The Briefing: A fitting defining moment in title race? West Ham’s terrible timing? Loss of faith in Slot?

Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday this season The Athletic discusses three of the biggest issues from the weekend’s football.

This was the weekend when Arsenal took another big step towards the Premier League title, doing their neighbours Tottenham Hotspur a favour by pushing West Ham United closer to relegation, and growing frustration at Liverpool increased the pressure on their coach Arne Slot.

We discuss the London Stadium VAR controversy, the huge repercussions for Arsenal in the race to be champions and West Ham in the battle against the drop, plus the reasons for a growing sense of dissatisfaction at Liverpool.

The season’s defining moment

If this weekend brought a defining moment in the 2025-26 Premier League season, then it wasn’t Leandro Trossard’s goal to send Arsenal five points clear at the top of the table — or even David Raya’s wonderful save to deny Mateus Fernandes five minutes earlier.

Nothing could define this Premier League campaign better than the subsequent sight of the VAR officials at Stockley Park spending five minutes at a bank of television screens in stoppage time, trying to work out whether a goal should stand after the wrestling match that took place at the corner kick which led to it.

It was clear, upon review, that Arsenal goalkeeper Raya was held and impeded by West Ham forward Pablo before Callum Wilson converted the loose ball. Raya’s left forearm was being pulled as he jumped to try to catch the ball. Of course, it was a foul.

The problem is that at least three other clear fouls were being committed at the same time: Jean-Clair Todibo also on Raya, Declan Rice on Konstantinos Mavropanos, Martin Odegaard on Todibo. Kai Havertz and Tomas Soucek also wrestled each other to the floor. Beyond that, Mavropanos grappled with Myles Lewis-Skelly, who briefly took hold of Crysencio Summerville. As former Liverpool and England midfielder Jamie Redknapp said on Sky Sports, “It was like watching the Super Bowl (with all the blocking). It was chaos.”

It was an incident-packed penalty area (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

Penalty-box chaos has defined this Premier League season, one that began with refereeing chief Howard Webb announcing a clampdown on grappling at set-piece situations — only for the opposite to transpire, with almost every corner kick becoming a free-for-all, with players on both sides holding and impeding each other with impunity, so much so that even fouls as clear as that by Pablo on Raya have at times gone unpunished.

The number of goals scored per game has fallen from 3.28 two years ago to 2.93 last season to 2.75 this term. The number of goals scored from open play is way down. So many tight games have been decided not by improvised brilliance but by set-piece routines and the match officials’ interpretation of the scrummages that unfold at almost every corner kick. It has frequently made for a grim spectacle.

In this case, referee Chris Kavanagh, having eventually been sent to the screen by VAR Darren England, deemed that the foul on Raya rendered everything else academic.

Former Premier League referee Graham Scott wrote on The Athletic that the foul on Raya was clear, but that Arsenal might still be considered fortunate from the perspective that “there have been several goals allowed to stand this season even when the ’keeper has been blocked or pinned to his goal line by an opponent”.

That is the point. So many fouls have gone unpunished at corner kicks this season. There were at least three at that same corner kick yesterday.

So yes, when it comes to identifying the defining moment of this campaign, it is hard to imagine there will be anything that captures the spirit of the Premier League in 2025-26 more than the sight of a VAR at Stockley Park staring at a screen, trying to work out exactly who is fouling who — which foul is taking place when, which is most grievous, which is most consequential — and perhaps wondering, like many of us, how on earth football has allowed this to become the new normal.

West Ham run out of wiggle room

It was another of those afternoons when Arsenal had to dig deep and demonstrate that they are far more resilient than they have been given credit for. After a promising start, their attacking inspiration faded rapidly. Needing a win to keep their destiny entirely in their own hands, they seemed to have run out of time, at risk of opening the door to Manchester City in the title race.

Trossard’s 83rd-minute goal, set up superbly by substitute Odegaard, was a huge moment  — as was Raya’s save from Fernandes five minutes before. All of that, combined with the VAR controversy that followed in stoppage time, leaves Arsenal five points clear at the top with two games to play (for them).

Beat relegated Burnley next Monday and Crystal Palace the following Sunday and they will lift the trophy for the first time since 2004. Should City stumble in any of their three remaining league matches, against Palace, Bournemouth and Aston Villa, then one Arsenal win will do it. After all the anxieties of the past month or two, they are nearly home and dry.

West Ham, meanwhile, are in big, big trouble. The spirited run that gave them hope — hope of surviving at Tottenham’s expense, which for a West Ham supporter is the best kind of hope imaginable — has been followed by back-to-back defeats at the moment Spurs have begun to get some kind of act together under new coach Roberto De Zerbi.

Unlike the 3-0 defeat at Brentford eight days earlier, West Ham coach Nuno Espirito Santo could not fault his players’ application this time. When he promised his team will keep fighting to the last day, it sounded more credible than it did in January after a home defeat by Nottingham Forest left them looking down and out.

What will this defeat mean for West Ham and Nuno Espirito Santo? (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

That is why Tottenham supporters should take nothing for granted. The most uncomfortable afternoon of their football-watching lives — spent living with the dreadful knowledge that their survival hopes would be best served by a West Ham defeat that would take Arsenal closer to the title — will have been endured with the knowledge that they still need to take care of their own business, not least at home to Leeds United this evening (Monday).

So much has been said and written about the prospect of a Spurs relegation that the scenario facing West Ham has at times been overlooked. As Chris Weatherspoon detailed here in November, the financial impact of relegation would be considerable.

Should the worst happen, West Ham supporters might find themselves looking back at those incidents fresh in the memory from yesterday — the Raya save from Fernandes, the decision to disallow Wilson’s goal after a VAR check — and regard them as pivotal.

But in reality, West Ham left themselves needing a minor miracle by taking just 14 points from their first 21 Premier League games of the season. A run of six wins, four draws and three defeats between mid-January and late April put them in a position where their fate was in their own hands with four games remaining, but the margin for error remained thin.

West Ham’s fans will be desperate for Tottenham to slip up at home tonight. There will be no space for mixed feelings or divided loyalties with that one.

Slot suffering from a loss of faith

An interesting phenomenon in the Premier League is that, inside the stadium at least, supporters of English football’s two most successful clubs tend to afford managers a patience and a reverence that is often in short supply elsewhere.

No Liverpool or Manchester United manager has faced derision or hostility on anything like the scale that, to cite just two examples, Ange Postecoglou and Liam Rosenior faced within weeks of taking over at Nottingham Forest and Chelsea this season.

Even when managers have fallen far short of expectations at Anfield and Old Trafford, dissent towards the top man in the dugout has simmered without ever boiling over into mutiny; sarcastic chants of “Hodgson for England”, when Liverpool were three points just above the relegation zone under Roy Hodgson in December 2010, is about as withering as it has got at either club.

That is what made the reaction to Slot during Liverpool’s 1-1 home draw with Chelsea on Saturday so striking. The booing of his decision to take off teenager Rio Ngumoha midway through the second half wasn’t mutiny by normal standards. But by Anfield’s standards, it most certainly was. 

In the cold light of day, Slot’s explanation of the substitution made total sense; he said Ngumoha had cramp, which was hardly surprising on what was only the 17-year-old’s third Premier League start.

There were boos at Anfield when Rio Ngumoha was taken off (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

But the reaction wasn’t really about the Ngumoha substitution. It was an Anfield crowd passing judgement on a season in which Liverpool have fallen so far short of last season’s title-winning standards. Against Chelsea, as so often this term, Slot’s team appeared low on inspiration, energy and belief, lacking structure and aggression in midfield and incision in attack.

How much responsibility Slot should bear is open to debate; there are mitigating factors, not just injuries and gaps in a squad that remains short in some areas despite last summer’s £450million transfer outlay, but the tragic death of Diogo Jota just as pre-season was starting and the impact it has had on all at the club.

There is an entirely rational case in support of Slot, who, after all, led Liverpool to the title in his first season after taking over from Jurgen Klopp. But that case has been undermined by performances all season. Frustration has grown significantly.

The club’s management have long planned to put this campaign’s difficulties behind them, learn lessons and approach next season in the expectation of a fresh start under Slot. Enquiries about whether they might move for former Bayer Leverkusen and Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, or Bournemouth’s departing Andoni Iraola, have repeatedly been brushed off by those inside the club.

But with every defeat and even, on Saturday, a draw at home to Chelsea, the challenge to imagine a Slot-inspired resurgence next season has required a greater leap of faith. And if faith is evaporating at Anfield, of all places, then that does not augur well.

Coming up

• Monday night’s game in the Premier League is crucial in the battle to avoid relegation; Leeds’ survival is now guaranteed, but Tottenham’s is still far from it.
• Manchester City take on Crystal Palace on Wednesday, desperately needing a win to keep the pressure on Arsenal. Liverpool travel to Aston Villa on Friday, an important game in the race for the two remaining Champions League places, before City face Chelsea in the FA Cup final at Wembley on Saturday.
• The EFL play-off semi-finals’ second legs run from Monday to Friday. In the Championship, Monday sees Millwall take on Hull City before Southampton face Middlesbrough 24 hours later, with tensions running high over “Spygate” allegations. In both cases, it is 0-0 after the first leg. It is also tight in League One, where Bolton Wanderers and Stockport County have slender 1-0 first-leg leads over Bradford City and Stevenage respectively.
• Whether Cristiano Ronaldo’s exploits in Saudi Arabia interest you or not, Tuesday’s clash between his Al Nassr team and their Riyadh rivals Al Hilal will be highly charged. Al Nassr’s lack of success since Ronaldo’s big-money arrival in January 2023 has been a source of amusement in some quarters, but they will be crowned champions if they win. However, a victory for Al Hilal, who have a game in hand, would establish them as clear favourites.
• The Scottish Premiership season is also heading for a dramatic climax after Celtic beat Rangers 3-1 yesterday to move within a point of leaders Heart of Midlothian. Hearts could be crowned as champions for the first time since 1960 if they beat Falkirk on Wednesday and get a favour from Motherwell, who take on Celtic the same evening. But the likelihood is that this is heading right to the wire, with Celtic at home to Hearts in next Saturday’s final round of fixtures.
• Wednesday also sees the final of the Coppa Italia, where Lazio, pursuing their first trophy since 2019, will be on home territory at the Stadio Olimpico. Their opponents, newly crowned champions Inter, won 3-0 in Saturday’s dress rehearsal in Serie A.
• With Barcelona confirmed as champions last night by beating Real Madrid, the main issue to be resolved in La Liga is the relegation battle, with only six points separating 10th-placed Osasuna and 19th-placed Levante going into the midweek games.