Premier League Autopsy (Part 2)

After a wrap-up last time of Man United's season, now it's time to turn my incisive footballing knowledge (read: scattered assortment of ramblings) to the other highs and lows of the 2014-2015 season.

Chelsea

The Chelsea Bus, on a rare trip outside of  the Stamford Bridge pitch.

Winners of the Premier League this year were Chelsea, to the great surprise of nobody in particular. Mourinho has something of a proven track record of winning the league in his second season at a club, and so it was on his second spell in England.

Nothing if not consistent.

Chelsea were accused by many of being boring this season, and it's hard to dispute that after a free-flowing start (Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas being extremely effective), they rapidly hunkered down into title winning mode and trundled towards the title like a heavily armoured battle tank. And even I will admit that despite having no great affection for Chelsea, it was a bit lovely to see Didier Drogba being carried off by his team-mates during his final game.

Ruthless, efficient, effective. Like a well oiled, Teutonic machine.

No-one can deny that they were dominant and deserved the title; not even I would be so churlish. What I would say, however, is that merely winning a great number of games without playing particularly well is a little stale. Chelsea were frequently labelled as 'boring' as the season progressed, and they were fine with the tagline so long as they kept advancing towards the finishing line. What I would say is that it does perhaps go someway to explaining why English teams have struggled in Europe over the last couple of years; we no longer aim to play good football, but effective football. I have a begrudging respect for Mourinho (despite being a bit of a knob, his chutzpah is quite refreshing in such a staid place as the EPL), but compare Chelsea with teams like Bayern, Barca, Madrid and the other top teams in Europe, and you'll see why  English teams fall short; we settle for being good enough to make the standard, without pushing any further.

Liverpool

(Obviously, a biased interpretation) 

Liverpool always say "this year is going to be our year". They've not won the league in over 25 years, but Liverpool fans always seem to be optimistic, which is sort of endearing. This year, they actually had reason for their optimism; after finishing second last season, Brendan Rogers seemed to have settled in well on Merseyside. Sure, they lost Suarez- but they replaced him with experienced European heavyweight (and non-stop lol-machine) Mario Balotelli, plus proven Premier League goal scorer Ricky Lambert. Not to mention, Suarez' partner in crime Daniel Sturridge was still around. Alas; Balotelli turned out to be shite, Lambert wasn't given a proper run in the side, and Sturridge spent most of the season injured.

#butwhenyouthinkaboutitfifthisn'tthatbad

As I recently ranted, there was also the massive distraction of Steven Gerrard's imminent departure. I've already made my feelings clear, but the facts speak for themselves; on the excellent/hilarious Football Ramble podcast, it was pointed out that since January Liverpool have a win rate of 33%; without him, that rises to 60%. 

Manchester City

City managed to pull of the not necessarily easy task of being pretty crap whilst also finishing second. Though they almost caught Chelsea at one point, City seem to have collectively decided sometime around January "Actually, not sure I fancy this. Let's knock off 'til August".

There were selected glimpses of effort and quality; Sergio Aguero won the golden boot- no mean feat with Harry Kane having the season of a lifetime. Then there is perennial stand-out, Frank Lampard. I spoke about him in the Steven Gerrard post, but it should be reiterated what a great player he is.

His statistics are outstanding.

Obviously, he's played for Chelsea and City, so I've not enjoyed most of his goals- but even so, there's no denying that he's been a phenomenal player. Remember, he should be in the MLS already. The whole purported purpose of his move to City was to maintain his fitness prior to a move to New York City FC. In the event, he added another eight goals to his tally- including a goal on the final day of the season- and made a decent contribution to City's relatively successful season.

Relegation

There were few surprises in the relegation run-in: QPR were rightfully relegated on account of not giving a toss and being like a budget version of Man City. The fact they released six experienced players within days of going down says a lot about how inflated their wage bill was. Coupled with that, Harry Redknapp didn't even bother hanging around until the end of the season. Speaks volumes. QPR were undoubtedly worthy winners of 20th place.

Burnley were again predictable relegation fodder, but for the opposite reason. They had all the fight and passion that QPR lacked, but sadly didn't spend any money and had a squad which might have been fine in the Championship (on it's day), but was ultimately not strong enough for the Prem. With parachute payments, Shaun Dyche in charge, and patient ownership, they might well be back soon.

Hull...were insipid. There's not a lot to be said for them, other than they were not good enough. Part of me was hoping that they'd leapfrog Newcastle, to punish Mike Ashley for his pretty evil and shitty ownership of a once-great football club. In the end though, Newcastle fluked a win on the final day (taking John Carver's point tally to 4), and Hull struggled to a dull 0-0 at home to Man United.

Long Summer

And now, there's a terrible long summer in store. Much like how the characters in Game of Thrones talk of the approaching winter in dour, downbeat tones, we're facing another awful odd-numbered year with no World Cup or Euros to break up the interminable months between May and August. There's the small matter of the FA Cup final this weekend, but after that it'll be time to hunker down with some transfer rumour blogs until the Community Shield in August. Hold tight, football fans...