Our fans network reviews the season with one game to play: the highs, the lows and the moments that made them smile

It’s been yet another “always the bridesmaid, never the bride” season. There were times it felt we were destined for glory, but injuries and red cards cost us. We still had jaw-dropping moments, though, especially in a phenomenal Champions League campaign. As they say, it’s the hope that kills, but even this jaded old lag had begun to believe I’d finally tick that big-eared prize off my bucket list. Still, 8/10.

Bernard Azulay onlinegooner.com; @GoonerN5

Jonathan Pritchard

Chelsea braced for City Ground cauldron, Rodri back on the scene and party vibes all round at Anfield

• Golden Boot: how the leading scorers stand

Bournemouth’s hopes of European football were vanquished after defeat to Manchester City on Tuesday but the Cherries, 11th on 53 points, could still achieve ninth spot and match their best finish in the Premier League (under Eddie Howe in 2016-17, although that was achieved with only 46 points). A home game against relegated Leicester looks to offer the perfect opportunity but the closing stretch has been tough for Andoni Iraola’s side, with the past 12 league games producing only two victories. Remarkably, a three-game league form table puts Leicester in fourth after home wins over Southampton and Ipswich either side of a 2-2 draw at Nottingham Forest. Perhaps this won’t be the walkover most are expecting, and there could be a wistful feeling in the air at the Vitality on Sunday afternoon. No one can deny it has been a strong season but what a party it might have been. With Dean Huijsen off to Real Madrid and Milos Kerkez linked heavily with the champions, Liverpool, how many of the goodbyes on the traditional end-of-season lap of honour will be permanent? David Tindall

Wednesday’s fare in Bilbao was low on quality, bringing to mind some other high-stakes stinkers, such as the 2003 Champions League showpiece between Milan and Juventus

The attacking talents on show for both Italian sides were frightening. Juventus partnered David Trezeguet in attack with Alessandro Del Piero, while Milan opted for Pippo Inzaghi and Andriy Shevchenko in front of the creativity of Andrea Pirlo, Clarence Seedorf and Rui Costa. Such was the embarrassment of riches available to Carlo Ancelotti, Rivaldo was an unused sub for Milan. Yet after 120 minutes, the final remained goalless. Marcello Lippi, who had succeeded Ancelotti as Juve manager in 2001, was particularly culpable, having brought on the defensively minded Antonio Conte as a makeshift No 10 at half-time. How they missed the suspended Pavel Nedved. Milan prevailed in the shootout, with Paolo Maldini lifting the trophy at Old Trafford, but the final did nothing to dispel the belief that Italian football is a defensive game.

Not many at Old Trafford are suited to the manager’s trusty 3-4-2-1 but replacing them will cost hundreds of millions

Everything always seems clearer in the morning, and in the cold grey light of Thursday, the prognosis for Manchester United is bleak. While Tottenham face an awkward calculation – weighing up whether the delirium of a first European trophy in 41 years offsets their worst league season in terms of proportion of games lost – for Manchester United the equation is far starker.

Ruben Amorim will only play in one way. He is committed absolutely, uncompromisingly, irrevocably to the 3-4-2-1. Liverpool considered him, looked at their squad, realised the two things did not go together, appointed Arne Slot and won the league. Manchester United looked at their squad, flinched at the horror, and seem to have reasoned it was such a mess that it was impossible to find a manager whose philosophy would fit. There was a dissenting voice, Dan Ashworth, but at the court of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, reasoned doubts are as unwelcome as a free lunch.

Many happy tax returns | Saving the welfare state | Defeat’s silver lining | Champion pundits | AI and copyright

Re your article (UK’s 50 richest families hold more wealth than 50% of population, analysis finds, 19 May), we would all see how little the super‑rich pay in taxes if we adopted the Scandinavian system of putting all tax returns in the public domain. Nosy neighbours would soon flush out tax dodgers.
Anthony Stoll
London

Steepest drop in nearly eight months as club misses out on lucrative place in next season’s Champions League

Manchester United shares have slumped after the football club was defeated in the final of Europe’s second-tier tournament, which will ultimately lead to £100m in lost revenues.

United lost 1-0 to Tottenham Hotspur in the Uefa Europa League final in Bilbao on Wednesday night, dealing a further blow to its billionaire owners, the Glazer family and Sir Jim Ratcliffe. It means the club has failed to qualify for next season’s lucrative Uefa Champions League, Europe’s top-tier football competition.

• No sales needed to pursue top targets Cunha and Delap

• United will listen to offers for players including Garnacho

Ruben Amorim has a summer transfer budget of a little less than £100m and retains Manchester United’s firm backing despite Wednesday’s Europa League final defeat by Tottenham.

As the Guardian previously reported, the executive’s belief in Amorim was not going to be affected by the result at San Mamés in Bilbao. The football department, headed by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, wants the Portuguese to have a first pre-season with his team and to strengthen the squad.

• Winger says he will ‘see what happens next’
• He was on bench after starting every knockout game

Alejandro Garnacho has thrown doubt over his Manchester United future, while pointing to how he started every Europa League knockout game but got only “20 minutes” of Wednesday’s 1-0 final defeat by Tottenham.

The winger’s comments regarding his United career come after Ruben Amorim stated he would leave for “no compensation” if the board and fans lose faith in him and Bruno Fernandes said he would depart if the club wanted to “cash in”.

• Head coach ready to leave ‘next day’ if he loses trust
• Midfielder says Amorim ‘has done a lot of good things’

Bruno Fernandes has insisted Ruben Amorim should remain as Manchester United head coach despite Wednesday’s Europa League final defeat to Tottenham, while the captain admitted he would leave if the club wants to “cash in” on him.

United lost the final at San Mamés Stadium to Brennan Johnson’s 42nd-minute winner. Amorim stated afterwards he would leave the “next day” if the board and fans lose faith in him.

After a 17-year wait for another piece of silverware, jubilant Spurs fans from London to Bilbao celebrated their Europa League triumph after a 1-0 victory over fellow Premier League strugglers Manchester United. Postecoglou stuck to his word by winning a trophy in his second season, claiming vindication amid a poor Premier League campaign that has Spurs in 17th position on the back of 21 losses and led to much scrutiny over the Australian’s position.

• Brennan Johnson strikes to clinch Europa League glory for Tottenham

• ‘Mate, I’m a winner’: Postecoglou keen to continue at Spurs after Europa League glory

• Spurs prevail with Mourinho blueprint and ultra pragmatism in baffling final

• Postecoglou: ‘I’m a winner … we’re still building this team’
• Amorim will quit if Manchester United don’t want him

Despite being under pressure to retain his job, Ange Postecoglou insisted he is a “winner” who wants to keep building after Tottenham beat Manchester United 1-0 to claim the Europa League, the club’s first piece of silverware since 2008.

And while Brennan Johnson’s 42nd-minute strike sealed Spurs’ first continental trophy in 41 years, Ruben Amorim stated he would quit as United head coach if the club’s executive and supporters no longer believed in him.

Deployed in central midfield rather than a more unfamiliar No 10 role, the playmaker failed to make his mark in Bilbao

Wanted desperately: a system that allows Manchester United to create a cornucopia of chances, plus a Bruno Fernandes who does not go missing precisely when this one-man Ruben Amorim outfit needs him - in a major European final.

Cumbersome, toothless and lacking flair: this has been Amorim’s 3-4-3 formation since he took over in early November, and was Fernandes on Wednesday night, alongside the (again) impotent Rasmus Højlund, plus the anonymous Mason Mount, Amad Diallo and too many others in United colours.

Ange Postecoglou moved away from his attacking style while Brennan Johnson earned the sweetest vindication

Finals are not for the playing; they’re for the winning. Who cares about the spectacle? Who cares about the quality? At some level football is always more about the narrative and the drama than technical mastery. Tottenham certainly will cheerily ignore what a shambolic game of football this was as they bask in their first trophy since 2008, their first in European competition in 40 years. Glory comes in many forms, and just because this might not be how Danny Blanchflower sanctioned it, does not mean this was not, in its own way, glorious.

But it was a baffling game. For the third round in a row, Tottenham prevailed with a sort of ultra pragmatism. Ange Postecoglou always wins a trophy in his second season, a fact of which he has delighted in reminding everybody. It just seems odd that it took him that long to move away from his characteristic attacking, high-pressing style to a blueprint José Mourinho might have left behind in a drawer. Ange stared into the Barclays, but the Barclays stared back far harder into him.

Romero and Van de Ven were rocks at the back for Spurs, while Højlund never looked like scoring for United

4-2-3-1

For Ange Postecoglou and Tottenham, there was only one story, one mission. It was not about what happens next with the manager; that can wait. It was about grasping an opportunity that does not come around very often, about emerging from what has felt like a generation’s worth of jibes; about winning.

On a golden night for their longsuffering followers, they chased the baggage from their backs, they changed the narrative. Yet again, Postecoglou won in his second season at a club. For the first time since 2008, Spurs got their hands on a trophy.

• Europa League updates from Bilbao; kick-off 8pm BST
• Read today’s edition of Football Daily | And email Scott

The clubs have faced each other many times back home, naturally. Manchester United have the upper hand here as well, with 95 wins to Tottenham’s 57 (and 52 draws). But while the overall history skews red, the recent stuff is pure lilywhite. Spurs are unbeaten against United in the last six, wining four and drawing two. They’ve won all three of their previous meetings this season, the high-point being the 3-0 rout at Old Trafford last September.

Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United have met each other in Europe before. A long time ago. In December 1963, Spurs were the holders of the Cup Winners’ Cup, United the most recent FA Cup winners. They were drawn in the second round of the Cup Winners’ Cup, and Spurs won the first leg at White Hart Lane thanks to a Dave Mackay piledriver and Terry Dyson taking late opportunistic advantage of a careless Tony Dunne backpass.

While the top and bottom of the Premier League are resolved, European spots are very much up for grabs

Intrigue on the final day of the Premier League season is concentrated solely on who qualifies for Europe, but there is plenty of it. Seven clubs will enter the last round of matches unsure of which European competition they will be playing in next season, or in some cases whether they will be playing in Europe at all, with half of the division potentially competing in Uefa tournaments in 2025-26. Here is what is at stake on Sunday …

Manager’s emotional intelligence needed for painful therapy process regardless of Europa League final result

“It will change my life; it will not change me,” Ruben Amorim told the BBC not long after becoming Manchester United manager, his underpinning sentiment – that self-worth comes from within – a cornerstone of therapeutic thinking. Sure enough, as the interview continued, he unabashedly raised his own therapy, in the process showing disarming candour, a man supremely comfortable in his own head.

Effective treatment requires going backwards to go forwards and it is easy to chortle that under Amorim, United have done just that. As they prepare for a final we could characterise as two bald men fighting over a wig, there may be a very specific regression taking place: back to good old 1990, when United finished 13th in the league and then beat an even worse team to win a cup, changing everything in the process.

The struggles of Tottenham and Manchester United in the league leave this game meaning nothing and everything

Gatwick on Tuesday morning was full of Spurs fans. They were in the Pret a Manger, they were in the Pizza Express, they were in the Wagamama, but mostly they were standing gawping at the destination board, which featured a baffling number of Vueling flights to Bilbao, a squeezing of the schedule that led to inevitable delays and confusion.

The queue for the three open booths at passport control in Bilbao was a vast python of white shirts, speckled with the occasional tree green or purple. The bus into town was almost entirely Spurs, with a handful of businessmen and a bewildered older couple returning from their holidays, who admitted they had no idea their city was hosting a major European final.

• ‘People see I’m thinking more about the club’
• Striker Rasmus Højlund may start on bench

Ruben Amorim has admitted it is strange he is not in danger of the sack as Manchester United head coach while Ange Postecoglou is even if he leads Tottenham to the Europa League trophy in Wednesday’s final.

United face Spurs at Bilbao’s San Mamés Stadium with each having had a similarly dismal Premier League campaign. With one game left, United are in 16th on 39 points with a goal difference of -12, while Spurs are in 17th on 38 with a goal difference of 2. The Australian’s position at Tottenham is under scrutiny, with there being a strong sense that he will lose his role even if his side emerge victorious on Wednesday. Postecoglou fielded questions about this on Tuesday. Amorim was then asked why he is not under the same pressure.