Phil Foden, Erik ten Hag and the winners and losers of the 2023-24 Premier League season

People are perfectly entitled to question the legitimacy of Manchester City's success, given the club has been accused of 115 breaches of the Premier League's financial regulations between 2009 and 2018. But Guardiola's greatness is beyond dispute. The Catalan was always going to feel right at home at a club essentially constructed in Barcelona's image, particularly given money has never been an object for City's Abu Dhabi backers.

But six titles in seven years - which includes a historic run of four in a row - is an undeniably impressive achievement, even just purely from the perspective of keeping players motivated and energised.

City were by no means at their brilliant best this season but still managed to finish first. Consequently, Guardiola's genius, insatiable thirst for success and constant pursuit of perfection have never felt more integral to City's success.

Erik ten Hag really doesn't help himself at times. The Dutchman deserves some sympathy for the injury crisis that hindered his attempts to build on an impressive debut season at Old Trafford - but there's just no excuse for Manchester United finishing eighth in the table, and with a negative goal difference.

So, when Ten Hag claims that his team is "one of the most dynamic and entertaining" in the league, or that they're "in a better position" than this time last year, he just sounds delusional and desperate.

It's been claimed that he may get to keep his job by default, with reports suggesting that Sir Rim Ratcliffe & Co. are unimpressed with the selection of possible replacements - but if United don't beat City in the FA Cup final, it becomes impossible to justify keeping Ten Hag at the helm after the club's worst-ever Premier League season. After all, teams with fewer resources and injury issues of their own finished far higher up the standings.

There was a significant sense of inevitability about Phil Foden opening the scoring in Manchester City's title-clinching victory over West Ham. The return of Kevin De Bruyne from injury obviously played a key role in the champions' latest title triumph, while Rodri has once again been the personification of sustained excellence in the middle of the park, but Foden has emerged as a true leader at the Etihad over the past nine months.

He had, of course, been involved in five previous Premier League wins, but with 19 goals and eight assists, he'd never been quite so important to the City cause. Put quite simply: Foden was the best player on the best team in the league.

All three newly-promoted teams were relegated. That may have only happened once before, but it's clear that the gap between the Premier League and the Championship is bigger than ever.

Sheffield United were embarrassingly out of their depth, picking up just 16 points while conceding a record-breaking 104 goals - and Burnley, despite their admirable attempt to play good football, didn't fare much better. Even Luton, who drew plenty of plaudits for their performances, didn't really come close to avoiding relegation - even with Nottingham Forest suffering a points deduction.

Could all three come straight back up? Potentially. Premier League participation - even if just for a season - combined with parachute payments have a distortive effect on the competitiveness of the Championship, with the three teams that dropped down last year all finishing in this season's top four. Leicester are going back up as champions, while Leeds and Southampton will meet in Sunday's play-off final.

There is a very real risk, then, of seeing the same teams yo-yoing between the top two tiers of English football, too good for the Championship but nowhere near good enough for the Premier League.

Leon Bailey admitted last week that Unai Emery is the reason why he's still at Aston Villa. "At one point, I was not happy at all and I wanted to leave, but when Unai came in everything changed," the attacker explained. "He has given everything I need and he is the best manager I have worked with.

"I respect him so much that if I don’t start a game, it doesn’t matter. He is very important for us. What he has created has been truly remarkable."

He's not wrong. Emery has completely transformed Villa, who were only outside the relegation zone on goal difference when he succeeded the clueless Steven Gerrard at the helm in October 2022. Now, they're looking forward to a first appearance in the European Cup since they were defending champions all the way back in 1982 - and he’s done that without spending crazy money, while also playing excellent football.

Emery's far too nice to say it, but his historic achievement at Villa Park has silenced the critics that dismissed him as an overrated coach with a poor grasp of English after his previous struggles at Arsenal. He's easily been the manager of the 2023-24 season.

It was all going so well. Tottenham were top after 10 rounds of the 2023-24 campaign, and while the fans probably knew that their undefeated start was unsustainable, they were just so happy to see their side playing such wonderful attacking football under new manager Ange Postecoglou after the miserable fare served up by two of his painfully pragmatic predecessors, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte.

However, after Tottenham's hopes of even finishing in the top four were extinguished by Manchester City on a very strange night in north London where some Spurs supporters seemed happy to see their team lose, given it effectively meant denying Arsenal the title, a visibly disillusioned Postecoglou told reporters: "The foundations are really fragile. The last 48 hours have shown me that. It's inside the club, outside the club. Outside, inside, everywhere. It's been an interesting exercise."

The lament may have been delivered in the Australian's endearingly affable style, but the message was worryingly similar to previous rants made by Mourinho and Conte. If all sorts of different coaches are coming to the same conclusion about the origins of 'Spursiness', maybe the manager isn't the problem at Tottenham; maybe everyone else working at - and connected to - the club needs to take a long, hard look at themselves.

Todd Boehly is absolutely fooling nobody when he says that "the investments made at Chelsea have held their value". Nearly every single player acquired over the past two years at a collective cost of more than £1 billion ($1.2bn) is now worth less than they were when they signed.

But not Cole Palmer. His value hasn't merely held either; it's arguably trebled. The forward, who arrived from Manchester City last summer for a bargain £40 million ($50m), was arguably the signing of the Premier League season - and unquestionably represents the best bit of business done by Boehly & Co.

Palmer carried the Chelsea attack for the majority of a fantastic first year at Stamford Bridge that yielded an incredible 25 goals in all competitions and is the main reason why Mauricio Pochettino's underperforming team managed to make it into Europe.

At just 22 years of age, Palmer offers the club's frustrated fans hope for the future.

Marcus Rashford couldn't have been a better place last summer. He had just signed a lucrative, long-term contract extension after the most prolific season of his career to date (30 goals in 56 games in all competitions) and said, "I couldn't be more excited for the future under this manager."

Since then, though, his relationship with Ten Hag has come under severe scrutiny, with the Dutchman having to discipline the forward on more than one occasion. Worse still, Rashford's form has fallen off a cliff, with the England international in danger of missing out on selection for Euro 2024 after scoring just seven times in the Premier League all season along.

Rashford rightly gets enraged by some of the abuse he receives from so-called supporters and online trolls, but the criticism of his form, work-rate and conduct has been wholly justified. There is now a very real chance of a disillusioned Rashford leaving the club he dreamt about representing from the age of seven - because it might actually be best for everyone concerned. You just would not have even considered saying that a year ago.

The timing of Jurgen Klopp's announcement that he would be stepping down as Liverpool boss has been questioned by some. Others believe he didn't win as much as he should have during his nine years on Merseyside.

But what Klopp achieved at Anfield was truly incredible. As well as winning nearly every major trophy at club level, including a first Premier League title for three decades, the ridiculously charismatic Germany also formed an unbreakable bond with Liverpool and its people.

Klopp has his critics - and that's understandable. Referees certainly won't be sad to see him leave, but even TNT Sports would accept that it's not just Liverpool that is losing a legend; English football is too. After all, there was a reason why they kept televising so many Reds matches! Klopp was always box-office gold and, at the end of the day, a thoroughly decent human being.

He fully deserved to go out on his own terms and in front of a packed house at an adoring Anfield. There had been a fear that his departure might feel like an anti-climax, after the collapse of Liverpool's title bid, but those final few minutes against Wolves were absolutely magical. Just like the great Bill Shankly, Klopp really did make the people happy - and that's worth more than any trophy.

Just like a lot of football fans, Wolves have had enough of VAR. They want it scrapped and have called for a vote on the matter at the Premier League's AGM in Harrogate on June 6. "The Premier League’s match-attending supporters are becoming increasingly disengaged due to the negative impact of VAR on our match experience, which is also leading to apathy and hostility in the stands and on social media, negative and damaging rhetoric from pundits, players and managers and a destructive erosion of trust in football’s authorities and officials," Wolves chairman Jeff Shi wrote in The Telegraph.

It's difficult to disagree. The Premier League says that correct calls have increased by 14 percent thanks to VAR, up from 82% to 96%, but the decision-making process is still confusing, inconsistent and takes far too long. Indeed, the most frustrating part of the whole thing is VAR's refusal to intervene in some instances - but not in other similar situations. The risk of human error hasn't been eradicated either, as underlined by the farcical circumstances surrounding Luis Diaz's infamous disallowed goal in Liverpool's loss at Tottenham.

Wolves have little chance of succeeding in their bid to get rid of VAR. Too much time and money has been invested in the technology, while they'd need 13 other clubs to back them in next month's vote - and that looks highly unlikely right now. However, they might well succeed in forcing a serious change in how VAR is employed, which would be something. Semi-automated offside calls are already on the way; other updates and upgrades now appear as inevitable as they are essential.

Do England have their deficiencies? Absolutely, Gareth Southgate is short on quality in a few areas, mainly at the back. But he will arrive in Germany for this summer's Euros with a squad full of world-class players in tremendous form.

Indeed, this season's Premier League couldn't have gone much better for the Three Lions boss, who is now spoiled for choice in attack, with five Englishman featuring in the top 10 of the goal-scorers' charts: Palmer, Foden, Dominic Solanke, Ollie Watkins and Jarrod Bowen.

In midfield, meanwhile, Declan Rice also took his game to a whole other level during his first year at Arsenal and, even more importantly, Kobbie Mainoo emerged as a potential superstar during a difficult season for Manchester United.

When one considers that Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane also had incredible campaigns abroad, Southgate could hardly be better placed to finally end England's 58-year wait for a major international trophy.

This has been a disastrous season for the Premier League brand, on and off the field. Two teams, Nottingham Forest and Everton, were docked points for breaking Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), while a third, Manchester City, stand accused of breaching 115 financial regulations.

In that context, the Premier League really could have done without Guardiola's side winning a fourth consecutive title because English football fans are talking more about the charges than a historic triumph. What's more, City's domination (six championships in seven seasons) seriously undermines the claim that the Premier League is the best in the world.

Indeed, the argument can be easily made that when it comes to England's top flight, there's City and then everyone else, particularly as not one of its representatives reached the final of a major European competition this season. Despite their huge economic advantages over nearly all of their continental rivals, no Premier League team even made it past the last eight of either the Champions League or the Europa League.

When one considers that the Premier League is currently locked in a financial dispute with the Football League over funding while also trying desperately to convince the United Kingdom government that it doesn't need the independent financial regulator that is on the way, it's easy to understand why many football fans are now wondering if the real 'Farmer's League' is in England.