Chelsea got just about everything right. It’s a boring thing to say, but it’s true. Chelsea, who only lost three games in the English Premier League this year, got pretty much everything right.
You could say there were ominous signs for every other supporter back in July, a few weeks before the season actually had started. Cesc Fabregas (£27m, Barcelona), Diego Costa, Filipe Luis and Thibaut Courtois (£32m, £16m and loan return, respectively, all Atletico Madrid) had been added to an already impressive looking squad.
Nemanja Matic, too, had come in the previous January, so his addition along with the summer business represented a bristling rearmament of all of the squad’s weaknesses.
Only Costa’s injury proneness shone a light on any chinks, but that was shut by the purchase of Loic Remy (£10.5m, QPR) in the last days of the transfer window.
As the season began, and the West Londoners shot off like a NASA space launch. They went 14 games unbeaten, Costa and Fabregas shone, and Costa broke some sort of scoring record by bagging seven in his first four.
The manager Jose Mourinho managed to get the best out of an ageing John Terry and Eden Hazard, the Belgian finally shining as his hype promised he would. However, Mourinho’s strategy of making the most out of Terry’s strengths by fielding an unconventional pairing of fullbacks (the right-footed Cesar Azpilicueta at left back, and the towering Serbian Branislav Ivanovic on the other side) ensured that Terry’s lack of pace – his biggest weakness – wasn’t exposed by a wide, stretching defence.
Although of course, they weren’t perfect. There remains a troubling lack of academy players coming through; the much-vaunted Ruben Loftus-Cheek only made three appearances the whole season. The arrival of Juan Cuadrado (£23m, Fiorentina) hasn’t really amounted to much, and the less said about the European performances, the better.
All in all though, after their 3-1 defeat of Burnley on the opening day, Chelsea went top and stayed there all season.
But one-horse title races are boring
There’s a lot been said about ‘boring’ Chelsea, with a lot of accusations and counter-accusations and fact-finding missions.
I really don’t want to delve into the super serious statistics, but the obvious problem this season had was the absolute lack of a title race. Manchester City gave Mourinho’s side a little bit of a run in December, but that’s as heated as it got.
It was interesting reflecting on the amazing end to the title race when Sergio Aguero won the title for City at the death. While that is a finish unlikely to be aped in any future seasons, the fact that Chelsea basically had the title sewn up several months ago made the Premier League rather boring this year.
The only narratives worth getting excited about were the inexplicable shenanigans underway at several of their challengers.
It’s not Pellegrini’s fault Manchester City had a disappointing year
There’s mad buzz coming up at the moment that Pep Guardiola will replace Manuel Pellegrini the season after next at Manchester City. The sheikhs in charge have probably planned for Guardiola’s arrival; they did pinch Ferran Soriano from Barcelona to be their CEO.
Pellegrini mightn’t have worked his best magic at Manchester City – to be honest, I didn’t really watch any of their games this season, apart from the drubbing given to them by their city rivals – but it’s really hard to point 100 per cent of the blame at him when you consider the shambles City have got themselves into.
This could be an article length point, so I’ll illustrate one gripe that I believe shows up the problems at the club.
At the beginning of the season, the club had Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko, Alvaro Negredo and Stevan Jovetic as their forwards. Sergio Aguero has been at the club since 2011, and is undeniably world-class and the team’s lynchpin, no matter how much they spend. When he plays well, the team plays well.
The rest are considered rubbish by the management. Dzeko, who we all know can be a decent striker, is mostly thrown on as a late sub in most games. Negredo was loaned out to Valencia after only a season at the club, and he was bought to complement Aguero. Jovetic, the Montenegrin wunderkind who ripped up Serie A, is also considered rubbish.
To rectify this, the club brought in the Ivorian Wilfried Bony (£28m, Swansea) in January. Bony missed the first month and a bit at the club, as he was off playing in the African Nations Cup. Following that, he only played in 10 games and scored two goals in the rest of the season.
I could go on about Vincent Kompany’s decline (or indeed Yaya Toure), the overpriced Eliaquim Mangala, or the quiet excellence of their cheaper recruits, but I don’t feel the need to. Manchester City has a lot of problems, and they’re not necessarily Manuel Pellegrini’s fault.
Sacking the Chilean would be akin to taping over a hole in a leaky boat.
Brendan Rodgers is a cautionary tale in judging a manager’s merits
Pieces about Rodgers have been done to the death over the season, so I shall also attempt to keep this one short.
After almost guiding the Liverpool Football Cult to the promised land last year, the Reds have become the joke of the league, especially so because of their last day embarrassment at Stoke.
It’s very illuminating that for a manager who talks so much nonsense (he apparently sees himself as his biggest inspiration), his team seems to have been undone by the rather simple loss of a world-class player to another club, and their best player and revelation of the previous season to injury for most of the year.
The Ulsterman was considered quite the managerial mastermind last year, but most or all of that carefully built capital has been lost. The true answer as whether he is a mastermind or not is probably in the middle somewhere, as usual.
Such even-handedness probably won’t save him his job. And when you play Joe Allen as a wing-forward, it’s becomes a bit hard to argue your case. Then again, much like Pellegrini and City, his predicament might just be muddled by incompetence from higher up.
Louis van Gaal can’t afford another disappointing year
Of all the things and millions of articles written about Van Gaal over this season, no one’s really stood back and marvelled on what a season it’s been. It’s been bloody odd.
First of all, there was the odd pre-season, soaked in suffocating hype and especially dramatic due to millions of pounds spent, most of it on Angel Di Maria. In addition, after a very shaky start to the season, the much-vaunted back three was soon ditched.
The first half of the season contained loads of mediocrity and a few shambolic performances – the loss to third division MK Dons in the League Cup, and to Leicester in the league come to mind. Before Christmas, Manchester United had only the league to play for.
Then, in the new year, a marvellous run of form seemed to coincide with the return of 33-year-old midfielder Michael Carrick from injury. Quietly a nice run of form was built up, before the demolitions of Liverpool and Manchester City took place meant the all-seeing eye was placed firmly back on the Red Devils.
For the man who asked the media to judge him after three months, it took awfully long for Van Gaal to get the red Mancunians ticking again. Probably most impressively, he had turned Ashley Young and Marouane Fellaini into footballers to be feared.
Quickly as it came though, the form subsided and the team limped over the line, losing to Everton, West Brom and Chelsea in their last six league games. The big name arrivals from just the previous summer transfer window, Di Maria and Radamel Falcao, seemed all shot to bits for certain, as did Robin van Persie (quite figuratively shot to bits, considering all the injuries he’s come across).
The amount of problems that still trouble Manchester United are reflected in the early off-season transfer gossip. There’s talk of a new right back, centre back, striker, central midfielder and winger (that’d actually be Memphis Depay, bought for £24 million from PSV).
There’s a litany more problems or incompetencies in and around the squad, too, but this isn’t the place to filter through them.
The fact of the matter is, for all his experience and proven reputation as master manager, Van Gaal can’t afford to have as listless and/or inconsistent season as he had over the past season. Much like Man City it’s ridiculous that so much money was spent on a squad, for their mojo to coincide with the return of Carrick.
Van Gaal must lift them out of their current pall of mediocrity, without falsely stepping. In other words, no inexplicable capitulations like the MK Dons game.
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