2016 was a crazy year in some respects both in football and wider society.
It will take some time for people to forget the historic Leicester City Premier League win, while England sunk to a new low as they bowed out of EURO 2016 at an early stage to an unthinkable opponent in Iceland.
On top of that Portugal one the same competition despite being pretty underwhelming in all of their games – they only won once in normal time through the competition – while Chelsea finished a lowly 10th despite having been crowned champions of England at the end of 2015/16.
There are probably too many examples to name of memorable moments in the wild world of football last year, with both the end of last term and the start of this having produced moments of magic and sheer madness.
but we have FIVE right here which we think were massive…
Dreams can come true
Leicester City could have considered themselves somewhat fortunate to still be a Premier League club going into the 2015/16 campaign after former manager Nigel Pearson orchestrated a great escape in the final matches of the previous season to ensure they remained in the top tier. But, just twelve months later, the Foxes were celebrating their first ever Premier League title, and more than that, they were celebrating by far the biggest achievement in modern-day football.
There are numerous reasons behind Leicester’s successful year, and the first lies in the unknown. The names of Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante were relatively obscure before the previous campaign, but their contributions to the success of the team were monumental. It saw Kante sold for £30m to Chelsea over the summer (a huge profit on the fee Leicester had paid for his services just twelve months previous), Mahrez win PFA Player of the Year and Jamie Vardy earn himself a place in the England squad for EURO 2016 after playing non-league football as recently as 2012.
There is also their other secret weapon; Claudio Ranieri. The Italian was one of the first major casualties of Roman Abramovich’s early years at Chelsea, as he was axed after one season and replaced by the very successful Jose Mourinho, who was able to use the early signings made by Ranieri to turn the Blues into a top four team.
Ranieri did a similar thing with Leicester (with both Vardy and Mahrez brought into the club under Pearson’s watch) but he also had a point to prove by returning to the Premier League after an eleven-year exile. The symmetry seemed perfect, as Chelsea floundered under Mourinho while Leicester excelled with Ranieri, and the Italian would have enjoyed finally achieving the success he could have had if Chelsea had retained faith in him a decade ago.
Finally, there’s the positive energy of a team working for one another. With world-class players like Luis Suarez, Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo coming into the Premier League in recent years, some teams might find it easy to find the ‘I’ in team, and play through their best players. Leicester City may have had their ‘Magnificent Seven’ last season (comprising of goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, Kante, Vardy, Ranieri, Mahrez, Danny Drinkwater and Wes Morgan) but they relied much more on the strengths of all eleven players on the pitch than any Premier League winner has done in recent years. It was that togetherness that ensured that, as a unit, Leicester remained strong right until the very end.
Spending high but finishing low
Mike Ashley has had a busy 2016, with his retail brand Sports Direct coming under the political microscope for poor working conditions and underpaying its staff. He could have been forgiven for taking his eye off the ball (no pun intended) with regard to his other business ventures, the most notable being Newcastle United. His recruitment of Rafa Benitez in March 2016 (by far his most ambitious choice since buying the club in 2007) bordered on desperation as he turned to one of the world’s best coaches to save the Magpies from a situation they had been in all season. Just two months later, they suffered their second relegation in seven years, though.
But this was not just another seemingly-solid Premier League team dropping down into the Championship with the foregone conclusion that they would bounce back up. Not only was hiring Benitez an expensive gamble for Ashley (he had a release clause in his contract which meant he could depart if they were relegated, a likely outcome even with his arrival), but the club had spent around £80m on the squad that suffered relegation, making them the most expensive team to ever be relegated from the Premier League.
It would be easy to highlight former gaffer Steve McClaren (and also the decision to give him until March before making a change) as the reason the team struggled so much over the campaign, but Newcastle’s mismanagement of transfers across various head coaches points to a problem further up the food chain. Lee Charnley is the man in charge of business at St. James’ Park and, even before McClaren had arrived in June 2015, they had already spent £14.5m on Georginio Wijnaldum, £13m on Aleksandar Mitrovic and £12m on Florian Thauvin. Wijnaldum and Mitrovic would have trouble acclimatising to English football, with the striker contributing just eight goals in 36 appearances, while Thauvin would prove unhelpful during McClaren’s tenure.
But even a panic-buying January didn’t adjust the course for the side, with a combined £25m spent on midfielders Jonjo Shelvey and Andros Townsend, despite their biggest weaknesses being in defence and attack. Both players would find themselves rotated as much as any other player under McClaren and then, later, Benitez as they failed to provide the security their high transfer fees suggested they would.
The decline of England
The omens looked good for England going in EURO 2016 in France. With the emergence of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Jamie Vardy, the stock of English footballers hadn’t been this good for quite some time. They had a 100% record in qualifying (not a particular surprise, as this is an area the national side have rarely struggled with), Roy Hodgson was able to select from his best players and their group looked fairly easy on paper, with their opponents Wales (who were in their first international tournament since 1958), Slovakia (in their first European Championship ever) and Russia (who had only once passed the group stages in any international tournament when they reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008).
But things went wrong before the squad even arrived in France. While the final squad did contain some of the best players the country had to offer at the time, there were some questionable inclusions; Jack Wilshere had just returned from injury and only played two games at the end of the season for Arsenal, yet he was brought into the team ahead of the more-inexperienced Danny Drinkwater, who had just helped Leicester City win the Premier League title. Also, there was Marcus Rashford, a talented youngster who had scored eight goals in 16 appearances but had literally only just started playing first-team football for Manchester United and was an unlikely pick.
Then there was the results. An unconvincing display against Russia in their opening fixture saw them give away a 1-0 lead (courtesy of a free kick from Eric Dier) in stoppage time at the end of the game, before they secured a 2-1 win over home nation rivals Wales, although they went down 1-0 in the first period and were booed off at half-time by their fans. The final group game was against Slovakia, and the goalless draw (which led them to the Three Lions finishing second in their group behind Wales) was perhaps more notable for the fact that Hodgson made six changes to his team, leaving out players like captain Wayne Rooney, Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane.
However un-glamorous the group stage had been, it was nothing compared to the embarrassment of the knockout stage. Facing Iceland, 34th in the FIFA rankings before the match and with a population of just 330,000, many England fans would have believed they had got an easy path through to the latter stages of the tournament. But their 2-1 defeat can be blamed as much on the players as the manager. The usually dependable Joe Hart was at fault for the winning goal in just the 18 minute, Harry Kane and Dele Alli looked extremely jaded and even the experienced Wayne Rooney was unable to inspire the side to victory against the small island nation. Hodgson’s resignation following their exit from the summer competition was well-received, but there were some who wondered why those performing well for their clubs couldn’t do it for their international side.
Big stadiums don’t equal big results
West Ham United’s path to moving stadiums wasn’t as cut-and-dried as it usually is. Going as far back as 2003, when the stadium was initially proposed with regard to the Olympic Games bid, there was always the intention to use the Olympic Stadium (or London Stadium, as it has now been branded) for football once the 2012 Games had concluded, with the suggestion being that Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham ground-share the 60,000 seat capacity venue. What followed was years of negotiations, more a political argument than a sports-based one, where various options were considered, but eventually, in 2013, West Ham signed a 99-year lease on the ground and began repurposing it for use in the 2016/17 Premier League campaign.
But it was far from popular. Tottenham, Crystal Palace and even lowly Leyton Orient were fervently against the Hammers moving into the most up-to-date digs in the country. Even more to the point, so was the taxpayer, with people like you and me having to fund a large part of the £272m regeneration cost, as well as the initial cost of the project, which went over-budget at almost £800m. Before a ball was even kicked for West Ham this season, it appeared there was enough to suggest the change of venue hadn’t been the best received.
And even after the festivities truly began, they struggled. The opening game of the season against Bournemouth featured several fans who had tickets for non-existent seats, matches against Middlesbrough and Sunderland witnessed an increase in violence and hooliganism, with an MP even suggesting that they play behind closed doors if they were unable to control their fans properly. While the fan unrest has eased off in recent months, the stain such behaviour has left on the history of the sport in England makes the sight of it again deplorable, particularly when linked with the actions of some England fans during EURO 2016.
Finally, their results haven’t been great at home either. They won just one of their first seven games in the league overall, and, while there are probably all sorts of reasons as to why, their form was just as bad as on the road. Most teams can rely on playing well at their own ground during rough patches, but the Hammers were only able to win twice in their opening seven games at the London Stadium, finding little consistency at their new home.
Pep Guardiola isn’t invincible
When you mention the top managers currently in the game, it’s likely that Pep Guardiola’s name is at, or close to, the top of that list. Success at Barcelona and Bayern Munich tends to give you enough stories to dine out on for the rest of your days, and Guardiola would have had his pick of clubs before deciding to join Manchester City. Of course, he had some of the best players in the world at his previous teams, and that perhaps shows why he isn’t having the same impact in English football.
Despite coming to a club which possessed talents such as Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero (among others), he has found the same success hard to come by in the Premier League. To start with, he isn’t failing in the traditional sense of the word – six wins in six to start the season off and even a drop in form only leaves them in 3rd place and seven points off the top spot – but, compared to his previous record and the legend status that has been built around the Spaniard during his brief managerial career, English fans could be concerned that he is not performing to his perceived standard.
His early dismissal of Joe Hart was questionable, particularly as Claudio Bravo has failed to settle into the team as quickly as thought, while Yaya Toure (well, his agent) has sparred with him constantly during this campaign and, even when City win (as they did most recently against Burnley), it is not unusual to hear the manager being critical of his side. He is perhaps right to not publicly praise his new team too much, as the weight of expectation on him remains.
His most recent outburst regarding his retirement, perhaps following three years at the Etihad Stadium, shows that he doesn’t enjoy the harder parts of the game and does see a shelf life to his career. But he has also handled the media and fans extremely well, unlike his counterpart Jose Mourinho.
