3 things we learned: United embarrassed to hand City the title

Manchester City clinched the Premier League title this weekend following Manchester United’s loss to West Brom. Here’s what we learned.

United’s embarrassing act hands the title to City

United followed up their impressive away win at leaders and crosstown rivals Manchester City with a home loss to last-place West Brom. The result itself was embarrassing enough, but United also missed out on a chance to prove they’re on the right path, that there’s a vision in place being executed in order to build up to a title challenge next season.

Jose Mourinho’s act is, once again, growing tired. As it stands, United are showing last week’s result was more a fluke than the result of a special team being put in place, and they’re still incapable of dominating or even creating significant chances against teams who set up to defend and destroy.

All of United goals against City were the result of defensive lapses. Against teams whose main attributes are discipline and effort, United have struggled, getting eliminated from the Champions League by the less glamorous Sevilla and losing at home to one of the worst Premier League teams in recent history.

Result aside, the bigger concern for the United fans should be the lack of incisiveness in midfield, with both Nemanja Matic and Paul Pogba lumbering around and the potential of Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford wasted away on the bench.

Liverpool peaking at the right time

Liverpool have done enough to consider the current campaign a success, regardless of what happens next. The manner in which they’re playing exudes the confidence typical of teams that implemented a successful system built for the long-term.

After making it through to the Champions League semifinals by disposing of Manchester City, Liverpool continued their dominant run with a 3-0 win over Bournemouth on Saturday in what could have easily been a flat performance given the Reds have little, if anything, to play for on the domestic front.

The temptation to go through the motions against a lesser opponent was thwarted. We’ve come to expect outstanding efforts from the front three and this game was no exception, as Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamad Salah all scored, but perhaps more impressive was yet another clean sheet from the Reds — their ninth in the last 14 games.

This was a convincing win against an opponent fighting for Premier League survival, the mark of a team that’s playing their sharpest and highest quality soccer at the right time. If only they could have avoided gifting so many points to these sorts of opponents earlier on in the season.

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Southampton, Swansea or Crystal Palace? Only thing left to learn

The last significant question this Premier League season is who will be joining West Brom (and probably Stoke) on the way to the Championship?

Southampton gave away a precious three points after taking a 2-0 lead against Chelsea at home on Saturday. With five games left to play, the Saints are now five points back of 17th-place Swansea and six back of 16th-place Crystal Palace, who have played a game more.

Swansea appear to have the more difficult schedule remaining, with games against Chelsea and Manchester City. However, it will be the meeting between Southampton and Swansea at the Liberty on May 8 that could determine who goes down.

Stoke, who play Crystal Palace and Swansea in their last two games of the season, also have an outside chance, but they’ll likely need to pick up points against Burnley and Liverpool in their next two matches to go into those with something left to play for.