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Mauricio Pochettino has been appointed Chelsea manager on a two-year deal. The former Tottenham coach, who has been out of work since leaving Paris St Germain last year, will take over from interim boss Frank Lampard who oversaw his final game in charge against Newcastle on Sunday. It brings to an end an almost two-month process to find a permanent successor to Graham Potter, who was sacked on April 2. The PA news agency understands Pochettino had been the club’s first choice from early in the search, which was led by co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. He was the only candidate the club got into serious talks with, despite conversations that took place with former Bayern Munich boss Julian Nagelsmann, ex-Spain coach Luis Enrique and Burnley’s Vincent Kompany. The new manager, whose contract includes an option for a third season, will work closely with Winstanley and Stewart as the club look to rebuild after their worst season in 30 years. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

Make enough decisions and the law of averages dictates that even Todd Boehly will get the odd one right, sooner or later. In Mauricio Pochettino’s case, it is certainly later: Chelsea could have appointed him manager eight months ago and plumped instead for the sadly miscast Graham Potter. And so, as Pochettino’s task involves clearing up Boehly’s mess and turning chaos into something cohesive, it feels rather fitting that he begins with first-hand evidence that poor decision-making has consequences. If Pochettino is potentially the solution in this belated union, Chelsea may represent the problem. But it is significant that the supposed ethos of the new regime – before they instead became indelibly associated with chronic, clueless overspending and extraordinary underachievement – actually matched Pochettino’s principles. Much of his work at Stamford Bridge is simply to repeat the job he did at Tottenham, albeit with the significant caveat of adding trophies on top. But restoring a club to the Champions League, rebuilding relations with the support, engendering a feeling of positivity, developing young players and producing an exciting, attacking brand of football: Chelsea do not need to look far across the capital to see that Pochettino has already done that. And this, supposedly, was what Clearlake Capital was going to be about, not the hire-and-fire short-termism of Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea. Now, after two sackings in a season, Chelsea are in greater need of a Pochettino-style reboot. Admittedly, a complication is that, while Potter had a contract to 2027, Pochettino’s deal is only until 2025, with an extra year a club option. The undistinguished David Datro Fofana’s contract will still be twice as long as Pochettino’s; Mykhailo Mudryk’s will have a further six years. He begins hamstrung, to some extent, by Chelsea’s conviction that they had owned the future with their transfer-market business. If Thomas Tuchel used to describe the squad he took over as a “gift”, Pochettino’s inheritance is part present, part hospital pass. He needs the owners to have the competence to clear out the players he does not want; a task they seem to have underestimated amid the influx of signings. Part of Pochettino’s initial success at Tottenham entailed identifying a new core as he dispensed with senior figures such as Younes Kaboul, Emmanuel Adebayor, Aaron Lennon, Paulinho and Etienne Capoue. Chelsea could do with similar decisiveness and clarity of thought. They have used 32 players in the Premier League this season, second only to Nottingham Forest, and made over 130 changes to the starting 11, by far the most, which speaks of Potter’s unsuccessful compromises to involve everyone and Lampard’s muddled attempts to find a fix. With no European football next season, they have still less need of a cast of thousands. If Pochettino, with his prowess as a man-manager, may have to reengage some of the disillusioned and to unite the disparate parts of Chelsea’s squad, the actual number of players has to be manageable. He may have the initial impediment that Mason Mount, one of those best suited to his style of football, is a potential departure; Chelsea’s extravagant outlay has created a need to sell and too many others look either deadwood or unlikely to bring in meaningful fees. The danger is they lose those they want to keep and keep those they want to lose. Somehow, amid 16 signings and £600m of expenditure, Chelsea have created the perception that they still require at least three major additions: a goalkeeper, an actual defensive midfielder as their £107m midfielder, Enzo Fernandez, may not be one, and a striker. It is a difficult juggling act: one of the telling factors could be if Romelu Lukaku proves his Stamford Bridge version of Adebayor or Harry Kane. It was one of the damning elements of Potter’s reign that, despite an ability on the training ground that helped players at his previous clubs to progress dramatically, no one got better at Chelsea and many regressed. The exponential improvement of Tottenham’s youthful players – personified, in their different ways, by Kane and Dele Alli – and the way everyone reached new levels under Pochettino always offered reasons to choose and trust him. The latter element may be significant: the feeling is that too many of Clearlake Capital’s off-field appointments are yes men for Boehly and co. They have proved woefully poor judges and negotiations ought to have given Pochettino the licence to pursue his own path. Perhaps, after the madness of Paris Saint-Germain – though Chelsea is a different sort of madness and it is notable that Tuchel, the first manager Boehly sacked, accomplished more in the French capital than Pochettino – the Argentinian needs a project. Chelsea provide one: Andrey Santos and Malo Gusto will arrive in the summer and Levi Colwill is due to return to add to the battalion of young players – Mudryk, Fernandez, Benoit Badiashile, Wesley Fofana, Carney Chukwuemeka, Armando Broja, Noni Madueke, Marc Cucurella, Cesare Casadei, Lewis Hall – who provide the raw materials that could be shaped into something. In some cases, Pochettino will first have to repair dents to their confidence or game done in a disastrous season but at least some of that potential could be realised. It is nevertheless a remarkable scenario that a team who won the Champions League two years ago now seem to have to start from scratch but Pochettino has to provide an identity, to add a style of play to a team with none, to get goals from a side who have only outscored Wolves, Bournemouth, Southampton and Everton this season. It amounts to an astonishingly big job, because, in footballing history, elite clubs have rarely got as many things wrong as Chelsea have in the last year. But he has the pedigree and personality required to manage a superpower, which Potter lacked, and perhaps this year will engender an understanding that could buy him time. Because taking over Chelsea at such a low ebb means that, however quickly or slowly, there is surely only one direction in which they can go. Read More Football rumours: Barcelona set sights on Bruno Guimaraes Frank Lampard believes Chelsea standards have slipped as cheerless campaign ends Easy in the end for Manchester City – same again next season? Chelsea still a ‘fantastic’ job insists Lampard - but also a ‘problem’ Frank Lampard: Chelsea must avoid knee-jerk decisions if they are to recover Tottenham identify leading candidate to be next manager

Chelsea has hired Mauricio Pochettino as manager on a two-year deal with the option of another year

Mauricio Pochettino’s appointment at Chelsea on a two-year contract continues the strong managerial connection between the Blues and Tottenham. The Argentinian becomes the fifth man to manage both clubs in the Premier League era and here, the PA news agency looks at the records of his predecessors. Glenn Hoddle Chelsea 1993-96: P157, W53 (33.7 per cent), D54, L50 Tottenham 2001-03: P104, W41 (38.3 per cent), D18, L45 The long-time Spurs midfielder finished his career as Chelsea player-manager for two seasons before a third solely in the dugout. His sides never finished higher than 11th in the league but reached an FA Cup final, losing 4-0 to Manchester United, and semi-final as well as a Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final. After spells with England and Southampton, he took charge at White Hart Lane with similar results to his Chelsea spell – Spurs reached a League Cup final, losing to Blackburn, but finished ninth and 10th in the league before he was sacked six games into the next season. Andre Villas-Boas Chelsea 2011-12: P40, W19 (47.5 per cent), D11, L10 Tottenham 2012-13: P80, W44 (55.0 per cent), D20 L16 After their success with Jose Mourinho, Chelsea once again turned to Porto to recruit Villas-Boas, who had worked as part of Mourinho’s staff. He was unable to work similar magic as manager, lasting just 40 games and less than a season in the role. He lasted twice as long at Spurs but narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification in his first season and was dismissed with the club lying seventh shortly before Christmas in his second, having failed to make the most of the then-world record fee received for Gareth Bale’s move to Real Madrid and lost 6-0 to Manchester City and 5-0 to Liverpool in his last five league games in charge. Jose Mourinho Chelsea 2004-07, 2013-15: P321, W204 (63.6 per cent), D69, L48 Tottenham 2019-21: P86, W44 (51.2 per cent), D19, L23 Announcing himself as a “Special One”, Mourinho lived up to that billing in his first spell at Stamford Bridge with back-to-back league titles, an FA Cup and two League Cups. His unbeaten home record in the league lasted 77 games in all and into his second spell, when he won the Premier League and League Cup for a third time each. After another League Cup and a Europa League with Manchester United, Spurs banked on Mourinho as Pochettino’s replacement to end a trophy drought amounting to a solitary League Cup since 1991. With Spurs finishing sixth and then seventh in the league, though, Mourinho was sacked just days before his chance to bring silverware in the 2021 League Cup final – which Manchester City won 1-0 against a team led by caretaker manager Ryan Mason. Antonio Conte Chelsea 2016-18: P106, W69 (65.1 per cent), D17, L20 Tottenham 2021-23: P77, W41 (53.2 per cent), D12, L24* Conte brought a Premier League title and an FA Cup to Chelsea, but was sacked after they finished only fifth in the league in his second season. His volatile style never meshed easily with Tottenham and his exit in March, railing at “selfish players” and Tottenham’s “story” of failing to win trophies, has left them still searching for a permanent successor, Mason again at the helm after Conte’s assistant Cristian Stellini was remarkably sacked as interim manager. (*includes 3-0 loss to Rennes by forfeit in Europa Conference League, December 2021) Mauricio Pochettino Tottenham 2014-19: P293, W159 (54.3 per cent), D62, L72 Chelsea: appointed 2023 Unlike the other names on this list, Pochettino moves to Chelsea having first managed Tottenham rather than the other way round. He took Spurs to the 2019 Champions League final, where they lost to Liverpool, and his return was widely craved by sections of their fanbase – any notable success at Chelsea will therefore be all the more painful for their London rivals. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Shoulder injury forces Jack Draper out of French Open ICC chief Wasim Khan accepts Tests and franchise leagues must learn to coexist Leeds squad not good enough to stay in Premier League – Sam Allardyce

Chelsea have appointed former Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino as the club’s new manager. Pochettino has signed a two-year deal at Chelsea with the option of a third able to be taken up by the club, and takes charge at Stamford Bridge from 1 July now the season has come to an end, following Frank Lampard having stayed on as caretaker for the remainder of a disastrous 2022/23 campaign. Chelsea conducted a thorough managerial search after sacking Graham Potter in early April and held talks with Luis Enrique and Julian Nagelsmann, who withdrew his interest in the job, but it was Pochettino who stood out over several rounds of discussions with the co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali. Sources insist Pochettino was the only candidate Chelsea got into serious conversations with over taking the job. The Independent reported that Pochettino impressed the Chelsea hierarchy with his vision for the club, while the Argentine’s top-level experience and proven record of developing young players under a clear tactical system made him the outstanding candidate in the search led by co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. While the discussions were protracted and slower than anticipated, Pochettino has already discussed summer transfers as Chelsea look to trim down a bloated squad. The Independent reported that Chelsea will target a new striker, central midfielder and goalkeeper, with Harry Kane, Declan Rice, Alexis Mac Allister and Emiliano Martinez among those discussed. Pochettino will also seek talks with Romelu Lukaku when the striker returns from his loan at Inter Milan. “Mauricio’s experience, standards of excellence, leadership qualities and character will serve Chelsea Football Club well as we move forward. He is a winning coach, who has worked at the highest levels, in multiple leagues and languages. His ethos, tactical approach and commitment to development all made him the exceptional candidate,” read a statement by Steward and Winstanley. Pochettino will be joined by long-time coaches Jesus Perez, Miguel D’Agostino, Sebastiano Pochettino and Toni Jimenez at Stamford Bridge. That the most notable example of Pochettino’s managerial success came across London at rivals Tottenham has not been an obstacle in the 51-year-old returning to the Premier League. Pochettino forged a young, hungry squad at Tottenham and took the club to four consecutive top-four campaigns as well as second place in 2017, their highest finish since the 1960s. Under a bold and exciting style of play, Pochettino’s place as a Tottenham’s greatest manager of the modern era was sealed as he led the club to the 2019 Champions League final, but he was sacked just months after the 2-0 defeat to Liverpool in Madrid. At Chelsea, Pochettino will take over a club whose heavy investment in the transfer market under the new ownership has been followed by one of their worst seasons in recent history. Thomas Tuchel was sacked at the start of the campaign while Potter was relieved of his duties just months into signing a five-year deal at Stamford Bridge. Lampard then failed to turn the tide and won just once in 11 matches after returning to the club, resulting in a 12th-place finish. But Pochettino will also have a point to prove after being dismissed from his previous two positions. As well as Tottenham, Pochettino was sacked by Paris Saint-Germain at the end of last season with the club’s Ligue 1 title unable to make amends for the failure of not winning the Champions League. The Argentinian has been out of work since, although he had been linked with a return to Tottenham - especially given the vacancy created by the departure of Antonio Conte. Read More Football rumours: Barcelona set sights on Bruno Guimaraes Frank Lampard believes Chelsea standards have slipped as cheerless campaign ends Easy in the end for Manchester City – same again next season?

Leeds manager Sam Allardyce said the club’s players had not been good enough after Sunday’s 4-1 home defeat to Tottenham sealed Premier League relegation. Allardyce had been Leeds’ last throw of the dice with four games remaining, but after three defeats and a draw the 68-year-old was unable to mask the club’s systemic failings and save them. He said: “Most of it comes down to how good are your players? These players have tried very hard while I’ve been here and I can’t fault their effort. “But as a squad, they haven’t been good enough by the fact that they’re in the bottom three in the Premier League. “I would have hoped I could have got a little bit more out of them, so I take responsibility for that. “But it’s a tough old world when things start failing and when they start failing and confidence starts going then it’s very difficult to claw it back and we’ve been unable to do that.” Leeds’ three-year stay in the top flight is over and Allardyce made it clear poor player recruitment had been the biggest factor in their demise. “General recruitment is the number one factor for any manager or any coach or any head coach or any club to be successful,” he said. “Without top-level recruitment, a manager and a coach and the staff are only as good as the players they have available and their ability. “Actual quality is all about recruitment because better players and more intelligent players make you a better coach, make everybody at the club better, make it a happy club going forward.” Leeds’ ultra-slim hopes of avoiding the drop on the final day appeared dashed in the only the second minute against Tottenham when Harry Kane fired the visitors into an early lead. The Elland Road faithful responded with raucous defiance and that quickly turned to anger as they vented their fury at the Leeds board. Leeds wasted several first-half chances and were duly punished – as they have been all season – when Pedro Porro put Tottenham 2-0 up with a brilliant angled finish two minutes into the second half. Jack Harrison reduced the deficit, only for Kane to curl home his 30th league goal of the season two minutes later. Tottenham substitute Lucas Moura then compounded Leeds’ misery when he waltzed through to add a fourth in stoppage time. Leeds fans chanted ‘sack the board’ and called on chairman Andrea Radrizzani to sell his majority stake in the club to American co-owners 49ers Enterprises. I haven’t said I’m staying yet so there's a lot of discussion that needs (to be had) both ways on what's going to happen Sam Allardyce The financial arm of NFL franchise the San Francisco 49ers holds a 44 per cent stake with a deal in place to buy the remaining shares before January 2024. But that was contingent on Leeds being in the top flight and relegation has muddied the waters. Allardyce urged the club to quickly resolve their ownership issue, but it remains to be seen who will be in control as they bid to bounce straight back from the Sky Bet Championship. “I haven’t said I’m staying yet so there’s a lot of discussion that needs (to be had) both ways on what’s going to happen,” Allardyce added. “Whether that’s me or whoever that might be if it’s not me. I’m not committing myself to say I am or not staying just yet.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Lawrence Shankland earns Scotland call ahead of June double-header Luciano Spalletti set to leave Napoli after leading club to Serie A success Mikel Arteta wants Arsenal to build on the foundations laid this season

In the world of sport anything can happen: Leicester City becoming Premier League champion, Team USA beating Russia during the 'Miracle on Ice' or Buster Douglas knocking out the undefeated Mike Tyson.

Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland and his Hibernian counterpart Kevin Nisbet have both been included in the Scotland squad for the next month’s Euro 2024 qualifiers against Norway and Georgia. The Edinburgh-based pair take the places of Stoke’s Jacob Brown, who missed the end of the Championship season with a hamstring issue, and Southampton forward Che Adams, who recently suffered a recurrence of the ankle injury he sustained in Scotland’s win over Cyprus. Shankland, who previously made four appearances in 2019 and 2020, was called back into the fold for the Spain game in March and he has kept his place at the end of a season in which he has scored 28 goals for Hearts. Nisbet, who won all of his 10 caps in 2021, is recalled for the first time since damaging his anterior cruciate ligament in February 2022. The 26-year-old has scored 12 goals for Hibs since returning to action in December. Rangers defender John Souttar is recalled after missing much of the season through injury. The 26-year-old, who has not played for the national team since last summer’s Nations League defeat in Ireland, takes the place of Norwich City centre-back Grant Hanley, who has been sidelined with an Achilles problem since early April. Blackburn centre-back Dom Hyam has retained his place after earning a late call-up for the last camp in March, while Steve Clarke has opted for consistency in the goalkeeping department with Angus Gunn, Zander Clark and Liam Kelly again called up in the absence of Craig Gordon, who remains sidelined as he tries to fight back from a double leg-break sustained on Christmas Eve. Scotland, who are top of Group A with two wins from their two games so far, face Norway in Oslo on Saturday, June 17 before welcoming Georgia to Hampden three days later. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

“No doubts,” an old ally said to Sean Dyche. “Apart from all the doubts,” the Everton manager replied. In its own way, it summed up their escape. Dyche was brought in to be the guarantee against relegation. Everton stayed up with their lowest points tally in the era of three for a win, with their smallest ever goal total, after spending some of the final day in the drop zone, without centre-forwards or full-backs. But they stayed up, and that felt the promise of Dyche. Everton only took 15 points from 20 games under Frank Lampard. In Dyche’s time in charge, Everton earned five more points than Leicester and eight more than Leeds. The least exciting of managerial appointments had a strange kind of efficiency. Everton have won five games under Dyche, four of them 1-0. But survival has also come from a combination of seemingly freakish incidents: Abdoulaye Doucoure’s first goal from outside the box in five years to beat Bournemouth, a Seamus Coleman winner from a ludicrous angle against Leeds, a spectacular injury-time equaliser by Michael Keane against Tottenham, a 99th-minute leveller from Yerry Mina against Wolves. Perhaps three Everton players have scored the goals of their lives in March, April and May. And then there was the strangest result of the season: a team with 29 goals in their other 37 league games won 5-1 at Brighton. In a sense, Everton have got lucky: not so much Dyche and the core of his team, whether wholehearted performers like James Tarkowski and Alex Iwobi or Jordan Pickford, much the best goalkeeper in the relegation struggle, or the rejuvenated pair of Dwight McNeil and Doucoure, who proved unexpectedly, crucially prolific in the run-in: but the powerbrokers. Everton’s strategy to score this season was to rely on the fitness of the often unfit Dominic Calvert-Lewin. He played barely one-third of minutes, scored two goals and one of those was a penalty. Everton’s specialist strikers only mustered four. It amounted to negligence in the transfer market, created in part by a lack of funds. And that situation may not change, given Financial Fair Play constraints and with the possibility of investment from MSP Sports Capital intended instead to fund their new stadium. Some of Dyche’s predecessors have enjoyed periods of excess, with transfer spending in seven years under Farhad Moshiri approaching £700m. He won’t. “I’ll be very surprised if they say, ‘Here’s another war chest, sign who you like,’” said Dyche. “It’s not going to happen so we have to be wise, recruit wisely and recruit players who, if possible, understand this club.” All of which was eminently sensible but Everton might have to sell in the summer; they are already losing Mina, plus on-loan Conor Coady; they surely need two forwards if Dyche can play his beloved 4-4-2. Everton have spent a fortune under Moshiri, yet look short of both funds and players. There are times when relegation seems a logical end point to the mismanagement of the Moshiri regime. Years of mistakes have started to catch up with them. Escaping relegation 12 months earlier brought scenes of euphoria. Lampard was bouncing on the roof of an executive box. Dyche, more restrained and less emotional, provided fewer indelible images. But a year ago, Everton, who had not finished in the bottom eight since 2003-04, could imagine a scrap to survive was a one-off. Now it is a two-off; there are dangerous parallels with clubs who dodged the drop for season after season until, suddenly, they didn’t. Everton don’t want to be Sunderland. In the short term, they don’t want to be Everton, either: not this version of Everton, anyway. “I’ve just told the players we can’t be in this state. You are only a big club if you are doing big things,” said Dyche. The contrast with Lampard a year earlier may not have been deliberate but it was jarring. “It’s a horrible day for all concerned, there is no joy in it for me other than getting the job done,” said Dyche. His charges echoed his thoughts. “It’s becoming a thing now and we don’t want it to become a thing,” said Coady. Pickford added: “It’s been a tough couple of years but we should never be in this situation anyway.” Doucoure shrugged off his status as the saviour. “I’m not a hero,” the midfielder said. “Nobody is here.” If Everton are now adamant that their 70th consecutive season of top-flight football cannot be a repeat of the last two, there is no easy escape. They have dug themselves into a hole. It will take hard labour to rebuild their fortunes. “I don’t have magic dust, I can only make things happen I think are believable,” said Dyche. “I’m just bereft of giving you nonsense. I’m trying to tell Evertonians the truth of how it is. You can mess about with all the myths about how we are going to play like Man City now we have got over the line and it’s going to be wonderful: it’s not.” Dyche emerged with more authority after succeeding in his salvage job. Everton lost their way in part because of getting starstruck, of pursuing glamour; Moyesian grit fell out of favour. Dyche likes to talk about Peter Reid and Joe Royle, about how he sees earthiness and hard work as central to Everton’s identity. Perhaps he isn’t selling a dream, but a reality. “The problem with realism is not many people want it because it sounds boring,” he said. Rewind a few months and, when Lampard departed, Moshiri wanted Marcelo Bielsa, who had the impractical idea to take charge of the Under-21s for the rest of the season. The rest of Everton’s board preferred the pragmatist Dyche and, for all the errors made by the directors in recent years, it proved the right call. Any revival may not be fast or pretty. Simplistic solutions have taken them to this point. “It is not just a quick fix: buy a player, hurrah. They have tried that in the past. It is not that easy,” said Dyche. “We need to realign it and [there will be] another day when a fashionista can come in here and we will have a beautiful product.” In the modern Everton, it isn’t about beauty but avoiding the ugliness of relegation and relegation battles. Read More Premier League 2022/23 season awards: Best player, manager, transfer flop and breakthrough act James Ward-Prowse, James Maddison and 16 Premier League transfer targets after relegation Everton fans storm pitch after beating relegation before chants to ‘sack the board’ Sean Dyche outlines vision for Everton’s future and calls for realism Sean Dyche planning major changes at Everton after avoiding relegation ‘It is theatre’: Inside the chaos of a final-day Premier League relegation battle

Alexis Mac Allister was overcome with emotion after a potential farewell to Brighton on the final day of the Premier League season. Brighton secured sixth spot and a place in next season’s Europa League despite a defeat to Aston Villa as they closed an excellent season. The club overcame significant upheaval early in the campaign after Graham Potter was lured to Chelsea, with Roberto De Zerbi’s installation as manager proving inspired as he led the club into Europe for the first time. Mac Allister, also a key part of Argentina’s World Cup triumph in December, has proved influential in midfield, and has now been heavily linked with a move away from the club. And the midfielder was left in tears after featuring for perhaps the final time in a Brighton shirt, embracing his manager De Zerbi and saluting the supporters. The 24-year-old has been particularly connected with a switch to Liverpool, who are on the hunt for a midfield refresh with Naby Keita, James Milner and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain among those leaving the Merseyside club this summer. Manchester United and Chelsea are also said to be monitoring the talented Mac Allister. De Zerbi indicated after the Aston Villa defeat that he expected to lose both the Argentinian and his midfield colleague Moises Caicedo. “I think that can be the last game of Alexis and Moises, I’m really sorry,” said De Zerbi. “They are two great people and two great players. “The policy of Brighton is like this,” added De Zerbi. “I think it’s right they can leave, can change teams and play in a level higher. “We are ready. We have to find others big players to play without Alexis and Moises.” Read More Everton’s season – and future – was saved by Sean Dyche’s own brand of creativity James Ward-Prowse, James Maddison and 16 Premier League transfer targets after relegation Premier League 2022/23 season awards: Best player, manager, transfer flop and breakthrough act Unai Emery toasts ‘champagne moment’ as Aston Villa book European adventure Aston Villa end European exile as victory over Brighton secures seventh place Roberto De Zerbi preparing for busy summer building competitive Brighton squad

On the day that one of the most sensational spells in any club’s history ended, many of the Leicester City squad and staff inevitably discussed “how it had come to this”. There was a general feeling that a wider malaise had afflicted the team, affecting “confidence and belief”. Some were more direct. “Brendan.” Questions can be asked of Brendan Rodgers but it still feels wrong to put so much on a manager who lifted the club to the first FA Cup win in their history and successive fifth-place finishes. That really just illustrates how thin the margins can end up being for those outside the mega elite, and how even “model clubs” can quickly become examples of something else entirely. There is even a lesson here for a club as brilliantly run as Brighton. Both of Leicester’s fifth-place finishes came in Covid seasons, as the wider game itself lost so much money, and the club’s owners suffered huge losses from the immense impact on their duty-free business. Had either of those campaigns brought Champions League football, and the greater prize money it produces, they might well have had enough to prevent the deep drop-off that has now seen them drop down to the Championship. Many with knowledge of the club ultimately put it down to a lack of investment to build on the fine team they had. Uefa’s new financial sustainability regulations actually meant they had to go in the opposite direction, to bring down a huge expenditure-to-revenue ratio. Others from the industry argue that it goes even deeper, and beyond the money spent. It was how it was spent. The recruitment that had served them so well for half a decade has actually been “woefully inadequate” for at least five windows. As an example of that, Rodgers badly needed a ball-playing centre-half after winning the FA Cup, in order to pin his tactical idea together but also bring the team on. Leicester instead signed Jannik Vestergaard for a fee understood to be around £16m, even though he had one year left on his Southampton contract. The Dane was just never a fit, and it meant that Leicester couldn’t go back into the market in the same way. It was quite a difference from so seamlessly replacing Harry Maguire and shows why Leicester have now fallen so far. It also proves something else, separate from the club. The idea of buying low and selling high is the obvious model for so many of those outside the elite due to the economic stratification of the game, but it is still asking so much to get it right continuously. In some cases, one slip can cause you to fall much more quickly. Leicester were wealthy enough to be insulated from that but not from the reality that it is statistically impossible to keep that going indefinitely. It was this that deepened the concerning mood within the club in the summer, even if there is a fair argument that the Rodgers era was already going “stale”. That does happen, but what happened here was that the effect got worse. Leicester needed a change. The club instead hung on, in part due to the finances. Rodgers himself didn’t have the same brightness about him. It all got rather dull, and began to cascade. The brutal truth for the players is that none of this is a sufficient excuse for where they are. Their starting line-up was stronger than half the teams in the Premier League. That will be emphasised by so many top-six clubs coming in for their players. James Maddison is expected to go to Newcastle United. Aston Villa look favourites for Harvey Barnes, but they will now have considerable competition. Youri Tielemans has been looked at by almost every one of the wealthiest seven clubs. None of these players should have been in this situation, no matter how bad it was getting. That is summed up by the fact that, before you even get to the fees that will be paid this summer, this is one of the best-paid squads to ever be relegated. The wage bill was one of the highest in the Premier League. In going down, Leicester have actually defied the economic realities of the sport in the same way they did in enjoying one of the sport’s greatest peaks. The dream they have lived has had the most abrupt wake-up. Appropriately, there remains the sense they just “sleepwalked” into this situation, “too good to go down”, all of that. In some ways, the speed with which it all unravelled ensured no one really grasped what was actually happening until it was too late. If an era has now been consigned to history, though, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is entirely negative for the future. Leicester have to sell but still have so many advantages over the rest of the Championship. They did use the sensational Premier League success of 2016 to build a new infrastructure, landmarked in their hugely impressive Seagrave training ground. They could well come straight back up. There is also something else to be recognised here. Over the last seven years, Leicester have enjoyed more glory and deeper emotion than most clubs have in their entire history. They had the most sensational title win of all. They then won the FA Cup at last, having previously lost four finals and had that heavy weight over the club. And that’s only when you consider the successes. This is also a club that had that great escape, the nature of Nigel Pearson’s departure, Claudio Ranieri’s surprise appointment and shock sacking and their club legend’s wife getting involved in a media circus. Tragically in the true sense of the word, and in something that really warrants a solemn separate recognition, there was the death of the owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and those who were travelling with him. That is almost too much to even register. It is little wonder that Dean Smith said after this game he couldn’t explain how this happened. And yet it is traceable. It’s also something other clubs can look at. One of the most remarkable Premier League stories of all naturally has a few lessons. Read More Leicester’s unexpected twist provides reminder of football’s new reality How the final day played out as Everton survive and Leicester relegated with Leeds Gary Lineker congratulates Everton but ‘gutted’ as Leicester suffer relegation Doucoure the saviour, Spurs at a crossroads: 6 final day talking points Leicester’s unexpected twist provides reminder of football’s new reality How the final day played out with Everton surviving relegation fight

As Memorial Day arrives, some of the weaker teams in baseball are still very much within striking distance in the postseason race