2011/12 English Premier League Review

[TakingthePapiss]

Chelsea

Final Position: 6th
Final Record: W18 D10 L10 GD19 Points 64
Manager: Andre Villas Boas/Roberto Di Matteo
Top goal-scorer: Daniel Sturridge & Frank Lampard (11 goals)
Top assists: Juan Mata (13 assists)

With a new highly-rated up and coming manager in Andre Villas Boas coming in at the start of the season and a few good signings, most predicted Chelsea to come 3rd at the very worst. I personally fell for the AVB hype and at one point in the pre-season I actually predicted them to win the league.

As the season went on it became increasingly evident that Villas Boas had been entrusted with a seemingly impossible task. He had to phase out the older guard in Terry/Lampard/Drogba and replace them with younger players gradually – whilst also winning games. He lost the dressing room with some of his ‘strange’ methods and received his P45 in early March. Assistant Manager Roberto Di Matteo took over on an interim basis until the end of the season and did a decent job. Whilst their league finish was entirely unacceptable, they are in the final of the Champions League this coming weekend.

Usually a hard team to score against, they shipped 46 goals this season and looked dis-organised and dis-interested at times. It is set to be a very interesting off-season at Stamford Bridge with plenty of big decisions to be made by billionaire owner Roman Abramovich.

Highlight of the season: Making the final of the Champions League has been their highlight of the season, but as far as the league goes that home 2-1 victory against Manchester City appeared to come at a good time (until they failed to win any of their next 4).
Lowlight: The way they entirely capitulated against Arsenal in that 5-3 loss at Stamford Bridge is up there, but their dropped points against poor teams ultimately cost them any chance of a top 4 finish.
Star player: Juan Mata came with big wraps from Valencia and despite costing £23.5m; he was worth every penny of it. He’s still only 24 so he has a huge role to play in Chelsea’s rebuilding.
Most improved player: Despite tapering off towards the end of the season, it’s hard to ignore the impact that Daniel Sturridge had in the first half of the year. Whilst he had shown what he is capable of at Bolton last season, he translated that form into the blue shirt of Chelsea this year.
Biggest underperformer: Fernando Torres is the obvious one because he didn’t play anything like a £50m striker until it was far too late – but a special mention has to go to both Florent Malouda and John Obi Mikel – who both had extremely poor seasons.
Signing of the season: Juan Mata for the reasons specified in ‘star player’.

Final Rating: C-

[Embers]

You could probably break Chelseas disappointing players into the AVB/Di Matteo group

AVB = David Luiz, Ashley Cole
Di Matteo = Daniel Sturridge, Fernando Torres

Overall Malouda is the run away winner. Harsh on Obi Mikel as he had a good last 2 months of the season

[TakingthePapiss]

You could probably break Chelseas disappointing players into the AVB/Di Matteo group

AVB = David Luiz, Ashley Cole
Di Matteo = Daniel Sturridge, Fernando Torres

Overall Malouda is the run away winner. Harsh on Obi Mikel as he had a good last 2 months of the season

Torres had his good form under Di Matteo :-/

[Embers]

Torres had his good form under Di Matteo :-/

Ashley Cole and Fernando Torres are the wrong way around. My bad

[TakingthePapiss]

Everton

Final Position: 7th
Final Record: W15 D11 L12 GD10 Points 56
Manager: David Moyes
Top goal-scorer: Nikica Jelavic (9 goals)
Top assists: Steven Pienaar (7 assists)

Their financial woes were well documented before the season began which prompted many to predict this year as the year that Everton finally finished outside of the top half of the season. Not only did they fail to strengthen before the season began, but they also lost the influential Mikel Arteta to Arsenal on dead-line day.

Those pre-season predictions were looking spot on as Everton struggled early in the season – and although they usually do, they lacked the quality to start getting the results. Fast forward to the January transfer window and they brought back Steven Pienaar on a 6-month loan deal, as well as signing striker Nikica Jelavic from Rangers for a fee of around £5m. The fact that one of these finished as their top scorer and the other as their top assists shows what impact they had in the second half of the season, as Everton played some fantastic football which led to them finishing 7th for the second consecutive year.

With a 3-1 victory against Newcastle on the final day, they finished above Liverpool for the first time since 2004/05. They also had a direct influence on the winner of the Premier League, with that come from behind 4-4 draw at Old Trafford ultimately costing Man Utd the title.

Highlight of the season: That 4-4 draw at old Trafford mentioned above.
Lowlight: Losing both derbies against Liverpool again – as well as the FA Cup semi-final after leading 1-0.
Star Player: Nikica Jelavic. He only played 13 games, but with 9 goals he turned Everton’s season around.
Most improved player: Tony Hibbert had a sensational season, in fact he was one of the best right backs in the league.
Biggest underperformer: Tim Cahill had a very poor season by his standards. He only scored 2 goals and had 2 assists in 27 starts and 8 sub appearances.
Signing of the season: Again, Nikica Jelavic.

Rating: B

[TakingthePapiss]

Fulham

Final Position: 9th
Final Record: W14 D10 L14 GD-3 Points 52
Manager: Martin Jol
Top goal-scorer: Clint Dempsey (17 goals)
Top assists: Clint Dempsey (6 assists)

Martin Jol was signed up in the off-season to replace the outgoing Mark Hughes, with many viewing the Martin Jol appointment as a positive one with him expected to have an influence over the way Fulham play.

Having the Europa League to contend with was always going to have an effect on their small squad and it’s no coincidence that they started the season slowly due to the many qualifiers they had to play. After they got knocked out of the Europa League at the group stage their performances in the league picked up thanks to the brilliant from of their American, Clint Dempsey.

Brede Hangeland started in every game for Fulham and was a key reason that they finished as high up as they did. Whilst he didn’t have his greatest season, his leadership and presence in the back-line doesn’t go un-noticed. Bryan Ruiz joined Fulham for a club-record £10m and whilst he showed some promising signs, their fans will be expecting a much better and consistent season from him next year.

Highlight of the season: A 6-0 win over arch-rivals QPR just edges out a 5-0 home win over Wolves and a 5-2 win over Newcastle.
Lowlight: In what was a consistent season for Fulham it’s hard to pick out any particular game that stands out. Being thoroughly outplayed by Man Utd and losing 5-0 at home is probably the worst thing that happened to them this season.
Star Player: Clint Dempsey had 17 goals and 6 assists, it doesn’t really need explaining.
Most improved player: I’m honestly at a loss, nobody stands out.
Biggest underperformer: Bryan Ruiz wasn’t good enough. He came very highly rated after setting the Dutch league alight and cost a lot of money, but he was disappointing for the most part.
Signing of the season: John Arne Riise played 35 games and was solid as a rock.

Final rating: B

[TakingthePapiss]

Liverpool

Final position: 8th
Final record: W14 D10 L14 GD7 Points 52
Manager: Kenny Dalglish
Top goal-scorer: Luis Suarez (11 goals)
Top assists: Charlie Adam (6 assists)

Well, with ‘King Kenny’ in charge, the good times were going to come back to Anfield. Or so their fans thought. What transpired this season can go down as nothing other than a debacle and the ‘glory days’ couldn’t have been further away (unless you count winning the Carling Cup as glory).

The Fenway Sports Group put a lot of trust in Kenny and Damien Comoli and backed them with plenty of money for new signings – the majority of which have been failures to date. Stewart Downing came in for ~£20m and didn’t add a single goal or assist in the league. Jordan Henderson came in for around £16m and was poor (mainly due to being played out of position). Andy Carroll again, proved to be a complete waste of money and Kenny Dalglish’s ‘tactics’ left a lot to be desired.

The entire Luis Suarez saga again, made the club look incompetent with the way it was dealt with, and whilst their loyalty can be commended – the way they went about things including wearing t-shirts in support and Kenny Dalglish’s comments, simply weren’t professional enough.

Liverpool only scored 47 goals for the season which is one of the worst returns in the league, and their poor home form with only 27 points picked up from their 19 home games meant that they were never a serious chance to challenge for the top 4 – which was the MINIMUM aim of both their fans and everyone involved in the club. Whilst those aims weren’t helped with the injury to defensive midfielder Lucas, the lack of signing of a replacement was another strange decision.

Since the season has finished, FSG has made the decision to relieve Kenny of his services along with many other important members of the backroom team and now they have the hard job of appointing ‘the right man for the job’ – bearing in mind that the Liverpool fans aren’t going to be nearly as patient with the new manager as they were with King Kenny.

Highlight of the season: 3 wins out of 3 against Everton. Sadly, that’s what it’s come to for Liverpool fans.
Lowlight: I can’t pick out a particular one – with many home draws against poor sides standing out. The 4-0 loss at Tottenham after going down to 9 men and the general comedy of that match, as early in the season as it was, set the tone for the season. Off the field, the way the Luis Suarez saga was dealt with was a definite low-light.
Star Player: Errr, pass. They didn’t have one.
Most improved player: Martin Skrtel had perhaps his best season in a Liverpool shirt.
Biggest underperformer: There were two, with the main one being Stewart Downing for obvious reasons. Pepe Reina is the other one, who made some very uncharacteristic mistakes this season and looked disinterested, particular towards the latter part of the season.

Final Rating: D

[Shuttlesworth]

Don't buy the 'Henderson was played out of position' stuff. He looked pretty good on the right side of midfield for Sunderland.

[TakingthePapiss]

Don't buy the 'Henderson was played out of position' stuff. He looked pretty good on the right side of midfield for Sunderland.

Yeah, the whole twice that he played there.

[James Pattinson]

Don't buy the 'Henderson was played out of position' stuff. He looked pretty good on the right side of midfield for Sunderland.

Incapable of speaking a good word about Liverpool, aren't you?

Facts are; Henderson played on the right for Sunderland a handful of times and looked okay.

He played there ~20 times for us and struggled heaps, when moved centrally he looked a lot better.

[Shuttlesworth]

Yeah, the whole twice that he played there.

He played there for Sunderland a lot more than he played centrally.

Incapable of speaking a good word about Liverpool, aren't you?

Facts are; Henderson played on the right for Sunderland a handful of times and looked okay.

He played there ~20 times for us and struggled heaps, when moved centrally he looked a lot better.

It's not a bad word about Liverpool, it's a bad word about Jordan Henderson...he's not that good.

[TakingthePapiss]

He played there for Sunderland a lot more than he played centrally.

No he didn't.

Not last season anyway.

[Embers]

No he didn't.

Not last season anyway.

The last 3 months of the season he ended up at RW pretty much switching and swapping with Sessegnon. Lord knows why. He had a ridiculously good season before that playing as a front third CM type of player.

Liverpool bought him on the basis of the beginning of the season not the end.

Even meh would vouge for the fact he was in droppable form at seasons end and Liverpool still paid a stupid amount for him. He was worth what Liverpool offered in January. Past that date I think he had halfed his value with a very poor end to the season

[meh]

Henderson generally played more centrally, and showed his best form there. He can whip in decent crosses but that's about it of his wide attributes, he's much better centrally with support behind him.

Embers is right, when Henderson first burst onto the seen I was like wowee, but when the news filtered through Liverpool were interested I wasn't too bothered purely because his form was shite over a decent period of time.

I'm not saying this because he had a poor season at Anfield or the big money we received, but I'm still not bothered he left, I can't see him having a massive future, he will be good, yes, but hardly a stand out. Jack Colback has shown more than Henderson ever did this season.

[TSYW]

Neville Neville, are you doing yours this year?