Memorable moments from the 2023/24 Premier League season

Jonathan Victoria • 07 Aug 2024 Features

Good, bad and funny moments from the previous campaign.

The 2023/24 Premier League season may be lost in the minds of many now, what with the Euros and Paris Olympics both providing great excitement over the summer.

But with the new season drawing nearer, we wanted to take a moment to go back to last year and look at some of our picks for the most memorable moments from the 2023/24 Premier League season.

Join us as we look at the good and bad moments from what was a fairly decent and competitive campaign, which included stunning goals, some incredibly questionable officiating and more.

Good: Garnacho’s outrageous Goal of the Season

The 2023/24 campaign was a season of goals, with a record 1246 scored in the year, surpassing the previous record of 1084 which had been set just one year prior.

And amongst those goals were some all-time great strikes. The list of Goal of the Season candidates was filled with stunners, but none more so than the effort of Alejandro Garnacho against Everton.

It was a short time into the game before a big ball was played over to a wide-open Marcus Rashford on the right side. He played the ball to Diogo Dalot who made the inverted overlap, who in turn whipped a first-time ball into the box that seemed to be drifting away from the area.

It was weighted well, seemingly a bit too much so as it flew over the small cluster of defenders who were guarding the middle. Garnacho had made his move towards the pack, but as he saw the ball come over, he ran back out to meet it.

Credit: Every angle of Garnacho's INCREDIBLE bicycle kick! 🔥 (Sky Sports Premier League, YouTube)

And meet it he did. He began running away from the goal, back to the net, and he lept up, catching the ball perfectly in the air. It flew elegantly to the opposite corner, with everyone stopping and staring, except for Jordan Pickford, who was scrambling to stop it, to no avail.

It was a goal so unbelievable, Man United legend Gary Neville claimed it to be the best overhead kick he’s ever seen - and he was part of the team when fellow United legend Wayne Rooney scored his against Manchester City in 2011 (technically he had retired just a few weeks before, but he was still there in attendance, so that counts).

We’ve seen it tried many times and it goes flying off into the crowd or barely clipped and dribbles away. Sometimes it goes right and we are treated to an unforgettable moment - looking at you, Gareth Bale in the 2018 Champions League final - and this was certainly one of those times.

Like we say, though, the season contained so many incredible goals. Alexis Mac Allister’s strike against Fulham and Moises Caicedo’s halfway-line heave against Bournemouth on the final day of the season deserve a good mention as well, as do the rest fo the strikes in the video above.

Bad: VAR mess-up during Tottenham vs Liverpool

It was a bad year for officials and VAR in particular, with many mistakes that essentially led to the wrong result.

There are many to pick from, including a denied clear penalty for Wolves against Manchester United on the opening weekend (which in hindsight set the precedent for the year).

But without a doubt, the most outrageous mistake came on 30th September 2023 when Tottenham hosted Liverpool.

The Reds scored the opening goal through Luis Diaz, but the decision on the pitch was that he was offside. Of course, with VAR now well and truly in the game, every goal is checked, especially those where a call has been made (like in this case) or one may be needed.

So VAR took a look and realised that Diaz was in fact onside and that the goal should stand. Great for Liverpool, right?

Credit: Spurs seal DRAMATIC injury time win in CONTROVERSIAL game! 😰 | Spurs 2-1 Liverpool | EPL Highlights (Sky Sports Premier League, YouTube)

Obviously not because we’re talking about it, because instead of saying the call should be overturned, there was some miscommunication and the VAR official, who thought the goal had been given in the first place, told the referee the decision on the pitch should stand.

This meant that the referee continued play from where it was wrongfully ruled offside, only for the VAR room to suddenly start panicking because they realised they had made a mistake. We only know this as well because PGMOL later released the audio from the VAR room, which showed their realisation of the calamitous error.

Unfortunately for Liverpool, the rules stated that once the check was complete and the play got underway again, the referee can not stop play and go back to award the correct decision.

Tottenham went on to win the game 2-1, a result that left the visiting side's manager Jurgen Klopp fuming in his post-match interview and brought about multiple statements from the team during the week.

Nothing ever came of it other than the VAR officials involved being taken off of their duties for the weekend, but calls were made to ensure an error this substantial never happens again.

Good: Chelsea 4-1 Tottenham

There were a number of games that could have been awarded match of the season - Newcastle 8-0 thrashing of Sheffield United, Bournemouth's sensational comeback against Luton or Manchester City and Chelsea’s thrilling eight-goal draw could’ve been given the honours.

But in our opinion, nothing typified the season as much as the game which came just a week before Chelsea and Man City’s encounter, which again saw Chelsea in action as they faced London rivals Tottenham.

It was early in November (Matchday 11 on 6th November, to be precise) and these two sides were miles apart in the table. Spurs held the lead of the league heading into the game week while the Blues had fallen to the bottom half following a loss to Brentford the match before.

But often, table position means nothing. So much happened in this game that both halves could be a whole match in their own right.

The first half saw Spurs start quickly, getting the opening goal. Then it all happened, as the next four goals - one from the hosts, three from Chelsea - were all ruled out thanks to VAR.

Except for one, which experienced an ungodly long VAR check because whilst they were deciding to rule it out, the VAR officials noticed a horrendous challenge from Tottenham’s Cristian Romero on Enzo Fernandez inside the box, which then led to a penalty for the visitors and a red card for Romero.

Credit: Chaos, drama, mayhem! 🔥🤯 | Tottenham 1-4 Chelsea | Premier League Highlights (Sky Sports Premier League, YouTube)

That would have been enough for one game, let alone the first half, but before they could get to halftime, things took a much worse turn for the hosts as Ange Postecoglou saw two-star players in James Maddison and Micky van de Ven limp off injured. They both wouldn’t be seen for some time after this match.

The second half started and everything that big Ange would have told his Spurs side in the dressing room would have gone out the window 10 minutes later when Destiny Udogie picked up a second yellow, bringing them down to nine men.

Despite this, they continued to play a high defensive line which actually was working for them… until it didn’t.

Chelsea found the breakthrough in the 75th minute (quite embarrassing it took them that long really) thanks to Nicolas Jackson. Spurs then had a number of chances to get back level but just couldn’t convert them.

In the end, Chelsea finally put it together, finding a way past the back line twice more, with two more goals from Jackson giving him his first Premier League hat-trick.

While it was a win for Chelsea, it wasn’t a good one, and the Spurs players were even applauded off the pitch by the home fans after that shambles of a game. 

It was highly entertaining for the neutral, though, and that’s why it was our game of the season.

Funny: Nottingham Forest’s Twitter threats

We’ll end it off with a laugh, and again there were many moments to choose from but to us, the funniest may just have been Nottingham Forest’s threats to PGMOL following their perceived injustices during the year.

We can’t fault them too much so for this. As we mentioned, VAR and officiating as a whole was rather poor at many points during the year, and Forest weren’t the only team to publish a statement against PGMOL.

But they are the only team to seem like they actually wanted to physically fight the members of PGMOL.

Towards the end of the season, Forest and Everton were given points deductions due to breaching the Premier League Profit and Sustainability Rules (Everton for the second time at this point).

Shortly after the ruling, the two sides met up for a clash that was dubbed the PSR derby. It was a pivotal clash as both sides were truly in the relegation battle thanks to the deduction.

Everton ended up coming away with the win thanks to goals from Idrissa Gueye and Dwight McNeil. But during the game, Forest was denied three penalties, all of which seemed fairly certain.

The first was a kick from behind to the ankle of Gio Reyna from Ashley Young, which while not the most heinous contact, has definitely been given many times since the inclusion of VAR.

The second was a handball, again from Young, when Callum Hudson-Odoi attempted to keep the ball from going out of play. The ball struck Young’s outstretched arm, but VAR seemingly deemed his arm to be in a “natural position”. Again, we have seent his given countless times.

And finally, Young was at it again, as a ball threaded through to Hudson-Odoi led the Everton veteran to come across and take him out from behind. Once more, the referee saw it happen and said “nah”, as did VAR when they took a look once the ball was out of play.

Three penalty shouts that were very valid, and comically all three from Ashley Young. That in itself was funny enough.

Anyone who saw the game or the highlights should have understandably felt bad for Forest, who seemingly was cheated out of a result.

That was, though, until Forest decided to go full Donald Trump, taking to Twitter/X to make a post about VAR official Stuart Atwell and in turn making themselves into the laughingstock for the week.

While they did have a claim for wrongdoing, the way they went about it brought mockery to the club. Their statement, which they clearly wanted to sound imposing, came across as pure comedy to fans of every other team in the league.