And with that I’m going to check out. Congratulations to Aston Villa for surviving, to Manchester United and Chelsea for qualifying for the Champions League, and to Liverpool for being magnificent champions. Bring on next season (12 September, if you’re asking). Bye!

And Andy Hunter saw Bournemouth seal three points but fall short of safety at Goodison Park:

It was on the long walk out of Goodison Park towards the temporary changing room behind the Park End Stand that Bournemouth discovered their five-year residence in the Premier League was over. Eddie Howe’s side delivered as they had to, ending Everton’s 11-game unbeaten home run and recording the club’s first ever win at Goodison, but there would be no helping hand from elsewhere.

Bournemouth thoroughly merited the win that ended Carlo Ancelotti’s own unbeaten home run as Everton manager but the damage had been inflicted before their arrival on Merseyside. Four points from a possible 24 since the restart had left the visitors reliant on slip-ups from Aston Villa and Watford in their bid for survival. They were not obliged. Josh King, Dominic Solanke and Junior Stanislas all scored to give Bournemouth a fourth away win of the season but, with news of Villa’s point at West Ham filtering through as they headed off the pitch, this was a triumph greeted in almost total silence.

Much more here:

Jonathan Liew was at the London Stadium to see Aston Villa clinch salvation:

The full-time whistle blew. One or two of the Aston Villa players let out a roar of celebration, only to be swiftly hushed by manager Dean Smith, warning them the job was still contingent on results elsewhere. For two agonising minutes, Villa’s entire playing squad and staff huddled together, awaiting news from the Emirates Stadium. Suddenly, the huddle exploded.

Yes: when the smoke had finally cleared from the longest Premier League season of them all, it was Villa who were still standing. They have clung to the precipice with fraying fingernails and fraying nerves, with reserves of patience and grit perhaps even they were not quite sure they possessed. They looked doomed for much of the season. But they were not.

Much more here:

Here’s Nick Ames’ match report from the Emirates:

Some of Watford’s players sank to their knees; others made for the tunnel without a moment’s delay. The whistle had just blown on their five years in the Premier League and nobody could say that, when the occasion demanded they hurl the kitchen sink at Arsenal, they did not go down without a fight. Their caretaker manager, Hayden Mullins, cajoled an insistent performance from his players but it was not enough despite a string of opportunities coming and going throughout. In the end they paid the price for seeing the game slip beyond them in the first period, when below-par opponents scored three times, and the consequences will be severe.

One poor season may not wreck an empire, but nor do the foundations put in place by the Pozzo family offer any kind of guarantee that they will sail straight back up from the second tier. It is hard to escape the sense that their habit of flipping managers has caught up with them; perhaps, in dispensing with Nigel Pearson, they had hoped a fresh bounce would see them through but the theory was finally disproved here and there will surely now be turnover among the playing staff too. Abdoulaye Doucouré and Ismaïla Sarr, who was almost unplayable at times, would grace far better teams.

Much more here:

The other moment Bournemouth were relegated. Eight points from their last four games was enough to save Aston Villa, but I do think (as I may have said earlier) lady luck has taken a bit of a shine to them.

The moment Bournemouth were relegated. If this goal had been given (and nothing else had happened any differently), Villa would just have been relegated, and the Cherries would have stayed up:

Finally, Deeney is asked if there’s a chance that he won’t recover from his knee injury:

I’m not that old, you cheeky bastard. No, it’s just a clean-up. I’ve been playing for the last month with a knee injury. Hardly training, just wanting to help the boys. My knee is what it is. Do I give up? No. You know me, you know my back-story, you know where I’m from. I’m going to keep going to the end. If it’s next week, if it’s two years from now, I’m going to say I had a good time and made my kids proud, and that’s all that mattered.

A bit more from Deeney. He’s not saying that he’s going, and I would guess that given that he’s 32, there’s a short close season and he’s about to have a knee operation it’s unlikely. It’s also interesting that on a couple of occasions he gores out of his way to praise Arsenal, as if trying to make amends for the whole cojones business:

I’ve got a knee operation that I’ll probably be having next week. Then we’ll see. Clubs can go in different directions, players can go in different directions, it’s what happens. I’m not saying that is my last game, but if it is my last game, I’m happy I gave everything I can. I’m a simple man. I look in the mirror when I get home, ‘Did you give the best version of you today?’ Yes. ‘Was it good enough?’ No. That’s it. You go again. I’m not going to take any shine away from this great Arsenal team, this great Arsenal club, some good lads here.

Things happen in football, people come and go. I’ve been at this club 10 years, if it’s my time to go it’s my time to go. There were bigger and better players here before me, there’ll probably be bigger and better players after.

Troy Deeney speaks to Sky:

You’ve got to look at the bigger picture, it’s not today, it’s not last week, it’s a reflection of the past year. We’ve not quite been good enough, at both ends of the pitch. It’s heartbreaking for the people who work behind the scenes. We feel sorry for them. I’ll take the stick on social media, but the harsh reality is that people will probably lose their jobs off it, because we haven’t been good enough. As players we have to take that. As a club and as a team we go again.

Ultimately we haven’t been good enough. There’s no point dancing around it. The whole club from top to bottom will do an audit, we’ll look at where we’re at, and we’ll reassess. It’s not just us, I think Bournemouth and Norwich will be doing the same thing. It’s part and parcel of football. But obviously when it’s me people are going to enjoy it a bit more.

He’s asked if sacking three managers is one of the reasons for their relegation:

Course it is. We can’t say that we got it right, because ultimately we failed. It is what it is. But the bigger thing is for fans and people at clubs, they’ll be here long after the players. We have to appreciate that fans will be hurt, they’ll be angry and annoyed, and you have to take it. From a personal perspective, I don’t know if this is going to be my last game for Watford. You don’t know what the future holds.

“They created enough chances to win two games of football,” says Graeme Souness of Watford. “They must have had half-a-dozen rock-solid chances today. If that’s a mirror of their season: they defend badly, create chances and don’t take them, that’s why they’re going down.”

And that’s pretty much the state of it. Though without creating that many chances.

“At least we can only play City twice maximum next season,” writes Jonathan Denness, presumably a Watford fan. Silver linings and all that.

“People are going to attribute Watford’s relegation to the fact that they changed manager so many times during the season and over the past few years,” writes David Wall. “I’m not sure, it might be true, but given that Norwich and Bournemouth have both been relegated despite keeping the same manager (and every season teams that keep their manager get relegated) I wonder if it might be a red herring. In all cases perhaps the real reason is just poor recruitment/ squad building. And that can happen whatever the managerial hiring policy.”

They haven’t been relegated because they kept changing managers, they’ve been relegated because they kept appointing the wrong managers (that and never signing defenders).

Watford did lose today, but they produced their finest attacking performance for many a long moon, and could very easily have won. This is what happens when you give Deeney someone to attack with. The tragedy is that it took until the final day for anyone with team-picking responsibilities to realise this. Perhaps they’d have survived if they’d only got rid of Nigel Pearson sooner.

This isn’t a joke, by the way: Pearson was completely wedded to his 4-2-3-1 formation, which simply couldn’t fail badly or often enough to be rejected. Deeney has toiled for months, lonely and hopeless, flicking balls on to nobody. Today he was excellent. It wasn’t a coincidence.

The final final scores:

Arsenal 3-2 Watford
Burnley 1-2 Brighton
Chelsea 2-0 Wolves
Crystal Palace 1-1 Tottenham
Everton 1-3 Bournemouth
Leicester 0-2 Manchester United
Manchester City 5-0 Norwich
Newcastle 1-3 Liverpool
Southampton 3-1 Sheffield United
West Ham 1-1 Aston Villa

Ladies and gentlemen, your final league table:

Heurelho Gomes, Watford’s unused substitute goalkeeper, leaves the field in tears. This is, presumably, the final game of the 39-year-old’s professional career.

Other than the occasional ludicrous defensive calamity Watford played really well today, and made more than enough chances to have won comfortably. Not to be.

BT Sport show news of this result reaching Aston Villa. Scenes.

90+7 mins: Time runs out for Watford!

View image in fullscreen

90+6 mins: Villa’s point means Bournemouth are down. Watford are seconds away from joining them.

90+5 mins: Joao Pedro crosses from the left but Dawson, a makeshift forward, can’t really connect. Sarr crosses from the right, and Deeney heads wide!

90+4 mins: Watford know what they need here, and it’s two goals in 90 seconds.

90+3 mins: Bournemouth have predictably won against an on-the-beach Everton, but it looks like they’ll get no reward for it.

90+3 mins: Chalobah doesn’t shoot, but curls the ball onto Deeney’s forehead. From six yards, he somehow heads over!

90+2 mins: Cleverley is fouled by Torreira, a foot outside the box. Watford have a wonderful chance to plant this one into the net/wall/Row Z.

90+1 mins: It’s all over at Manchester City, and for Norwich.

90+1 mins: There will be six minutes of stoppage time here, and four at West Ham. Watford need a two-goal swing in that time.

89 mins: Nketiah plays Aubameyang in, but Masina gets across well to snuff out danger. In Manchester, De Bruyne scores a fifth for City. In Newcastle, Mane scores a third for Liverpool.

88 mins: Joao Pedro replaces Pereyra, Watford using their last substitution to fling on another forward.

87 mins: A goal for Watford here, another for West Ham and the Hornets stay up. Sure, it’s unlikely, but it’s more possible than the four goals they needed just a few moments ago.

85 mins: Villa’s lead lasted about 90 seconds, and Yarmolenko’s shot from outside the area has deflected into the air, over Reina and into the net!