The Briefing: The 2,500-1 shot that every neutral should love – and what now for Man City?

Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season, The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s football in England.

This was the weekend when Crystal Palace won their first ever major trophy, Arsenal almost certainly sealed second place, the Everton men’s team said farewell to Goodison Park and Nottingham Forest paid tribute to the recovering Taiwo Awoniyi.

Here, we will discuss the joy of some diversity in success this season, whether Manchester City could miss out on the Champions League and whether Jamie Vardy said goodbye to Leicester City in the most Jamie Vardy way possible.

Is Crystal Palace’s FA Cup win the one that all neutrals needed?

If you wanted to put a bet on all three of Liverpool to win the Premier League, Newcastle United to win the Carabao Cup and Crystal Palace to win the FA Cup at the start of each competition, you could have got odds of around 2,500-1.

You’d probably struggle to call Liverpool underdogs for the league title, given they finished third last season, but with a new manager and minimal transfer activity, virtually nobody expected them to finish top.

Newcastle would have been a few tipsters’ choices to lift a trophy of some description given their lack of European football, but they were still well behind some others in the reckoning and were definite underdogs in the final against Liverpool.

As for Palace… well, if you took the 41-1 odds on them winning the first major trophy in their history back in January, then you were either a fan of an optimistic punt or a fan of Palace and an emotional gambler, neither of which is to be encouraged.

This slightly strange English season has, in some respects, been defined by the deficiencies of some teams rather than the strengths of others. You can argue whether it’s been a good or bad campaign for a neutral, with a lack of real tension at the top or bottom of the Premier League and several big guns way off the pace certainly pointing to the latter.

But three (slightly) surprising teams winning the three major domestic trophies flips the narrative. When we zoom out a little and consider this season, it can’t be anything other than positive.

Variety is good. So many aspects of modern football encourage apathy, including the sense that we all know what will happen at the end of the season. We can hope for something different, but it rarely happens.

This season, though, the hopes were realised. We can’t pretend that this will repeat next season, heralding a great new era of hyper-competitiveness. But it does at least mean that the hope for those outside the traditional trophy-hoarders is inflated just a little.

City’s fans would have enjoyed themselves had their team won on Saturday, but the trips to Wembley inevitably blur. In years to come, the memories would have been indistinct. But not for the Palace fans, who have just experienced the greatest moment of their football-supporting lives.

The same goes for the Carabao Cup: Liverpool would have celebrated had they won the final, but it would also have been their 11th League Cup. For Newcastle, it was a moment that many won’t be able to recall without welling up.

Palace manager Oliver Glasner summed it up beautifully.

“The biggest achievement we can have, the biggest success we can have, is not winning the trophy,“ he told reporters at Wembley. ”It’s that we could give thousands of our supporters a moment for their lives. We can give them great times. Maybe they have problems at home, we give them hours and days they can forget all of this, and just be happy.

“This is the biggest achievement sportsmen can do. We did it for many, many people.”

Are Manchester City going to miss out on the Champions League?

While the focus was deservedly and rightly on Palace’s greatest day, it was also impossible to ignore how City were, to be generous, limp.

They have struggled for large parts of this season but you could have argued that if City had won a trophy and qualified for the Champions League, that would, at least, not be a complete failure. Now that the first part of that equation is out, you have to wonder about the second.

City have two games remaining and sit in sixth place, outside the Champions League spots. Their remaining fixtures are against Bournemouth and Fulham, two mid-table teams who have eighth place to play for, a position that might yet yield a Conference League spot. But still, these are games you would expect City to win, or at least secure the four points that would bring a top-five finish.

Unless you watched their last two games, of course. Ruben Dias wasn’t quite churlish enough to suggest Palace didn’t try to play football, as he was when City embarrassingly drew with Southampton last weekend, but perhaps their performance in the FA Cup final was disappointing enough that even he couldn’t blame someone else.

City’s season has been a confusing mix: there was the initial phase, when they looked as strong as ever and we thought they were going to bulldoze everyone again, then came the middle phase, which completely torpedoed their season and ensured they would be nowhere near the league title, but then there was what looked like the final phase, in which they appeared to have rediscovered at least some of their mojo, they started to look quite good again and seemed a shoo-in for the top five.

Now though? Not so much.

In these last two games, they haven’t been as bad as that abysmal middle part of the season, but they’ve been so utterly listless that you cannot rule out another slip-up in the final two games.

Erling Haaland cannot hide his dejection at Wembley (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

What would that mean for City? Would it harm their chances of rebuilding next season? Would the calibre of player they require to get back on top baulk at the prospect of playing in the Europa League? Would Pep Guardiola even think about his future? The answer to that last question is ‘probably not’, but some people will continue to suggest City are on the decline.

For the neutral, the ideal scenario will be for City to draw with Bournemouth on Tuesday night. That would mean we would go into the final day with four teams — City, Newcastle, Chelsea and Aston Villa — on 66 points, with Nottingham Forest just one back on 65. Three spots to play for, five teams separated by a single point.

This season has been light on captivating narratives, but a truly dramatic and potentially chaotic final day bunfight for the Champions League would at least see it end with some spark.

Was this the perfect farewell for Jamie Vardy?

Granted, it does take the edge off that Leicester were officially relegated a couple of weeks ago and were realistically down way before that.

But otherwise, Vardy’s farewell was pretty perfect.

One last appearance for the club in front of his fans. One last goal. And, almost as importantly, one last chance to rustle the opposition.

Leicester having nothing to play for had a silver lining, since it allowed the day to be all about Vardy. The goal he scored was textbook stuff, delaying a run until the absolute perfect moment before finishing across the goalkeeper. And then he wheeled away to give the big one to the opposing fans, shushing those who tried to pooh-pooh his big day.

Jamie Vardy with a trademark celebration after his 200th Leicester goal (George Wood/Getty Images)

Classic Vardy. The goals have been the main thing over the years, but the rustling has been almost as important. You could always rely on him to score and make sure the other lot knew about it, too. The list of clubs and fans he would routinely wind up is long, but Tottenham Hotspur always seemed to be the ones he enjoyed doing it to the most, pointing to the Premier League badge on his arm to remind them that he had won it more times than them.

Sport is a little too obsessed with round numbers, but you can’t really argue with the neatness of Vardy finishing his Leicester career on 200 goals from 500 appearances.

Also, how many other Premier League teams currently have their greatest-ever player? Kevin De Bruyne has a strong case at Manchester City. Mohamed Salah is in the conversation for Liverpool, but he’s not Kenny Dalglish yet. Maybe they’ll talk about Bukayo Saka in that context at Arsenal but he’ll need to win a few more things first.

Vardy, though, must be Leicester’s. This season has been miserable for them — or, if you prefer to use Vardy’s description, it’s been a “s***show”. But at least they’ve had this, the chance to watch their greatest ever say goodbye, in the most Jamie Vardy way possible.

Coming up

• Liverpool have been enjoying their title celebrations, some of their players having headed off to Dubai, Arne Slot laying down some beats in Ibiza. Rather inconveniently, they have to play a couple more matches this season, starting with a trip to Brighton & Hove Albion on Monday night.
• Speaking of hangovers, having kept an eye on the activities of the Crystal Palace players following their FA Cup final win, Wolverhampton Wanderers might fancy their chances against them on Tuesday night.
• Also on Tuesday, a game that is suddenly pretty vital to Manchester City: Bournemouth at home, needing a win to put them in a good position for Champions League qualification.
• Then on Wednesday, it’s the game of the week. Or, if you like, the game that shames the rest of Europe, as England’s 16th-best team faces England’s 17th-best team in the Europa League final in Bilbao. Will Manchester United or Tottenham prevail? Will it be entertainingly good or entertainingly bad? Either way, one of them will qualify for the Champions League and claim a successful season. What a world.

(Top photos: Eberechi Eze and Pep Guardiola; Getty Images)

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