With a vote on the technology looming, it’s debatable that the search for accuracy is worth the sacrifice of spontaneity

On Thursday, Premier League clubs will vote on Wolves’ proposal to scrap video assistant referees. The motion will almost certainly not achieve majority support, never mind secure the 14 votes out of 20 needed for it to pass. But what it may do is to shift the Overton window and lead to a serious review of VAR, an assessment of where it works and where it doesn’t. And that is something that is long overdue.

Consultation is unfashionable in the modern world. Politicians of all stripes act too often in effect by fiat, and that is as true in football as anything else. VAR was imposed for the 2018 World Cup with minimal research or conversation and accepted almost everywhere without anybody really investigating the consequences.

Manager’s credibility has been so undermined that not even repeating the FA Cup win of 1990 could avert the sack

This isn’t 1990, but it isn’t 2016 either. Alex Ferguson may have kept his job by winning the FA Cup in 1989-90 while Louis van Gaal learned of his dismissal while celebrating on the pitch at Wembley after the 2015-16 final, but the difference in the situations wasn’t just to do with the diminishing value of the FA Cup.

Perhaps it was always a little anachronistic in 2024 to be wondering whether Erik ten Hag might be saved by victory in Saturday’s FA Cup final, but this had been a weird throwback of a campaign for Manchester United. As it is, the decision has been taken and Ten Hag at least will not face quite the indignity suffered by Van Gaal.

Nothing, not the Roman Empire, not the Zhou dynasty, not even Last of the Summer Wine, lasts for ever, and neither did Bayer Leverkusen’s unbeaten run. After 51 games, their pursuit of a flawless season came to an end at the penultimate hurdle as an ­Ademola Lookman hat-trick, the first in a one‑legged European final since Pierino Prati in 1969, gave ­Atalanta a surprisingly compre­hensive victory and their first trophy in 61 years.

After all the talk of the emergence of Xabi Alonso as one of Europe’s most promising young coaches, it was an experienced old hand who took the laurels. At 66, Gian Piero ­Gasperini has his first silverware, a moment of tangible success in a career that has been spent per­forming a highly impressive job out of the limelight. They beat Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield, then Marseille 3-0 in the home leg of the semi-final; nobody can say this was not deserved.

The Bundesliga champions could complete the second leg of their treble tilt in the Europa League final against Atalanta

The last time the Europa League was played here, 13 years ago, Porto strolled to an anticlimactic 1-0 win over Braga. André Villas-Boas was 33 and about to take over at Chelsea after the dismissal of Carlo ­Ancelotti. He was calm, highly ambitious and had an obvious presence. Comparisons with José Mourinho were understandable and inevitable, but Villas-Boas seemed of a different order to other managers. He talked of a grand plan to compress his managerial career into a decade so he could move on to other things.

He got that bit right. Villas-Boas has not managed since leaving Marseille in 2021 after publicly criticising the club’s recruitment policy. He does not look like returning to the dugout any time soon; he never seemed like one of those football men for whom the game is an addiction. He has been a rally driver and now he is the president of Porto.

Anfield said goodbye and thank you to a coach who reinvigorated the club, his impact going way beyond silverware

There was a game of football at Anfield on Sunday, and Liverpool, despite missing countless chances, as they have done consistently over the past couple of months, won it 2-0. But nobody seemed to care too much; even Gary O’Neil was restrained in his reaction to the video assistant referee intervening for Nelson Semedo’s yellow card to be upgraded to a red. It was only last week that Wolves called for the review system to be abolished: if you come at the VAR you’d best not miss.

But beneath a sky of perfect unbroken blue, this was not a day on which the game or the league table mattered; this was a day for saying goodbye, and saying thank you. “Danke Jürgen,” as the tifo running round two sides of the ground read, culminating with a heart on the Kop in the colours of the Germany flag. Liverpool knew that, whatever happened, they would finish third. That’s three places higher and, as it turned out, 20 points more than they had managed in 2014-15, the last full season before he took over, but the improvement he has wrought has been far greater than that, the outpouring of affection for him, expressed in the five-minute rendition of “I’m so glad Jürgen is a red” over the final whistle, entirely appropriate and understandable.

Champions have become less guardiolista to allow Haaland to flourish and it is telling the best player of late has been Gvardiol

Familiarity inevitably breeds, if not contempt, then at least discernment. When Leicester won the Premier League what mattered was not how they had done it but merely that it had been done.

You could talk about the performances of N’Golo Kanté, Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, pontificate about how Claudio Ranieri had developed Nigel Pearson’s side or dwell on the significance of the discovery of Richard III’s body under a car park, but fundamentally all that mattered was that they had defied the laws of football finance and logic and that they had done it. But as Manchester City edge towards a sixth title in seven years, the manner of the win feels important.