Newcastle United - 15th (39 points)
It's a season that Newcastle fans will be wanting to forget in a hurry. They suffered a horrendous start to the campaign after failing to win in August and September. Their first win came midway through October after they faced Leicester. This game marked the start of a brilliant turn around by Alan Pardew to set Newcastle on a 5 match winning streak.
Things got even better following this when the team became the first to inflict defeat on Chelsea in all competitions when they recorded a 2-1 victory at St James' Park, but then at the end of the month, Pardew saw himself facing the exit door. His tenure ended in a 3-2 win over Everton when he left to become the Crystal Palace boss. This was definitely a turning point in their season.
Fans had been calling for Pardew to get sacked for a long time, but they could never have anticipated just how bad things would get under the leadership of his successor, John Carver. Newcastle were in ninth upon Pardew's departure and Carver took a few matches to get in his stride and eventually got his first win against Hull, but struggled to get any consistency going. They embarked on a terrible run of 8 consecutive defeats from March onwards. This marked their worst run in the Premier League history and the worst by any club this season.
Possibly the lowest moment in their season was the 3-0 defeat to Leicester. Daryl Janmaat and Mike Williamson were both sent off, and the latter was accused of deliberately getting a red by Carver. They did scrape a point against West Brom but followed this up with defeat to QPR which left them in an extremely dangerous position going into the last weekend.
The situation pushed Newcastle into playing possibly the best game of their season. They needed a win to stand a chance of staying up and did it in emphatic style. The game ended in a 2-0 win, which included a goal from recent cancer survivor Jonas Gutierrez on his final game for the club. The fans will be hoping this isn't going to become a regular position for them in the table and that they can go onto better things in the next campaign.
Leicester City - 14th (41 points)
Arguably, Leicester's successful survival mission was the story of the season. Their first month in the Premier League would never have suggested that they would have been in trouble. They recorded two great draws against Everton and Arsenal and an extremely memorable 5-3 win against Manchester United at the King Power stadium.
For them, the international break came at the wrong time. Following the United game, Nigel Pearson's side went on a dismal run of 13 games without a win which left them down at the bottom of the table with very little hope. They picked up their first win after this against Hull City and a lot of people thought they were finally getting what some of their previous performances had deserved. It looked as if the ship had steadied when they won four of their first six games after Christmas. This included a brilliant comeback against Spurs in an FA Cup tie, where it took two late strikes from Leonardo Ulloa and Jeffrey Schlupp to secure their progress to the next round.
However, it was around this time that Pearson landed himself in the headlines for the wrong reasons. He got a lot of attention after footage of him grabbing James McArthur around the neck and reports emerged stating that he'd been sacked. These claims were quickly retracted though, but it still looked to have affected the team. Leicester failed to win their next 6 games which left them 7 points adrift of safety and to many people they looked like they would be the first team relegated.
Then the miracle happened. A late 2-1 win at him to West Ham ended a run of 8 games without a win, which they followed up with a 3-2 triumph over West Brom; sealed through an injury time winner. The manager found himself in the headlines again after losing his temper with a journalist following the Chelsea game, but this was soon forgotten. They recorded impressive victories over Newcastle and Southampton before rounding off the season with an astonishing 5-1 win over already relegated QPR. If the end of the season is anything to go by, next season will be promising for them.
West Bromwich Albion - 13th (44 points)
West Brom eventually finished the season with little problems and without being dragged into a relegation battle after Tony Pulis steadied the ship.
At the end of the previous season after Pepe Mel left the club, Alan Irvine was his surprise replacement. He didn't have the greatest start with the team, and it took them a few weeks to pick up their first win of the season against Spurs, which they followed with a big victory over Burnley. Consistency was a problem for them though, and they only picked up another 2 wins between then and January. At this point, they were just one point above the drop, with a lot of terrible statistics trailing closely behind them.
With the turn of the New Year, came their turn of fortune. Pulis completely flipped around the club and took a very different approach to Irvine. He put in place a more defensive outlook which saw his team lose only 6 league games in the second half of the season.
He also led the team to some incredibly good wins against the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea towards the end of the season. He also brought the best out of Saido Berahino who hit double figures in his goal tally and helped his team claim some very important points.
The fans will be looking forward to next season now they've had a taste of what Pulis can do for their team. Even though their campaign finished in a 4-1 defeat to Arsenal, they'll have confidence to push on into the beginning of next season.
West Ham United - 12th (47 points)
Sam Allardyce was one of the early picks to be the first manager sacked at the beginning of the season, but he went on to prove a lot of his critics wrong. In an attempt to appease the owners who wanted a more free-flowing style of football, he brought in Teddy Sheringham to help with the attacking side of things.
West Ham had a particularly good start to the season. After losing their first game, they went on to pick up a lot of important points including beating Liverpool 3-1 and Manchester City 2-1 at home.
Due to a lot of the teams that fans expect to see at the table not playing as well as previous seasons, West Ham took full advantage. On Christmas Day, West Ham were sitting in fourth place, and were looking extremely strong.
However, Boxing Day was the big turning point in their season. They lost to both Chelsea and Arsenal before drawing with West Brom on New Year's Day. But this was just the beginning of their nose-dive in form. The players like Diafra Sakho, Enner Valencia, Alex Song and Stewart Downing who had helped their team to this point all failed to replicate their stunning form from the first half of the season.
Although they were collecting less points, their defensive record was still impressive. They conceded fewer goals than in the last two seasons, and their disciplinary record was so good that it earned them a place in the qualifiers of next season's Europa League. Neither of these things took away from the fact that performances were dwindling though. If the season had begun on Boxing Day, West Ham would have been sitting in 17th position come the final day. Their season finished in a 2-0 defeat to Newcastle and this proved to be the final nail in Allardyce's managerial coffin at West Ham as he lost his job at the end of the season.
Everton - 11th (47 points)
Last season showed so much promise for the blue side of Liverpool, but in the end, it couldn't have ended worse for them.
After finishing fifth and adding the talents of Romelu Lukaku to their squad, it looked like they would push onto even better things this season. However, they only won one of their first seven games, which seemed to set the tone for the rest of their season. Many of their fans expected them to be challenging for Champions League this term, so this kind of run was definitely unexpected. Things didn't look up for them in the league any time soon and one of their defeats was a heavy blow dealt by Chelsea which gave no one hope.
Even the darkest of moments include some good times though. For Everton, this was in the Europa League. They beat Wolfsburg both home and away and Lille at Goodison which helped them to secure the top spot in their group.
Even after these great performances, Everton still struggled domestically, especially over the festive period. They only put together to wins throughout December and January, but even then their European form continued to impress. On their return to Europe, they beat Young Boys 7-2 on aggregate to reach the last 16. The next leg of the competition looked good for them as they beat Dynamo Kiev at home 2-1, but the return leg was disastrous. The bright spark of their campaign came to an end through a 5-2 loss.
Their exit from the Europa League allowed them to put all of their focus into the league. 4 wins from 5 matches, including a very good performance against Manchester United to win 3-0, soon took away the relegation worries of the fans and helped them to climb up to mid-table by the end of the season. Without the added pressure of the Europa League next season, Everton may mount more of a challenge if they can sort out their consistency problems.
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