Alex Keble looks at the state of play in the Premier League

The Premier League's strange and unprecedented season can continue in 2025


We can start to breathe again.

Next week we head into the warm and fuzzy mini-break that is the FA Cup third round, which offers the chance to pause, reflect, and prepare for the business end.

But with the halfway point just crossed and the hectic festive schedule over, already there’s a sense that things are slowing down.

The Premier League table has shaken out into a lasting pattern over Christmas and so, exhaling deeply, we can start to talk with confidence about the themes of the 2024/25 campaign.

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What jumps out most of all is the unusual mix of lifelessness at the top and pulsing energy further down. It’s hard to recall the last time the Premier League was so devoid of tension in the title race yet still so absorbing elsewhere.

Liverpool will win the league. Optimists may argue that Arsenal can put a run together, that Arne Slot’s side could stutter, but the maths just doesn’t stack up.

Arsenal have never won more than 50 points in a half-season under Mikel Arteta but will need 51 points in the second half of 2024/25 just to hit 90 overall.

Liverpool, assuming they beat Everton in their rearranged game in hand, can get to that number by winning two out of three from hereon in (13 wins, 3 draws, 3 defeats).

They will lift the title - and it will be beyond doubt by March – yet that won’t prevent 2024/25 from being one of the most entertaining seasons in the competition’s history.

For that, we can thank a completely unexpected collapse of the distinction between the ‘Big Six’ and the middle class.

The two or three-point gap between Champions League places and the bottom half has finally widened over the Christmas period, but even in its current shape there are eight clubs who can conceivably finish in any position between third and tenth.

That’s based on the assumption that Nottingham Forest surely cannot continue indefinitely as they are. But then most of us are thinking the same about Manchester City, Tottenham, Manchester United, Bournemouth, and Fulham.

Nottingham Forest manager Nuno Espirito Santo greets goalkeeper Matz Sels following the Premier League match at Goodison Park
Nottingham Forest are flying under Nuno Espirito Santo

Which is to say that at the halfway point we still can’t quite believe our eyes.

But this is a strange and unprecedented year, and the longer it holds the more we have to accept the Premier League has tumbled into a new pattern of equality-lite.

The reason, against all odds, is that the Premier League’s ever-expanding wealth and power has removed the imbalance between those with Champions League money and those without.

Even five years ago it would have been unthinkable for an Andoni Iraola or Oliver Glasner to stoop to the mid-table Premier League clubs.

Players like Morgan Gibbs-White and Mohamed Kudus, Matheus Cunha and Kaoru Mitoma, would not have joined teams expected to be buried in mid-table obscurity.

If they did, it was a mistake that was quickly rectified.

Matheus Cunha shot map

These days it’s the norm, yet it’s happened so quickly most people haven’t noticed, leading to the false assumption that the chaotic battle for Europe reflects an off-season for the traditional powerhouses, rather than a high standard overall.

Indeed most onlookers haven’t noticed how wild it is for the team in 13th to have Lucas Paqueta in midfield and an ex-Real Madrid manager in charge; for the team in 16th to resist a £65 million offer for their England international centre-back; for the team in 17th to be led by a playmaker who made waves at Atletico Madrid two years ago.

The assumption had long been that money would eventually devour the division, but instead it has increased its tactical complexity and made a mockery of any club naïve enough to think buying expensive players is still good enough.

Which brings us onto the biggest story of the season, topping even the extraordinary collapse of the champions Manchester City.

Ruben Amorim
Will things change for Ruben Amorim's Manchester United?

Man Utd are an omen, an obelisk; a warning to other clubs and a totem of what it means to be left behind by the stunning speed of change in the Premier League.

Just a couple of years ago mismanagement of a club of their size still meant bottoming out at sixth.

Now, almost every single team has players and coaches who could be at Champions League level in mainland Europe.

There is no room for error, and, as Ruben Amorim is discovering, no room for dogmatism either.

The theme of this season is elasticity. Teams are as flexible tactically as the league table itself, and those sticking to one principle – Ange Postecoglou, we’re looking at you – are getting left behind by a division faster, smarter, and more engrossing than ever.


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