Premier League Autopsy - Best of the Rest (3/3)

After looking at the heroics of Leicester (and lack thereof from United), in this final Premier League Autopsy I'll be rounding up the highs and lows from elsewhere in this frankly ridiculous EPL season.

Chelsea

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear.

As Leicester yinged, so did the reigning champions yang. Perhaps most beguiling about Chelsea's nose-dive to ignominy is that there were no prior warning signs; before the season kicked off it appeared as though Chelsea would consolidate their hold on the title and officially begin Jose's second era of European domination.

Admittedly, in hindsight an endorsement from Michael Owen was a MASSIVE red flag.

Things went pear-shaped almost immediately. Mourinho himself was the first to lose the plot, criticising his medical team for having the temerity to provide medical assistance to a player. The dispute became very public and took a toll on the field. Chelsea had won the 14/15 title more through solid defensive work than goal-scoring heroics, but in the second game of the season they were battered 3-0 by Manchester City. The losses soon piled up. By the time he was sacked in December, Mourinho had lost nine of his sixteen Premier League games, alienated the entire playing squad, and steered the club to the brink of the relegation zone.

Mental.

Guus Hiddink stabilised the club, but only insomuch as a paramedic might "stabilise" a critically-ill patient: they might not be flat-lining any more, but they're not exactly about to go for a jog and bang in a few goals. This sluggish "improvement" was most notably personified by Eden Hazard: PFA Player of the Year last season, he eventually scored his first league goal of the season at the end of April (his first league strike for literally A YEAR). The club eventually finished in 10th place, and announced that Antonio Conte would take the managerial reigns for next season. Chelsea still enjoy the largesse of Abramovich's billions and have only finished outside of the top four twice in the last 15 years, but it remains to be seen if they can rebuild after a catastrophic 2015-2016.

Spurs

Unlucky to hit peak form in the same season as Leicester, in any other year Tottenham could well have been champions. They played pulsating, attacking football, and on their day were a match for almost anybody. They did this with a core of those rarest talents: young, English (and decent) players. Harry Kane continued his fine form of last season, Erik Dier anchored the team, and Dele Alli had a breakthrough EPL debut whilst scoring one of the goals of the season:

Indeed, Spurs looked to have been title-chasing contenders up until they drew at Chelsea; following that draw, Spurs fell apart like a poorly constructed sandcastle. After dropping points in winnable games, Tottenham only needed a point against already-relegated Newcastle to finish above arch-rivals Arsenal. In a game that epitomised the ridiculous nature of the season, the 10-man Geordies absolutely smashed them 5-1. 

Despite a terrible end to the season, Spurs can take some heart from this year. The young squad has built up an awful lot of experience in a short space of time, and Pochettino has signed a new five-year deal. If Spurs can produce a similar level of performance next year then they must be considered title contenders.

Arsenal

The look of a man who has dodged an entire clip of bullets.

The Gunners managed a rare feat: simultaneously having a pretty crappy season in which they achieved nothing, and still ending up in 2nd position. In a season where pretty much everything was thrown out the window, there was a reassuring predictability to Arsenal this year. Again, they finished above their bitter arch-rivals (for the 20th consecutive year). Again, they crashed out of Europe against far superior opposition. Again, they produced some lovely possession-based football that rarely threatened to win trophies. In spite of all that, Wenger must take a certain amount of credit for managing to stand still when most other managers were scrambling to keep their feet on solid ground.

Plus it's always nice to see Piers Morgan make a right tit out of himself.

Despite this, it still seems unlikely that Arsenal will get their first title in more than a decade next season. With Wenger entrenched and a policy of limited investment, it's hard to see Arsenal going one position further and taking the title. Then again, stranger things have happened...

Northampton Town winning League 2? WHAT IS HAPPENING TO FOOTBALL THIS SEASON

Relegated teams

Norwich: Uninspired, dull, and ultimately not good enough for the Premier League. However, more than any other relegated team Norwich seem to have perfected the Art of the Yo-Yo, and it probably won't be long until we see them back in the league.

Newcastle: Oh dear. A once proud, exciting team, Newcastle have been flirting with relegation for a number of seasons whilst sagging under an owner who was the toxic combination of simultaneously not giving a shit and yet constantly interfered in the running of the club.

Not exactly a model of Churchillian leadership and resilience.

Besides interfering in football matters where he seemed especially clueless, Ashley typically hamstrung Newcastle by exclusively buying players who were a) young, and b) cheap. This year he broke with a lifelong habit and decided to actually buy some players who people had heard of.

On paper, not actually that bad.

However, despite signing some attractive players all was not well. The perennially hapless Steve McClaren was dangling by a thread for most of the season before finally being given the boot and replaced by Rafa Benitez. Whilst undeniably a good appointment, with only ten games left it was something akin to whacking Lewis Hamilton into a banger race after the car's engine has exploded and expecting him to secure a podium finish.

"This'll keep me busy for a few months until something decent comes along" 

That Newcastle went down at the expense of fellow North-Eastern relegation magnets Sunderland must have particularly hurt. I'd be surprised if they didn't come back up in the next couple of seasons, but for now they'll have to rebuild in the Championship.

Aston Villa: Practically begging for relegation for the past few seasons, this was the year Villa finally dropped. It wasn't always this way: a few years back, they were consistently finishing high in the table with a midfield including Ashley Young, Gareth Barry, and James Milner: admittedly not stellar talent perhaps, but still decent, English players who all left for 'bigger' teams and won copious amounts of silverware elsewhere. The pattern was repeated this season as Villa again sold their best players, Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph.

To be honest, it was worth it just for the Snakes on a Plane joke.

The fact that Villa kept selling key talent wasn't the only reason they seemed inevitably doomed to the Championship. They were arguably more hamstrung by a similarly unambitious pattern of lazy management choices over the same period. Alex McLeish had played woefully dull football at arch-rivals Birmingham City, and was rewarded with the Villa job. Likewise, Paul Lambert was another uninspired choice who seemed to specialise in a particularly tepid brand of football. It's a damning indictment of Villa's lack of ambition that he still managed to stay in the job for almost three seasons. Then of course, this season started with Ol' Timmy Sherwood.

What a capital grade bell-end.

Tim had blagged himself the Spurs job (allegedly by conspiring against Andre Villas-Boas), before being repeatedly found out for his tactical naivety. Leaving Spurs with only the slimmest shred of his reputation intact, Sherwood managed to leverage his way into the Villa job at the end of last season on the basis that he was not Paul Lambert. After initially experiencing a dead cat bounce at the end of last season, he was "surprisingly" found out again tactically during this season. Despite this, and a dire set of results, Tim still remained unexpectedly chippy chipper. This was summed up after a rare win, when he used sign language to inform the Villa fans that their club still had a pulse:

Checking for a pulse or blowing his brains out? We'll never know.

However, his poor start to the season couldn't be reversed under Remi Garde or Eric Black, and Villa were deservedly relegated. Farewell, chaps.

Season highlights

• Dimitri Payet scoring some incredibly sexy free-kicks in a strong showing for West Ham. With a new stadium coming next year, they could soon be a force to be reckoned with.

• Jamie Vardy breaking the record for scoring in consecutive matches. Vardy said after the game that "The record was not in my mind, it would have affected my performance and the team's, and that's the last thing I wanted to do", which is presumably why after he scored he ran away shouting "It's me, it's me, it's fucking me!"

• Norwich 4 - 5 Liverpool. Obviously I'm biased against the Scousers, but what a cracker of a game. Each team seemed utterly boggled by the concept of defence as they each took turns in rampaging forward and inevitably grabbing another goal. It was absolutely crazy, and that's my favourite kind of football:

Southampton 4-0 Arsenal. I watched this game with my family over the Christmas break, and couldn't really come up with words to explain to my non-football loving wife why this shouldn't be happening. Arsenal were bang in form, and Southampton were plucky if rarely brilliant: but for one night, the Saints (and Shane Long) could do no wrong as they banged in goal after goal past a bewildered Petr Cech. Even Cuco Martina- who I'd honestly never noticed before- banged in an absolute thunderbastard of a goal:

• If I'm pushed though, there is only one highlight of the season which stands head and shoulders above all others: