We've entered the chaos zone: A Premier League recap

The most entertaining fixtures of the season?

Author

Kim McCauley
May 05, 2026

Some Premier League teams are very tired. Some have nothing left to play for. Some are extremely desperate for results. This combination of factors is producing some absolutely wild games with unpredictable outcomes, and we got to enjoy arguably the best matchweek of the season over the last 4 days.

Leeds are now 7 points clear of the drop with 3 games to play, which should be good enough for safety, though things get interesting if they lose to Tottenham next week and West Ham avoid defeat to Arsenal.

As for this particular game, the result was pretty straightforward, but I want to mention Anton Stach scoring another long-range free kick with some questionable goalkeeping involved. Here’s his post-shot xG this season. This weekend’s goal is the light blue square in the middle, and it’s only the second-lowest psxG free kick he’s scored this year.

Not a ton to say here. The Hammers are back down to 18th after this one, which was a pretty poor effort given the circumstances.

Brentford needed to take care of business here to capture a European place, with Manchester City and Liverpool still on their schedule over the final three games.

Brighton had been on fire heading into this one, taking 13 points from their last 5 games and working their way back into the fight for a European spot. The opposite could be said for Newcastle, who had the bosses fly in from Saudi Arabia to talk about whether they’re going to sack Eddie Howe.

And now the narratives have flipped 180 degrees, with Brighton turning in an extremely poor defensive performance. This could have been much worse; Newcastle didn’t even finish most of their really big chances.

Brighton had 68% possession in this game, but had long spells where they couldn’t turn that into any shots. Huge let down after their superb performances against Liverpool and Chelsea.

Newcastle, meanwhile, are now expected to give Howe another season, assuming he avoids utter catastrophe over the final 3 games.

Not much to talk about here. Early red card for Sunderland, two teams with very little to play for, let’s move on.

Perhaps most of Arsenal’s attacking problems were down to simply not having Bukayo Saka in the lineup. Theoretically their depth players should be good enough to produce better results than they’ve had this spring, but there’s really nothing to worry about when the star player is fit. He utterly dominated the first half, then sat down to rest up for the Champions League semifinal.

Saka’s teammates have actually been pretty meh at putting his great passes into the goal this season. He’s got 5 assists from 59 shot assists and 6.84 xG assisted.

Palace have their heads completely in the Conference League, so I will take this game as seriously as they did.

While this game probably meant nothing for either team’s final result this season or next season’s outlook, it certainly had a massive Vibes implication. Man United fans are thrilled with the way their second half has gone, and Michael Carrick might get to keep the job. Liverpool, meanwhile, are inching towards politely parting ways with Arne Slot.

This is extremely harsh on Slot given the death of Diogo Jota, the late arrival of Alexander Isak, and the massive pile of injuries that has left him with a 3rd choice goalkeeper and a bench exclusively made up of academy kids. But Liverpool has spent the entire season looking outrageously soft defensively, and this might have been the most amateur performance of the bunch.

Bruno Fernandes was the best player on the pitch and United scored three goals, but the universe appeared to be conspiring against him getting the Premier League assist record. Every single one of his brilliant passes into the box was met with some variety of miss, saved shot or deflection that kept him from actually getting an assist on the box score.

While Palace were mentally checked out with 1.99 eyes on Europe, Aston Villa were even worse than that. I’m not even sure if they knew they were playing a football match. Their first half was one of the worst I’ve ever seen from any team at this level. Genuinely astonishing.

Unlike the teams who are mentally on the beach, Chelsea do actually look like they’re trying. They’re just very, very bad. This is now 6 consecutive Premier League losses, and I have absolutely no clue what their strategy is going to be this summer.

Drugs game. This game was on drugs.

Things were actually going pretty normally for the first hour, and then City’s center backs proceeded to have a meltdown. Some poor defending actually gifted Everton a big chance before the opener, which Donnarumma had to make an excellent save to keep out. But then the absolute meltdown happened.

City showed some great fight and quality to claw back a point, but now the title race is fully under Arsenal’s control. So much for that “title decider,” which we told you was a BS narrative.

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