Farewell to a club season of madness and mayhem

That was the club season that was – and it can’t have been just us who thought the whole footballing jamboree this year was a little bit… chaotic?

From VAR drama and inevitable sackings to pitch invasions and managers drinking out of fierce rivals’ cups, we’ve charted a timeline of madness and mayhem, with our writers also sharing some of their most memorable moments of the season.

27 Aug 2025 – Ruben Amorim’s tactics board at Grimsby

The Premier League moves so fast, and in such baffling directions, that Ruben Amorim’s reign at Manchester United feels like it happened several seasons ago. But that image of the Portuguese – the one that, had it been done in oils, might have been entitled Beleaguered – hunched over his tactics board in the pouring rain at Blundell Park, desperately moving the counters in the hope that inspiration might strike, happened only in August. More amazing still: he limped on for four months after that photo.

18 Oct 2025 – Ange Postecoglou lasts only 39 days

Eighteen minutes had passed from the final whistle in Nottingham Forest 0 Chelsea 3 when the statement landed on the home team’s website. There was to be no post-match press conference from Ange Postecoglou because, in the same number of words as he had spent days managing the club, the Australian was relieved of his duties. He became the shortest-serving permanent manager in Premier League history, having overseen two draws and six losses across his 39 days. Postecoglou could comfort himself that he was just one seat on Forest’s managerial merry-go-round in 2025-26. His replacement Sean Dyche lasted only 114 days before Vítor Pereira’s services were required. With Nuno Espírito Santo having started in the dugout in August, Forest’s four permanent managers in one season became a new record.

27 October 2025 – talkSPORT pundit backs Hearts

There are any number of curiosities from this season’s title race in Scotland: Russell Martin losing the goodwill of Rangers fans because of his shoes; Wilfried Nancy’s 33-day spell as Celtic manager; decisive interventions from the SPFL’s Aldi own-brand VAR in the final week. But nothing quite tops the point at which Martin O’Neill, appearing as a guest on talkSPORT, suggested that it would be healthy for Scotland if Hearts beat Celtic to the title. Within essentially a few hours, O’Neill had been appointed as Celtic’s caretaker manager and tasked with making sure that did not happen.

6 December 2025 – Mo Salah’s first outburst in a car park in Leeds

The phrase “thrown under the bus” is on borrowed time, one hopes, but rarely has it been used more forcibly than when Mo Salah accused Arne Slot of doing just that to him, after the Liverpool manager had left him out of a third consecutive starting XI. Salah even said it near the car park at Elland Road, as if choosing the setting to fit his words. Salah practised the art of appealing to the gallery (Liverpool fans) and making himself sound like the guardian of the team’s conscience. He came back for more in the spring before leaving, accusing Slot of betraying Jürgen Klopp’s “heavy metal football” legacy. Poor results caused the main damage but Slot’s authority never quite recovered from Salah’s lash-out in Leeds. A Liverpool great, he left Anfield with most fans forgetting he’d had a mediocre final season.

13 Dec 2025 – Enzo Maresca’s self-destruction

This has been the season of radical honesty. Traditionally, managers have the same attitude to public appearances as dogs do to bathtubs, but something seems to have changed. Thomas Tuchel, for one, has been refreshingly frank; late-stage Ruben Amorim tended not to hold back. The finest example, though, was Enzo Maresca, who was bubbling along quite nicely as Chelsea manager until he decided to speak his truth: informing his employers that he was thinking about taking another job, and then making oblique references to his “worst 48 hours” at Stamford Bridge. He was sacked two weeks later and replaced by Liam Rosenior.

1 Feb 2026 – Manchester City thrash Chelsea 5-1 in WSL

Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor had already admitted her side were out of the title race before they arrived at the Etihad but there could not have been a more emphatic statement from the runaway league leaders than what Manchester City produced. Their 5-1 win over the team who won the last six Women’s Super League titles gave them an 11 point lead at the top of the table and effectively confirmed them as champions. Chelsea were torn apart by Kerolin, Bunny Shaw and Vivianne Miedema to end up conceding five goals in a match for the first time since 2018/19. Bompastor’s side eventually finished third, their lowest league finish since that same season.

8 Feb 2026 – Manchester City’s Anfield “Goal”

The perfect emblem for football in its Minority Report era, when the letter of the law has become detached from the spirit of it. Quite what happened is hard to explain: Rayan Cherki’s injury-time shot from the halfway line into an empty net seemed to have given Manchester City a 3-1 win against Liverpool; Erling Haaland and Dominik Szoboszlai fouled each other as they raced to follow the ball in. The whole thing essentially fried VAR’s servers, so the goal was ruled out and Szoboszlai was sent off.

25 Apr 2026 – Rochdale v York last day of the National League season

Have there ever been two pitch invasions in one match before? What about from opposing sets of fans, both celebrating their promotion thanks to an injury-time goal? Rochdale fans will never know whether their incursion disrupted the team enough to be blamed for Josh Stones’s 102nd-minute equaliser (which was made even better by not clearly crossing the line), but it’s certainly a viable theory. Coming into the match as the National League top two with only one automatic promotion spot available – York on 107 points, Rochdale 105 – was already drama enough, especially given there was only something to play for because Mani Dieseruvwe scored a 98th-minute winner at Braintree the previous week. As he also scored against York and then the 97th-minute equaliser in the play-off final to eventually beat Boreham Wood on penalties, has one player ever had so many defining moments in a three-week stretch?

10 May 2026 – West Ham goal ruled out against Arsenal

Real life is not supposed to tie itself up as neatly as this, but occasionally it does. All the overarching themes of this Premier League season met in Callum Wilson’s non-goal - a set-piece ruled out in five agonising, enthralling minutes of high VAR bureaucracy. It effectively settled both the title and relegation contests by letting Arsenal believe God was on their side, and helped West Ham realise they were damned. It was perhaps the perfect piece of content, of discourse fuel, simultaneously the best and worst of VAR. The London Stadium was also the ideal home for it, already a soulless pain-den that curdled and boiled over. It was amazing, and I hated it. Perhaps nothing could sum up 2025-26 better.

19 May 2026 – Southampton kicked out of the play-offs

The Championship playoffs are often hyped by broadcasters as the most consequential games of any season. It was hard to argue that this season didn’t live up to its billing – but largely due to off-field matters. “Spygate” featured a Southampton intern being caught by Middlesbrough staff with his phone out next to a tree at Boro’s Rockliffe training ground ahead of their playoff semi-final. The Football League’s Regulation 127 banning spying on opponents within 72 hours of a match was broken, and saw Saints ejected from the playoff final, having overcome Boro across two legs. The affair saw swift and sharp punishment from the EFL, while it became open season for accusations and legal threats across the division. It transpired Southampton had also used their surveillance tactics on Ipswich and Oxford United, while Hull City – who beat the reinstated Boro in the playoff final – threatened legal action if they did not win the match.

Observer writers’ memorable moments of the season

There has been a fever dream quality to much of this season, as though the Premier League has moved on from being a sport, past being mediated content and settled into a role as a universe, parallel to but reflective of our own. Nothing encapsulates that like Liam Rosenior’s brief spell at Chelsea: the LinkedIn wisdom; the destruction by meme; the fact that the need to disrupt outweighed all forms of logic and common sense. Rory Smith

About 90 minutes before Tottenham’s first match of the Premier League season, two men unfurled a homemade banner reading “Built a business, killed a football club” outside the ground. But news of Eberechi Eze’s purported move to Spurs had just broken, the sun burned and vibes were good, so they were avoided like lepers. Thomas Frank’s side beat Burnley 3-0; Richarlison scored twice, Brennan Johnson the other. What could go wrong? George Simms

As Arsenal’s attack faltered in their quest for the Premier League title, it was telling that Mikel Arteta turned to a teenager to help get his side over the line. Max Dowman came on in the 74th minute with Arsenal drawing 0-0 against Everton and 23 minutes later he sent the Emirates into raptures as he secured victory. Having already assisted the opener, he became the Premier League’s youngest goalscorer at 16 years 73 days. Jessy Parker Humphreys

An 18-game unbeaten league run was a suitably grandiose way for Bournemouth to reach Europe for the first time. They did so despite losing players to Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool and Manchester City. For a club with a ground capacity of 11,307, to finish three points outside the Champions League spots is a huge compliment to Andoni Iraola. Bournemouth’s form improved only when the manager said he would be leaving at the end of the season. outside the Champions League spots is a huge compliment to Iraola. Bournemouth’s form only improved when he said he would be leaving at the end of the season. To lose Huijsen, Kerkez, Semenyo and Zabarnyi and still qualify for the Europa League is a minor miracle. Into the void stepped one of the best young players of the season, Junior Kroupi, who scored 13 times. Marcos Senesi was outstanding at centre-back. Best of all was Bournemouth’s fearless counter-attacking, their team spirit and energy: all attributable to Iraola - a hard act for Marco Rose to follow. Paul Hayward

If there was a moment that sums up where football is right now, it would be the clamour surrounding then-Spurs manager Thomas Frank drinking out of an Arsenal-branded coffee cup before his side faced Bournemouth. It encapsulated how an inconsequential incident can go viral in minutes, the one-upmanship that somehow this meant the Gunners had got one over on their rivals – but at its heart was yet another avoidable error from Spurs. Andrew Butler

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