City earn crown in game of thrones

And so a season which for so long defied logic was ultimately defined by it.

Like any good thriller, the Premier League title race kept us guessing almost right up to the end, only for the final act to confirm that, all along, it was the original chief suspect whodunnit.

If yesterday’s denouement engendered a feeling of anti-climax – with Manchester City casually dismissing West Ham and Liverpool labouring to mount a last-ditchchallenge before getting the better of Newcastle — it can only bebecause this season’s compulsive page turner was for so long such a raging tale of the unexpected, it virtually demanded that the most fantastic plot twist of all should erupt on very last page.