The 10 wildest moments of the 2022/23 Premier League season - including Chelsea, Man Utd, and Liverpool

The craziest happenings from the 2022/23 Premier League campaign
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Football is a game of moments. Most of them are awfully, awfully dull, granted, but every now and again it produces something so wild, so utterly bonkers, that it lives with you for a long, long time.

The 2022/23 Premier League season has been quite the ride. From bottled title bids to final day relegation scraps, it was a rollercoaster campaign - but what about everything in between? We’ve taken a look at 10 of the most unbelievable things that happened over the course of past nine months, and wrangled them into one convenient package of madness below...

That Tuchel/Conte Handshake

There are handshakes that have reverberated around the world - Reagan and Gorbachev, Mandela and De Klerk, that thing Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff do in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air - but few have boasted the melodrama or toxic pageantry of this coming together at Stamford Bridge. It’s almost hard to believe that Tuchel and Conte’s exchange happened in this lifetime, let alone this season, but it most certainly did, and their aggy tussle - like something from a community centre tango class, in truth - caused quite the ruckus at the time. Who could have predicted at the time that neither man who see out the campaign at their respective clubs?

Conte’s Rant

Speaking of Conte, we may as well get this one out of the way early doors. After a string of underwhelming results, the fiery Italian press conference and laid waste to his employers and Tottenham’s general lack of winning mentality. Those who timidly pointed out that it was in fact his job to instil said mentality were hurriedly hushed for their own safety. In essence, this was Conte begging to be relieved of his duties, and very shortly afterwards he got his wish. Later in the season, Spurs’ utter collapse against Newcastle United at St. James’ Park (5-0 down inside 21 minutes, lest we forget) seemed to support their former manager’s claims, and as far as outburts go, this was perhaps only rivalled by Nathan Jones’ claim that he was among the best bosses in Europe. Sublime insanity all round.

The Cristiano Ronaldo Show

Nobody does drama like CR7. After falling out of favour with new manager Erik ten Hag, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner’s second stint at Old Trafford was only ever going to end one way. Cue touchline vanishing acts, plenty of thinly veiled press conference allusions, and a media circus that would have made P.T. Barnum blush. Eventually, Ronaldo sealed an exit to Saudi Arabia in January, and shockingly, United looked better for it.

United lose 7-0 to Liverpool

Or at least they did with some notable exceptions. In early March, the Red Devils travelled to Anfield and promptly capitulated. It was the kind of performance that leaves you scratching your head for months after the fact, and even now, looking back on it, it feels like a surreal fever dream of sorts. Braces for Cody Gakpo, Darwin (Darwin) Nunez, and Mohamed Salah buried the visitors, before Roberto Firmino sprinkled a dash of salt into the gaping, spurting claymore wound.

Erling Haaland

Just everything about him, really. Haaland’s reputation as a lethal goalscorer preceded him, but nobody - and least of all certain shock jock YouTube mouthpieces employed by Sky Sports - could have predicted quite the impact he would make on English football. Fifty-two goals in 51 games later, and the Norwegian has staked a legitimate claim for the greatest debut Premier League campaign of all-time. He is a wonderful, wonderful freak of nature. And he does a mean Yorkshire accent. Hang that in The Looooouvre.

Andy Robertson and the Assistant Referee

One last piece of Liverpool drama, this time from their 2-2 draw with Arsenal in April. At half-time in that match, Scottish full-back and professional worky ticket Andy Robertson got all up in the grill of assistant referee Constantine Hatzidakis, who subsequently appeared to catch the Anfield favourite with a flailing elbow as he attempted to swat him away. Robertson was, unsurprisingly, not too happy about the interaction, chaos ensued for a little bit, and in the aftermath Roy Keane delivered one of the funniest pieces of punditry when he labelled the defender a ‘big baby’.

Gary Lineker Leaves Match of the Day... Then Comes Back

One of the biggest controversies of the campaign came when veteran Match of the Day host Gary Lineker was temporarily removed from the show after he tweeted that some of the language used by the government in their immigration policy was comparable to thet employed in Germany in the 1930s. The subsequent storm lasted for days, and raised many furious questions over the nature of BBC impartiality guidelines. In the end, backed by a groundswell of public support, Lineker was reinstated into his role, and all you really need to know about this is that it was the biggest MotD scandal in a year during which those inappropriate noises were broadcast during Wolves and Liverpool’s FA Cup Third Round clash at Molineux.

Jason Tindall, Superstar

Newcastle United, against all expectations, qualified for the Champions League by finishing in the top four, and one man was at the centre of it all... quite literally. Arguably the best meme of the season, a Twitter account dedicated to assistant manager Jason Tindall’s natural love of the camera took social media by storm, and sparked a wave of hangers-on comparable to Will Still’s unbeaten record or the away end at Kenilworth Road. For his part, Tindall seemed to love it all. Because of course he did.

Leicester City’s Relegation

From Premier League champions to relegated in just seven years. The Foxes were abysmal this season, but anybody who claims that they saw this coming 12 months ago is a downright liar. The writing was on the wall from early in the campaign, but up to a point it was hard to believe that Leicester would actually go down. Go down they did, however, and now they must dust themselves down and aim for an instant return to the top flight next term.

Chelsea

Where do you begin? From sacking Thomas Tuchel to appointing and sacking Graham Potter in a matter of months to appointing Frank Lampard on an interim basis and sinking like a bag of cement in a well, the Blues have had a joke of a season. And not the especially funny kind either. Did we also mention that they’ve spent in excess of half a billion pounds since last May too? Because they have.

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