Premier Cup

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The Premier Cup was a one-off football tournament held to mark the coronation of Queen Alexandra on 1 August 2019. Contested between eight English football clubs, the tournament lasted for over five weeks, beginning from 18 May 2019 to 15 June 2019.

Initially envisioned to include Scottish clubs of the Scottish Premiership as well, the tournament ultimately came to include eight Premier League clubs, namely:

In total, the tournament consists of four stages, namely the quarter-finals, semi-finals, finals, and the third-place playoffs, all of which, barring the latter two, are two-legged occasions played at both home and away. Meanwhile, the clubs that compete in the tournament are drawn against one another at random via a lucky draw, and their fixtures in the quarter-finals and semi-finals are played simultaneously. Similarly, both the finals and the third-place playoffs also take place at simultaneous times with the finals being held at Wembley Stadium in London and the third-place playoffs at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester.

Draw

For the quarter-finals, the eight clubs competing in the tournament are randomly grouped into four groups of two via a lucky draw held on 15 May 2019. The results of the draw, which was televised live on BBC Sport and Sky Sport, are as follows:

Quarter-finals

On 18 May 2019, the first leg of the quarter-finals of the tournament took place. On this occasion, Tottenham Hotspur staged an upset by defeating Arsenal 3-1 whilst Chelsea and Manchester City defeated their opponents Manchester United and Liverpool 2-1 and 2-0 respectively to ensure an advantage for the ensuing half with Wolverhampton Wanderers also following suit by a 1-0 victory over Burnley.

Then, on 25 May 2019, the second leg of the quarter-finals took place. On this occasion, Tottenham Hotspur strengthened their initial position via two additional goals to win 5-2 on aggregate over Arsenal, which was similarly observed with Wolverhampton Wanderers scoring thrice in the second leg to mark a final 4-1 victory by aggregate against Burnley. In the meantime, Chelsea maintained the initial scoreline of 2-1 against Manchester United whilst Manchester City found a single goal in the second leg to eventually win by 3-1 on aggregate.

Draw

For the semi-finals, the four remaining clubs are drawn against each other via a lucky draw held on 28 May 2019. The results of the draw, which was televised live on BBC Sport and Sky Sport, are as follows:

Semi-Finals

On 1 June 2019, the first leg of the quarter-finals took place, with Chelsea comfortably defeating Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-1 whilst Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur found themselves tied at 2-2 for the ensuing second leg with Sergio Agüero scoring an important 63rd-minute equaliser after goals from Harry Kane and Dele Alli in the 45th and 46th minutes respectively nulified Manchester City's initial lead through İlkay Gündoğan's 43rd-minute goal.

On 8 June 2019, the second leg of the quarter-finals took place, with Chelsea going on to comfortably win 7-1 on aggregate by scoring four goals in the second leg in which both Eden Hazard and Álvaro Morata scored twice each in the second leg to seal the club's promotion to the finals. In the meantime, in a highly-anticipated second leg at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, favourites Manchester City were defeated 4-6 on aggregate by Tottenham Hotspur whom scored four goals to Manchester City's two in the second leg via a brace from Harry Kane and individual goals from Christian Eriksen and Son Heung-min whilst Manchester City scored via Sergio Agüero and Kevin De Bruyne.

Finals & Third-place Playoffs

On 15 June 2019, the final match of the tournament was held at Wembley Stadium, London, pitting Tottenham Hotspur against Chelsea. In the ensuing fixture, which lasted for a full 120 minutes, Tottenham Hotspur initially took the lead via a 31st-minute goal from Dele Alli until a 77th-minute goal from Eden Hazard saw Chelsea pull one back to level with their opponents, causing the match to go into extra time where after no further attempts proved successful, a penalty shootout was held to determine the final victor. In the end, Tottenham Hotspur narrowly won 4-3 on penalties despite an unsuccessful attempt by Lucas Moura, whose mistake was otherwise overshadowed by similar unsuccessful attempts from the Chelsea side by David Luiz and Willian, thereby ultimately allowing Kieran Trippier to score the winning penalty past goalkeeper, Kepa.

In the meantime, at the Old Trafford stadium in Manchester, the third-place playoff match between Manchester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers. In this instance, Manchester City largely met expectations by marking a dominant 4-0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers in an ultimately one-sided match, with Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling's individual goals in the 78th and 85th minutes respectively aided by two own goals in the first half by Willy Boly.

Aftermath

In terms of viewership, revenue, and attendance, the tournament proved to be an overwhelming success with the stadiums used for each match being mostly at near capacity, with Wembley Stadium and Old Trafford both seeing seats nearly filled by spectators.

Meanwhile, in terms of reactions, despite an initially lukewarm response towards the quarter-finals, given that the two weakest teams, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley were drawn against one another rather than against a stronger Premier League club, the semi-finals were otherwise met with a more enthusiastic response with many pundits expressing much shock at Tottenham Hotspur's surprise victory over favourites Manchester City despite a hard-fought match between the two clubs. Similarly, Tottenham Hotspur's narrow victory over Chelsea in the finals was also the subject of much coverage and surprise whilst the third-place playoffs, which featured heavyweights Manchester City against minnows Wolverhampton Wanderers received a more indifferent and lukewarm response with most observers accurately predicting a Manchester City victory.

Despite his club's loss in the finals, Chelsea's Eden Hazard nonetheless finished the tournament as its top goalscorer with six goals to his name, followed by Tottenham Hotspur's Dele Alli with 3 goals.

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