A year written in triumph, tears, and history
There are years that pass through the English football calendar like autumn leaves — briefly noticed, quickly forgotten. And then there are years like 2025, the kind that carve themselves into the soul of the game, demanding to be remembered.
As the Christmas lights flicker across stadiums from Anfield to the Stadium of Light, we find ourselves at the threshold of reflection. What will endure from these twelve remarkable months? What stories will grandchildren hear when they ask about the year their parents fell deeper in love with football?
Here are five moments that will forever define the Premier League's 2025.
1. Liverpool's 20th crown: The Slot revolution
When Jürgen Klopp announced his departure in January 2024, the Anfield faithful braced themselves for turbulence. What they received instead was something far more remarkable: a seamless ascension under Arne Slot that culminated in a 20th league title — matching Manchester United's long-standing record.
On 27 April 2025, Liverpool demolished Tottenham 5-1 at Anfield, clinching the championship with four games to spare. Virgil van Dijk became the first Reds captain to lift a league trophy in front of fans for 35 years — the 2020 triumph having been celebrated in the hollow silence of the pandemic.
With 25 wins, just two defeats, and an unassailable 15-point lead, Slot had achieved what many thought impossible: not just maintaining Klopp's legacy, but elevating it in his very first season.
2. Salah's impossible treble
In the annals of individual brilliance, Mohamed Salah's 2024-25 campaign stands alone. The Egyptian King became the first player in Premier League history to simultaneously claim the Player of the Season award, the Golden Boot, and the Playmaker prize.
With 29 goals and 47 direct goal contributions, he shattered records previously held by legends like Alan Shearer and Andy Cole — and he did it in a 38-game season, while they had 42 matches to work with.
From his opening-day strike at Ipswich to his final-day equaliser against Crystal Palace at Anfield, Salah's season was a masterclass in sustained excellence. Simply spectacular, simply Salah.
3. The Tyne-Wear derby returns
For eight long years, the northeast of England had been denied its most visceral footballing ritual. But Sunderland's promotion via the Championship play-offs brought the Tyne-Wear derby back to the Premier League — and with it, all the passion, noise, and tribal intensity that makes English football unique.
On 14 December 2025, the Stadium of Light trembled as Sunderland defeated Newcastle United 1-0 in front of 48,000 roaring supporters. The goal was fortuitous — an own goal in the early second half — but the joy was pure, uncut, and decades in the making.
Football is never just about the result. Sometimes, it is about the restoration of identity itself.
4. Everton's new dawn at the Hill Dickinson Stadium
After 132 years at Goodison Park, Everton finally crossed the Mersey threshold into a new era. The Hill Dickinson Stadium, gleaming on the Liverpool waterfront, became the Toffees' new fortress in the 2025-26 season — a cathedral of modernity rising from the docks that once shipped the world's goods.
For generations of Evertonians, Goodison was more than bricks and terraces; it was memory incarnate. The final season there was tinged with melancholy, players and fans alike savouring every creak of the old stands, every echo of the Gwladys Street.
Now, a new chapter begins. Whether the new stadium can cultivate the same ghosts, the same magic, only time will tell. But the ambition is undeniable.
5. The tragedy of Diogo Jota
Not all memories are joyful. On 3 July 2025, the football world was shattered by the news that Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva had been killed in a car accident in Portugal.
Jota, just 28, had been instrumental in Liverpool's title triumph — his stoppage-time brace against Brentford in January proving pivotal in the championship run. He was a player of electric movement, intelligent runs, and an infectious smile that lit up training grounds and stadiums alike.
At Anfield, at Molineux, and across Portugal, tributes poured in. Football is a game of joy, but it is also a community — and in 2025, that community grieved together.
The year that will echo
Triumph and tragedy. Records and reunions. New stadiums and old rivalries reborn. The Premier League in 2025 was not merely a competition; it was a theatre of human experience, played out under floodlights and in the hearts of millions.
As the year draws to a close, we do not simply remember results. We remember feelings — the roar at Anfield when Salah lifted the trophy, the tears at the Stadium of Light when the derby returned, the silence that fell when Jota's death was announced.
This is why we love this game. This is why 2025 will never be forgotten.
