05/24/26 12:27:00
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05/24 12:25 CDT West Ham relegated from Premier League and Spurs stay up as
Guardiola, Salah make emotional exits
West Ham relegated from Premier League and Spurs stay up as Guardiola, Salah
make emotional exits
By STEVE DOUGLAS
AP Sports Writer
West Ham was relegated and Tottenham survived on an emotional final day of the
Premier League season when Pep Guardiola and Mohamed Salah made their exits
after record-breaking spells in English soccer.
West Ham beat Leeds 3-0 but that wasn't enough to climb out of the relegation
zone because fourth-to-last Tottenham also won, 1-0 at home to Everton, to stay
two points clear of its London rival.
That meant West Ham's 14-year stay in the Premier League was over and
Tottenham, which won three of its last five games under recently hired coach
Roberto De Zerbi, will be in the top division for a 49th straight season.
Guardiola's decade-long tenure at Manchester City --- which has included six
Premier League titles among 17 major trophies --- ended with a 2-1 loss to
Aston Villa that featured a mid-match guard of honor for first Bernardo Silva
and then John Stones, two of Guardiola's stalwarts.
Salah was given a standing ovation --- before he kissed the Anfield turf ---
during his second-half substitution in his 442nd and last game for Liverpool,
in which he grabbed an assist in a 1-1 draw with Brentford. The Egypt winger
finished his nine years with the Reds with 257 goals.
Arsenal has already clinched the title and closed its first
championship-winning campaign since 2004 with a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace.
In the final shake-up for European qualification, Bournemouth and Sunderland
finished sixth and seventh, respectively, to get into the Europa League and
Brighton was eighth to reach the Conference League.
Brighton lost 3-0 at home to Manchester United, for whom Bruno Fernandes scored
and got a record-setting 21st assist of the season.
Sunderland, which beat Chelsea 2-1, will be in Europe for the first time in 53
years --- a remarkable achievement for a team in its first season back in the
top division and which was in the third tier as recently as 2022.
Chelsea, on the contrary, missed out on European competition entirely after
finishing in 10th place --- 10 months after winning the Club World Cup.
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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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