MATT BARLOW'S SEASON REVIEW: Harry Styles shared mints with Luton hard-man Mick Harford and the Premier League created something more sophisticated than a breakaway Super League as football continues to defy logic

This season will rumble on. Cup finals, globetrotting exhibition games and internationals. It will be another eight weeks before we know the winners of Euro 2024, but the last of the Premier League fixtures seems like a time to reflect on the season that was.

Sir Jim found his way to Old Trafford with the help of his Ineos compass and Jurgen Klopp bid farewell to English football and one of the great modern coaching rivalries. Auf Wiedersehen Pep. There were loads of goals. Loads of added time. And loads of goals in added time.

Asterisks twinkled across English football. Everton, Nottingham Forest, Reading, Wigan, Morecambe all punished from various financial offences in a sport more than ever in the grip of the accountants, data processors and sports scientists.

Still football finds its ways to defy logic. It’s just one of the reasons we adore it.

Chelsea spent £220million on two central midfielders and found they didn’t really go together. They bought another for £60m but he was beset by injuries and limited to only 32 minutes on the pitch.

Then discovered they had one produced by their own fabulous academy who could play there, and he dragged them through the toughest part of a difficult season and became captain and by the end they had the look of a cohesive team.

Now they’re planning to sell him because it’s good for the balance sheet so they can spend another summer outbidding Liverpool in the transfer market.

Before the season started, Hannah Dingley became the first female coach to take charge of a men’s EFL team. She took over Forest Green Rovers for a pre-season friendly at Melksham Town in July but hardly sounded keen on the job full time.

Probably for reasons which became clear as the DaleVincibles slumped back into the National League under three different managers. David Horseman heralding the apocalypse before the 29-day siege of Troy Deeney gave way to Steve Cotterill.

Further afield, Ange Postecoglou was ambushed in Bangkok by a German reporter armed with a Bayern Munich shirt with Harry Kane’s name printed on the back. Kane kept his standards high in Germany. Bayern let theirs slip.

Tottenham were hooked on the thrills of Ange Ball for 10 games and ended the season demanding an alternative. Still waiting for trophies, Spurs fans now reserve their loudest cheers for when Micky van de Ven wins a sprint.

Premier League glamour penetrated the crevices of Kenilworth Road, a juxtaposition somehow best illustrated by legendary Luton Town hard-man Mick Harford sharing somebody else’s extra strong mints with pop icon Harry Styles during a game against Manchester United.

Kevin de Bruyne had a new hairdo. Longer on the top, swept back, evoking Van Gogh’s Wheat Field with Crows and yet retained his eye for a pass. Erling Haaland’s strike-rate dropped below a goal per game and he was binned off as a League Two player.

Phil Foden eclipsed them both and Cole Palmer escaped to sparkle at Chelsea.

Arsenal invented goals from set-pieces and left everyone else wondering why they hadn’t thought of it first. Some might have wondered what managers do if they have specialist coaches for every part of the game and directors of football, a bank of analysts and recruitment consultants to sign players.

Touchline antics and media commitments is, of course, the answer.

Declan Rice proved there is such a thing as a good £105m signing. Ross Barkley proved you can still find a good free and it isn’t wise to write anybody off. Conor Bradley reminded everyone that exciting footballers also come from Northern Ireland.

Marcus Rashford parked his sports car where he wanted and went drinking in Belfast instead of going training in Manchester and blamed the media when people questioned his commitment.

Cray Valley (PM) turned out not to be an idiosyncratic time zone near the Greenwich meridian but an Isthmian League outfit who took former winners Charlton Athletic to a replay in the FA Cup first round.

Maidstone United won at Ipswich Town to remind us how the FA Cup still swoons in a style other cup competitions simply do not, with a van driver and an academy coach scoring as a team from the sixth tier stunned hosts on their way back to the top flight.

Then the FA colluded with the Premier League and scrapped replays without proper consultation to the dismay of clubs like Maidstone and Cray Valley Paper Mills.

Ipswich was the great ‘out of exile’ story but Portsmouth returned to the Championship after flirting with extinction and a dozen years in Leagues One and Two. Stockport County held off Wrexham’s Disney princes to win League Two. Chesterfield are back in the EFL.

Sheffield Wednesday pipped QPR to the most miraculous relegation escape. The Owls had no wins and three points after 13 games, made a mess of the January transfer window and somehow stayed up, assisted by Birmingham City’s new owners, who turned a promotion race into relegation with the appointment of Wayne Rooney as their great rivals Aston Villa qualified for the Champions League.

Brighton broke new frontiers on their first European adventure, beating Ajax home and away but could not satisfy Roberto de Zerbi and the split citing football’s equivalent of musical differences.

Paul Heckingbottom and Chris Wilder performed a bizarre reversal of their Sheffield United roles from 2020/21. Back then, Wilder was acrimoniously sacked despite winning promotion to the Premier League and replaced by Heckingbottom who could not prevent relegation.

Three years on and Heckingbottom was sacked acrimoniously despite promotion and replaced by Wilder who could not prevent relegation.

The three teams promoted from the Championship last season went back down, hinting that those keen to abolish relegation are still working on it, and may have found something more sophisticated than a breakaway Super League.

Meanwhile, dissent against referees reached a new low culminating in Nottingham Forest’s passive aggressive statement about VAR Stuart Attwell, a Luton supporter turning a blind any to all possible offences committed by former Watford favourite Ashley Young.

Critical managers railed against the quality of officials devoid of confidence when they weren’t railing against the TV companies who make their life impossible despite providing the millions to enable them to bank obscene salaries.

Wolves launched a surprise attempt to bring down the entire VAR revolution as the precious metals were mined and outer space explored to give us microchips inside footballs and semi-automated offsides next season.

PS: Brian Pullman, Chelsea’s press steward and keeper of the teabags for almost 56 years called it a day at the age of 86. Thanks for all the brews and biscuits, Brian. Covering Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and Cobham will never be quite the same again.

PPS: Manchester City won the title. Again. Or was it Arsenal?