5 PFA Team of the Year players who struggled the next season
Chelsea’s horrendous title defence and the collective drop in performance levels of their star players have attracted a lot of column inches over the past few weeks. Much of the criticism has been focused on Eden Hazard- last year’s PFA player of the year- who has now gone 25 games without a goal. Hazard also made it to the PFA Team of the Year last season along with 5 other Chelsea players.In this context, we focus on players who- over the course of the past 5 years - made it to the PFA Team of the Year but struggled to replicate the same form in the next season.
#1 Diego Costa ( PFA Team of the Year 2014-15)
While Eden Hazard’s goal scoring drought is quite staggering, so is the case with another Chelsea player. whose primary responsibility is to score goals. After a fantastic start to last season’s title winning campaign, where he was the best striker in the country, Diego Costa has done little of note this season so far.
Having been voted into the PFA Team of the Year 2014-15, Costa has endured a torrid time this season. Much of it is his own fault though. While a snarling, cussing striker who “gets at” the defenders and winds them up is a great asset in a well functioning team (especially a Mourinho side), he becomes a huge liability when the team as a whole is under-performing. Costa has scored just 4 goals so far this season and barring an odd flicker or two, has become a passenger in the team.
His propensity to pick fights with defenders, referees, his own team-mates and even his manager have become such a nuisance that Mourinho has dropped him from the starting eleven. That Mourinho prefers to play a horribly out-of-form Hazard as a false nine shows how poor a season Costa is enduring.
He can still turn around his season (and Chelsea’s) -and there were offshoots of recovery in the 2-0 win against Porto- but there is little chance of him making the PFA Team of the Year 2015-16.