2018/19 Premier League season review

Manchester City won the 2018/19 Premier League with 98 points, one ahead of Liverpool, who lost only one league game all season. City won their last 14 league matches to retain the title on the final day, then added the FA Cup to complete the first domestic treble by an English men's team. Liverpool's 97 points were the highest total ever for a runner-up in the English top flight.

In Fantasy Premier League, Mohamed Salah was the top scorer with 259 points, and Adam Levy from New Zealand won the game with 2,659 points from more than 6 million managers.

You can replay the season here with a £100m squad picked from 357 players across all 20 clubs, or read on for how it unfolded.

New managers and an early deadline

The season ran from 10 August 2018 to 12 May 2019, and it began with a run of new managers at big clubs. Arsène Wenger had stepped down at Arsenal and was replaced by Unai Emery. Chelsea sacked Antonio Conte in July and appointed Maurizio Sarri the next day. Marco Silva took over at Everton and Manuel Pellegrini at West Ham.

Wolverhampton Wanderers, Cardiff City and Fulham came up from the Championship.

The transfer window closed early, on 9 August, the day before the season started. Premier League clubs still spent more than £1bn:

• Liverpool signed Alisson from Roma, briefly making him the most expensive goalkeeper in history, and Fabinho from Monaco.
• Chelsea broke that goalkeeper record a few weeks later, paying Athletic Bilbao £71.6m for Kepa Arrizabalaga.
• Manchester City paid Leicester a club-record £60m for Riyad Mahrez.
• Everton signed Richarlison, and West Ham broke their club record for Felipe Anderson.
• Tottenham made no first-team signings at all, the only Premier League club not to.

City and Liverpool, one point apart

The two clubs met at Anfield in October and drew 0-0, and for the rest of the autumn neither would lose. Then City's December went wrong. They lost at Chelsea on 8 December, at home to Crystal Palace on 22 December and at Leicester on Boxing Day, and by the turn of the year Liverpool were seven points clear.

The return match at the Etihad on 3 January changed the race. City won 2-1, and it turned out to be Liverpool's only league defeat of the season.

City lost once more, 2-1 at Newcastle on 29 January, and then won every remaining league game. Liverpool drew four times between the end of January and early March: at home to Leicester, and away at West Ham, Manchester United and Everton. That was enough to let City back in.

From March the lead changed hands almost every week as the two sides played on different days. The decisive moment came on 6 May. City were struggling to break down Leicester at the Etihad when their captain, Vincent Kompany, hit a shot from about 30 yards into the top corner in the 70th minute. It was his first goal from outside the box for the club, and the 1-0 win put City a point clear with one game left.

On the final day, 12 May, City won 4-1 at Brighton. That was their 14th league win in a row, and they did not draw any of their last 30 matches. Liverpool beat Wolves but finished a point short, on 97, with 30 wins and a single defeat.

Virgil van Dijk was named PFA Players' Player of the Year and the Premier League's Player of the Season. Raheem Sterling won the PFA Young Player award and the Football Writers' award, and Pep Guardiola was Manager of the Season.

Two all-English European finals and the race for the top four

The rest of the top six finished a long way behind the leaders, but four English clubs reached the two European finals:

• Chelsea finished third on 72 points in Sarri's first season, and beat Arsenal 4-1 in the Europa League final.
• Tottenham were fourth on 71, despite signing no one all summer. They played their home games at Wembley until 3 April, when they finally moved into their new stadium after 689 days away from White Hart Lane, and beat Crystal Palace 2-0. On 1 June they lost the Champions League final 2-0 to Liverpool in Madrid, with Salah scoring an early penalty and Divock Origi adding a second late on. Spurs also went their first 28 league games without a draw, a record.
• Arsenal were fifth on 70 points in Emery's first season.
• Manchester United sacked José Mourinho on 18 December and put Ole Gunnar Solskjær in charge the next day, initially as caretaker. He was given the job permanently on 28 March, and United finished sixth.
• Wolves finished seventh on 57 points in their first season back, and took a Europa League place because City had also won both domestic cups.

Leicester's season was overshadowed by tragedy. On 27 October, after a 1-1 draw with West Ham, the helicopter carrying the club's owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, crashed in the car park outside the King Power Stadium, killing him and four others. Claude Puel was sacked in February and replaced by Brendan Rodgers, and Leicester finished ninth.

Three clubs down early

The relegation places were settled long before the final day:

• Huddersfield Town finished bottom with 16 points and three wins. They were relegated on 30 March after a 2-0 defeat at Crystal Palace, with six games still to play. David Wagner left in January.
• Fulham went through three managers in one season. Slaviša Jokanović was replaced by Claudio Ranieri in November, and Ranieri by Scott Parker at the end of February. They went down on 2 April after losing 4-1 at Watford.
• Cardiff City held on longest. Their season was marked by the death of Emiliano Sala, their club-record signing from Nantes, whose plane disappeared over the English Channel on 21 January on its way to Cardiff. They were relegated on 4 May after a 3-2 home defeat by Crystal Palace.

Southampton replaced Mark Hughes with Ralph Hasenhüttl in December and finished 16th, with Brighton a place below them.

Surprises and disappointments

A few moments from 2018/19 have stayed in the record books:

• The Golden Boot was shared three ways. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah all finished on 22 league goals, with Sergio Agüero one behind on 21.
• Shane Long scored the fastest goal in Premier League history, after 7.69 seconds of Southampton's 1-1 draw with Watford on 23 April.
• Harvey Elliott became the youngest player to appear in the Premier League when he came on for Fulham on 4 May, aged 16 years and 30 days.
• Wolves were the best of the promoted clubs by a distance. Raúl Jiménez scored 13 league goals, and they finished seventh.
• Liverpool's defence was the meanest in the league, conceding 22 goals. Alisson kept 21 clean sheets in his first season, one more than Ederson.

The biggest scorelines were City's 6-0 win over Chelsea, and two eight-goal games: Everton 2-6 Tottenham two days before Christmas, and Crystal Palace 5-3 Bournemouth on the final day.

Others had seasons to forget:

• Huddersfield won three league games all season and went 14 matches without a win at one stage.
• Fulham lost nine league games in a row on their way to relegation.
• Manchester United finished 32 points behind City in a season that cost Mourinho his job.
• Arsenal finished outside the Champions League places for a third season running, a point behind Tottenham.

2018/19 in Fantasy Premier League

About 6.3 million managers played Fantasy Premier League in 2018/19. Adam Levy, from New Zealand, won with his team #TheyAreUs and 2,659 points. He went into the final gameweek 60 points clear, one of the biggest leading margins at that stage in the game's history.

Mohamed Salah was the top scorer with 259 points, ahead of Eden Hazard (238), Raheem Sterling (234) and Sadio Mané (231). Liverpool's defence showed up in the game too: Andrew Robertson (213) and Virgil van Dijk (208) were the two highest-scoring defenders, and Alisson was the top goalkeeper with 176. By the end of the season, Agüero was the most owned player, in 42.7% of teams.

A few other numbers from the season:

• The biggest single-gameweek score was 23 points, for Gerard Deulofeu's hat-trick and assist in Watford's 5-1 win at Cardiff in February.
• The fixture list was uneven in the spring. Gameweek 31 had only five matches, and Gameweek 32 had fifteen.
• Ryan Fraser of Bournemouth was listed as a midfielder and finished with 14 FPL assists, the third-highest total in the game behind Hazard and Sterling.

The PFA Team of the Year

The top two supplied ten of the XI: six from Manchester City and four from Liverpool, with Paul Pogba the only other player picked.

Mohamed Salah, the joint top scorer, was left out, and Alisson lost the goalkeeper's place to Ederson.

The season's other awards:

2018/19 quick answers

Who won the Premier League in 2018/19? Manchester City, with 98 points, one ahead of Liverpool.

How many games did Liverpool lose in 2018/19? One, 2-1 at Manchester City on 3 January.

Who was relegated in 2018/19? Cardiff City, Fulham and Huddersfield Town.

Who was the Premier League top scorer in 2018/19? Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah shared the Golden Boot with 22 goals each.

Who was PFA Player of the Year in 2018/19? Virgil van Dijk. Raheem Sterling was Young Player of the Year.

Who scored the most FPL points in 2018/19? Mohamed Salah, with 259.

Who won Fantasy Premier League in 2018/19? Adam Levy, with 2,659 points.