before running into the eventual champions Sydney FC in the semi-finals.

Academic study will analyse hormone concentrations from footballers’ blood samples in search of more answers

“I’ve had not one, two, but three ACL tears – all three have been on my period.” Those were the frank words of the double World Cup-winning former United States international Megan Rapinoe, speaking on her podcast A Touch More with Sue Bird & Megan Rapinoe on 8 May, as they expressed their exasperation at how long it has taken for more in-depth research to be conducted regarded the relationship between menstrual cycles and serious knee injuries in female athletes.

Finally, though, something is happening. Trying to help address the issue, with the ultimate aim of reducing instances of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, is a new, year-long academic study at Kingston University in London, which has received funding from football’s world governing body, Fifa.

This is an extract from our free weekly email, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts is back in to its twice-weekly format, delivered to your inboxes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Mikel Arteta has explanations for his team’s shortcomings that may hold water, but ultimately the Gunners simply couldn’t get it done when needed

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

The problem is that when the game doesn’t matter, other elements begin to take over. In other circumstances, Arsenal’s 2-2 draw at Liverpool on Sunday would have been an intriguing minor classic; but then, in other circumstances, it might not have gone like that. As it was, with the title won and Arsenal secure in the Champions League qualification slots, a clash between the top two became the stage for discussion of the booing of Trent Alexander-Arnold and a weird confected online fury about whether Myles Lewis-Skelly had applauded Liverpool with sufficient gusto in the guard of honour.

At least, from Arsenal’s point of view, the game followed the opposite pattern to the one with which we’ve become familiar. Arsenal have dropped 21 points from winning positions this season (Liverpool just 13), while Liverpool have gained 22 (Arsenal just 13). If they’d matched each other in those respects, Arsenal would be two points clear at the top of the league; that essentially is the difference between them.

As Crystal Palace and Manchester City prepare to meet at Wembley, how well do you recall the previous 143 finals?

By The Football Mine

Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Tom Garry and Chris Paouros to dissect a dramatic final WSL day

On the final Women’s Football Weekly of the WSL season, Chelsea cap off an unbeaten campaign with a last-gasp win, Arsenal edge Manchester United in a 4–3 thriller, and the final league table is locked in after 27 goals fly in across six games.

The panel assesses every team’s performance in the season, and Chris Paouros delivers her assessment in true school report style, covering everything from Chelsea’s relentless excellence, Arsenal’s attacking flair, Manchester City missing out on Europe, to Crystal Palace's relegation and Spurs and West Ham's underwhelming campaigns.

In a campaign notable for exciting imports and spectacular goals, there was consensus on the outstanding manager

Phallon Tullis-Joyce looked assured for Manchester United all season, unfazed by the Mary Earps-sized gloves she had to fill. Her command of the goal and her ability to make crucial saves propelled Manchester United up the table. With 13 clean sheets she shares the Golden Glove with Hannah Hampton. Xaymaca Awoyungbo