Premier League winners and losers: Pereira, pre-break Spurs, Everton, Liverpool, £748.4m Chelsea

Vitor Pereira, Fabian Hurzeler and Everton are turning things around, but all feels lost for Spurs, Eddie Howe, Chelsea and Arne Slot.

Marco Silva is at least close to completing his life’s work at Fulham.

But there is a hot take about Burnley: they might go down.

Imagine reminding Thierry Henry of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Mark Viduka, and scoring 90th-minute Tyne-Wear derby winners because you simply cannot stop changing the results of games through sheer bloody-minded, cramp-tempting persistence.

Already the second-best manager at Nottingham Forest this season in terms of points won – and the best based on vibes alone – with his direct predecessor ranking first to underline just how ludicrous this City Ground season has been.

Forest have scored 19.3% of their total Premier League goals this season against Spurs. They are the second-lowest scorers in the top flight but only Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea have won more games by three goals or more. None of anything overseen by Evangelos Marinakis this campaign has made the slightest jot of sense.

But Pereira is establishing quite the knack for mid-season firefighting. What initially worked for the Portuguese at Wolves is starting to take shape at Forest too: the focus on unity, mentality, discipline and self-belief.

It sounds as simple as it does vague, but watching Forest dig in and eventually thrive in beating a lost, broken Spurs side after starting the day below them in the table only emphasised what Pereira is doing in highlighting the “sacrifice” needed from his players.

The way Pereira has whitewashed this season’s rank failure at Wolves already is glorious; if Forest do survive, it might be an idea not to give him any influence on their transfers (not that anyone else at the club can be trusted with that responsibility), or perhaps just to shake hands and part ways in the summer with a job well done and no intention of extending the union further.

But after picking up five points in three games it does look like Pereira has restored some togetherness and engineered the relegation battle’s momentum in Forest’s favour.

“It was more like Goodison than we’ve probably had in any other game,” said David Moyes despite the lack of half-time boos and notable absence of a diminutive Australian rendering the corner flag unconscious .

But it was a fair point: that felt like Everton at their mid-2000s best, down to the raw but beloved centre-forward being rewarded for his industriousness, the defensive structures and goalkeeping brilliance which preserved a clean sheet, the statement victory over an opponent with far better resources and the unlikely European charge.

It all being stitched together by Moyes only strengthens the sense that this is the most synergetic relationship between a manager and a club in Premier League history.

All the Everton stuff, then Sunderland came from behind to beat Newcastle at St James’ Park with a 90th-minute winner. And he gets to spend the next week or so with Jason Steele. Get the rave on.

As the only team in the top seven to win in the Premier League this weekend, Aston Villa regained their footing in an increasingly farcical Champions League chase.

A damaging week for English clubs in many largely superficial ways could hardly have been more serene for Unai Emery and his players: consecutive 2-0 wins over Lille and West Ham have steadied Villa after a run of one win in seven Premier League games culminating in three successive defeats.

The emergence of Barkley as a starting option has been key, even if slightly forced by an escalating midfield injury crisis.

Barkley’s first 12 appearances of the Premier League season all came from the bench but he marked his first start in the competition since January 2025 with a goal against Manchester United, then was quietly excellent against the Hammers.

There are few more reliable squad players in the Premier League. Just think of the ridiculous lengths one has to go to to win Emery over when not a regular starter.

It has been some turnaround from a manager whose position was veering towards untenable at the height of the James Milner drama when Brighton had won just once in 13 Premier League games.

Four wins in their last five – the exception being a narrow defeat to Arsenal in which Brighton were probably the better side – has suddenly dragged them into European contention.

The Arsenal loss, by the way, was the only game Milner has not featured in out of those five. Their record when he starts is an excellent P6 W4 D1 L1 F9 A5; the unnecessary substitute cameos were always the crux of the problem.

And that run-in looks inviting: Burnley, Spurs, Chelsea, Newcastle, Wolves and Leeds sets up a final-day clash with Manchester United perfectly. Brighton really should push on from here.

With Danny Welbeck in this form , especially so. As Milner said after the Liverpool win, a player not good enough for England is ‘ageing like a fine ribena’ at club level.

There will need to be clarity at Fulham soon, with both their manager and top goalscorer on contracts which expire in the summer. But Marco Silva and Harry Wilson are, for the time being at least, helping inspire this particular unlikely run for continental qualification.

Silva might accomplish his life goal in the process: winning and losing an equal number of games in a Premier League season.

In four full top-flight campaigns the Portuguese has never quite managed it. There were 15 victories and 14 defeats with Everton in 2018/19, before three seasons at Fulham delivered win/loss columns of 15-16, 13-17 and 15-14 respectively.

This feels like Silva’s greatest chance to achieve perfect coin-flipping harmony.

Can no longer mathematically finish 15th , which wouldn’t ordinarily be cause for celebration at This Is Manchester United Football Club We’re Talking About but Ruben Amorim exists and it is never not necessary to reiterate the ridiculous depths to which he lowered the bar in terms of accepting mediocrity.

They also now get 23 entire days off until they play again; that break is even longer for Harry Maguire at club level . It bodes well, considering the only times Manchester United have dropped points under Michael Carrick in the Premier League this season have been when they have had the shortest turnaround in between games: February 10’s draw v West Ham after playing Spurs on February 7; March 4’s defeat to Newcastle after playing Crystal Palace on March 1; and March 20’s draw v Bournemouth after playing Aston Villa on March 15.

There cannot be many instances in Premier League history of a team going 11 games without winning and as many without losing in the same season, never mind with the second sequence following immediately on from the first.

Bournemouth have equalled both their club-record longest unbeaten Premier League run, and the best undefeated streak of any top-flight side this campaign.

The only teams who can match the Cherries are Manchester United and Arsenal: the side against whom they somewhat fortuitously extended this run; and the upcoming opponents Andoni Iraola said it would be “very difficult” to break the record against.

Arsenal were the last team to beat Bournemouth back on January 3. They were 15th and sliding then, nine points clear of relegation; only three teams have accrued more points since than the Cherries, who are four points off the pace of a probable European qualification place.

Only David Raya (12 in 2023/24) has ever kept more clean sheets for Brentford in a Premier League season.

Kelleher also exists as enduring proof that a) playing back-up keepers in the Carabao Cup final is fine, and b) playing Kepa in the Carabao Cup final is not .

Before this season, the last time Spurs won their final game before an international break was October 2023. It put them top of the Premier League. It came against Luton, who are now in League One’s mid-table. It was a different time.

Since then, Tottenham’s record in pre-international break Premier League games is: P10 W1 D1 L8 F9 A21. Which feels like uniquely relentless commitment to putting your supporters through the most misery possible, forcing them to stew over existential defeats for weeks and almost goading the board into making a sack decision they don’t have the stomach for.

This was an unimprovably horrendous latest instalment in that particular field of sh*t, with fans ruminating over a 3-0 home defeat to a relegation rival for three weeks until the next Spurs game comes around to depress them anew.

A difficult afternoon for the BlueCo project, contained within an awful run which could cost Chelsea Champions League qualification and, ultimately, a promising young coach his job and career .

It is easy and often necessary to laugh at Liam Rosenior but his promotion from Strasbourg has looked like a terrible mistake for months and has already imprinted a great many unerasable smudges on his C.V.

But honestly, this is Chelsea’s mess rather than his.

The players used against Everton cost £748.4m. Every starting outfielder and three of the five substitutes were each signed for more individually than the Toffees’ most expensive player on the day: £28m Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, whose tireless running and tackling helped win a midfield battle the hosts should not have had a chance to compete in, never mind thrive off.

The actual answer probably isn’t to throw more money at the problem, but it will be the one given.

Arne Slot has not often summed things up well at Liverpool this season – his tendency to make things worse with his comments in the media was a theme even as they won the title last campaign – but the Dutchman nailed it after the Brighton defeat.

“At our club we’re also looking at the situation and the challenge we had during this season, and then we might be a bit more realistic, why the season has gone the way it has gone. But still it’s not good enough no matter how much excuses I can come up with, it’s still not good enough for the position you’re in right now.”

The injuries, the late goals, the summer sales – none of it justifies that level of expenditure to sit 5th, just three points clear of both Brentford and Everton, with seven games remaining.

The last Liverpool manager to lose as many as ten Premier League matches in a single Premier League season was sacked by October of the following campaign. It has all felt a bit too Brendan for some time .

Not in the general vicinity of the races at Villa Park for only their third defeat in ten Premier League games.

Those losses have all come to otherwise inept Champions League chasers in Chelsea, Liverpool and Aston Villa so at least the damage to West Ham’s season has been limited.

They still have Everton and Brentford of that vintage to face, but if Nuno is banking on maximising games against Wolves and Crystal Palace before the final day confrontation with Leeds it feels like a risk: West Ham are fifth out of seven in a mini table of results from games between the bottom seven.

Might get relegated if they aren’t careful; don’t appear to have realised.