Premier League Review Pt.2

Part 2 of the review of the Premier League season.

Phil Jagielka captained Everton in a disappointing season

Everton
A poor season for Everton. The first half left them looking in real danger of relegation, and their Europa league campaign was more successful, reaching the round of 16 before falling to Dinamo Kiev. The big failings were in defence, Distin and Alcaraz proving their fraility, and Martinez's tactics of high wingbacks, being exposed. The same problems Wigan faced are starting to appear at Everton.
Europa League: Round of 16
Prediction: 7th Actual: 11th
Player of the Season: Phil Jagielka

Michael Dawson gave his all for Hull, but they've now sunk to the Championship

Hull City
Hull's previous season ended on a high, an FA cup final and European qualification, but their league form waned towards the end, and in 2014/15 it never picked up again. A collection of injuries, and poor signings left Hull facing the trap door. Robert Snodgrass cost £6m and was injured the whole season and Abel Hernandez cost £10m but scored just 4 goals in 25 games.
Some people have blamed the Europa league on their resulting relegation, but in truth they were never in it long enough to be affected.

Ultimately the run between 18th October and 20th December, where they picked up just 4 points in a 10 game winless run, and 1 point from their last 4 games, condemned them to relegation.Europa League: Play-off Round
Prediction: 16th Actual: 18th
Player of the Season: Michael Dawson

From the Bernabeu to the King Power Stadium,
Leicester's cultured midfielder played a key role in their survival

Leicester City
Hull City's demise was hastened by Leicester City's rise. A remarkable run of form.
Leicester's season started well with a thrilling 5-3 win over Man Utd, but after this they went 13 games without a win and picked up just 2 points. They had a similar spell at the start of the year with just 2 points from 8 games. They required something special to escape an immediate return to the Championship and they produced 7 wins out of 9 games, to finish a very credible 14th. 
Prediction: 19th Actual: 14th
Player of the Season: Esteban Cambiasso

The lively Brazilian Coutinho was a key performer,
amongst a litany of under achievers

Liverpool
After coming so close to the title in 2013-14, Liverpool have seldom looked further from it. It is not hard to see why they have struggled so much. Last year Liverpool outscored other teams, this year they had their lowest top scorer in the league in over 100 years, Gerrard scoring 9. They missed the departed Luiz Suarez and the injured Sturridge. Defensively they were better than last year conceding 2 less goals, but they scored only 52 compared to 101 in the previous season. The season couldn't have ended much worse either, with a 6-1 defeat to Stoke.
Champions League: Group Stage
Europa League: Round of 32
Prediction: 5th Actual: 6th
Player of the Season: Philippe Coutinho

It's Aguero! Aguero picked up his first golden boot,
but he would have rather had a third title

Manchester City
A season of underachievement for Manchester City. At one stage they looked like they might retain their title, but ultimately they finished 9 points short of Chelsea, were knocked out of both cup competitions early, and struggled in the Champions League again. Albeit they made it through to the round of 16, but were beaten by a superior Barcelona side.
Sergio Aguero had a sterling year, winning the golden boot, scoring 26 goals, and Joe Hart, won the golden glove for most clean sheets, with 14. But the midfield was a problem, as was the form of Vincent Kompany, expect some summer purchases.
Champions League: Round of 16Prediction: 2nd Actual: 2nd
Player of the Season: Sergio Aguero

F1 Review

The season is finally over! The season that started 9 months ago in Australia, finally came to a climax in Abu Dhabi. 

For Hamilton this season is being called his second coming, for Rosberg it is simply coming second.

The race

Hamilton made an electric start, beating Rosberg into turn 1, and from that point on, the Championship was barely a doubt.

Unfortunately, though we were deprived of a true battle, as reliability issues struck Rosberg's car, with the ERS system failing, causing him to lose power, and drop through the field, although he manfully continued to the finish.

Elsewhere in the race, the Williams confirmed their great season with 2nd and 3rd, Massa pushing Hamilton hard towards the end, and Bottas recovering from a terrible start, where he lost 5 places. Fortunately for Bottas, his competitors were stuck in traffic after the first stop, so he was able to recover.

Ricciardo and Vettel had to start from the pit lane, but came through to finish 4th and 8th, Red Bull utilising the strategy of starting on the harder tyre, enabling them to do a long first stint.

Jenson Button finished 5th in what could be his last race in Formula 1, it would be great shame, were it to be the case, as Button has had a consistent season, especially towards the end, and has ended up outscoring Magnussen by over 70 points, however, whilst there is an undoubted gulf in class between Magnussen and Button, there is also a gap in age and more significantly salary. McLaren are due to release who is driving for them next year on 1st December.

Force India finished with a flourish, Hulkenburg finishing 6th and Perez 7th. Fernando Alonso's final outing at Ferrari, went the way of much of this season, fizzling out to 9th place, with Raikkonen just behind in 10th.

At the back, there were retirements for Kvyat after a great qualifying performance, Maldonado, who's car set on fire and Kobayashi had to retire as the car had strange vibrations.

The Season

A season of twists and turns, with much of the focus on Mercedes, even from the end of last season. 

Bernie Ecclestone will have been pleased his double points, ensured a closer championship, even if the finale was in the end rather routine for Lewis Hamilton, with Rosberg's engine problems.

Review of the Season

Mercedes - 1st (2nd) The dominant car, throughout the season.
1 - Lewis Hamilton - The odd mistake e.g. Brazil, and 3 retirements, meant that this was no easy title for Lewis, despite having the best car. Hamilton was clearly superior to Rosberg, taking 11 wins to Rosberg's 5, and passing Rosberg on several occasions.
2- Nico Rosberg - Solid and consistent but in wheel to wheel racing against Hamilton, certainly came off 2nd best. His qualifying performances were superior to Hamilton, even if you allow for reliability issues. Rosberg fought valiantly, but came off second best.

Red Bull - 2nd (1st) Considering where they were at the start of the year, with barely any testing done, and disqualified from Australia, 2nd place was a thoroughly impressive performance, expect them to be more competitive next year.
5- Sebastian Vettel - A season of frustration and being out performed by his team mate. The technical changes implemented this season, especially around the diffuser had their biggest affect on him, and coupled with a struggling Renault power unit, Vettel lacked confidence in the car, and failed to win a race for the first time since his debut season in F1 in 2007.
3- Daniel Ricciardo - His breakthrough season, a big step up in to the Red Bull, but one he proved adept to handle. He was the only driver outside of Mercedes to win a grand prix, and the fact he ended up winning 3, showed what a great season he had. The amount of overtaking manoeuvres alone, made Ricciardo one of, if not the, drivers of the season. 

Williams - 3rd (9th) A giant leap for Williams powered by Mercedes and a great car design, Williams were able to compete at the front end again.
4 - Valteri Bottas - Showed his speed and consistency, he is still yet to win a race, but if he continues his progress, it shouldn't be too far away.
7 - Felipe Massa - Massa struggled with retirements through bad luck and crashes in the first half of the season, but improved markedly especially towards the end, and looks at home at Williams, aided by the presence of former engineer Rob Smedley.

Ferrari - 4th (3rd) Ferrari never looked like competing for wins, they struggled with the car all season, and their season was more about polemics and politics, than poles and podiums. Stefano Domenicalli and Luca Di Montezemelo both left during the season.
6 - Fernando Alonso - Somehow Alonso manages to squeeze every ounce of performance out of even the most difficult cars. He was as consistent as ever, but with out the car to compete.
12 - Kimi Raikkonen - Raikkonen's move to Ferrari seemed inspired, but it turned out only to be insipid. Raikkonen was thoroughly outperformed by Alonso, and seemed largely disinterested, although that is just Kimi.

McLaren - 5th (5th) A small step forward, but they were unable to utilise the Mercedes power unit.
8 - Jenson Button - Button started on a high with a podium in Australia (although he never tasted the champagne), he overcame a difficult patch in Bahrain, China and Spain, and finished by showing his speed has not diminished by finishing in the top 5 in 4 of the last 5 races.
11 - Kevin Magnussen - The Dane had a fantastic F1 debut in Melbourne, picking up 2nd place, but the rest of the season proved a steep learning curve, with Magnussen forgoing a handful of points due to penalties in and at the end of races.

Force India - 6th (6th) Force India proved a credible challenge to McLaren, but were hurt by a lack of points in the season run-in.
9 - Nico Hulkenburg - Hulkenburg was consistently in the hunt for big points and finished 5th 4 times, but his season fizzled out somewhat towards the end, still his consistency brought in considerable points for the team.
10 - Sergio Perez - As in previous seasons, moments of brilliance, but generally overshadowed by his team mate. His 3rd in Bahrain was a notable highlight, but he was unable to provide the points Force India needed to overhaul McLaren. 

Toro Rosso - 7th (8th) They may have moved up a place this year, but they actually scored less points.
13 - Jean-Eric Vergne - It's hard not to feel sorry for Vergne, especially if he ends up losing his seat. When compared against Danil Kvyat, he has 22 points compared to Kvyat's 8, and yet Kvyat has secured the coveted Red Bull seat. Vergne had 5 retirements in the first 8 races, mostly due to reliability issues. Vergne provided some memorable moments at the end of the season, including holding off Magnussen in Russia, his pass on Grosjean and holding off Ricciardo in Abu Dhabi, he deserves his place in F1.
15 - Danil Kvyat - A good start to the season earned Kvyat points in 3 out of his first 4 races and a drive at Red Bull next season, but since then other than some good qualifying performances, his race pace has declined.

Lotus - 8th (4th) Lotus endured a fall from grace in 2014, not completely unsurprising as financial issues struck last year, compromising the 2014 car development.
14 - Romain Grosjean - He went from challenging for podiums and wins, to struggling in the midfield. He secured key points for the team and has had less crashes this year.
16 - Pastor Maldonado - It seems incredible to think that Maldonado is a race winner, other than a hard fought 9th place in USA, he looked very much like the pay driver, that he is.

Marussia - 9th (10th) It should have been a great year for Marussia, scoring their first ever F1 point, but the season ends, with Bianchi recovering in hospital and the team disbanded, a sad end to a team that fought so hard.
17 - Jules Bianchi - It will be very sad if we never see Bianchi in an F1 car again, but even sadder if he is unable to recover fully. He drove brilliantly this year, especially in Monaco, it is hard to overstate how good a drive that truly was.
21 - Max Chilton - Chilton lost his record of finishing every race he started and was outperformed by Bianchi. It is unlikely he will be seen in F1 again, unless he can find some more money.

Sauber - 10th (7th) A sorry season for Sauber, with a high of 11th, in 2013 they recorded 57 points, in 2014 they rarely got close to 1.
18 - Adrian Sutil - He out drove Esteban Gutierrez, which is worth about as much as beating an old Granny in a mobility scooter away from the lights.
20 - Esteban Gutierrez - He is not completely untalented, but if he didn't pay to drive he almost certainly wouldn't be in F1

Caterham - 11th (11th) Very little to say for Caterham, overshadowed by Marussia, and financial difficulties, remains to be seen if they will compete in 2015.
22 - Kamui Kobayashi - Was once nicknamed Kobaybashi, but couldn't get near enough to anyone to get close to hitting them this season! His highest placing was 13th.
19 - Marcus Ericsson - A season high of 11th in Monaco, but very few other glimpses of pace. He will drive for Sauber next year.

So the F1 season is over, one of the best seasons for many years with some cracking racing, let's hope next year provides more of the same.