The biggest difference between sports in the UK and the USA is that the former embraces a free market while the latter accepts socialist wealth redistribution. Americans do this directly, like Major League Baseball’s revenue sharing, or by awarding the best young players to the worst teams via the draft. Never mind TV contracts which are divided evenly between teams.

The Premier League doesn’t do any of that. There are rich clubs and there are poor clubs and the middle class basically doesn’t exist anymore. This wasn’t always the case. Ten years ago, the top ten teams in the league all earned 50 points or more except for West Ham, who got 49. This season, six teams earned 60 or more, Burnley earned 54, and the bottom 10 earned 50 points or less.

There are a lot of reasons why this has happened. Russian oligarchs, Middle Eastern sheiks, and wealthy Asian and American investors have all poured cash into the top of the league. The best teams are now able to sign global sponsorship deals that small teams can’t even dream of. Manchester United, for example, list 55 different sponsors on their website and earn $64 million to have Chevrolet on their jerseys. Huddersfield, meanwhile, earned $2 million from their shirt sponsor OPE Sports, an online betting company. And finally, there are the riches that come with competing in the Champions League — Leicester City earned $100 million for their single year playing in Europe’s most prestigious competition.

It is hard to imagine this changing anytime soon. In fact, things will probably get worse. The so-called “big six” of Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal are currently lobbying to get a bigger share of the TV money — like Real Madrid and Barcelona do in Spain — and they are threatening to break away and join a European super league, made up of the twenty biggest clubs in the world, if they don’t get their way.

The rich, as always, keep getting richer.

— M.B.

Manchester City are the first team in Premier League history to earn 100 points and they did it by getting 50 at home and 50 on the road. They also have the most goals ever (106), largest goal difference (+79), most wins (32), most wins in a row (18), and most away wins (16). They also 19 points ahead of second-place Manchester United, which is a record.

However, records do not a GOAT make. GOATs have a certain je ne sais quoi that sets them apart from the rest. It is impossible to know now how this City team will be remembered, it takes time for history to put a glowing sheen on greatness, but it is hard to see them surpassing Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles or Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United as the best team of all time.

The case for The Invincibles is a two-pronged one. First, there’s the obvious fact that they went unbeaten. Second, there’s how they did it. With man mountain Patrick Vierra sitting in the middle of the field, artists like Robert Pires, Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry had space and freedom to flow upfield and score goals that nobody could even dream of. Of note is that all four players are not English, which is a trend that has now overtaken the entire league. And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Fergie’s United, however, probably take the GOAT cake because there are so many varieties to choose from. There was the early 90s team featuring the likes of Peter Schmeichel, Ryan Giggs and Eric Cantona. Then there were the late 90s teams that added the likes of Paul Scholes and David Beckham to the mix. However, Fergie’s greatest team lived from 2006 to 2009. Not only did they have the best central defensive partnership in Premier League history in Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, but they also had Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez, Cristiano Ronaldo and Dimitar Berbatov up front. At the time, Rooney and Ronaldo were the second and third best players in the world but it was Tevez and Berbatov that really took them over the top because Fergie could always choose just the right combination of attackers to defeat any defense.

This season’s City team doesn’t have that United team’s defense nor their consistency in attack. Just look at their 5-1 aggregate loss to Liverpool in the Champions League. GOATs don’t get spanked like that.

— M.B.

With the exception of Liverpool fans, no one expected much from the club’s $50 million signing Mohamed Salah. Sure, the Egyptian forward put in a good two years of good work at the Italian club Roma, but he already played in England for Chelsea, and never looked like a player who’d figure the league out. Even taking into account manager Jürgen Klopp’s ability to get the best out of attacking talent, this was the sort of buy that had flop written all over it. At best it looked as if the team had purchased another undersized forward with speed, something they already had in the excellent Sadio Mané. But even the most hopeful Red couldn’t have expected what they’d end up getting from Salah.

That’s because Salah was the league’s best player this season. No player, not even Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne, shone as brightly and consistently as the 25-year-old. As long as a teammate could find him with space, or frequently without it, Salah was going to run defenders in circles, create space and snap off another shot on goal or loft a feathery pass to an open teammate streaking through the box. And what was most striking about it all was how much fun he seemed to be having, especially as the season wore on and the manager freed him of all his other responsibilities on the pitch.

Under Klopp, the incredibly talented forward finally harnessed the ability he’s shown since arriving in Europe in 2012 and added the one piece that was always missing – finishing. Having broken the league’s 38-game single-season scoring record with 32 goals, it seems safe to say the Golden Boot winner’s problems in front of goal are a thing of the past. And that number, as preposterous as it may seem for a player not named Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, doesn’t even take into account the 12 goals he scored in other competitions never mind the 14 assists he setup across all competitions.

But the most impressive thing the Egyptian accomplished during the 2017-18 season was displacing Harry Kane as the league’s most likable player among neutrals. As Salah’s goal numbers started to balloon around the turn of the New Year, England’s most lovable bloke turned green with envy. The last two months have seen Kane set out in desperate pursuit of a third consecutive Golden Boot that culminated in him claiming credit for a goal that teammate Christian Eriksen scored and then swearing on his baby daughter’s life that it was his. The club agreed, as did the league, but no one else did, and it was at that point that Salah’s ascendance was really complete.

– B.H.

At the time nobody knew that Premier League stalwarts Southampton and West Brom would end their season fighting for survival, but if they had known, Sofiane Boufal’s goal would have been even more impressive. Scored in the 85th minute of a 0-0 game, Boufal’s goal earned Southampton three much-needed points but that’s not why it’s awesome. It’s awesome because the Moroccan dribbles into one West Brom defender, shimmies past three more, jinks past another so deftly that two defenders crash into each other, and then has the wherewithal, after a 70-yard run, to dribble past a couple more defenders and strike the ball into the back of the net. It was a goal that Lionel Messi would be proud of.

Despite what manager Mark Hughes might argue, there’s no one more responsible for keeping Southampton up in the Premier League than goalkeeper Alex McCarthy. Even when the season looked lost as recently as a month ago, the keeper never stopped coming up huge for his club using every part of his body to keep the ball out of the net.

But none of these saves was bigger than the one he managed to pull off late in the Saint’s 2-1 victory over Bournemouth on April 28. His goal under constant assault with his side clinging to the slimmest of leads, McCarthy made a diving stop to deny Ryan Fraser what looked like a sure goal. Most impressive of all, the ball took what looked like a cruel deflection after McCarthy had dove, forcing the keeper to adjust himself to punch the ball free of his goal. It was jaw-dropping and started a run of seven points from the final four games that kept his team up.

There were a lot of keeper’s who won their teams games this season – David de Gea did it a couple time – but no managed to do what McCarthy did. He didn’t just save a game, he saved the season.

– B.H.