The second of our two-part series wraps up with the final five talking points of the 2014-15 Premier League season.
6. How did the big signings fare this season?
Let’s look at the top five most expensive signings this season and assess how they all went.
Angel Di Maria – To Manchester United for £59.7 million. Started in fine form, and his chipped goal against Leicester City was one of the best this season. But, like the United team as a whole in that infamous match against the Foxes, Di Maria’s form faded terribly, to the point where the most expensive player in English football could barely secure a starting spot over Ashley Young by the end of the season. Louis van Gaal is apparently listening to offers for the Argentine.
VERDICT: 3/10.
Alexis Sanchez – to Arsenal for £35 million. Though the Chilean also found it difficult to maintain his very best form for the length of the campaign, he was outstanding in the initial two thirds of the season. Far and away Arsenal’s most decisive player, his acclimatisation to the pace and power of the Premier League was instantaneous.
VERDICT: 8/10.
Eliaquim Mangala – to Manchester City for £32 million. Mangala’s enormous price tag was almost certainly shown to be inflated, as his first season in English football was rather hit and miss. He appeared 25 times in the league, and never seemed completely at ease, in spite of his Herculean physique. He is young and will no doubt improve, and should do so sooner rather than later, with Vincent Kompany suffering a startling downturn in form.
VERDICT: 6/10.
Diego Costa – to Chelsea for £32 million. Costa scored on the opening day and again on the final afternoon. Twenty goals for a striker in his maiden Premier League season is a remarkable feat, especially when you realise that Costa only played in 26 league matches. Injury and suspension kept him from touching Sergio Aguero for the Golden Boot (or, for that matter, Harry Kane in second) but his season, one capped with glittering silverware, was a raucous success.
VERDICT: 9/10.
Cesc Fabregas – to Chelsea for £30 million. The former Arsenal maestro began on course to break the Premier League assists record of 20, set by Thierry Henry in 2002-03. In the end, he finished up with a paltry 18, but it mattered little. He won the league title, the League Cup, and, customary second-half-of-the-season fade notwithstanding, enjoyed a fine time all around. His silk-and-steel partnership with Nemanja Matic in midfield was crucial to Chelsea’s success, and his absence from any noteworthy team of the season list raised some eyebrows.
VERDICT: 7/10.
7. The Premier League last in giving youth a chance.
The most depressing part of the data above is how boorishly unsurprising it is. Of the five big leagues in Europe, the Premier League gives the least minutes to Under-21 players. France’s Ligue 1 leads the way, followed by Spain, Germany, and then Italy.
The data also shows a definite downward trend in the average time allowed for young players over the last 10 years. This is, of course, inversely proportionate to the Premier League’s increasingly ravenous thirst for buying expensive, established talent, rather than nurturing young starlets into superstars.
With the coffers already overflowing, and TV rights payments only set to increase, will the “BUY, BUY, BUY” attitude overflow to the point where, like Stoke City this year, the majority of Premier League teams will not have a single under-21-year-old set foot on the pitch? A shuddering dystopia, to be sure.
8. Is the Europa League really that horrible a fate?
Liverpool lost 6-1 to Stoke City on the final day, handing the Potters their largest win in more than three decades. The drubbing also pushed Liverpool down a place in the final league standings to sixth, meaning that Tottenham, who was elevated to fifth, snatched the booby prize that is automatic qualification for the group stage of the Europa League.
How… convenient.
Except that now, as things stand, if Arsenal wins the FA Cup, Liverpool will also be dragged into the group stage of next year’s Europa League, a fate it appears, it feels is worse than a soiled send-off to a club legend. Arsenal has already qualified for the Champions League by finishing third, and so the Europa League spot that the winner of the FA Cup gets will go to the sixth-placed team. But if Aston Villa wins, Liverpool will only be roped into a playoff round to qualify for the group stages, a tie it will promptly aim to lose so that group matches against teams with unpronounceable names, hailing from the uglier areas of greater Siberia, can be avoided. “Come on, Aston Villa!” Brendan Rodgers will be hollering this weekend, it seems.
But is the second-tier European Cup really that bad a thing in which to be involved? This season, Sevilla won it for the second time on the trot, so it seems to enjoy it. And, with a Champions League spot up for grabs for the winner, it might well be Liverpool’s best chance of qualifying next season for the premier continental competition.
9. Will Arsenal repeat the cycle next season?
For the umpteenth season, Gunners all around the world are having to stew in an unusual cocktail. Arsenal finished the season playing superbly, losing just one of its last 14 matches. This fine run came after it lost or drew 12 of the previous 24 matches, including losses to direct rivals Chelsea, Spurs and Manchester United.
In fact, the only wins that Arsenal registered against top five opponents were the victories over a labouring Manchester City and a hapless Liverpool, good results of course, but coming too little, and far too late. So, it was another “what might have been” year for Arsene Wenger, whose team, when playing at its free-wheeling best, can overrun any side in the league.
Really, the two points from an available 12 against Chelsea and Manchester United were what scuppered a proper title challenge this season, and these sorts of losses leave a familiar, if still horribly bitter, taste in the supporters’ mouths. And yet, a feeling that the team is slowly (though too slowly) but surely getting better is there. Sanchez was a superb addition. Mesut Ozil walks a little taller every season. Olivier Giroud is proving to be, if not the world class striker Arsenal needs, a wholly reliable fill-in. Frances Coquelin has been one of the surprises of the season. Of course, as is the case every season, more reinforcement is needed to really compete for the title in 2015-16, and you can be sure that the teams around Arsenal will spend heavily. Will next season be the same as this one was, and the one before it, and so on into oblivion?
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10. What will be the enduring memories of the 14-15 campaign?
Often it is hard to pick what will end up being the moments that waft back into our minds when we remember this season in a few months, or years even. It is an inexact science, picking the sights and sounds that will endure, the storylines that will stick, the gaffes, the moments of buttery-throated triumph.
And, of course, tribal club allegiances will draw the most definite lines around what is and is not considered worth remembering. Didier Drogba being carried off in his final Chelsea match will be a moment of rose-tinted warmness for Chelsea fans. Steven Gerrard’s final match will not be remembered similarly by the Liverpudlians witnesses. West Ham fans will enjoy daydreaming about the 2-1 victory over Manchester City in October, and less about the pitiful 3-1 loss to Crystal Palace in February.
Will Raheem Sterling’s young reputation recover from the stain that is this contract saga? Who could tell? Costa provided a number of memory-searing moments, stamping and shooting his team to glory. Harry Kane also wrote himself into Spurs folklore, the local lad who became the season’s hero, and the league’s most potent English striker. Phil Jagielka will also enjoy telling his grandchildren about how, all those years ago, he hit a thunderbolt equaliser in the final moments of a Merseyside derby.
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