5 defining moments that helped clubs turn their season around in 2014/15

Lionel Messi was responsible for turning around Barcelona’s fortunes at the start of 2015In any given football season there will always be teams that are nailed on for promotion, relegation and the various titles available. You just know from the very first 90 minutes of the campaign how that season is going to be mapped out. Others need a kicker; a spark to really ignite the ambitions of player, manager and fan.It might come in the form of a manager with new ideas, a player who takes on board extra responsibility or the entire XI putting a marker down. We take a look at five clubs who made a defining decision during the 2014/15 campaign that had a marked effect on the rest of their season.

#5 Crystal Palace - Hiring Alan Pardew

Alan Pardew arrived at Crystal Palace and saved the club from relegation

Pardew is one manager who changed the course of a team's season. Actually, two teams if you count his former employers. Newcastle barely managed to win a game once he left midway through the season, but his new employers Crystal Palace went from strength to strength under his stewardship.

The Eagles had managed only four wins prior to his arrival at the turn of the year, but Pardew managed to win all four of his first four games. An energy and buzz that characterises the manager’s way of working was immediately evident and players took to social media to tell of their delight at a better structure within the managerial set up, clearly defined lines of communication and a higher standard of training drills.

The group refocused and would only lose four out of Pardew’s first 15 games in charge. The incredible turnaround dispelled any notion of relegation and, free of the pressure of going down, Palace played some sparkling stuff. Never better than when derailing Manchester City’s title hopes at Selhurst Park or making Steven Gerrard's final game at Anfield one to forget for Liverpool fans.

Although Palace lost four of their last six, which won’t have pleased the manager, it was more to do with having nothing to play for. Pardew’s involvement had saved them well before the final whistle.

#4 Aston Villa - Appointing Tim Sherwood

Aston Villa avoided relegation and reached the FA Cup final under Tim Sherwood

Aston Villa weren’t just a club in crisis when Tim Sherwood took the reins from Paul Lambert. They were a club close to throwing in the towel and accepting their fate of relegation to the championship. Confidence was at an all time low.

Players such as Christian Benteke and Jack Grealish were playing well below their best and with no wins in 10 and just two goals scored in those games immediately prior to Sherwood’s arrival, it was abundantly clear as to the task in hand.

Although Sherwood would only go on to win five matches in the remaining games of the campaign, losing seven, it is worth noting that Villa had won only five in the entire season prior to his arrival. Don’t forget, too, that the former Tottenham man was hamstrung by not being able to sign players, given that the winter window had already closed.

Any survival bid therefore needed to be achieved with the same group of players that had got Villa into the mess in the first place. If Sherwood wasn’t a miracle worker, then he was very close to it. Although the FA Cup Final was one to forget for the Villains, they have the experience of a Wembley final in the bag. Sherwood will want them there again.

And this time, it will be his team that does it. Onwards and upwards.

#3 Memphis Depay\'s emergence at PSV Eindhoven

Memphis Depay came of age under Phillip Cocu at PSV Eindhoven in 2014/15

It was always going to take a special team to break the Ajax stranglehold in the Dutch Eredivisie. Frank De Boer’s Amsterdam machine had won four successive league crowns before the last campaign, so whoever was going to challenge them had to really earn their stripes in every department.

Phillip Cocu’s PSV Eindhoven project had started a season or two before and so the foundations had already been laid for a title tilt before the opening games of the season. Only one player in the entire squad that had played any minutes, Andres Guardado, was over 25, as Cocu looked to inject some youthfulness and spirit into a side desperate for glory.

It is fair to say that each member of the team played their part, but one stood head and shoulders above everyone else - Memphis Depay. The 20-year-old was the talisman of an offensive trident that had already scored 48 goals before the turn of the year.

Such was his emergence at the club, that it wouldn’t be long before Manchester United came calling. Louis van Gaal made him the first capture of the summer window at a cool £22 million.

Depay’s loss to PSV will be enormous. One player doesn’t make a team, but when he has been a focal point of your side in its most successful season in almost a decade, then it is going to hurt.

#2 Borussia Dortmund - Augsburg defeat

Mats Hummels speaks with the fans after the final whistle during the Bundesliga matchbetween Borussia Dortmund and FC Augsburg at Signal Iduna Park

It was inevitable after such a poor season when compared to the previous one, that Jurgen Klopp would do the decent thing and resign. Or be sacked. Clearly Borussia Dortmund needed an injection of something different but there was one particular game when it finally dawned on the players just what might happen if they couldn’t pull themselves out of the malaise.

A horrendous home defeat by unfancied Augsburg who had never beaten Dortmund in their history and were reduced to 10 men was the cue for Dortmund’s players to take direct action. Scaling the supporter fences behind the goal, Mats Hummels and goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller pleaded with the supporters to stay united and support them. United as one on and off the pitch.

It was the only way that Bayern’s pursuers from 2013/14 were going to drag themselves out of the hole that they’d dug for themselves to that point.

Six defeats from that February game still wouldn’t have satisfied the die-hard fans, but it was good enough to help Dortmund eventually finish seventh after a period that included 11 defeats. Defeats which could have quite feasibly seen them relegated from the division.

The one for all and all for one mentality clearly gave the Germans the shot in the arm they needed and just in the nick of time.

#1 Barcelona - Playing Messi on the right

Lionel Messi moved to the right to allow Luis Suarez to play in his favoured position up front

It took a hideously under-par performance away at Real Sociedad and a well-publicised argument between Luis Enrique and Lionel Messi to finally light the fire on Barcelona’s season. After 29 different starting lineups in 29 games, Messi had had enough.

According to informed sources, the Argentine had made it clear in no uncertain terms that he would move out to the right and have Luis Suarez play as a “number nine” and central striker. The idea behind the move was that ex-Liverpool man Suarez would be more potent in a role that he knew well, and whilst Messi himself wasn’t keen on playing out wide, he would sacrifice himself for the good of the team.

We all saw what happened next.

Just one league loss against Malaga, one against Bayern Munich in a Champions League semi-final second leg that was already over and two draws. Oh, and we can’t forget the 31 wins in all competitions.

31 wins out of 35 games played in 2015! No team in world football came anywhere close to matching that. Even Real Madrid with 22 consecutive wins earlier in the season pale into insignificance when you measure it against Barca’s second half.