Pep Guardiola and Man City may have won the Premier League, but who won ESPN's Premier League awards this season? Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images
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Premier League 2021-22 awards: Best player, best manager, best signing, most important goal and more

May 25, 2022
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Have you caught your breath yet? Well, we sure haven’t! The 2021-22 Premier League title came down to the last day. Hell, it came down to the final 10 minutes. And both the relegation battle and the fight for top four were up for grabs all the way until the end, too. Matchday 38, though, was just a microcosm for the season as a whole: endless drama, mind-melting peak performance and a widespread inability to avoid stepping on rakes. Everything happened, all the time.

So, to sum it all up, Ryan O’Hanlon and Bill Connelly have teamed up to hand out a bunch of mostly made-up awards for the 2021-22 season. Congrats to all the winners. Actually, congrats to most of the winners; some of these “awards” are the kind you really don’t want to win.

Best manager

5. Antonio Conte, Tottenham Hotspur. One of soccer’s most successful managers turned Spurs down over the summer, then changed his mind after some rest. When he took over on Nov. 2, the team was in ninth place, with 15 points and a minus-7 goal differential from 10 league matches. But from that point forward, Spurs were easily the third-best team in the league, earning 56 points and a plus-36 goal differential from their last 28 matches, well ahead of everyone but City and Liverpool in both categories. We’ll see what kind of transfer funds he can coax from Tottenham’s ownership this summer, but he proved himself once again this winter and spring.

4. Eddie Howe, Newcastle. Yes, Newcastle’s controversial new owners brought in a healthy batch of talent in January — midfielder Bruno Guimaraes, left back Matt Targett and veterans Chris Wood, Dan Burn and Kieran Trippier — to help save the team from relegation. But while those are solid players to be sure, the team’s play improved far more than its talent did after Howe’s hire. From mid-January onward, Newcastle averaged 2.0 points per game, third-best in the league and ahead of Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Chelsea, three teams that almost certainly still had more talent.

3. Thomas Frank, Brentford. In its first season back in the top flight since 1947, Brentford was a betting favorite to go right back down. But the Bees finished a healthy 13th, 11 points from the drop zone. Frank’s team played occasionally attractive ball, pressuring in key moments, getting key contributions from the forward tandem of Ivan Toney and Bryan Mbeumo (combined: 16 goals and 12 assists) and providing an inspired landing spot for Christian Eriksen in the winter. After a February funk, Frank guided them to 22 points in their last 11 matches to cruise to safety.

Things might not get any easier next season, but Frank was more than up to this task.

1-2. Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool, and Pep Guardiola, Manchester City. Honestly, put them in whichever order you want. Yes, they both worked with ridiculously talented rosters, but other Premier League clubs are rich and deep with talent, too, and Liverpool and City lapped the field this season. They might be the best in the world at what they do. — Connelly

Best player (Liverpool or Man City division)

5. Kevin De Bruyne, Manchester City. The actual Player of the Year isn’t higher for two reasons: he only played about 60% of the league minutes, and City won more points in the matches he didn’t play in. That being said, he’s the modern Steven Gerrard: powerful driving runs from the middle, an absurd, field-shrinking passing range and lots of goals and assists from midfield. He’s become the defining Manchester City player, and he’s one of the best the Premier League has ever seen, too.

4. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Liverpool. He led the league in expected assists, progressive passes, through balls and shot-creating actions. He’s the Premier League’s Andrea Pirlo, he’s 22 years old, he’s a fullback and he still might get even better.

3. Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool. You saw it on the final day against Wolves: Liverpool are still a very good team without VVD, but they’re not a great one. They looked inefficient in attack and seemed to give up a great chance every time their opponents were able to play a ball in behind the back line. In other words, they looked a lot like they did before van Dijk arrived in January 2018. Since the Dutch center-back arrived at Anfield, Liverpool have won points at a 93-point pace with him in the lineup. After missing most of last season with a torn ACL, he looked about as good as ever across his 3,000-plus league minutes this year.

2. Joao Cancelo, Manchester City. City don’t really have a single standout player, which is probably why they’re so tough to beat over a 38-game run. It doesn’t really matter who’s out there; they just dominate. Of course, they have tons of players who could be the standout player and would be the standout player on any other club in the world other than Liverpool, but only one outfield player even played 90% of the league minutes for City this season: Joao Cancelo. He clocked 94% of the minutes, while no one else on the team even broke the 85% mark. He’s a full-back, and yet he led City in shots, touches, passes, passes into the penalty area, progressive passes, progressive carries, tackles and interceptions.

Of the 93 points City won this year, Cancelo played a bigger part than anyone.

1. Mohamed Salah, Liverpool. What matters more to you: sum-total production or raw efficiency? Do you care about non-penalty vs. penalty goals? More focused on underlying performance that overt production? Well, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t matter.

Most goals in the league? Mohamed Salah (23, tied with Son Heung-Min). Most assists in the league? Mohamed Salah (13). Most goals+assists in the league? Mohamed Salah. Most non-penalty goals+assists in the league? Mohamed Salah. Most expected goals plus expected assists in the league? Mohamed Salah. Most non-penalty xG+xA in the league? Mohamed Salah. Most non-penalty xG+XA per 90 minutes in the league? Mohamed Salah. Most non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes in the league? Mohamed Salah.

In other words, Salah produced more goals than any player in the league — total — and more goals than any player in the league per minute. All in all, the 29-year-old averaged 1.01 non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes. Only a handful of players across Europe do it every year — seven this season — and Salah did it in the most difficult league in the world. More simply, he’s just the fourth player in Premier League history to at least tie for the lead in both goals and assists. Join that club, and you deserve to be the Player of the Year. — O’Hanlon

Best player (non-Liverpool or Man City division)

10. James Maddison, Leicester City. Like his team, Maddison began the season in miserable form, producing just one goal and no assists through Nov. 27. But from that point forward, only Son, Kane and Kevin De Bruyne produced more than his 11 goals and eight assists. He might have been the league’s best player in May, too.

9. Marc Guehi, Crystal Palace. The league’s other great new Marc came to Palace from the Chelsea loan army and quickly thrived against a higher level of competition. He’s a safe passer, he’s excellent at all the old-school centre-back duties, he’s 21 and he’s a major reason why Palace allowed 20 fewer goals this season.

8. Marc Cucurella, Brighton. The 23-year-old left-back almost immediately thrived upon his move from Getafe. He was the only defender to combine at least 3,000 minutes and 40 chances created while winning at least 59% of his duels. He is a brilliant interventionist without the ball and a solid ball progressor with it. Top-notch hair, too.

7. Reece James, Chelsea. The 22-year old has become nearly the perfect wing-back, capable of intervening when necessary on defense and putting together nearly perfect buildup play. Combining with Mount on Chelsea’s right side, James produced 14 combined goals (five) and assists (nine) in only 26 league matches.

6. Bukayo Saka, Arsenal. Historically, it is very difficult for a young player to establish himself in a major role in the Premier League. The 20-year old Saka not only did that, but he was damn near the best player on a Champions League qualifier. Arsenal fell just two points short of fourth place with Saka’s 11 goals and seven assists leading the way.

5. Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester United. Manchester United endured a miserable season upon Ronaldo’s return to town, not only finishing in sixth place and barely snagging a Europa League bid, but doing so with a zero goal differential that suggested sixth place was rather lucky. But while Ronaldo might not press like Ralf Rangnick, his manager for most of the season would prefer, it’s hard to imagine they were worse off with his 18 goals than without. At 37, he still creates shots better than most, and you still can’t take the ball off of him.

4. Harry Kane, Tottenham Hotspur. Among the league’s non-Liverpool or City players, only Son, Kane’s teammate, created more combined goals and assists (30) than Kane’s 26. Kane did this despite a slow start and a prolonged finishing slump. This summer is unlikely to be nearly as noisy as the past one — Manchester City spent most of the summer 2021 trying to pry Kane away from Tottenham but recently landed Erling Haaland, rendering that pursuit over and done with. What might a full season with Conte bring?

3. Jarrod Bowen, West Ham United. The last two players to record double-digit goals and assists in a season for West Ham: Bowen … and Paulo di Canio. What a story! A prolific player for Hull City in the second division, Bowen came to West Ham in January 2020 and slowly grew into more responsibility. He scored three times in the Europa League, and his 12 goals and 10 assists helped to assure a second straight season of European play for the Hammers.

2. Mason Mount, Chelsea. Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel asked the 23-year old to move from central midfield to more of an attacking role on the right wing, and the change looked great on him. Mount recorded career highs in both goals (11) and assists (10) in league play while still playing a key role in overall ball progression. This may have been a nondescript overall season for the Blues on the pitch (and a turbulent one off of it), but Mount was a major bright spot.

1. Son Heung-Min, Tottenham Hotspur. He just keeps getting better. After averaging 14 goals and 10 assists over the past two seasons, with some of the best finishing numbers in the world (28 goals from shots worth 18.9 xG), he one-upped himself, earning a share of the golden boot with 23 goals (from 16.0 xG) and seven assists. He turns 30 this summer and continues to improve. — Connelly

Best young player (22 and under)

10. Bryan Mbeumo, Brentford. A lovely dance partner for Ivan Toney upfront, the 22-year old created four goals and seven assists among 34 chances created, and only a finishing slump prevented him from something even better.

9. Tino Livramento, Southampton. Yet another Chelsea academy product thriving somewhere other than Stamford Bridge. The right-back position might be increasingly offensive, but he’s one of the surest defenders in the league in that role.

8. Anthony Gordon, Everton. As turbulent as Everton’s season was, it would have been a lot worse without the lanky and active 21-year old, who seemed to perform a defensive midfielder’s duties from the wing position.

7. Jacob Ramsey, Aston Villa. Villa’s season somehow managed to be encouraging and discouraging at the same time, but Ramsey was a big reason for the former. The 20-year old midfielder is a sure passer with scoring punch (six goals).

6. Emile Smith Rowe, Arsenal. Playing mostly on the left wing, the 21-year old proved to already be one of the league’s best crossers, and when he gets the ball with space in the box, he’s putting it in the net, as his 10 goals can attest. (Gabriel Martinelli could have just as easily gone here, too. The Gunners do not lack for fun, young attackers.)

5. Marc Guehi, Crystal Palace. See above. He plays like a 30-year old, seasoned centre-back. He’s nowhere near 30.

4. Dejan Kulusevski, Tottenham Hotspur. He was only around for 18 matches and 1,265 minutes after joining Spurs from Juventus in January, but in that span he managed to combine five goals with eight assists from 25 chances created. In a full season at that pace, he would have dwarfed the production of Saka and Foden.

3. Conor Gallagher, Crystal Palace. The active and physical 22-year old midfielder likely played his way out of the Chelsea loan army and into a permanent role with the Blues after scoring eight times with three assists from 38 chances created.

2. Phil Foden, Manchester City. No young player is as productive on a per-minute basis. Foden averaged 0.66 xG+xA per 90, and his 14 combined goals and assists were second to only Saka’s 18. (He also played 858 fewer minutes.)

1. Bukayo Saka, Arsenal. He’s listed at 5-foot-10, 143 pounds, but few players in the league create space in the box better than he does. The sky’s the limit with Saka. — Connelly

Weirdest/most confusing team of the season

Arsenal. In a different era, fifth place would have been an abject disappointment for Arsenal. For 20 years between 1997 to 2016, the Gunners never finished worse than fourth, but after back-to-back eighth-place finishes, they took a genuine step forward in 2021-22, winning 22 matches (their most in five years) and finishing with 69 points (their most in three). It was a definitive step forward for a team with a ridiculously young core. All five players with over 2,500 league minutes are 24 or younger, as are 11 of the 15 players with over 1,100 minutes.

That youth explains some of the inconsistency that beset this team, but … wow, were they inconsistent. They lost their first three matches by a combined 9-0, then ripped off 20 points in eight matches. They lost three of four, then 28 points from 11 matches. They lost four of five, then won four straight. In the end, losses to Spurs and Newcastle by a combined 5-0 ended their Champions League hopes, though they naturally followed that up with a 5-1 pummeling of Everton on the final match day.

In the end, Arsenal finished top five without being particularly great at anything.

  • Attack: sixth in goals (1.6 per match), third in shots per possession (0.18) but 10th in xG per shot (0.12)
  • Defense: eighth in goals allowed (1.3 per match), fifth in shots allowed per possession (0.13) but 13th in xG per shot (0.12).
  • Possession: fifth in possession rate (52.1%), fifth in passes per possession (5.5), eighth in average possession length (21.7 meters)
  • Pressure: 11th in passes allowed per defensive action (13.6), eighth in possessions started in the attacking third (7.8), ninth in opponents’ possessions started in the attacking third (7.3)

They created slightly more dangerous possessions and took slightly more shots (of equal quality) than opponents, and opponents finished the year with a better save percentage. They lacked any discernible identity, really, but since they also lacked any dramatic weaknesses — slumps aside — they were able to finish in the top five all the same. And with the young pieces in place and a potentially big-spending summer on the way, they have to feel good about where they’re headed. — Connelly

Best signing/loanee of the 2021-22 season

T-5. Marc Guehi, Crystal Palace, from Chelsea ($25.7M); Marc Cucurella, Brighton, from Getafe ($19.8M). The new market inefficiency is signing young defenders named “Marc.” Other than Watford’s Moussa Sissoko, the Marcs were the only two outfield players in the Premier League who were signed last summer to feature in at least 3,000 minutes. It’s incredible how many big-money signings just don’t play all that much, but both Palace and Brighton got a ton of production out of two young defenders who they’ll be able to build around over the long-term or move on for a profit.

To all the sporting directors out there, remember: it’s with a “c”, not a “k.”

4. Dejan Kulusevski, Tottenham, from Juventus ($11 million loan fee). That loan fee has since turned into a $48 million permanent transfer that was activated by Tottenham’s qualification for the Champions League. A big reason why they qualified for the Champions League? The 21-year-old attacker they signed in January ended the season with five goals and eight assists. He’s the perfect third piece to go alongside Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min.

3. Luis Diaz, Liverpool, from Porto ($49.5 million). Without Diaz, Liverpool don’t ever have a shot at the treble and they don’t end up with a real shot at winning the league with 15 minutes left in the season. For a club of Liverpool’s size, the fee paid for Diaz suggests a fringe-type player: somewhere between your 11th and 13th man. Instead, the Colombian quickly became a first-choice attacker for one of the two best teams in the world.

His transfer value is already probably double what Liverpool paid for him, and the 25-year-old is locked up for the next five years. Also: bonus points for leading the league in pointless no-look passes per 90 minutes.

2. Christian Eriksen, Brentford (no transfer fee). It’s one thing that Eriksen is just playing soccer again after nearly dying on the field at the Euros last summer. Literally just playing in a 7-on-7 Sunday beer league would be cause for celebration. Instead, Eriksen joined Brentford in January and simply was one of the best midfielders in the league from the moment he stepped back onto the field. He scored one and added four assists in over 900 minutes of play, and ranked in the 90th percentile or above among midfielders in just about every passing stat: assists, expected assists, chances created, passes into the final third, progressive passes and passes into the penalty area.

It’s easy to forget, but Brentford had slumped down into relegation danger after their hot start. However, with Eriksen in the lineup, they coasted to safety, averaging two points per game, which over a full season would be better than everyone other than the top two.

1. Jose Sa, Wolverhampton, from Olympiacos ($8.8 million). This looks even better when you consider that they offloaded Rui Patricio, another Portuguese keeper who’s five years older than his compatriot Sa, for $13 million to Roma.

Last year with Wolves, Patricio allowed 2.3 goals more than the average keeper would be expected to, per Stats Perform’s goals-saved metric. This year, Sa prevented 8.5 goals, while no other keeper in the league was north of three.

While some of the other top shot stoppers tend to be players who don’t leave their lines and prevent shots from happening in the first place — (cough) David De Gea (cough) — Sa doesn’t quite fit that stereotype, either. Per FBref, he ranked in the 87th percentile among Premier League keepers in crosses stopped (10.8%) and the 90th percentile for number of defensive actions outside the penalty area (1.1 per 90 minutes). Wolves allowed nine fewer goals this season than last, and they won six more points. Their $9M keeper was the biggest reason why.

Worst signing/loanee of the 2021-22 season

5. Bryan Gil, Tottenham, from Sevilla ($27.5M). He played 2.7% of the minutes for Tottenham this season — and 22% of the minutes for Valencia, a different club in a different league. The 21 year-old ended the season with zero goals and one assist.

4. Nikola Vlasic, West Ham, from CSKA Moscow ($33M). In 2017, Everton signed a 19-year-old Vlasic for $11.9m. He played 16.8% of the league minutes and then spent the next three-plus seasons at CSKA Moscow. In 2021, West Ham signed a 23-year-old Vlasic for $33M. He played 16.4% of the league minutes and then …

3. Jadon Sancho, Manchester United, from Borussia Dortmund ($93.5M). The three biggest summer transfers to the Premier League were all pretty disappointing, huh? The process behind this deal was a lot more sound than the others, as Sancho produced goals and assists at a world-class rate at Borussia Dortmund and was only 21 years old. This is just the going rate for British players with that kind of track record and pedigree.

Now, it’s really hard to judge any players again the overarching dysfunction at Manchester United — especially Sancho, who only just got there — but in year one he was basically a league-average attacker — three goals and three assists — and only featured in 56% of the league minutes.

2. Jack Grealish, Manchester City, from Aston Villa ($129.4M). This isn’t quite as bad as our No. 1 pick, as Grealish was 25 when City signed him and he actually played quite well at times this season. But ultimately, City broke the British transfer record for a player who appeared in just 56% of the league minutes this season. He was still a ball-carrying machine this season and his underlying numbers (xG+xA per 90 minutes) were essentially identical to last year’s. Somehow, he only got three assists out of 6.3 expected assists.

I’d expect a bigger year from him next season, but he’s gonna have to play a lot more to come close to matching that transfer fee.

1. Romelu Lukaku, Chelsea, from Inter Milan ($124.3M). This one is bad enough before you even get to Lukaku’s performance. For starters, Chelsea owned Lukaku at one point, then sold him to Everton for $38.9 million in 2014. So, uh, just a $90 million markup to bring him back seven years later. On top of that, Lukaku was 28 when Chelsea bought him. They let Lukaku leave the club for his entire prime, produce value for a number of other clubs, then paid the seventh-highest transfer fee ever in order to bring him back after his prime had all but wrapped up.

Like I said, bad enough already, but then you get to what happened on the field. In the Premier League, Lukaku scored eight non-penalty goals and registered zero assists just one season after going for 18 and 11 in Serie A. He only played 46% of the Premier League minutes, and much of Chelsea’s best play came without Lukaku on the field. Thomas Tuchel has typically preferred a more patient buildup approach that sacrifices quantity of chances for quality, while Lukaku has mostly flourished in the open field. The process behind the move, the tactical fit and the results have all been awful. — O’Hanlon

Biggest candidates for regression

3. West Ham United. David Moyes turning a perpetual underachiever into a European contender — they reached the Europa League semis this year and will play in the Conference League next season — has been an incredible and, honestly, underrated story these past two years. The Hammers slipped a bit this year, but held onto seventh in part because of Bowen’s increased contributions.

It’s hard not to see them slipping a bit more next season, though. For one thing, the competition will improve — Newcastle is likely to grow even more talented whether anyone likes it or not, and a healthy (albeit refurbished) Leicester City could make a more sustained run at a European spot as well. For another, their underlying numbers slipped even more than their results this season. Their xG differential (-0.01 per match) was ninth in the league, below that of Crystal Palace and Brighton among others. Their roster core might get plucked a bit this offseason, too, meaning Moyes’ toughest task yet is to come.

2. Kevin De Bruyne. This one requires a major disclaimer: De Bruyne is almost certainly going to remain one of the best, most creative players in the world. He’s going to keep making plays like his Premier League-winning assist on Sunday.

With the league title on the line and minimal margin for error, the 30-year old produced eight of his 15 goals and six of his eight assists after March 1. He’s going to remain capable of those streaks well after this season.

He probably won’t keep scoring like that, however. His career-high 15 goals came from shots worth just 6.2 xG. Now, for his career he has scored at a rate 44% higher than his xG figures suggest — he’s one of the best finishers you’ll ever see, and he has been for a long time. But that rate was 142% this season. On average, he probably should have scored nine goals. City probably shouldn’t rely on him coming through to that degree again.

If only they had one of the best goal-scorers in the world coming into the squad next season to make up the difference.

1. Wolves. Wolverhampton improved from 13th to 10th in Bruno Lage’s first season succeeding Nuno Espirito Santo. They gave Liverpool and Manchester City fits in three of four meetings; they also drew twice with Chelsea and beat Spurs. It was another solid, top-flight season, but regression to the mean struck late on, and it might keep striking.

In their past seven matches, Wolves managed just two points with a minus-11 goal differential. But their xG differential really wasn’t any worse than it was the rest of the season. Over 38 matches, they generated the second-fewest xG (1.1 per match) and allowed the fifth-most (1.7), but thanks to superhuman work from Jose Sa — a 75% save percentage and +8.5 goals prevented (StatsPerform’s comparison of goals conceded to xG conceded for shots on target) — they milked the most possible points from their output.

Sa may continue to be one of the league’s best keepers, but he was probably a little too good, and if Wolves can’t figure out how to generate more in attack, next season may be a long one. — Connelly

Biggest candidate for progression

3. Aston Villa. Two reasons to believe Villa might do quite a bit better than this year’s 14th-place finish next season: close games and money. They were somehow even worse than Palace in the former, averaging 0.75 points in 24 matches decided by 0-1 goals, winning just four and losing 14. Even Norwich City averaged 1.0 points in such matches. They averaged the sixth-most points in games decided by more than one goal, which suggests their upside was pretty high.

The money they spent also suggested that. According to the crowd-sourced figures at Transfermarkt, their average player value was seventh-best in the league and the most of any club outside of England‘s Big 6. Spending doesn’t directly result in success … but there’s an excellent correlation. After massive turnover last season, Villa could benefit from a bit more continuity this coming season, not to mention the permanent addition of Philippe Coutinho and of Marseille‘s Boubacar Kamara.

2. Harry Kane. It was like De Bruyne stole some of Kane’s goals when the Kane-to-City move didn’t work out. The 28-year-old English captain has, for his career, produced goals at a rate 19% higher than his xG figures. Over his previous five seasons in the Premier League, that figure had grown to +31%. But in 2021-22, he managed just 17 goals from 19.8 xG (minus-14%): not horrible by any means, but his first negative performance in that category since he was first breaking into the Premier League in 2013-14.

A good percentage of that underachievement happened early in the season — he had just one league goal midway through December — and he converted right at his xG figures from there. If he resumes his current conversion rates, a Spurs front line of Kane-Son-Kulusevski could be otherworldly. (It was already pretty damn good.)

1. Crystal Palace. Last season, Brighton dreadfully underachieved from an advanced stats perspective. The Seagulls finished 16th in the league despite an xG differential that ranked fifth, and while there was reason to believe they were a below-average finishing team, there was more reason to believe progression was coming. Sure enough, they jumped to ninth with the seventh-best xGD this season.

Crystal Palace: this year’s Brighton. The Eagles had the sixth-best xGD but turned that into only a 12th-place finish thanks primarily to a dreadful record in close games. In 26 matches decided by 0-1 goals, they won just three and averaged 0.9 points per game, third-worst in the league. (Brighton averaged just 1.0 points per game in these matches last year, then averaged 1.4 in 2021-22.)

Losing Gallagher, at the very least, won’t help, but if Palace rebounds to merely average performance in close games, they could be due a top-10 finish or better. — Connelly

Best goalkeeper of the season

5. Martin Dubravka, Newcastle. There’s nothing special here — just a really solid campaign from the 33-year-old Slovenian. While their algorithms are different, both Stats Perform’s and StatsBomb’s models see Dubravka as one of the five most valuable shot-stoppers in the league this year. At the other end of the spectrum, the two models also agree on another thing: Illan Meslier of Leeds was the league’s worst shot-stopper, allowing at least eight more goals than the average keeper would when facing the same shots.

4. Robert Sanchez, Brighton. Consider him “Alisson Lite” — decent shot-stopper, great at 1-on-1s, aggressive off his line and comfortable with the ball at his feet. He also claimed 11.7% of the crosses he faced this season — the highest percentage in the Premier League. He’s got the profile that most big clubs look for nowadays, and at 23 years old, he should be playing for one of them at some point.

3. Nick Pope, Burnley. This man defies definition. Most keepers are either aggro-sweepers who are great with their feet and function as a 12th outfield player, like Ederson. Or they’re De Gea types, who stay on their line and make up for it by trying to save everything in sight. Pope, though, occupies his own world, as a fantastic shot-stopper and an aggressive sweeper who also wants nothing to do with the ball.

He saved more than four goals above average, per StatsBomb’s data, and he made 63 defensive actions outside his own box — joint-most with Alisson. At the same time, he “launched” (aka passed the ball longer than 40 yards) 73.4 percent of his passes — the highest mark in England. Will a Premier League club scoop up one of the league’s best shot-stoppers? Or will they be scared off by the unique role he was asked to play?

2. Jose Sa, Wolverhampton. See above. Wolves could’ve paid five times the fee to acquire Sa, and his performance this season still would’ve been worth it.

1. Alisson, Liverpool. While Sa had the best shot-stopping season, Alisson had the biggest overall impact. Liverpool’s entire approach — press high, push as many bodies into the attack as possible and leave your center-backs with an entire half of the field to cover — holds together because of Alisson. They give up nearly as many 1-on-1 chances as any team in the league because of the way they play, but they’re able to do it because they’ve got the best 1-on-1 keeper in the world.

Outside of the various strategic levers Alisson allows Liverpool to pull because of his 1-on-1 ability, he adds value in just about every other aspect a keeper is able to. These numbers from the analyst John Harrison aren’t up to date through the end of the year, but all of the same ideas remained true through the end of the season:

The one area where Alisson doesn’t stack up well to other keepers is saving penalties. Well, at least he didn’t — and then he saved Chelsea‘s last attempt in the FA Cup final. — O’Hanlon

Most important goals of the season

5. Steven Bergwijn, Tottenham, 3-2 against Leicester. Given that their win over Arsenal in the second North London derby was a complete blowout, none of those goals really stand out on their own. Instead, the biggest goal in the top-four race came in mid-January and was scored by a player who would only start one other game for the rest of the season.

In fact, it was Bergwijn’s second goal after the 95th minute, which combined to take Tottenham from 2-1 losers to 3-2 winners. The second goal, per Twenty First Group, increased Tottenham’s Champions League odds by about 10% and that, to me, captures the beauty of the 2021-22 Premier League season better than anything else.

Sunday was utter madness because the races at every level of the table were so close, for so long. But for that same reason, we can look back on anything and find legitimate meaning behind it. Liverpool finished one point back of City; how many little, bizarre things could’ve shifted them a point higher or City a point lower? Arsenal were only two points back of Tottenham; Bergwijn’s two goals were quite literally the difference between fifth and fourth. The same goes for the relegation battle, where 18th was three points back of 17th and four back of 16th.

It might be recency bias, sure, but I think the 2021-22 Premier League campaign is the best one we’ve ever had. After 1 1/2 years without fans, we got a season where everything mattered.

4. Maxwel Cornet, Burnley, 3-2 against Everton. It’s easy to forget — and listen, I definitely did forget — but Burnley beat Everton on April 6 thanks to Cornet’s winner in the 85th minute. It sure seemed like Everton were doomed, and the goal increased Burnley’s survival odds by 18.3%, per Twenty First Group. However, the Clarets followed the successful six-pointer up with a 2-0 loss to Norwich, one of the worst teams in Premier League history. Everton, meanwhile, bounced back with a 1-0 against Manchester United, who are certainly a team in Premier League history.

Cornet’s goal was truly massive — and a week later, all of the gains had already been erased.

3. Luke Ayling, Leeds, 3-2 against Wolverhampton. Yes, Raphinha‘s penalty against Brentford and then Jack Harrison‘s stoppage-time winner were both huge, but ultimately, Burnley lost to Newcastle, which meant Jesse Marsch & Co. only needed a draw in the end. The bigger goal, perhaps, came against Wolves in early-March:

After going 2-0 down in the first half, Leeds first went a man up after Raul Jimenez was sent off. Then they scored three times in the second half, capped by Ayling’s 91st-minute winner, to grab an incredibly unlikely three points. Per Twenty First Group, Ayling’s goal increased Leeds’s probability of survival by 21.4%.

2. Richarlison, Everton, 1-0 against Chelsea. Analysis from Mark Carey of The Athletic last month found that among Premier League players with at least 30 goals since 2016, Richarlison has scored the biggest share of “game-state changing” goals. As of late April, 82% of the Brazilian’s goals had changed the game from a draw to a win or a loss to a draw. That was before he scored the winner at Stamford Bridge on May 1, perhaps the biggest goal of his career.

According to Twenty First Group, if you remove the final day, that goal had the biggest impact on any of the major races: title, top-four or relegation. Since it was an away match to one of the best teams in the world, scoring an unlikely away win increased Everton’s odds of staying up by a Gundogan-esque 29%.

1. Ilkay Gundogan, Manchester City, 3-2 against Aston Villa. You could make an argument that Ilkay Gundogan is the most valuable player in the Premier League. I wouldn’t, and you probably shouldn’t, but you could. While they were 2-0 down on Sunday, City had just a 15% chance of winning the game on Sunday, per FiveThirtyEight’s SPI. If we assume that Liverpool were going to eventually win their match, then City’s win-probability for that game doubles as their title probability.

Gundogan’s first goal bumped their likelihood of winning to 27%. Rodri’s equalizer took it to 50%, and then Gundogan’s winner launched it up to 97%.

So, on Sunday, Gundogan’s goals increased City’s title probability by a combined 39%. Such is the nature of a league with no playoffs — and the nature of this specific season and this specific Sunday — that Gundogan’s actions on Sunday affected the championship picture more than his or any other player’s actions over the course of the rest of the season, combined. — O’Hanlon

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