The month of May is a storyline-generation machine for European soccer. There are titles getting decided everywhere, anxious relegation races to follow and tickets to UEFA competitions to punch. There are also, of course, the final rounds of said UEFA competitions. If something memorable is going to happen in a given season, the odds are good that it will happen in May (or, when there are strange circumstances like, for instance, a winter World Cup, early June).
Even taking title races and the Champions League out of the equation, there’s just so much to follow. Here are seven of my favorite stories as we dive into the final matches of 2022-23.
Liverpool attempting another magic act
March 7, 2021: Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool lost 1-0 to relegation-level Fulham to fall to eighth place with what was, per FiveThirtyEight’s SPI ratings, just a 20% chance of rallying to finish in the top four. Their odds of playing in the 2021-22 Champions League were dim.
They proceeded to pull 26 points from their final 10 matches, winning their last five outright and miraculously finishing third. (They would go on to reach the final of the Champions League that they rallied to qualify for.)
April 1, 2023: Liverpool lost 4-1 to Manchester City to fall to eighth place with what was, again per SPI, just an 11% chance of climbing back into a Champions League spot.
They have proceeded to pull 23 points from their next nine matches, winning seven in a row. They are one point behind both third-place Newcastle United and fourth-place Manchester United with two matches remaining.
It sure feels like history is repeating itself on Merseyside, doesn’t it? In both 2020-21 and 2022-23, Liverpool fell far behind the pack thanks to defensive breakdowns. They currently rank second in the Premier League in shots allowed per possession but are a distant last in expected goals (xG) allowed per shot, just as they did two years ago. The reasons for those breakdowns are a bit different — two years ago, all their center-backs got hurt; this year it seems a stale midfield has faced the brunt of the blame — but the effect has been the same. So has the late-year rally.
It’s not exactly the same this time, though. For one thing, both Newcastle and Man United have a game in hand. Entering their final two matches, SPI still gives Liverpool only a 37% chance of a top-four finish, with both the third- and fourth-place teams at 81%. (Brighton & Hove Albion, eight points back but with four matches still to play, also have a 2% chance.)
Liverpool face a torrid Aston Villa on Saturday but at least get them at home before finishing on the road against an already-relegated Southampton. Newcastle still have to face Brighton and an increasingly desperate Leicester City, and while Manchester United’s remaining foes (AFC Bournemouth, Chelsea and Fulham) have little to play for, the Red Devils have been inconsistent of late. Liverpool could still pull this off. Again.
Chelsea also sacked Graham Potter, their second full-time manager of 2022-23, on April 2, somewhat inexplicably replacing him with interim Frank Lampard four days later. As with Rodgers, it was clear that Potter wouldn’t be with the club long term, but after averaging 1.36 points per game before April 2, they’ve averaged 0.71 since.
There have been at least a couple of relative successes in this span. After firing Ralph Hasenhuttl in favor of Nathan Jones in November and completely collapsing, Southampton rebounded a smidge after firing Jones for Ruben Selles. They still clinched relegation last weekend, though, meaning that things have worked out, post-panic, for only one club: Crystal Palace. They fired Patrick Vieira on March 17 after a long winless streak against a brutal schedule. That streak included draws with Manchester United, Newcastle, Brighton, Liverpool and Brentford, plus five narrow losses, and results were all but guaranteed to improve in April and May as the schedule lightened up. They have done just that, although Roy Hodgson has done a particularly impressive job (nine games, 16 points).
Throw in Bayern Munich’s own panic moves — they replaced Julian Nagelsmann (three league losses in all competitions) with Thomas Tuchel in early April and proceeded to win two of his first seven matches, suffering elimination from both the Champions League and the DFB-Pokal — and this season has served as a pointed reminder that while panicking is understandable in this sport, acting on said panic will almost certainly make things worse.
This is further enforced by two teams that didn’t act on panic. West Ham United and Nottingham Forest were the only relegation-threatened teams in the Premier League that didn’t fire anyone. West Ham were likely too good to go down regardless, but they’ve rallied to go six points clear of the relegation zone (while also reaching the Europa Conference League semis) while keeping David Moyes. Forest, meanwhile, aren’t yet safe with Steve Cooper still in charge, but they’ve pulled seven points from their past four matches, and they’re three points above the drop zone at the moment. Their relegation odds have fallen from 81% in mid-April to 24% today.
Haaland has scored 52 goals!
When you write an “early overreactions” piece, you’re really just trying to get one big thing right. I listed six potential overreactions after the first week of the club season, and damned if I didn’t hit on a few. PSG and Bayern admittedly didn’t end up being the best teams in Europe, but Fulham are indeed staying up with ease, Newcastle will indeed finish in the top six (although not at Manchester United’s expense), either Union Berlin or Freiburg will indeed play in next year’s Champions League, and … as it turns out … predicting Erling Haaland to score 50 goals wasn’t enough of an overreaction.
In his first season with Manchester City, Haaland has played 49 matches and scored an incredible 52 goals. He’s got four matches left, too, and a big game or two could place him in the most rarefied air.
