Ten things we learned from the 2024/25 Premier League season

Football writer Alex Keble highlights 10 hot topics and tactical lessons from the 2024/25 Premier League campaign:

- Strength of mid-tier clubs marks the end of the "Big Six" era
- Idealistic tacticians are on the way out
- Forest's excellent season gives hope to all clubs
- 2025/26 title race feels wide open after Liverpool's low points tally  
- The classic No 9 is back in fashion
- Mid-season manager changes now rarer as "bounce" stops working 
- Fast transitions make league very entertaining
- Individual stars are the difference-makers in "systems" era 
- Fifth Champions League spot gives league an extra dimension
- Promoted clubs are struggling to stay up

The curtain has come down on the 2024/25 Premier League campaign, and a season of change. 

Liverpool’s first title in five years, Chelsea and Newcastle United booking their returns to the UEFA Champions League, and Nottingham Forest qualifying for Europe were not the only changes.

There were also tactical transformations, shifts in narrative trends, and a more open field than ever before. 

Here are 10 things we learned about the Premier League in 2024/25. 

1. Strength of mid-tier clubs marks the end of the 'Big Six' era

In five of the eight Premier League seasons between 2014 and 2022, the "Big Six" clubs filled every top-six spot in the table. 

The "Big Six" refers to the most successful and powerful sides in Premier League football, comprising Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. 

In the three years since 2022, not once have those six clubs occupied all of the positions from one to six. In fact, the same number of top-six places have gone to clubs not in the "Big Six" in the last three years as in the previous eight years combined (five). 

The historically bad campaigns for both Man Utd and Spurs signal the end of the "Big Six" era, as does Chelsea’s ongoing battle to retain their status alongside the disruptors Newcastle and Aston Villa. 

It seems reasonable now to talk about a "Big Eight", although Brighton & Hove Albion might even challenge that, given they have finished sixth (2022/23) and eighth (2024/25) in two of the last three seasons.

One thing we can say for sure is that a new middle tier of clubs is strong, and capable of permanently upsetting what had looked like a closed shop. 

This is partly thanks to the growing financial power of non-"Big Six" clubs compared to those in mainland Europe, leading to first-rate tacticians and UEFA Champions League-standard players arriving at mid-table English teams. 

The upshot is a more competitive and unpredictable Premier League, FA Cup, and EFL Cup. 

2. Idealistic tacticians are on the way out

It would not be a review of the 2024/25 season without particular focus on what happened to Man Utd and Spurs, who collected only 42 and 38 points respectively in dismal Premier League campaigns. 

Premier League

Position Pos	Club	Played Pl	GD	Points Pts
15	Man Utd MUN	38	-10	42
16	Wolves WOL	38	-15	42
17	Spurs TOT	38	-1	38
18	Leicester LEI	38	-47	25
19	Ipswich IPS	38	-46	22
20	Southampton SOU	38	-60	12

View the full table

The one thing they have in common is a manager who clung tight to his ideals; a sign that the Premier League has moved through its phase of tactical dogmatists and into a period of hyper-flexibility. 

By the end of the season, Ange Postecoglou had fully let go of his kamikaze attacking football, playing a reactive game throughout the knockout stage of Spurs’ Europa League triumph, while Ruben Amorim also loosened his principles a little – although the 3-4-3 was immovable. 

The merits of their respective approaches are up for debate, but what we can say for sure is that, moving forward, disappointing league finishes for both clubs will alter the fashion. 

Boardrooms will be more wary of idealists from now on. 

Russell Martin, too, will influence a trend away from singular visions. He clung steadfast to a possession-centric philosophy at Southampton even when the errors piled up, eventually leading to his dismissal in December. 

By contrast, few neutrals could define the tactical ideas of Eddie Howe, Unai Emery, Oliver Glasner, Fabian Hurzeler, or Thomas Frank in a sentence or two. 

In a league of ever-increasing wealth, influence, and complexity, teams must be able to draw upon plans from A to Z. 

3. Forest's excellent season gives hope to all clubs

The "Big Six" era is fading, and better still, Forest have shown that every single Premier League club can dream of a transformative season. 

They were just one win away from becoming the third club in three seasons – after Newcastle and Villa – to qualify for the Champions League after an absence of at least 20 years. 

Despite their final-day defeat to Chelsea, Forest are back in Europe for the first time since 1995/96, and they did it by becoming the first team in Premier League history to double their points tally from one season to the next. 

Forest are a good news story for everyone. They have taught us that even teams struggling against relegation one season can find themselves in Europe the next. 

4. 2025/26 title race feels wide open after Liverpool's low points tally

Liverpool’s 84 points is the lowest tally for a Premier League champion since 2015/16 and the third-lowest for a title-winner in the last 20 years, behind Leicester City’s 81 and Man Utd's 80 in 2000/01 and 2010/11 respectively.

Top three

Position Pos	Club	Played Pl	GD	Points Pts
1	Liverpool LIV	38	+45	84
2	Arsenal ARS	38	+35	74
3	Man City MCI	38	+28	71

View the full table

There is of course an enormous caveat here: Liverpool had the title sewn up with four games to go, four games in which they picked up just two points after heavily rotating their line-up. Had they needed to, Liverpool would surely have hit 90+ points. 

But the four-match winless sequence is still instructive. It tells us that Liverpool, who had very few noteworthy injuries this season, cannot depend upon second-choice players to win points. 

Arne Slot’s squad depth is not particularly strong, so it suggests next year’s title race will be a good one. 

Slot became the fifth manager to win the Premier League title in their debut season. Only one of the previous four was able to retain it in their second campaign - Jose Mourinho, whose first Chelsea team of 2004/05 was epochal. 

Man City expect to bounce back, and Arsenal will surely find the striker they need to click back into gear.  

Slot needs to hit Mourinho levels of brilliance to stop a more competitive Premier League title race in 2025/26. 

5. The classic No 9 is back in fashion

For a while there, the No 9 was on the way out. Roberto Firmino at Liverpool was a prime example of the "false nines" trend and Man City boss Pep Guardiola seemed to believe that striker-less formations were the future.

But in 2024/25, the striker has come roaring back. Chris Wood was a heroic figure at Forest; Alexander Isak was the difference-maker for Newcastle; and Yoane Wissa (19 goals) and Bryan Mbeumo (20) scored 39 times between them for Brentford.

Erling Haaland, Ollie Watkins, Jean-Philippe Mateta, Liam Delap, Evanilson, Jorgen Strand Larsen, Raul Jimenez… the list of goalscoring, hold-up-the-ball, strong-in-the-air centre forwards goes on and on.

Interestingly, only the top two teams, Liverpool and Arsenal, haven’t relied on a proper No 9, but while Mohamed Salah’s influence is a genuine anomaly, in Arsenal’s case it only proves the point.

The one thing Mikel Arteta needs is a traditional goalscoring striker.

6. Mid-season manager changes now rarer as 'bounce' stops working

The fire-fighter manager is slowly disappearing, and so too is the panic-stricken managerial change in the spring.

Only six clubs changed manager during the 2024/25 season, up slightly from four in 2023/24, but down from 12 in 2022/23.

The overall trend, then, is towards sticking with project managers through thick and thin.

This probably has a lot to do with the relegation battle being so easy to read over the last two years, easing the urge to push the big red button.

But there’s more to it than that. As Premier League managers become head coaches – tacticians and training-ground figures, with teams of people managing finances and transfers above them – there is less desire to throw the dice and pray for a "new manager bounce".

What’s more, the "bounce" seems to have disappeared. There was no upturn for Southampton, West Ham United, Leicester, or Man Utd after they changed managers this year.

Only Wolverhampton Wanderers and Everton saw a notable change.

7. Fast transitions make league very entertaining

Towards the end of the season, pundits began to talk about football being "too robotic", suggesting that managers obsessed with systems and structures were diminishing the individualism needed to make the game entertaining.

"Being micro-managed within an inch of our lives, not having any freedom to take a risk to go and try to win a football match is becoming an illness, a disease in the game," Gary Neville famously said back in April, starting a theme picked up by many others.

In fact, all evidence points to the opposite conclusion.

The Premier League is moving away from slow possession football and towards constant fast transitions, with the majority of goals scored in the few seconds after the ball is turned over.

There are more fast breaks and direct attacks per game than at any other point in Premier League history.

PL fast breaks and direct attacks per 90 minutes

As a direct consequence, there were 1,115 goals in the Premier League in 2024/25, the second-most in any 38-match season, just behind the record set the year before, in 2023/24.

Players might be "micro-managed" as tactics become more complex, but end-to-end matches that lean into the chaos of hard pressing, constant turnovers, and quick transitions cannot be described as boring.

8. Individual stars are the difference-makers in 'systems' era

Then again, maybe things aren’t quite as systematised as they appear.

Salah equalled the Premier League record for goals and assists in a single campaign, picking up pretty much every individual award going on his way to 47 goal involvements and a second Premier League title.

His goals and assists accounted for 54.7 per cent of Liverpool’s total, putting him top of a list that had no fewer than six players contribute at least 40 per cent of their team’s Premier League goals.

Top individual contributions to teams' goals + assists 24/25

Partly reflecting the return of the traditional No 9, Premier League clubs in 2024/25 were often reliant on one difference-maker; a star player to go against the grain and produce the telling moment.

9. Fifth Champions League spot gives league an extra dimension

This might have been the first time the Premier League received a fifth UEFA Champions League spot, but it seems likely it will become common, giving the table a new dimension in the final straight.

In five of the last 10 Premier League seasons, the gap between fifth and sixth has been a maximum of three points going into the last match of the season. A race to the very end will be seen more and more in years to come.

More importantly, a fifth Champions League spot means an even bigger chance that a non-super-club will qualify, in turning using the financial boon to bridge the gap and widen the competition.

And then there’s the Europa League route. The tweaked format no longer sees Champions League teams drop down into the competition at the knockout stage, making it easier to win.

That opens up the possibility of more Champions League money in the Premier League, as we’ve seen this season with Spurs, further evening up the field.

10. Promoted clubs are struggling to stay up

Unfortunately, for the second consecutive season, the three promoted clubs went straight back down.

Last season, the gap to 17th place and safety was six points. This time it was 13, prompting fears this will become the new normal as established Premier League clubs invest money more wisely than in previous years.

The closest five clubs to the relegation zone – Spurs, Wolves, Man Utd, West Ham and Everton – are all expected to improve over the summer.

All five look considerably stronger than the three clubs coming up from the Championship: Burnley, Leeds United, and Sunderland.