The Briefing: Arsenal’s huge regret, big spenders keep sinking and who should sign De Bruyne?

Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday, The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s Premier League football.

This time, the talking points included Liverpool moving to the brink of winning the Premier League title, while consigning Leicester City to relegation at the same time.

We’ll also take a look at why another club may rue not beating Arne Slot’s team to the championship this season, while further down the division there are huge question marks over some massively underachieving big spenders. And what does the future hold for a bona fide Premier League legend who’s moving on this summer?

This is the season that got away for Arsenal

It has been a perfect few days for Arsenal, who followed up their possible era-defining victory over Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals with a serene 4-0 win at Ipswich Town on Sunday.

That Portman Road rout extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to 11 games since a 1-0 defeat at home to West Ham United in February effectively ended the Premier League title race.

But while Liverpool saunter to the title with yet another victory where they weren’t at their best, you have to wonder whether Arsenal will be kicking themselves for not only failing to put any meaningful pressure on the Merseysiders this side of Christmas, but also not being the ones to win the league.

Should this have been their year? Given the position they were in 12 months ago, running Manchester City so close with a sturdy defensive unit moulded brilliantly by manager Mikel Arteta, and star power in Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard, you felt that if City dropped off from their usual high levels, Arsenal should and would be there to succeed them as champions.

Instead, while City have not merely dipped but fallen off a cliff, Arsenal are set to finish a distant second to a team in Liverpool who have signed just one player all season — Federico Chiesa, who has barely played.

They could still win the Champions League for the first time, which would obviously override any disappointment at not ending their now 21-year wait for another Premier League trophy. But should they be eliminated by Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League’s semis, it will feel like a season of failure.

Yes, they suffered with more injuries than their title rivals, in particular to Saka, who was a huge loss for three months from Christmas time, but any top European club looking to fight on four fronts should be prepared for some absentees. Instead, they rather desperately signed Raheem Sterling on loan in the summer, their only addition in an attacking area when it was clear this was a part of the team they needed not just to reinforce, but improve.

Maybe it’s harsh to criticise too much. After all, the previous five years saw continuous growth with the team steadily rising from eighth to second and improving their points tally year on year. Everyone can have an off-season.

It’s just that, when it really mattered, Arsenal didn’t spend when they needed to. They didn’t buy a striker last summer or in the winter window. They could have gone bigger than they did for Ollie Watkins, who continues to bang them in from all angles for Aston Villa and was clearly wanted by Arteta, but chose not to.

Also when it really mattered, they dropped cheap points against Bournemouth, Fulham, Everton and Brighton. At the same time, Liverpool showed them how titles were won — squeezing out ugly wins.

Perhaps next year is their year. Perhaps it will be Liverpool’s ageing squad that drops off while Pep Guardiola needs another season to fix City. But when it comes to Arsenal and league titles in the past 20 years, it’s been ‘perhaps’ far too often.

Liverpool will be more than worthy champions, but this should have been Arsenal’s title to lose. And they haven’t even come close.

Where next for De Bruyne?

Kevin De Bruyne’s revelation that he would be open to playing for another Premier League club after he leaves Manchester City this summer throws up a host of tantalising prospects.

With several Major League Soccer clubs unsurprisingly expressing an interest in signing the 33-year-old (he turns 34 in June), it had felt inevitable that De Bruyne would follow a well-trodden path forged by the likes of Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard and swap England for North America.

However, he revealed this weekend that the Premier League could continue to be the home of his considerable talents.

“I’m open for anything, anything, just because I have to look at the whole picture,” De Bruyne said when posed the Premier League question, going on to affirm that any move would have to make sense for his family.

De Bruyne also stated that City hadn’t offered him a contract extension during this season and he was “surprised” at the club’s decision to let him go. “It’s fine,” he said, in the manner of someone telling their partner it’s fine that they’ve accidentally eaten that final slice of cheesecake you were saving for yourself in the fridge as a treat for later.

Kevin De Bruyne has not ruled out staying in the Premier League (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

The comments also gave the impression that De Bruyne feels wronged by his upcoming departure and that he has a point to prove to City for letting him go, a theory that carries weight when you consider his throwback, virtuoso display against Crystal Palace shortly after the news of his exit was confirmed.

A possible Premier League stay offers the potential for an it-just-feels-wrong image of him wearing another club’s shirt (like stumbling on photos from that early stint at Chelsea). Patrick Vieira and Frank Lampard in Manchester City blue? Weird. Michael Owen in the red and white of Manchester United? Never seemed right. And let’s not mention his stint at Stoke City. Even Gerrard in the white of LA Galaxy was odd.

So, where could De Bruyne realistically end up if he does remain in England? Well, he needs a club who can afford his humungous wages, even if he takes a sizeable pay cut from his reported current £400,000 a week. Which rules out staying relatively local with Championship promotion chasers Burnley.

West Ham will definitely try (they always do). Newcastle would have felt like a good fit a few years ago but, given they have high midfield earners in Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes already, it seems unlikely. Plus, Newcastle don’t sign first-team players these days.

No, De Bruyne will probably end up at a club looking for a quick one-year fix, with an owner who is happy to make a high-earning vanity signing in an attempt to distract and appease long-suffering supporters after yet another poor season.

Folks, he’s going to Tottenham.

How spending big has backfired

Wolves’ remarkable recent run of five wins in a row (the first time they’ve done this in the top flight for 53 years) means there is a realistic possibility of three huge, big-spending clubs in Manchester United, Spurs and West Ham ending the season filling the 15th, 16th and 17th positions in the 20-team Premier League.

Understandably, you can’t imagine United or Spurs paying much attention to the league during the next two and a half weeks while their respective Europa League semi-finals are in play, something reflected by Ruben Amorim’s team selection on Sunday when Harry Amass and Tyler Fredricson were handed starts (although both youngsters impressed).

And West Ham, whose utterly vacuous nothingness of a season reached a new low when they couldn’t beat already-relegated Southampton at home on Saturday, are clearly distracted by, erm, those massive floodlights at the London Stadium? The price of a pint at the ground? Nope, can’t think of anything else.

The struggles of United and Spurs have been pored over for months, but West Ham’s truly dreadful campaign has gone under the radar. It’s hard to imagine a more apathetic or miserable season than the one their fans — who turn out in greater numbers than every club in the country bar, as it happens, those of Manchester United — are enduring. At least Southampton supporters get to see a few goals.

Lucas Paqueta can’t hide the frustration as West Ham draw with Southampton (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

The struggles of the underachieving overspenders reflect a growing trend in recent Premier League seasons, one masterfully pioneered by Chelsea — spending big does not equal success.

In fact, if you look at the 10 European clubs to splash the most cash last summer in terms of net spend (according to football data website Transfermarkt), five of them are English, and four of those currently occupy a spot in the bottom seven of the Premier League.

United spent £96m and are 14th, Spurs spent £80m and are 16th, West Ham spent £85m and are 17th, while Ipswich shelled out a net spend of £107m and are heading down.

Ipswich had to give it a go following back-to-back promotions and, while they have underwhelmed, there’s a good chance they’ll be in the mix to come back for more in a year’s time. For United, Spurs and West Ham, though, a combined net spend of £261million not only hasn’t yielded a push up the table for any of them, they’ve all massively regressed.

Interestingly, the other Premier League big net spenders last summer, Brighton, are enduring a slump of their own.

Nobody in the world game had a higher net spend in 2024, but after four winless matches and a drop in the table from third in December to 10th now, fans’ frustration boiled over at head coach Fabian Hurzeler with chants of “You don’t know what you’re doing!” and “Where’s the striker gone?” after Danny Welbeck was substituted during Saturday’s 4-2 away defeat against Brentford.

At least when you look at Brighton there is clearly a long-term plan in place, with all their signings last summer being aged between 19 and 25.

For the three big clubs at the wrong end of the table though, spending almost £300million to get worse just feels like it will lead to more unfathomably large cheques being written come this summer.

To what end? Who knows.

Coming up

• Spurs versus Forest is the Monday night game in the top flight and it’s a very big one for coach Nuno Espirito Santo’s current English team against his previous one. After Chelsea’s last-gasp away win against Fulham on Sunday, Forest are down to sixth — out of the Champions League qualification places for the first time since December.
• Easter Monday is a potentially pivotal day in the race to be relegated from the 2025-26 Premier League, with Leeds United and Burnley both on the brink of promotion from the Championship. Leeds host Stoke City at 3pm UK (10am ET), while Burnley will be back in the top flight if they beat third-placed visitors Sheffield United a couple of hours later.
• There’s a full EFL programme on Monday, with it being a national holiday in the UK, and the almighty scrap for promotion from League One (the third tier) continues with Wrexham, who dropped down to third place on Good Friday, facing a seaside trip to Blackpool. Promotion rivals Wycombe Wanderers, currently second, host fourth-placed Charlton Athletic, who are still in with a sniff of going up automatically, too. Tasty.
• Then there’s more Premier League action in midweek, with an important game in the race for Champions League qualification on Tuesday in Manchester City (fourth) versus Aston Villa (seventh, but just a point behind). Arsenal host Crystal Palace on Wednesday as both look to seal their targets of finishing second and 12th respectively — and if Palace win, Liverpool are champions.

(Top photos: Odegaard, left, and Manchester United’s Diogo Dalot; Getty Images)

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