Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s football.

This was the weekend when Sheffield United’s relegation was confirmed in suitably meek fashion, Manchester City continued their relentless chase of Arsenal at the top of the Premier League, Chelsea felt aggrieved by VAR and Everton secured their survival.

Here, we will ask if Jurgen Klopp’s tenure is coming to a slightly undignified end, whether Erik ten Hag’s optimistic view of things will prove counter-productive and whether Bukayo Saka is back… if he ever went away…



Is this a sad, messy end to Jurgen Klopp’s time at Liverpool?

Watching the celebrations after Liverpool won the Carabao Cup back in February, it was impossible not to get a little bit caught up in the emotions of it all — not just the emotions of the day, but the emotions of what the last days of the Jurgen Klopp era could hold.

The good and the bad of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool on show right until the end	'Will be him': Liverpool set to hire coach who was going to be 'key' to his country at Euro 2024 - journalist	Team announce coach has told them he's quitting, he's set to join Liverpool with Arne Slot this summer

They were still on for a possible quadruple: still in the FA Cup and the Europa League, and top of the Premier League.

He will still be the man who brought their first league title in 30 years, still be the man who won their sixth Champions League and still be the man who made their fans feel things they had forgotten.

This will be Klopp’s last season in charge of Liverpool (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

But it’s all ending in a bit of a mess, further shown by the argument between Klopp and Mohamed Salah during the 2-2 draw with West Ham at the weekend.

Salah is the defining signing of Klopp’s time, the scorer of 210 goals and a man who will rank alongside Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, Steven Gerrard and Roger Hunt as the greatest in Liverpool’s history.

When asked about Manchester United’s form, prospects and style of play, Erik ten Hag is hardly going to say, “Yes, we’re terrible and, actually, I don’t want to keep my job.”

But there’s a middle ground between that defeatism and the sort of comments, detached from the reality that the rest of us are experiencing, that Ten Hag has offered after some United games recently.

Take his, erm, take on United following their 1-1 draw with Burnley at the weekend.

“We are one of the most dynamic and entertaining teams in the league at this moment,” he told the BBC.

United were indeed afforded patience in 2004, but that is broadly because they had won the Premier League the year before, and were managed by a man who, even if he had left then without achieving anything else, would still have been the club’s greatest ever.

Furthermore, teams and managers are afforded patience if there is evidence of progress.

Thursday sees another set of semi-finals: in the Europa League, it’s Marseille vs Atalanta and Roma against the implausibly still undefeated Bayer Leverkusen.

There’s also a nice fat slice of bonus Premier League: on Thursday it’s Chelsea vs Tottenham, a repeat of that madcap game from November, the good news being that both teams are still pretty chaotic so who knows what will happen.
For more news relating to Manchester United, visit our sister site MUFC Live.