The briefing: Liverpool’s Odd Ending, A Derby of Nothingness and Southampton’s Anti-Survival Blueprint

Welcome to the briefing, where every Monday during this season Athletics Will discuss three of the biggest questions that occur from the Premier League football of the weekend.

This was the weekend when Aston Villa Sloot at the Champions League places, Brighton & Hove Albion and Crystal Palace shared so many red cards as goals, Arsenal slid up again and Chelsea played a boring 0-0 draw with Brentford.

Here we will ask about the strange last few weeks of the season before the elections of the champions, or the terrible Manchester Derby for the Premier League as a whole, and if the degraded Southampton has shown the promoted parties of next season exactly how to do.

Will the end of this Liverpool season … a little weird?

Arne Slot and Virgil van Dijk were irritated this week with Michael Owen, when the former striker suggested that the Liverpool season could end as purely brilliant, instead of historically, given at some point they looked at a cabinet full of trophies, but were now left with ‘only’ the competition title.

Slot made the right point that there is no such thing as ‘only’ the Premier League title, especially for a club that has won only one of things in the past 35 years. This season cannot be considered something other than a triumph ALS and when they are confirmed as champions. They have been the best team in the country at a considerable distance and the fact that it is of Slot in the first season makes it even more impressive.

They will still win the title very handy. They are 11 points ahead with seven more games left, and even if their form collapsed, would you trust Arsenal to take advantage?

That said, the season ends very weird, right?

The last four games in Liverpool in all competitions have seen them leave the Champions League, which have been surpassed twice by Paris Saint-Germain, are convincingly distributed by Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup final, wins closely against Everton and lost a reasonably weak fashion by Fulham.

Perhaps it is because we have all wired our brains by Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, who have again defined what champions look like: ruthless Juggernuts that are rarely as low as it concerns points. Perhaps it is better for all of us that the champions look feilable, even vulnerable.

But it must still be a bit strange to Liverpool and their supporters. If there is nothing else, because if they look at performances like Sunday, they can think: how many of this team will there be next season?

Trent Alexander-Arnold (absent in this game) seems to have one foot and four toes out of the door, the future of Van Dijk and Mohamed Salah are still uncertain, Andrew Robertson’s less spotted triple error for Fulham’s second goal is emblematic for his decline, Diogo Jota is on Darwin Nonez. The midfield generally looks good, but there will probably be a significant operation elsewhere, until the point that half of the team might be different next season.

That is not something you usually say about running away champions.

When the time comes, they will celebrate a fantastic performance enthusiastically and rightly. But at the same time there is perhaps a strange nagging feeling in the back of their collective minds.

What did the Manchester Derby say about both clubs – and the Premier League?

It felt appropriate that the Manchester Derby ended with Manchester United who passed the ball along the edge of the penalty area, nobody who is willing to shoot or offer a decent last ball, until the referee finally seemed to get tired and the last whistle blown.

To describe this game as gloomy, it probably gives too much credit. The best thing you could say is that it happened. It was a football match that took place. What can someone get out of it? What do you remember when you have reached the end?

There were virtually no moments of real quality, perhaps apart from the rocket shot of Omar Marmoush in the final phase that Andre Onana did quite well to find out, and the general performance of Bruno Fernandes.

You have to feel sorry for the United Captain, the only player of a real class in his team who looks like he is trying to do everything himself – not for reasons for ego too misleading, but because he clearly knows that he is the only one who can do that.

The rest was not only boring or calm, but pretty sad.

There is Ruben Amorim on the touchline, desperate in the hope of seeing some signs of progress, but having to squeeze it quite hard.

Then there is his team, a collection of young players who currently look pretty no idea, but perhaps much better in a different environment.

Take Patrick Dorgu, who was pretty terrible, but you feel that a decent player could be: he was signed by United in January because they were desperate on a very specific player, of which there are few in the world, so he had to go inside immediately and immediately be good, which is a lot of pressure for a 20-year-old. If, say, Brighton had signed him and had wisely demolished him, he would be fine.

And then there is Kevin De Bruyne, an approach to a once so big player who still tries the things that have once made him so brilliant, but they just can’t come out anymore. He will leave City and the Premier League a legend in the summer, but in the view of him now, you have been left with the feeling that it would have been a better end if he had left last year.

It was appropriate for the weekend as a whole: the top five all dropped points, the big winners are Newcastle who only play on Monday and are two points of the likely Champions League places with two games in their hand around them.

The longest current winning series in the division is three games, together in the hands of Aston Villa and … Wolves.

Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Nottingham Forest, Liverpool, United and City were all to a certain extent, very poor.

So yes, the Manchester Derby was terrible. But at the same time it did not seem out of place.

Has Southampton given the anti-blue print for promoted teams?

It is therefore official: Southampton is downstairs, their defeat against Tottenham on Sunday, which means that their return to the championship is confirmed with seven more games, making it the earliest in terms of games that a team has ever officially banned. Even Derby in 2007-08 held it for 32 games.

To fall with almost a fifth of the remaining season is embarrassing, because it is in to stand out as terribly under this historically poor lower three.

Are they the worst team that the Premier League has ever seen? Maybe. The only thing they have left now is to collect the two points that will mean that they will not end with the lowest points ever, the kind of miniscule recovery of dignity that is no one but the people involved, and perhaps the derby side of 17 years ago.

What they could do, of a broader meaning, is to offer a blueprint of how to approach a Premier League season as a promoted side.

Their transfer company is one place to start, with in principle all their recruits that are disappointed, with the possible exception of Matheus Fernandes. Of course, compiling a team is to challenge the Premier League, but there was a lack of imagination in their recruitment and some theoretically important arrivals (for example Aaron Ramsdale) arrived at the last minute.

Aaron Ramsdale could not keep Southampton up (Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty images)

Then there is how they played. There was no real point to suggest Russell Martin that he should play in a different way, because he would always become a stubborn fundamentalist and indeed, that is why Southampton hired him. So, really, the fault for that is not all with Martin, rather with the people who have appointed him.

They must also be blamed for how long they were waiting to act: it was clear from very early that it did not work under Martin, but they kept him until the 16th game, at what time it was actually completely over.

What this mess of a season proves is that, if a promoted side, the way you play does not really matter: the first season is about doing what you can to survive, in any way necessary, regardless of how ugly that is. That is what Nottingham Forest and, to a certain extent, Bournemouth and Fulham did a few seasons ago and Brentford for that.

If you are then established and have the basis of a decent enough team, you start thinking about the football that you actually want to play.

That is all easier said than done, and even with the approach they chose, Southampton does not apologize for how bad they have been. But it is something for the teams at the top of the championship to think about.

Come up

• Another match of a pretty strange Premier League round of competitions to be to go, and it is Newcastle, who, after a difficult weekend for most people around them, suddenly looks pretty good for a Champions League place -even more considering they will play Leicester City on Monday evening.
• On Tuesday the goodness of the nations of some women: England tells Belgium, while Spain could be vs Portugal and Germany faces Scotland.
• Boring from an increasingly tasting Premier League season? Good news! The Champions League returns on Tuesday and there are a few large, heavyweight competitions to get rid of: it is Bayern Munich vs Inter in Germany, while it is in London, Arsenal vs Real Madrid. There is no wrong answer when choosing one of them to look at.
• And on Wednesday it is Barcelona vs Borussia Dortmund and perhaps the favorites for the whole thing, PSG, against Aston Villa, who will bring a familiar face: Marco Asensio, who is of course technically a PSG player.
• A few seasons will decrease on Thursday evening in the Europa League-Spurs host Frankfurt in the first stage of their quarterfinals, while Manchester United in Lyon and Rangers is host Athletic Club, with Bodo/Glimt vs Lazio that completes the line-up.
• Finally, your euro-line-up will be completed with a number of Piping-Hot Conference League promotion: Chelsea is in Legia Warsaw for the first stage of their quarterfinals, while elsewhere it is Djurgarden vs Rapid Vienna, Real Betis vs Jagiellonia Biaystok and Nk Celje Vs Fiorentina.
• Manchester City. 115 (at least) costs. Pronunciation? Who knows.

(Top photos: Getty Images)