The conclusion of a titanic title race involving two of Europe’s greatest sides, judgment day for either Burnley or Leeds United, and Mike Dean’s final game as a referee — the 2021-22 Premier League season is about to draw to a close.
But it’s not all about the finale. It’s about the twists and turns along the way — the moments that have made you leap from your seat, scream in despair or hop straight onto social media to argue with strangers hundreds of miles away.
Here, our writers share what made them laugh and cry during the 2021-22 season.
I feel happy when I think about…
Jack Lang: Christian Eriksen swinging in corners, playing through balls and generally just seeming to relish every moment of his second chance — at life, not just at football. There is a lesson there for us all and well done to Brentford for the bravery they displayed when they offered him a route back into the Premier League.
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Simon Hughes: The noise when a goal is scored. After so long without crowds, I will never take it for granted.
Carl Anka: Fans were back in stadiums! In rich voice and full volume! This season, I spent a few days in Ghana and Nigeria, and it opened my eyes to just how big the Premier League is. People who may never visit England were glad Stamford Bridge’s home support had come back. Football connects and enlivens so many people around the world. It makes me happy to see so many people enjoying watching football.
Oliver Kay: I worry we’re all going to say the same thing here but having fans back in the stadium makes such a difference. That applies particularly to those in the stands but even if you’re watching on TV on the other side of the world — and indeed even for those who are playing — football played in a packed stadium is a joy we should never again take it for granted.
Adam Hurrey: I suspect this just means I’m easily pleased but I quite enjoyed a particularly Hodgsonian one-two towards the end of the season.
April 6: Roy Hodgson, 74, pings a lovely ball over the top for Joao Pedro at London Colney and, naturally, not displaying a hint of self-regarding amusement about it all. This was business. What of it?
Goal – JOÃO PEDRO
Assist – HODGSON pic.twitter.com/rzFtboa3uW— Watford Football Club (@WatfordFC) April 6, 2022
May 7: Roy Hodgson, three games away from almost-certain retirement, explains why he didn’t go over to the travelling Watford fans after a 1-0 defeat to Crystal Palace with a simple, almost-too-honest-Clive, “unfortunately, they were a bit too far away”.
In the most neutral possible way, what I’m saying is: Roy Hodgson just doesn’t give a shit what you think.
George Caulkin: St James’ Park, Monday, May 16, 2022. Newcastle United 2 Arsenal 0. Conditions: cacophonous. Newcastle were better than better players and the team played like the crowd sounded; they roared. For once, it wasn’t a statement of defiance against disinterested owners. It felt like a statement of intent.
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Jack Pitt-Brooke: Is it trite to say “a full season of full capacity crowds”? Probably, but after the last two years, what used to be commonplace now feels remarkable. The tension and atmosphere all season, but especially in the last few weeks of the season, is a reminder of how football used to be every year. And some of the recent scenes of on-pitch jubilation — excepting a few idiots — are what football is meant to be about.
I feel angry when I think about…
Lang: More sad than angry but Jack Grealish’s transformation from fantasy stepover deity into Malfunctioning Wing Bot 3.0 has been tough to watch. He might get a Premier League winner’s medal and Pep Guardiola is within his rights to use his players in whichever way he sees fit, but for the neutrals, there is an unavoidable sense of loss here — one amplified every time Grealish receives the ball, looks up, briefly considers his options and chooses, for the 4,015th time, to pass the ball five yards back down the line.
Hughes: The number of seconds I have lost this season waiting for an assistant referee to put his flag up because of new rules. Eventually, a player is going to get injured because of this. It’s very stupid.
Anka: The same complaints I always put there: that many of the custodians of football seem to care more about growth for the sake of growth than what it means to people communally. That there is a level of abuse, both on social media and in real life, and that’s the game. It’s difficult to participate in if you do not fit a certain mould.
Kay: There are many much more serious issues in the game (competitive balance, financial inequality, dubious owners, etc) but in terms of this season specifically, it was incredibly frustrating that the Premier League postponed so many matches in December/January due to minor COVID-19 outbreaks at one club or another. It’s annoyance rather than anger, but at times, it felt like certain clubs just fancied a break.
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Hurrey: The ongoing and deliberately blinkered whinging about refereeing decisions and VAR imperfections from every corner of the football industry.
The holes in these arguments — from singular decisions to full-blown conspiracy theories — are so gaping, the cases so devoid of logic, and yet nobody ever seems to grasp the futility of it all. The irony in those leaping on quotes from pundits about referees having “never played the game” is just too delicious for any further words.
Caulkin: My own confused feelings when it comes to Newcastle’s takeover. I was desperate for the Mike Ashley era to end, I’ve known Amanda Staveley for quite a while now, and I love how the club and city feel. I don’t love the Premier League’s relationship with money, the politics of Saudi Arabia or their human rights abuses. Not sure where to put all that.
Pitt-Brooke: How gleefully football clubs and many players have dived into the murky waters of crypto, tokens and NFTs. We all know this is about trying to make quick easy money, often at great financial risk to fans, but it is even worse that it should be done under the false pretences of “engagement”.
I was most wrong about…
Lang: Before the season began, the possibility that Romelu Lukaku would not terrorise Premier League defences on the way to the golden boot never even crossed my mind.
Hughes: Arsenal making it into the Champions League.
Anka: When I took part in our 2020-21 season review, I called Jannik Vestergaard one of the better defenders outside the top six and applauded whichever Leicester City scout at that time thought the Dane worthy of a move up the table. I take it all back.
Kay: The first is Romelu Lukaku. Even before he made such an impressive start back at Chelsea, scoring five goals in his first four appearances, I was convinced it would work. So far, it really hasn’t.
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The second is Liverpool. Even with Virgil van Dijk back, I couldn’t see how this team, having reached an extraordinary peak of performance between early 2018 and late 2020, would get back to that level again, but they have. It has been enormously impressive.
Caulkin: Pretty much everything — but that’s now a source of perverse professional pride. Rafa Benitez at Everton was always a queasy fit but I thought he would grind through it, and make the players better and the team better. His dismissal, soon after he’d won a few internal battles, typified the dysfunction. He doesn’t half make life difficult for himself, though.
Pitt-Brooke: I get a lot wrong but here’s a bad one: I thought Rafa Benitez would be good at Everton. I thought he would be the perfect coach to give that team structure and organisation, to make them hard to beat and, with the right additions, push for the top half. Clearly, there are big structural issues at Everton that predate Benitez but his appointment did not work out at all. A reminder that some coaches and clubs will just never be a good fit.
The thing I absolutely knew was going to happen
Lang: If, like me, you don’t have time to watch much Championship football, the first few weeks of the Premier League campaign are spent getting to know 50-odd footballers you have never heard of before across three teams. It’s quite enjoyable and you normally have a pretty solid handle on things by Christmas.
Except, that is, when Watford are in the Premier League. The season is nearly over but Roy Hodgson is still digging around in the depths of his big bag of players and pulling out new ones. Edo Kayembe, anyone? Samuel Kalu? Every day is a school day at Vicarage Road.
Hughes: Rafa Benitez getting sacked by Everton — though he lasted six weeks longer than I expected.
Anka: I can just about understand how Rafa Benitez was Everton manager for the start of the season. I cannot understand how Nuno Espirito Santo was Spurs manager for the start of the season.
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Both appointments were disasters waiting to happen. I already do double-takes when remembering their tenures.
Kay: In common with everyone other than those who mattered, I was sure Nuno Espirito Santo and Rafa Benitez wouldn’t last long at Tottenham and Everton. I don’t think that required clairvoyance.
Hurrey: Newmanagerspeak. We went into this season with at least two out-of-work managers well versed in earnest press-conferencing: Eddie Howe and Frank Lampard. Then, suddenly, Steven Gerrard couldn’t resist the lure of Villa Park’s mid-table comforts and we had arguably the strongest field of Young English Managers Who Spoke Well, I Thought the top flight has ever seen.
Listening to them must be quite comforting for their own clubs’ fans — nobody in the history of mankind can match the said-all-the-right-things hit rate of these three — but, from the outside of the bubble, you can’t help but wonder what happened to football to force them to talk like this.
Caulkin: Norwich City’s relegation always felt nailed on and their natural home in that no man’s land between the Premier League and the Championship is a source of disappointment. It’s also, well, a bit boring. They’re an admirable club and one I’m fond of (my dad lived in the city for years), but they haven’t found a way of imposing themselves.
Pitt-Brooke: Cristiano Ronaldo would be individually effective for Manchester United (he has 18 league goals and 24 overall) but the team would get worse with him in it. That’s what happened at Juventus, who steadily declined after they signed him, and I knew the same thing would happen at United. Ronaldo now is just so famous and so individualistic that he unbalances the whole team, on and off the pitch. Last season, United at least had an identity. This season, they are just Ronaldo FC — and worse for it.
My non-Big-Six player of the season
Lang: Jarrod Bowen. Good dribbler, good passer, good crosser, good finisher, never gets injured, and looks just like about five or six different lads who used to kick a ball around on the bumpy field next to the house you grew up in.
Hughes: Ivan Toney. He’s got the lot.
Anka: When Tino Livramento toyed with Manchester United in August, I immediately looked into what his buy-back clause was with Chelsea. The 19-year-old was a joy to watch this season. It’s such a shame an ACL injury will see him out until 2023.
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Kay: It would be the same answer if you asked me for a non-“big two” player: Declan Rice. I couldn’t find space for him in my team of the season because the best player in his position has been Rodri (followed by Fabinho), but he hasn’t been far off that level, which is one hell of a compliment. His West Ham team-mate Jarrod Bowen deserves a special mention too, as do Jose Sa, Marc Guehi and Ivan Toney among others.
Hurrey: There’s probably a strong historical correlation between “the best non-Big-Six player” and “the best uncapped Englishman in the Premier League” and, in a World Cup year, that’s a particularly interesting position to occupy.
That man in 2022 is West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen, a fulfilling fusion of natural qualities (raw acceleration, low centre of gravity, salt-of-the-earth work ethic) and some attributes earned through sheer self-improvement (a thunderous left foot, some blossoming goal-contribution numbers, Danny Dyer as an imminent father-in-law). Get him on the plane!
Caulkin: “He’s Brazilian and he only cost £40 million.” Bought (expensively) as a centre-forward with a goal allergy and given to a head coach in Steve Bruce who didn’t know what to do with him, Joelinton has reinvented himself as a midfield destroyer. He is the ultimate misfit turned good and embodies Newcastle’s rejuvenation. A great lad, too.
Pitt-Brooke: The technically correct answer is surely Christian Eriksen but it has taken a unique set of circumstances to get him to Brentford, so I’ll pass him over this time, and give my award to Everton’s Richarlison. I find him an utterly compelling footballer to watch: so athletic, so skilful and deadly in the final third. Some people think he goes down easily but I just see someone who is willing to put his body on the line to keep his club in the Premier League, over and over again.
The match we couldn’t pay you to watch again:
Lang: I went to Crystal Palace 1-0 Watford with a friend the other week and that was a match with literally zero highlights. But how much are you offering?
Hughes: Watford 0 Everton 0: not a sport.
Anka: Manchester United lost 5-0 to Liverpool at Old Trafford. And then 4-0 at Anfield.
Pain.
Deep.
Humiliating.
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Personal.
Pain.
Kay: Sometimes when it gets to Monday night, after spending the whole weekend watching football and with a hectic midweek schedule looming, I make a very conscious decision to tear myself away from the TV. Far too often, I succumb. Crystal Palace 0 Leeds 0 was one of the games that left me questioning my sanity and my life choices.
Hurrey: Can’t remember, thankfully, but I’m 90 per cent sure it was a Saturday 12.30pm kick-off, somewhere between January and March with those irritatingly long shadows from the low sun.
Caulkin: Well, you do pay me to watch matches, so if you told me to watch a match again, I’d have to do it, wouldn’t I? But Wolves 2 Newcastle 1 in October was a case study in miserable; the flattest away end in living memory, a moribund performance, the same old excuses from Bruce and an overwhelming sense of misery. It was the last game pre-takeover.
Pitt-Brooke: Tottenham 1 Watford 0, August 29. Even though Spurs won, this was the first sense of the limitations of “Nunoball”. Set up in a rigid 4-3-3, with a midfield built on running and pressing, there was very little engagement with the key questions of how to create chances and score goals. The only goal came from a Son Heung-min free kick that was meant to be a cross. Literally nothing else happened in the game. The Jose Mourinho era started to look like Ajax 1995 in comparison.
The goal you could watch again and again
Lang: Manuel Lanzini for West Ham against Crystal Palace. Any goal that involves both ball-juggling and a volley that goes in off the crossbar is an automatic winner in my book. Oh, and all with his weaker foot. Come on now.
🔥 @manulanzini's highlight reel is another level 🔥 pic.twitter.com/t460JoX5Aq
— West Ham United (@WestHam) January 2, 2022
Hughes: Lionel Messi versus Manchester City in the Champions League was special, reminding you of his genius. Though Mohamed Salah’s against the same opponents in the Premier League was technically more difficult. He was flying at the time and without him, I think Liverpool would have lost the game.
𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 😱
A goal we’ll never tire of watching. Out of this world from @MoSalah 👏 pic.twitter.com/mZEq9OI0Wx
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) October 3, 2021
Anka: When you take into account technical skill needed vs difficulty of opposition, it is hard to look past Mohamed Salah’s slaloming run and strike against Manchester City but I do enjoy Bruno Guimaraes’ soft chip against Norwich, too.
Kay: It’s either that Mohamed Salah goal from October or that other Mohamed Salah goal from October: two incredible and very similar solo efforts that underlined the brilliance of a world-class player at the peak of his powers. Given the quality of the opposition, the high stakes and the fact the game was level at the time, I’ll go for the first one against Manchester City at Anfield. It was an extraordinary piece of play.
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Hurrey: Having just discovered it for the purposes of this piece… Manuel Lanzini’s first goal against Crystal Palace on New Year’s Day. It hasn’t felt like a truly blessed Premier League season for wondergoals but the way Lanzini pinball-flippered his way past Joachim Andersen in the box and semi-deliberately teed himself up for a left-foot volley in off the crossbar isn’t something you see too often.
Caulkin: I can’t remember that sort of thing.
Pitt-Brooke: Bernardo Silva’s volley at Villa Park. The counter-attack alone was beautifully clean and simple: Riyad Mahrez kept the ball under pressure, Fernandinho drove it down the line, Gabriel Jesus crossed from the right, but Bernardo’s volley was something else. Adjusting his run to meet the ball, opening up his left foot, connecting so perfectly that with seemingly minimal effort the ball whistled over Emi Martinez and into the net.
That's our @Nissan Goal of the Month for December sorted then! 😅pic.twitter.com/Qo5BSODG5t
— Manchester City (@ManCity) December 2, 2021
The silliest thing you saw this season
Hughes: Does online count? Oddly, I don’t think the Illuminati holds an interest in who gets relegated from the Premier League.
Anka: Manchester United.
Kay: Newcastle were drawing 1-1 at Brighton in November, still searching for their first win of the season, when the home team had goalkeeper Robert Sanchez sent off. Newcastle had a free kick in a fairly central position 30 yards out — and Brighton had a defender, Lewis Dunk in goal.
And Jonjo Shelvey… floated a harmless cross, which was easily cleared. Eddie Howe, who was in the stands, about to take over, must have been in despair. For all the focus on the money Newcastle spent in January, the improvement Howe has coaxed out of Shelvey, Joelinton, Fabian Schar and others is so impressive. It was badly needed.
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Hurrey: The talking-behind-hands phenomenon is obviously an indictment of modern football’s disconnect between those who play and those who observe, and the lack of trust the former has in the latter.
But while I remain semi-interested in what, say, Jack Grealish might be muttering to Nathan Redmond as they trudge off the pitch at the Etihad, the mind truly boggles about what secrets these two paramedics were successfully hiding from the Sky Sports viewership one Sunday afternoon in November.
St John Ambulance lads here, making sure they don't give away their tactics pic.twitter.com/ADEPlOW8SJ
— Adam Hurrey (@FootballCliches) November 8, 2021
Caulkin: I can remember Joelinton taking a shot that hit his own face during Newcastle’s 3-1 victory over Everton in February. However often you watch this, it never seems any less improbable and there are no words that can accurately describe it — it simply defies the laws of physics and language. This was mid-era Joelinton, obviously.
Gotta love him, man.
Works his socks off.
Prone to kicking ball in own face.
Joelinton is a Geordie.pic.twitter.com/5WzCwFHA0m— Jamie Brown (@JamieBrownNE) February 9, 2022
Pitt-Brooke: I don’t know if “silly” is exactly the right word for this but we got into a ludicrous situation in the winter with COVID-19 postponements. Arsenal getting the north London derby called off at short notice when they only had one positive case in the squad was ridiculous, and an affront to the idea of fair competition. Teams should not get to choose to play games at their own convenience. Given that they lost the rescheduled game 3-0, maybe they should have played it in January after all.
My unheralded hero of the season is…
Lang: Jose Sa. Comparing expected goals conceded to actual goals conceded over the season, the Wolves goalkeeper has overperformed to a staggering degree, preventing no fewer than NINE goals (excluding penalties and own goals). For context, the next best in the league is Alisson, with 1.6 goals prevented. Without those heroics, Bruno Lage’s side could easily have been dragged into the relegation picture.
Hughes: Michail Antonio. Without him, West Ham would be lost. He’s been consistently good for a long time now. A bloody menace in every game I watch.
Anka: The very smart and wise and handsome Dan Bardell was one person who helped point out an issue in my methodology for my “Rookie of the Year” piece that meant Jacob Ramsey didn’t make the shortlist. So I’ll give him a nod here. It’s been a fine season for the 20-year-old.
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Kay: I don’t know if “unheralded” is the right word but when people talk about how fantastic Manchester City and Liverpool are — and I do this a lot — the focus is invariably on the same four or five players. But I look at the performances of Kyle Walker, Rodri and Bernardo Silva for City this season, and Joel Matip, Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and Diogo Jota for Liverpool, and they’ve been brilliant. I would even put Phil Foden in that category too. Do people realise how good he is? Maybe not “unheralded” but certainly underheralded. Is that a word? It is now.
Hurrey: Mateo Kovacic. Has he had his own Athletic long read yet? (Answer: sort of). The Premier League’s spiritual successor to Mousa Dembele — albeit a little less Rolls-Roycey, a little more scrappy — Kovacic is a fascinating blend of industry and intricacy. He’s not so much a ball-carrier as a ball-smuggler, constantly turning 90 degrees to squeeze out of trouble, endlessly finding a last-ditch toe to turn a 50-50 into a 51-49.
Having emerged from his awkward early period at Chelsea, in which he was the guy who either came on or off for Ross Barkley after 63 minutes, he is now an (oddly underappreciated) elite-level midfielder.
Pitt-Brooke: Ethan Pinnock. I am slightly biased here because I used to watch Pinnock playing at centre-back for my local team Dulwich Hamlet only five years ago. Although I knew he was good, even I did not think he would be anchoring a Premier League defence in 2021-22. He has been tremendous for Brentford, looking perfectly natural for top-flight football, helping to comfortably keep them in the top flight. Only a hamstring injury has stopped him from playing every game.
What I’m most looking forward to about next season is…
Lang: Seeing how Erik ten Hag manages the compound dumpster fire that is Manchester United. Logic says that he will be given time to instil his philosophy and shape the squad to his needs. But logic has not been in plentiful supply at Old Trafford over the last few years and the Dutchman must be well aware of the scale of the task at hand. It will be fascinating to see how he gets on.
Hughes: It’s going to be very weird having a World Cup slap bang in the middle of it. How teams manage this will add spice and angst, but I’m not sure I’m looking forward to the angst part
Anka: How are we going to fit a World Cup in between everything? How is the January transfer window going to work? What is going to happen when Erling Haaland runs at Virgil van Dijk?
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Kay: I’ll be honest. I’m not ready to look forward to next season yet. Ask me again in mid-June.
Hurrey: Erling Haaland’s debut. Sunny, August-afternoon first glimpses of truly landscape-altering new signings are an era-proof Premier League gift: see Jurgen Klinsmann galloping into English football for Spurs in 1994 or Fabrizio Ravanelli earning his first £42,000 a week with a hat-trick for Middlesbrough in 1996. It’s a forgiving time, too: the least praise an expensive arrival can receive on his debut is: “showed a few nice touches.”
Caulkin: Blimey, can I please look forward to it not being this season first?
Pitt-Brooke: If Antonio Conte gets the players he wants this summer — especially at wing-back — then next season, there is the prospect of the best Tottenham team since the peak Mauricio Pochettino years. They have been the third-best team in the league since he showed up and with a full pre-season behind him, and Son and Harry Kane playing better than ever, they could even spring some surprises next year.
(Top photos: Getty Images)