Premier League 2022-23 review: flops of the season

Let’s face it, this entire page could have been filled with Chelsea flops. There was a point in late April when, with Chelsea on a losing run under the dumbfounded Frank Lampard, saviour without a clue, it became almost possible that the club would pay the ultimate price for eight months of farce and get relegated. As it is, the (dis)organisation that walloped out close to £600m on transfers finished in mid-table, but with no heroics in staying up. From Thomas Tuchel’s still-mysterious defenestration, to Graham Potter being handed a squad so bloated they had to use two different dressing rooms, to spending all that loot and still not signing a striker beyond Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – signed for Tuchel only for the coach to be sacked within days – Chelsea’s decision-making made little sense.

In an era when many football fans yearn for some kind of economic equality, Chelsea instead proved the adage that fools and money are easily parted, that money does not guarantee success, serving to validate rival, more professional – and controversial - regimes at Manchester City and Newcastle. Todd Boehly himself, the ownership consortium frontman who began the season espousing all-star games as an answer to English football’s financial shortfalls, later revealed his talents as a tipster. “Chelsea’s going to win 3-0,” he blared in March before the Blues, of course, were gubbed by that same scoreline at Real Madrid.

Remember last August, when the title race was between Manchester City and Liverpool? There was also a third way, the Tottenham way, the club who at last had a winner as manager and looked capable of challenging. The famously picky Antonio Conte also seemed to be happy with the summer’s transfer business, a legacy