This past weekend was the final day of the Premier League season and it was not short on drama as the final destinies of a number of teams were settled.
And if your favourite team began with the letter “L” then it was one hell of a day of drama.
In this article, we are going to recap the final day, which teams qualified for which European competition next season and of course, which three teams went down.
Additionally, we are going to preview the three teams that will take their place in the Premier League next season, including two returning teams, while one team will have “L” plates on for their first season in the top flight for many, many years.
We will also be taking a look at some early bird odds for the Premier League season 2023/24, which kicks off in August, with odds courtesy of bet365 Sport.
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The final Premier League table of the 2022/23 season can be found in the link.
So what do these results mean in the context of who makes it through to the European qualifiers, who misses out and who drops out of the Premier League?
We already knew the four Champions League qualifiers and the two Europa League qualifiers before Matchday 38 and the only spot up for grabs was the Europa Conference League qualifier,
Aston Villa held onto that by virtue of their 2-1 win over Brighton, holding off Spurs and Brentford (who also both won) to clinch a spot in Europe for the first time in many years.
Brighton earned the Europa League spot that is usually reserved for FA Cup Winners as the two finalists, Man City and Man Utd, have already qualified for the Champions League, so that spot is instead awarded to the 6th placed team in the Premier League.
The real drama on the final day of the season centred around which two out of Leeds United, Leicester City and Everton would be the ones to drop into the Championship.
In the end, Everton had another last day escape courtesy of their 1-0 win over Bournemouth, Abdoulaye Doucoure weighing in with another vital goal that kept the Toffees up and ensures his name enters Everton folklore.
The Toffees needed the win too as Leicester defeated West Ham 2-1 at the King Power Stadium, a result which had Everton drawn or lost, would have seen the Foxes stay up.
Leeds though fell to a 4-1 home defeat to Spurs, with Harry Kane netting twice in what may be his final game for the club, if soccer pundits are right about the England man being linked with a move to a host of top clubs such as Manchester United, Real Madrid and Paris St Germain.
That meant Leeds and Leicester were the teams to go down along with the already relegated Southampton who shared eight goals with Liverpool in an entertaining season finale at St Marys.
Replacing Leicester City, Leeds United and Southampton in the Premier League will be the top two teams from the Championship last season, Vincent Kompany’s Burnley and Paul Heckingbottom’s Sheffield United.
They were joined in the Premier League by Luton Town, who earned a dramatic penalties win over Coventry City in the Championship Playoff final at Wembley.
After a 1-1 draw at 90 minutes and extra time not seeing any team secure the win, it was the Hatters who scraped through as Fankaty Dabo’s miss for Coventry City proved to be decisive as Luton scored all six of the penalties they took to claim promotion.
The Hatters have now become the first team in English football to go from the top division down to non-league and then back up again, with their rise from the lower reaches of English football over the last few years being particularly impressive.
Back in 1982, Luton won what was then the Second Division, gaining promotion to the First Division. During their lengthy stay in the top flight they reached the FA Cup Semi Finals and also won the 1988 League Cup, beating Arsenal in the final.
However, after ten years, Luton were relegated but they remained in the Championship for the most part, however from 2007 the club dropped down through the divisions in successive seasons.
By 2010, the club had dropped out of the Football League altogether but after five years, climbed back into the Football League.
They were a League Two team as recently as 2017/18 when they won promotion to League One and then the following year were promoted again to the Championship.
Now their win in the playoffs has them back in the top flight once again.
A quick look at the odds for next season reveals that the bookmakers think that Manchester City are very much the team to beat once again.
Bet365 Sport has Manchester City as the 4/6 odds on favourite to win the Premier League and those are the best odds you can find at the moment on the Citizens repeating their success of this season.
Arsenal are the second favourites with bet365 at 7/1, with both Manchester United and Liverpool 8/1 shots to win the title.
The odds then drift out to Chelsea at 12/1 and Newcastle United are a 14/1 chance.
Spurs come next but are a 40/1 chance, followed by Brighton at 50/1 and after that the odds are no better than 150/1.
As for the newly promoted sides, you can back Burnley at 1,500/1, Sheffield United are 2,500/1 and the rank outsiders are Luton who are 3,000/1 with bet365 Sport.
So the Premier League season is over, but in a way, the new season has already begun with teams now looking to make changes to their playing staff ahead of the new season and it does promise to be a very busy post-season period for transfers.
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