Premier League club by club season review - Part 2

After reviewing Arsenal, Aston Villa, Blackburn and Bolton, (which you can read about here) we take a look at Chelsea, Everton, Fulham and Liverpool in Part 2 of the Premier League club by club season review.

Chelsea : After sacking yet another manager for failing to win the Champions League, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich decided to appoint young manager Andre Villas-Boas after his success with FC Porto and assured him that he was there for the long term. Unfortunately, it was not to be a match made in heaven. AVB never managed to get the dressing room on his side with his disregard for the club’s senior players and the results were not deemed good enough and he was sacked in March. Chelsea’s season threatened to go from bad to worse as they decided to appoint Roberto Di Matteo, who was AVB’s second in command, as the interim manager for the remainder of the season.

What followed was absolutely mind-boggling. Their domestic form was not the greatest but they made up for that by winning the FA Cup and more stunningly, the UEFA Champions League for the first time in their history, having overcome Barcelona in the semis. Despite finishing 6th in the Premiership, Chelsea are assured of defending their European crown next season. Juan Mata and Branislav Ivanovic emerged as Chelsea’s best players of the season while the much maligned Fernando Torres began to show some glimpses of top form towards the end of the season. One player Chelsea will definitely miss next season is the outgoing Didier Drogba, who departs a club legend.

Potential Signings – Marko Marin (done), Eden Hazard, Lucas Moura, Luka Modric, Edinson Cavani.

Everton : As always, the Toffees started their Premier League campaign slowly with a home defeat to QPR, and indifferent results from thereon meant that they were languishing in 14th place at Christmas. And, as always again, they picked up the pace in January and ended the season on a high, finishing 7th, above city rivals Liverpool. The arrival of Croatian striker Nikica Jelavic from Rangers in January gave Everton a massive boost as he ended up as the club’s top scorer with 9 goals in 11 games.

Marouane Fellaini also hit top form and to add to that, the return of Steven Pienaar on loan from Tottenham gave David Moyes’s men some great results, including a 4-4 draw at Old Trafford against Manchester United. Leighton Baines was a model of consistency throughout the season while Royston Drenthe failed to live up to expectations. One player to watch out for next season would be teenage star Ross Barkley who showed his quality in the opening few games of the season. All in all, it was another decent season for the Merseysiders and some good signings next season could see them push their rivals for a Europa League place.

Potential signings – Steven Pienaar, Oscar Cardozo, Landon Donovan, Kieran Richardson, Balazs Megye

Fulham : After an extremely poor start to the season, Fulham turned it around with a 6-0 thrashing of QPR. New manager Martin Jol had brought in some new faces and it eventually started paying off. The Cottagers started playing some attractive, attacking football which saw American international Clint Dempsey score as many as 17 goals in the Premier League to make him the league’s highest scoring midfielder. The loan signing of Pavel Pogrebnyak in January filled the hole left by Bobby Zamora’s departure to QPR.

Their Europa League run ended after they failed to qualify from the group stage, finishing third behind FC Twente and Wisla Krakow. Despite the lack of consistent results, Fulham managed a solid 9th place finish in the Premiership and could qualify for the Europa League via the Fairplay equation. Clint Dempsey was their best player by a mile but Moussa Dembele, Mark Schwarzer and John Arne Riise also deserve a notable mention. Bryan Ruiz could be considered their flop of the season, considering he was signed for around 10 million pounds. Two exciting young players to watch next season will be Kerim Frei and Alexander Kacaniklic.

Potential signings – Pavel Pogrebnyak, Jordan Rhodes, Luciano Narsingh, Oussama Aissadi, Matt Jarvis.

Liverpool : The promise was there. They had the money, they had the manager, they had the players, they played some brilliant football at times. But it has been a season to forget for all those concerned with Liverpool Football Club. Exorbitant transfer fees spent on players like Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing have just not yielded any kind of dividends. Kenny Dalglish’s second spell in charge of the Reds has been nothing short of disastrous as they finished 8th, their lowest in more than 50 years. Those that say Liverpool were unlucky may even be justified, as the Reds hit the woodwork no less than 34 times throughout the season and add to that the season-ending injury to Lucas Leiva.

But woeful finishing has let them down, badly. 6 wins at home, a paltry 45 goals scored and 14 defeats says it all. The Luis Suarez racism row did not help matters. The only positive to be taken from a horrendous campaign is winning the Carling Cup and reaching the FA Cup final. Martin Skrtel and Luis Suarez have been their best players while towards the end of the season, Andy Carroll started showing why they shelled out 35 million pounds for him. Craig Bellamy and Jose Enrique had decent campaigns while Stewart Downing and Pepe Reina have been big flops. One youngster to watch out for next season will be Raheem Sterling, who has the potential to take the Premier League by storm.

Potential signings – Luuk de Jong, Rasmus Elm, Gaston Ramirez, Clint Dempsey.