These teams started off the season brightly raising the hopes and expectations of their fans and supporters. They say a good start means half the job done, but it proved to be wrong for these clubs as they fell away after a promising start.
The clubs on this list will be rueing the way they finished the season with many of them missing important targets. Many supporters of these clubs will be left with a sense of “what might have been” after their club’s end to the season left them with a bitter aftertaste.
Let us take a look at 5 teams which promised a lot at the beginning but delivered little at the end of the season:
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Manchester United
Louis Van Gaal’s philosophy finally seemed to be paying off for Manchester United at the beginning of the 2015/2016 Premier League season. Manchester United were not playing spectacular football but they were solid enough and even topped the Premier League table for a short while.
After the first seven games of the season, Manchester United were on top of the Premier League table and many of their fans were dreaming of the Premier League title. However, after a horrific injury to young left-back Luke Shaw, the team started slipping and in the end they even failed to qualify for the Champions League.
Losses to teams such as Bournemouth, Stoke City and Southampton followed and United fans soon forgot about the League title. The final nail in the coffin came when they lost to West Ham 3-2 in May which cost them the 4th position and made it another underwhelming season under Louis van Gaal.
Inter Milan
When old favourite Roberto Mancini replaced Walter Mazzari as the manager of Inter Milan in November 2014, Inter fans marked the 2015/16 season as the year they will be seriously challenging for the Scudetto. The Early signs were promising for the Nerazzurri with Jovetic's goals leading them to the top of the Seria A table after 9 games.
With Juventus having a terrible start to the season, fans started believing that this year could be their year. Mancini in true Italian style had set up his team to not concede any goals and the tactics seemed to be paying off with Inter winning the majority of their matches 1-0.
However, a promising start soon faded away as a number of draws to teams like Sampdoria, Palermo and Juventus in October took them off the top of the Serie A standings. Defeats started to follow and Inter Milan could only finish 4th as they missed out on Champions League football for another season.
Crystal Palace
Alan Pardew is a club legend at Crystal Palace and he seemed to be guiding the London club to Europe when a good start left them surprisingly in the 4th position on the Premier League table in October. After a good finish to the 2014/15 season, Crystal Palace fans were hoping to somehow secure European qualification by finishing in the top 6.
However, the London club soon started slipping and a horrible run of 5 consecutive losses in January left them closer to relegation than Europe. Alarm bells really started ringing when they droped down to 15th position, however, they slightly recovered in the end to escape relegation pretty comfortably.
However, a season in which they dreamt of European football, they only finished at 15th position with 42 points, just 3 ahead of Sunderland. Crystal Palace even lost the FA Cup finals to Manchester United, and thus missed out on a spot in the Europa League.
Angers
Ligue 1 side Angers were the toast of France for surprisingly being second in the Ligue 1 table as recently as January. The French side were promoted this season to the Ligue 1 and they looked all set for a surprise spot in Europe next season thanks to their resolute defending, grit and determination.
However, they could not maintain their fairytale run and defeats at crucial junctures, meant that they had to settle for a place outside the European spots. They finally finished the season 8th in the standings.
Although, Angers’ fans will be very happy that they secured a top 10 finish, it will also be tinged with a bit of regret as to what they might have achieved this season. If Angers had maintained their early season form, Leicester would not be the only underdog story of the season.
Celta Vigo
Celta Vigo riding on Nolito’s goals and creativity were as high as third place in October and were fourth even in January. A return to Champions League football looked extremely probably and they had some stunning results along the way such as the 4-1 thrashing of La Liga champions Barcelona and an impressive 2-0 victory over Atletico Madrid.
However, things soon started to go downhill for the Spanish Club as they lost some important matches. A defeat to Villarreal in March proved to be crucial as they were beaten to the all important 4th position by the Yellow Submarine.
A season which promised so much ended up delivering little for Celta as they finally ended the season in 6th settling for the Europa League instead of the lucrative Champions League.
