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Paolo Bandini, John Ashdown, Raphael Honigstein and Barry Glendenning look back at the good and bad, the highs and lows of this season’s Premier League

• Spurs captain to start new contract talks
• King’s current deal ends this summer

The Tottenham Hotspur captain, Ledley King, will have another operation on his troublesome knee this week and then start negotiations with the club over prolonging his 14-year spell at White Hart Lane.King’s chronic knee injury has restricted him to 23 starts this season.

Although that represents a significant improvement on the nine appearances he made last season, when he was also troubled by a groin injury, the Spurs club captain’s future is still shrouded in doubt.

The 31-year-old’s contract expires this summer and the defender himself admits he has no idea whether this season will have been his last at the club he joined in 1998. “Now the season is done I am sure there will be some talks,” King said. “To be honest, I am not entirely sure what’s going on [in terms of a contract offer], I have just wanted to concentrate on trying to play and get my knee right.”

King barely trains with his team-mates due to a problem which causes his knee to balloon every time he plays. The problem is so severe that King has to apply huge ice packs to the area after exercise and he cannot even have a kickabout with his children. After an encouraging start to the season, he ended up missing the club’s last four games after taking a knock to his knee in training but hopes to be back to his best after his operation.

“I will have a little clean out, maybe in the next couple of days,” King said. “It’s something I had earlier in the season. I missed the first few games when I had an operation and hopefully it’s not something serious. It is something I will have done and hopefully it won’t set me back too much. I hope I will be able to have a good season with the knee cleared out.”

Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp says he ‘couldn’t have asked for more’ after his team finished fourth in the Premier League

Today’s speculation knows no fear

With so much of this morning’s newspaper sports coverage given over to yesterday’s thoroughly unremarkable and in no way nerve-shredding conclusion to the title race, there isn’t much room left on the back pages for much in the way of transfer tittle-tattle. But even though his club’s participation in next year’s Champions League remains more up in the air than that blue moon Manchester City fans were singing about into the early hours, the Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy has hinted that there will not be an exodus of big name players from White Hart Lane this summer. Despite finishing fourth in the Premier League table, a position that would normally guarantee them a berth in the Champions League qualifying rounds, Uefa rules dictate that Tottenham will miss out on their tilt at making it to the group stages if Chelsea beat Bayern Munich in the European Cup final next Saturday night.

“Our squad has top players at all levels and we shall continue to seek stability and to retain key players this summer and beyond,” said Levy, prompting The Sun to interpret his comments as an “insistence” that “the club won’t be selling any of its stars this summer”, which will come as welcome news for Tottenham fans fretting that Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Rafael va der Vaart might be heading elsewhere. The Sun also reports that Spurs have “stepped up their bid” to bring the Marseille striker Loïc Rémy to north London, and have been so successful that the French international with 17 caps to his name is actually due in the locale on Wednesday for transfer talks.

Elsewhere in France, Lille’s right-back Mathieu Debuchy has been told he’ll be allowed to leave the Ligue 1 club during the summer and is unlikely to be short of suitors if speculation that Manchester United, Newcastle, Bayern Munich and Valencia are interested in securing his services. Despite starting his career as a holding midfielder, it is as a full-back that the £6.5m-rated Debuchy has made his name; and it is there where he was playing when Sir Alex Ferguson travelled to check out the cut of his jib when Lille took on Lyon in March.

The Manchester United manager was on the road again over the weekend just passed and was in the stands at the German cup final on Saturday night, to see Borussia Dortmund hammer Bayern Munich 5-2 to secure a league and Cup double. With Dortmund’s Japan international midfielder Shinji Kagawa, Poland striker Robert Lewandowski and German defender Mats Hummels all reported to be on Ferguson’s shopping list, Manchester United bean-counters would have to shell out somewhere in the region of £50m if they wanted to bring all three to Old Trafford.

The Italian newspaper Corriere Dello Sport reports that Manchester United striker Dimitar Berbatov could be on his way to Lazio and says that the Rome club’s chairman has already discussed personal terms with the Bulgarian, who has also been tenuously linked with a surprise move to Liverpool.

Having finished above Liverpool in the league table despite spending approximately £150m less than their neighbours in transfer fees, Everton will celebrate being top dogs on Merseyside by treating themselves to the rare luxury of buying a brand new player. Olympiacos’s Hungarian goalkeeper Balazs Megyeri is the man being linked with a move to Goodison Park, where supporters will be hoping their potential new recruit is and has a safer pair of hands than his compatriot Marton Fulop, who had the mother of all shockers between the sticks for West Bromwich Albion during their defeat at the hands of Arsenal on Sunday. In other goalkeeping news, the highly regarded out-of-contract Peterborough keeper Joe Lewis has held talks with representatives of both Cardiff City and Ipswich Town.

In a state of affairs that suggests somebody might have shown him the Premier League table, AZ Alkmaar’s Swedish midfielder Rasmus Elm has warned long-time suitors Liverpool that it is not a foregone conclusion that he will leave the Dutch club this summer. And fresh from his side’s win over Liverpool yesterday, the Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers has said he’ll discuss the future of his mega-successful loan-signings Steven Caulker and Gylfi Sigurdsson with their clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Hoffenheim respectively. “I will speak to Tottenham on Steven Caulker, he has been incredible for me this season at just 19 years of age,” said Rodgers. “With Gylfi, we will have talks with Hoffenheim over the course of the next week or so.”

And finally, Middlesbrough want to bring Portsmouth striker Luke Varney to the Riverside Stadium, while Burnley’s £1.2m offer for Derby County defender Jason Shackell has been rejected.

Joey Barton is not worth the hassle; this was a good season for Spurs; and the relegated clubs will supply some rich pickings

Barton is a liability

Some people scoff at the idea that footballers are role models but Joey Barton’s red card against Manchester City was eerily reminiscent of one shown to the captain of another west London club.

Just as when Chelsea’s captain, John Terry, kneed Alexis Sánchez in the back during the win over Barcelona, QPR’s Barton, likewise captain, was dismissed against City for landing an apparently retaliatory elbow on Carlos Tevez and then compounded that mindless act by kneeing Sergio Agüero, attempting to headbutt Vincent Kompany and threatening to start a row with Mario Balotelli on the touchline. All this with QPR, having just equalised through Djibril Cissé, needing to avoid a defeat to be certain of staying up. In that context it was not merely a moment of self-sabotage, it was a display of petulance that could have cost his side everything.

Barton is meant to be their leader yet, when QPR required him most, once the red mist descended he acted only in self-interest, demonstrating a blatant disregard for the needs of his team-mates and the club’s supporters. For all that he has tried to reinvent his image this season and make himself the poster boy for fascinated intellectuals with little interest in football – mainly by showcasing an in-depth knowledge of where the CTRL C and V keys are on a keyboard – this was Barton at his worst: vicious, thoughtless and selfish.

If QPR could, they would probably get rid of him, especially as his average performances for them hardly justify the baggage in the way, say, Balotelli’s potential for genius can. But who would want him now? He is not worth the hassle even if, as with Terry’s team, Barton’s ultimately got away with it, despite losing. JS

This has been a good season for Tottenham

In 2006 it was the lasagne; in 2012 it could be Chelsea. Tottenham Hotspur have, after beating Fulham 2-0, taken the final Champions League spot but, if Chelsea go and win the thing in Munich next week, fourth place will not be enough to gain entry to next season’s tournament. However, it would be harsh to criticise Tottenham for that, tempting as it is to joke about their capacity to find weird and wonderful ways to mess up a good thing.

At the start of the season fourth place was the goal and now, having achieved that, they are at the mercy of a result which is completely out of their control. They cannot be blamed for that. Last season they finished fifth so they can justifiably point to improvement and, despite the manner in which talk of a title challenge ended almost as quickly as it began, Spurs should view this campaign with some satisfaction. It could have been more and they should have finished third. But, if they can hang on to Gareth Bale and Luka Modric in the summer, there should be no doom and gloom around White Hart Lane. JS

Bolton are the luckiest unlucky team in recent history

So Bolton Wanderers are down, relegated after Stoke City were allowed to score one goal against them by means of a physical assault on their goalkeeper and another from an extremely dubious penalty. If it were not for that, if just one of those two decisions had gone in their favour on Sunday afternoon, it would have been QPR, and not the Trotters, weeping into their cornflakes this morning. And then cast your minds back a week to the manic moments when Djibril Cissé scored for QPR against Stoke at Loftus Road and then James Morrison equalised for West Bromwich Albion at the Reebok, a decisive single-minute, four-point swing. How terribly unlucky, how incredibly unfortunate.

But let’s look at the goals they scored in those same two games: a penalty, a bizarre freak own-goal, a clearance that ricocheted off a midfielder’s shin and into goal from 15 yards and a cross that sailed straight into the top corner – in other words a compendium of the serendipitous and the providential, a joyful sequence of lucky breaks. They talk about swings and roundabouts but that is a dizzying amount of swinging and, um, roundabouting to happen over 180 minutes of football. And when the swings stopped swinging and the roundabouts stopped, er, roundabouting, what were they left with? The slide. SB

Rich pickings from the relegated clubs

Championship sides should probably be happy that QPR, rather than Bolton, have stayed up given the strength of their respective squads and finances. The same applies to Blackburn Rovers and Wigan Athletic. Still, there are a few players at the three relegated clubs who will look very attractive to potential suitors. At Blackburn, Junior Hoilett and Yakubu Ayegbeni, who scored again at Chelsea, will surely leave and they could be followed by Steven N’Zonzi, Mauro Formica, Paul Robinson and Martin Olsson.

For Bolton the key will be to hold on to Stuart Holden and Lee Chung-yong, whose lengthy injuries were a major factor in the side’s relegation. Martin Petrov would be a useful addition if he has another year in the top division in him, as would Ivan Klasnic. The creative Mark Davies may interest clubs in the bottom half as well, while at Wolves the excellent Steven Fletcher, who scored his 12th goal of the season against Wigan, will undoubtedly find a new home. And there is already talk of Alex McLeish being interested in taking Karl Henry to Aston Villa. Which is possibly where this argument falls down. JS

What we learned about learning

This is the 180th thing that regular readers of this weekly blog will have learned from it this season. Some of them have proved to be red herrings – “Wolves look fit to take on all comers” in week one is probably not our most triumphant moment – while others have stood the test of time somewhat better. Here are some key What We’ve Learned statistics:

• We have learned the same number of things or fewer about fully 50% of Premier League clubs as we have about Mario Balotelli alone. After Balotelli, with six things, the next most learned-about players were Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll with four.

• We have learned least about Fulham and West Brom – three things each (or a mention in 8% of our blogs). Two of West Brom’s three were actually about Roy Hodgson and the other about Shane Long, in August. We learned four things about each of Norwich, Stoke and Wigan and five things about Bolton.

• We have learned most about Chelsea (14, meaning that 39% of our blogs have featured them), followed by Liverpool (12), Aston Villa (11), Arsenal and Tottenham (10) and Manchester City and Newcastle (nine).

• We learned one thing about Scotland, one thing about Spain, one thing about non-league football and seven things about the Nationwide League.

FULL TABLE
Chelsea 14
Liverpool 12
Villa 11
Arsenal, Tottenham 10
Newcastle, Man City 9
Man United 8
Swansea, Everton 7
Blackburn, Bolton, QPR, Wolves 6
Norwich, Stoke, Sunderland, Wigan 4
Fulham, West Brom 3

Also:
Referees: 5
Andy Carroll, Fernando Torres 4
Mario Balotelli 6
Scotland, Spain 1
Clubs in the Nationwide League 7
Non-league 1

Goals in each half by Emmanuel Adebayor and Jermain Defoe secured a fourth-placed finish in the Premier League for Tottenham Hotspur, which will enable the club to take part in next season’s Champions League provided Chelsea do not take that slot instead by winning the final next Saturday. Chants from the White Hart Lane crowd of “There’s only one Bayern Munic…” heralded the beginning of a torturous week-long wait for Harry Redknapp’s team.

Tottenham came into the match knowing that victory would require their squad passing a depth test, as the lack of regular left-backs forced a rejig. Gareth Bale slotted in to the position previously occupied by Benoît Assou-Ekotto or Danny Rose, while Luka Modric shifted to left-midfield and the 22-year-old Jake Livermore was introduced to midfield to make his first start since the home defeat by Norwich City last month. If the White Hart Lane faithful feared a repeat of such a shock, their nerves were quickly soothed. Just 96 seconds after kick-off, Rafael van der Vaart dissected a static visiting defence with a low pass to Emmanuel Adebyor, who steered the ball into the bottom corner from 12 yards.

With Fulham sluggish, Spurs were rampant and Mark Schwarzer had to make a close-range save from Bale as the home side looked like entering Europe with a swagger. News that Arsenal were trailing at West Bromwich Albion, meaning Tottenham could have been spared having to depend on Bayern next Saturday, seemed to put an extra spring in Tottenham’s step. It certainly cranked up the decibels in a festive White Hart Lane.

Spurs should have extended their lead in the 33rd minute when Aaron Lennon darted behind the visiting defence and puled the ball back to Adebayor, who teed up Van der Vaart. The Dutchman fired wide from 10 yards. The more prolonged Tottenham’s profligacy, the greater the risk of them being pegged back, a recurring problem over the past two seasons. A reminder of the danger came in the 35th minute when Bred Friedel was called into action for the first time to prevent Fulham from scoring on the counter-attack and he plunged to his left to turn away a shot from the edge of the area by Jon Arne Riise. The American soon had to reprise that save to stop the excellent Moussa Dembele from equalising.

Worryingly for both Tottenham and England, Kyle Walker hobbled off with an injured left foot early in the second half but Fulham had sagged back into slothfulness. Tottenham should have doubled their lead within moments of the resumption, as first Sandro headed a Lennon cross straight at Schwarzer from five yards and then Adebayor shot straight at the goalkeeper after being put clean through.

Dembele offered Fulham’s first threat of the second period, flashing a low just inches wide on the hour. In a bid to increase Spurs’ margin of comfort, Redknapp introduced Defoe for Van der Vaart, whose influence had waned badly after a promising start. Dividends were delivered quickly, as within two minutes the England striker made it 2-0, poking into the net from eight yards after a Lennon shot was deflected into his path. Arsenal’s comeback at The Hawthorns, however, meant that third place was beyond Spurs, who will now feel little solidarity with their fellow Londoners in Munich next week.

The best images from the final day of the season ifeaturing teams in the title race, the Champions League battle and the relegation scrap

• Spurs chairman aims to keep squad together
• ‘We shall continue to seek stability and to retain key players’

The Tottenham chairman, Daniel Levy, insists none of the club’s top players will be leaving White Hart Lane this summer.

Levy fought a protracted battle with Chelsea last summer to keep Luka Modric at the north London club and speculation is rife that the Croatian, and Gareth Bale, will be the subject of strong interest again this summer.

Bale added fuel to the rumours linking him with Barcelona this month when he declared he would consider his future should Spurs fail to make the Champions League, while the Manchester City manager ,Roberto Mancini, has spoken in glowing terms about Modric.

The Tottenham manager, Harry Redknapp, insists the club will end up going backwards if they sell their top players and Levy agrees.

The Spurs chairman wrote in his end of season address to supporters: “Our squad has top players at all levels and we shall continue to seek stability and to retain key players this summer and beyond. We are a club that is focusing on growth and moving forward.”

Spurs will finish at least fourth in the Premier League if they beat Fulham at home in their season finale at White Hart Lane on Sunday.

Ordinarily, that would ensure Champions League qualification, but that will not be the case if Chelsea beat Bayern Munich in the final on Saturday.

Spurs can still finish third if they better the result of Arsenal, who travel to West Brom, but many Spurs supporters feel their team should have finished well inside the top three having been within touching distance of the summit in January.

Levy insists this has been a progressive season, however, given that Spurs finished fifth last term.

“Today will see the final league positions of several clubs decided, ourselves amongst them,” Levy continued. “We may, however, find that we still have to wait on the outcome of the Champions League final next weekend to know in which European competition we shall be competing.

“It is a mark of our progress and the quality of our squad that each season we now look and expect to be competing at the top of our game.

“Once again we have seen football played at home and away which has shown our brand and style of play around the world and led our competitors to describe us as the most entertaining team in the Premier League.”

This season has also seen Tottenham make progress in their plans to build a new stadium adjacent to their current home in north London after failing in their bid to take over the Olympic Stadium.

“With a commitment to invest in the area around the stadium from the Mayor and Haringey Council, an investment of some £90m in land and planning by the club and with planning applications granted, we are now pushing ahead with what is widely acknowledged to be the single most important development capable of delivering social change in the area – an iconic new stadium at the heart of a true sport-led regeneration scheme, delivering new homes, shops, restaurants, jobs and opportunities,” Levy added.

“The scale of demolition around the stadium should leave no one in any doubt as to our intent to forge ahead with this project and we shall devote our full attention and energies to it.”

The Brazilian midfielder, driven by a desire to compete against Europe’s elite, has an unlikely, very British pastime

“Yes, I am Brazil’s best,” says a beaming Sandro before punching the air in mock ecstasy, which he tends to do every time he hears something that pleases him. But Sandro is not talking about football. He is talking about a sport he has fallen in love since moving to England in September 2010: darts.

“It started when I saw it on television and I found it interesting and enjoyed the atmosphere,” he says. “A colleague of mine said: ‘If you like it, I will buy you a board,’ and I put that up in my house.”

He became such an enthusiast that earlier this year the Premier League’s production company arranged to film him interviewing Bobby George, the 66-year-old self-styled King of Darts, whose exuberant personality made him something of a soulmate for 23-year-old Sandro. “Bob gave me a bit of background on the history of darts and now he and his son come around to my house and we play most weeks. I gave my mum two dartboards to bring back to Brazil and now everyone at home is playing, too.”

Sandro explains most of this through an interpreter, but when he does break into English he speaks it well, giving the impression that the interpreter is present either to safeguard against misunderstanding or as part of an elaborate prank; you can never be too sure with Sandro. “He is a lovely character, absolutely mad,” says Harry Redknapp of a player who this season dyed his hair pink and blue for larks and who regularly entertains his team-mates with japes such as the martial arts routine that the left-back Danny Rose posted on YouTube.

But Sandro is serious about his football. When Fulham’s midfielders arrive at White Hart Lane on Sunday afternoon intent on denying Tottenham the win that would ensure them a top-four finish, they will be going up against a man who is so driven by the desire to gain Champions League qualification that a couple of months ago, when Tottenham’s challenge was faltering, he took some of his team-mates aside and gave them an impromptu, impassioned team talk. “I said: ‘We have to vibrate and show passion, even if it is just winning a tackle, it doesn’t always have to be a beautiful football.’ That was the time to be more humble and just go and do what we had to do to make sure we got three points rather than made a pretty game. So it was more about bringing passion and heart and blood and sweat on to the pitch.”

The Champions League is special for Sandro. When mention is made of Spurs’ 0-0 draw with Milan in March 2011, when Sandro marshalled the midfield superbly, the memory triggers another joyous punch of the air. “That is the game that everyone talks about as the one where I showed the player I am,” he says. “Football in Brazil is very different and it was hard for me to adapt to playing in England at first because it is only when you get here that you realise how fast and strong the game is. It took me about five months to realise that in my position I had to take only one or two touches. It was in the game at Milan that I realised I could make it in Europe. It was a great experience and for us, the players and the fans, we want to get back to the Champions League.”

Sandro has experience of conquering a continent, having won the South American equivalent of the Champions League – the Copa Libertadores – with Internacional in 2010. He believes he can emulate that feat at Tottenham. “I am part of a club’s history because I helped Internacional to win the Copa Libertadores and I want to be part of Spurs’ history too by chasing the Champions League and other cups. Day by day I want to identify myself more with this club by winning things.”

Tottenham’s renewed push for the top four began after Scott Parker’s injury led to Sandro returning to the starting lineup after recovering from injury himself. “He has been amazing in the last few weeks,” Redknapp says. “He has got a great future here. We are really pleased with him and next year hopefully he will stay clear of injury and we will see the best of him again.”

The best of him belongs in the Champions League. “We just have to concentrate on beating Fulham to make sure we finish at least fourth – and if Arsenal lose and we finish third, that would be perfect,” he says before punching the air in delight.

• Player recruitment will depend on Spurs’ league finish
• Redknapp dismisses reports of Gareth Bale sale to Barcelona

Harry Redknapp insists that failing to reach next season’s Champions League would not be a catastrophe for Tottenham Hotspur yet there is a sense that never during his reign at White Hart Lane has so much hinged on one week. Many difficult decisions will have to be taken at Spurs over the summer and they will be influenced to a large extent by what happens on the last day of the Premier League and, perhaps, next Saturday’s Champions League final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich.

Victory against Fulham on Sunday would ensure Tottenham finish at least fourth in the Premier League. If Arsenal fail to win at West Bromwich Albion, then Tottenham would finish third, which would mean that they would be spared a nervous wait to see whether Chelsea beat Bayern and render fourth spot only good enough for a Europa League berth. Lose or draw to Fulham and Tottenham would be leapfrogged by Newcastle United if Alan Pardew’s team win at Everton. The future’s of several Tottenham players, and possibly of Redknapp himself, could depend on Tottenham making the Champions League cut.

Rival clubs are already circling for Tottenham’s prime playing assets, notably Luka Modric and Gareth Bale. Redknapp insists that neither will be sold – declaring that the club’s chairman, Daniel Levy, will reject any bids, just as he did last year when Chelsea tried to prise Modric away. He said that reports in Spain that the club had already agreed to sell Bale to Barcelona for £40m “do not have the slightest bit of truth in them” but it is obvious that remaining at Tottenham will hold considerably more allure for such players if they are in the Champions League rather than watching from afar for the second successive season. Despite overtures, Modric has yet to sign a new contract at White Hart Lane.

While Arsenal have already strengthened for next season by signing Lukas Podolski, Tottenham cannot truly plot their recruitment until they know whether they can offer prospective new players Champions League football, and whether they will have the funds that accompany qualification for that tournament. “We are waiting to see what Sunday brings,” Redknapp said. “We know where we are looking, we’ve got a couple in mind without having spoken to anybody. It depends on finances and everything else.”

Redknapp himself has yet to be offered a new contract even though his deal has only one season left to run. He says he expects Levy to discuss an extension once the season has concluded and his negotiating position would certainly be stronger if by then he had guided Spurs to the Champions League for the second time in three years.

Another tough decision that Redknapp will take next week does not depend on the outcome of the Premier League or Champions League. The manager says he is still mulling over whether to work as a pundit for the BBC during Euro 2012, as he is aware that being asked to criticise England could put both him and Roy Hodgson in an awkward position. “It can be tricky,” Redknapp said of punditry. “I’ll have a think about it and see next week.”