The Sliding Doors moment that changed each Premier League club’s season

Every club has had one — that moment in the season when you look back and think, “What if?”

What if William Saliba had stayed fit? What if Chelsea had stuck with Thomas Tuchel? What if things had gone as planned and struggling Wolves had appointed Michael Beale, rather than the much more experienced Julen Lopetegui?

We asked each of our Premier League reporters to reflect on their club's season and pick out one Sliding Doors moment.

Arsenal

Everything was going swimmingly until that night against Sporting. Mikel Arteta rested Ben White, Thomas Partey, Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka for the second leg in mid-March but, had he also given William Saliba the night off, would Arsenal be Premier League champions?

We'll never know but that was the selection dilemma: how far do you go to prioritise the Premier League without interrupting the groove the team were in or sending the wrong psychological message?

(Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

It turned out to be a costly night as they lost both Takehiro Tomiyasu and Saliba to injury, with the latter's absence proving to be a huge miss in April as Arsenal dropped nine points in four games to hand Manchester City the initiative in the title race.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If it hadn't happened that night, it might have happened in the following game, or to someone else. But to lose on penalties and for Saliba's injury to end up a lengthy one, it was the worst of both worlds and unsettled the defence in the run-in.

Jordan Campbell

Aston Villa

This is easy. Villa were circling the drain under Steven Gerrard after a miserable 3-0 defeat at Fulham in October. Replacing him with Unai Emery changed everything. The Spaniard has secured a remarkable 42 points from 21 league games so far — two out of every possible three — the best record of any Villa manager in history. Emery's Villa are now in a European chase that nobody saw coming. Club owners get rightly criticised for bad decisions. Villa's deserve credit for one that has gone astonishingly well.

Joey D'Urso

Bournemouth

It has to be Bill Foley's Bournemouth takeover. It kickstarted a turbulent chain of events, but the club now seem to have found their feet. The process is understood to have begun in the summer and was formally completed in December — a crucial stretch of the Premier League calendar. Outgoing owner Maxim Demin was always unlikely to strengthen an asset he was looking to sell, so Bournemouth's summer transfer outlay was minimal.

This frustrated head coach at the time Scott Parker, who said the squad were “under-equipped” for the Premier League just four games into the campaign, comments which led to his sacking. Parker's assistant Gary O'Neil stepped up, and with new owner Foley investing around £50million ($62.8m) in the January window, he was able to steer Bournemouth clear of a relegation many had forecasted.

Ahmed Shooble

Brentford

It has to be Brentford's incredible 2-1 victory over Manchester City just before the World Cup break. Things were looking ominous for Thomas Frank's side before the trip to the Etihad. They had not won in the league for four matches and got knocked out of the Carabao Cup by fourth-tier side Gillingham a few days earlier.

However, Ivan Toney responded to being left out of England's World Cup squad with a superb performance. The striker was a constant menace and Brentford shocked the champions with a 98th-minute winner. That result was the catalyst for a 12-match unbeaten run which propelled Brentford up the table and extinguished any fears they would suffer from second-season syndrome.

Brighton & Hove Albion

It has to be outplaying Chelsea, thumping them 4-1 on Graham Potter's return to the Amex at the end of October.

It was the first meaningful evidence of the juicy promise ahead under Roberto De Zerbi. That was more important than putting one over Potter and the backroom staff he took with him to Stamford Bridge.

It's easily forgotten now that De Zerbi's reign began with two points from five games, failing to score in three of those. The performance and the result against Chelsea was the catalyst for what Brighton have become under the passionate Italian perfectionist.

Andy Naylor

Chelsea

So many to choose from during this disastrous season, but I think you can go back to where it all started to go wrong and that was before a ball was kicked in the summer. Many Chelsea fans will say sacking Thomas Tuchel in September was a mistake and that is understandable given he led the club to the Champions League trophy in 2021. But that was not the biggest error about the decision, it was the timing.

Thomas Tuchel's Chelsea sacking - told from both sides

The issues between the owners and Tuchel, which caused him to be sacked in the first place, developed before the campaign got under way. It was evident the relationship was not going to work, yet they parted ways a month into the season and after the transfer window was shut. That was always going to make it a lot harder for the new man — whether you agreed with the choice of Graham Potter or not — to get off to a good start. Had Potter been given a full pre-season to work with the players and benefitted from the time to implement his ideas, rather than having to figure things out during the full scrutiny and pressure of a busy fixture list, he may have had more of an opportunity to make his mark at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea's season never really got going but they did not give themselves much of a chance by making such a big call to change coaches when they did. It felt like they were on the back foot from that point onward and never recovered.

Simon Johnson

Crystal Palace

Not conceding a last-minute equaliser may well have changed the course of the season, and could have saved Patrick Vieira his job as manager.

After seven games without a win since New Year's Eve against Bournemouth, Palace were devoid of confidence, struggling to score and playing within themselves. But at Brentford they improved, with Eberechi Eze scoring after 69 minutes.

The crucial moment, though, came when they switched off late in the game. Jordan Ayew conceded possession cheaply in the closing moments when he would usually have held onto the ball and drawn a foul. Then several of his team-mates made errors in allowing a Brentford cross, which Vitaly Janelt headed home with the final touch of the game.

(Photo: John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)

A win for Palace might have arrested the slide and saved Vieira's job. But how much things would have improved is uncertain. As it is, Roy Hodgson has transformed the mood and dramatically changed their fortunes since his return.

Matt Woosnam

Everton

Two trips to the south coast, four days apart, two embarrassments, one brewing crisis.

Everton's twin defeats at the Vitality Stadium, first a 4-1 loss in the Carabao Cup on November 8, then 3-0 in the league on November 12, signalled a new low point under Frank Lampard.

His side had won just one of their previous six games, with four defeats and a draw, but the capitulations to Gary O'Neil's side left many supporters wondering if the man who had saved them the previous season remained the right person for the job.

It did not, however, prompt Everton's board to take action at that stage.

Instead, Everton went into the World Cup break still hoping Lampard could turn things around, and it would need another six winless games for them to realise he could not.

Sean Dyche came in with a significantly reduced window in which to address a gathering negative momentum and it is proving difficult for him to make an impact as Everton continue to fight for survival.

Should Lampard have gone sooner in order to prevent such a nerve-wracking finale? Many Everton fans think so. Only time will tell if his successor can stage a belated great escape.

Greg O'Keeffe

It feels overly simplistic to say it but Fulham's season changed in the space of a matter of seconds — specifically, the 72nd minute of their FA Cup quarter-final at Old Trafford on March 19.

Playing well and 1-0 up, Fulham were looking at a first FA Cup semi-final appearance since 2002. Brighton, a team they had already beaten twice in the league, awaited the winners in the last four. The possibility of reaching the final for the first time since 1975 appeared a realistic one.

That would have been a fitting way to end what has been a season of overachievement for Marco Silva's side, and at that point qualifying for Europe through their league position also seemed possible.

But when Willian was dismissed for a goal-line handball, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Silva lost their cool completely. Fulham were down to nine men and United scored three quick goals to progress.

(Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

The consequences are still being felt now at Craven Cottage. Mitrovic has one match of his eight-game ban left to serve and, in that period, Fulham have lost five times and their European hopes have faded.

John Stanton

Leeds United

Bear with me here because, quite honestly, where to start? It could be the fightback against Bournemouth in November which saved Jesse Marsch from the sack and stopped change in the dugout happening then — although, given the way Leeds have handled things since actually removing Marsch from the head coach's job, perhaps that is clutching at straws. It could be the concession of the free kick before half-time against Crystal Palace, leading to one goal which led to another four, which led to a total and seemingly irreversible collapse.

It could be Patrick Bamford against Leicester City, missing the equivalent of that black-ball shot which Tommy lines up for Begbie in The Volley.

It could be putting all the eggs in Cody Gakpo's basket and not getting him. Suffice to say, the mess Leeds are in speaks for itself.

Leicester City

There have been so many 'what if?' moments in Leicester's troubled season.

What if the World Cup hadn't stopped their momentum in November, or if Brendan Rodgers had swapped goalkeeper Daniel Iversen for Danny Ward earlier, or even if the club had swapped Rodgers sooner?

But the die seemed to be cast in the summer and the club's inactivity in the transfer market, which fuelled Rodgers' negative tone from the outset, subsequently infected the entire club.

Had Leicester been in a position to strengthen when the need for the squad to be refreshed was becoming increasingly obvious, they might not be in the predicament they find themselves in now.

Liverpool

Did the doors even open? Looking back on a bumpy ride of a season, the wheels on Liverpool's sliding doors came veering off the track, went back on and needed your dad's WD-40 fetching out of the shed at various points.

I could say not signing a midfielder last summer — we could call it a day on that. But one moment which sticks out as the definition of a Sliding Doors moment for me is Luis Diaz's re-injury in Dubai in December.

Had he been back available sooner, he would have dragged Liverpool to more wins and fewer defeats. He's that guy. While that was clearly a negative, one upside was that, had he not injured his knee again, Liverpool might not have pursued Cody Gakpo with such gusto in January. The Dutchman then acted as an option on the left, with Diogo Jota also out of action.

Now Gakpo has made his way centrally and looks like one Liverpool made earlier and the perfectly-crafted replacement for Roberto Firmino. So while Diaz's dribbling was sorely missed, Gakpo has been one big gain.

Caoimhe O'Neill

Manchester City

City had just lost 1-0 to Tottenham and things were not looking especially bright. Pep Guardiola had used a stunning comeback victory against the same opponents barely two weeks earlier to call out and try to eradicate what he felt was a small but significant dropping of levels within his squad, but the defeat in north London suggested City would go on dropping points throughout the season.

The next morning, the Premier League charged the club with more than 100 alleged breaches of its financial regulations. Initially, it felt as if the sky was falling in — maybe it will in future, maybe it won't — but it quickly became clear City would come out fighting. Guardiola gave another fiery press conference, this time going to war with everybody else rather than his own players, and the mood changed completely; suddenly everybody was on the same page.

Since then they have not looked back and although it probably has much more to do with the players recovering their best form and fitness after the World Cup, it is interesting to wonder what might have happened had those charges not been brought.

Manchester United

“Erik ten Hag? More like Erik ten games.”

Back-to-back defeats to Brighton and Brentford caused outsiders to make comparisons between United's new manager and Frank de Boer, his fellow Dutchman who endured a dismal stint in charge of Crystal Palace. The new United manager was misdiagnosed as a naive Guardiola disciple, too stubborn to understand that his winning approach at Ajax with a 5ft 9in centre-back could not work in the Premier League.

A 2-1 win over Liverpool at Old Trafford put a lot of fears to rest. David de Gea kicked long, rather than building out from the back. Lisandro Martinez was exceptional at centre-back (Harry Maguire was dropped to the bench). Casemiro was introduced to the home crowd and would go on to prove to be the defensive midfield signing United have craved for close to a decade.

(Photo: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)

Victories over Southampton, Leicester and Arsenal followed. After an early wobble, the Ten Hag era began properly with that win over Liverpool.

Newcastle United

But for a thigh injury picked up by Alexander Isak on international duty, which ruled the striker out for four months, Newcastle could be contending for the title…

But removing tongues firmly from cheeks, Fabio Carvalho's last-minute winner for Liverpool was the season's real Sliding Doors moment. At that point, Newcastle had won only one of their first five games, despite playing well.

Faced with the blow of a 2-1 defeat — and Isak's subsequent absence — previous Newcastle teams might have rolled over into mid-table obscurity, or worse. Instead, Eddie Howe's side did not lose again for 17 league games, catapulting themselves into the top four.

Newcastle had travelled to Anfield, gone toe-to-toe with one of the league's best sides, and undeservedly lost. They were determined to ensure that feeling would not happen again.

Jacob Whitehead

Nottingham Forest

It remains to be seen whether Nottingham Forest's season will end with Premier League survival or a relegation post-mortem, but a run of 11 games without a win had many believing Steve Cooper's side were already dead and buried.

The subsequent 3-1 victory over Brighton on April 26 did not scare off the circling vultures completely, but it did offer fresh, tantalising hope.

The deafening atmosphere at the City Ground was one that rumbled and roared into the very core of your being as the success-starved Forest faithful repeatedly urged their side on.

Morgan Gibbs-White's decisive penalty not only confirmed three precious points but also the thought that Forest should not be written off yet.

Paul Taylor

Southampton

There have been several flashpoints in Southampton's season and many that have led to the club staring toward the relegation abyss. The Sliding Doors moment came in the summer, when Southampton signed 10 players, with only two over the age of 25. Joe Aribo, who joined nine days before his 26th birthday, was the oldest recruit.

Selling senior figure and leader Oriol Romeu on deadline day was the clearest indication yet that Southampton's squad was far too imbalanced and weighted towards youth, which pre-empted the naivety that has been demonstrated throughout the season.

If you throw in removing Ralph Hasenhuttl too late, the circus of Nathan Jones and a lorry load of staff departures, what followed was a result of what happened at that point in the summer.

Jacob Tanswell

Tottenham Hotspur

Most of the options for Spurs centre on managerial sackings and appointments, and there are a number of points at which the club could potentially have salvaged their season by acting differently.

Perhaps the one that would have given them the most time to really alter the course of this pretty miserable campaign would have been parting company with Antonio Conte once it became clear towards the end of last year that he would not be signing a new contract.

Spurs were fourth when play stopped for the World Cup in November and just outside it at the end of 2022. There would have been plenty of time for a new head coach to rescue the season — a top-four place, the Champions League and FA Cup were all still in play — and with so much football left, they might have been able to find a viable target willing to take the job permanently.

And if not, Ryan Mason would have had a decent amount of time to make his mark (there's no Cristian Stellini interregnum in this counterfactual).

Instead, Tottenham staggered on with Conte, and you know the rest.

Charlie Eccleshare

West Ham United

Although West Ham United are four points clear of the relegation zone, they are yet to secure their Premier League status with four league games remaining. But one of the turning points in the season was the 5-1 home defeat by Newcastle United last month. There have been many lows this season and it could easily be considered the nadir of the campaign.

Immediately after the game, manager David Moyes told his players: “I hope you're all ready to play on Saturday (against Fulham). If I was you, I'd be wanting to go and play tomorrow.”

The team talk had the desired effect, with West Ham going on a five-game unbeaten run across all competitions — and advancing to the semi-finals of a European competition for the second successive season.

Roshane Thomas

Wolverhampton Wanderers

It was the very early hours of October 20 when Michael Beale sat down with the Queens Park Rangers hierarchy to discuss his impending departure for Wolves, who were preparing to receive him later that day for talks that they fully expected to end with him as their new head coach.

QPR persuaded Beale to stay, Wolves were left stunned and in something of a mess, but the snub ultimately paved the way for them to land Julen Lopetegui at the third attempt. The man they had coveted for more than six years has led them to the brink of Premier League safety.

Steve Madeley