Manchester United will finish 2020 with the third-best points haul in the Premier League over the past 12 months – a good achievement for a manager in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who is supposedly fearing for his job right now.
Sitting high in the Premier League table for the calendar year may not win anyone prizes other than very slim bragging rights to fire at rival fans, but 2020 has been a significantly difficult period that clubs have had to battle through.
The spread of Covid-19 at the start of the year eventually caused the Premier League season to go into hibernation between March and June, forcing a congested fixture list over the summer and resulting in barely any pre-season heading into the delayed 2020-21 campaign.
And to make matters worse for teams playing in Europe – such as United – the Europa League and Champions League campaigns ended just 20 days before the new Premier League season began.
But some sides have managed to cope with the fluctuating fixture list better than others.
The summer certainly proved a turning point for the likes of United and Southampton, but the same cannot be said for Sheffield United.
Indeed, there are some real surprises when looking at the table.
Here, i looks at the winners and losers from the 2020 calendar year – and who could impress heading into 2021.
Winners: Liverpool 1st
Having finally won a first Premier League title, Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool have already set the pace for the championship this season. And while 2020 will always be marred by the absence of fans at Anfield, it will go down as a hugely successful 12 months for the club.
Liverpool finish the year with the most Premier League points (77) by a clear distance. Even the fact they played more Premier League games bar anyone other than West Ham (also 35) doesn’t reduce their achievement. A 65.7 per cent win rate is bettered by no other team.
And Liverpool head into 2021 top of the current pile, with a three-point lead over United – albeit having played a game more. Reds fans would have certainly taken the past 12 months had they been offered them at the end of 2019. The only shame is that for the majority, supporters haven’t been able to watch their games live.
Winners: Man Utd 3rd
It wasn’t long ago that United were crashing out of the Champions League and talks surfaced of Solskjaer being replaced. But over the course of December, the Norwegian has not only rescued United’s season but also rekindled memories of their superb summer form.
United won six of their Premier League fixtures during Project Restart, drawing the other three. They reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup and Europa League, and crucially pinched a Champions League spot on the final day of the 2019-20 season.
The summer form made up for a woeful start to 2020, where United lost to Arsenal, Liverpool and Burnley before January was out. Since the start of the new season Solskjaer’s men have wobbled ever so slightly but are now on top form again. Unbeaten since a defeat to Arsenal in early November, they are now suddenly real contenders for Liverpool’s crown.
Winners: Southampton 5th
There isn’t a side in the Premier League that has blown hot and cold more than Ralph Hasenhuttl’s men in 2020. Southampton started the year with three wins from four in January, only to slump into a miserable run that was only halted when Covid-19 postponed the Premier League fixtures.
Yet on their return to action in June, Saints collected 18 points from a possible 27, lost just one game – a 2-0 reversal to Arsenal – and finished the season in 11th place.
A few weeks later Hasenhuttl’s troops kicked off the new season with back-to-back defeats, before going on a seven-game unbeaten run. The streaky nature of their results has seen Southampton leap up and down the league ladder, and they have ended 2020 without a win in four. Still, their overall form this year is enough to see them sitting fifth in the 12-month table – not bad for a team that looked set on relegation after the infamous 9-0 loss to Leicester in October 2019.
Losers: Leicester 10th
Speaking of Leicester, Brendan Rodgers may well look back at 2020 as a year where things could have gone oh so well for the Foxes. They finished the 2019-20 season in fifth place and currently occupy third spot in the table. But remarkably, Leicester’s awful summer meant they languish 10th on the year-to-year ladder.
Just two wins during Project Restart saw Leicester fall out of the top four and miss out on the lucrative Champions League spots. A 4-1 defeat against to-be-relegated Bournemouth exposed just how out of character this Leicester side became during the summer – although the rot actually started when their nine-game winning streak ended in December 2019.
Having failed to keep the pace last term, Rodgers’ men have also fluctuated this season. Two instances of back-to-back Premier League losses have been enough for Jamie Vardy and co to slip off the title pace. Yes, they are still doing remarkably well to compete for a top-four spot – but looking back, 2020 could have been a whole lot better for Leicester.
Losers: Arsenal 8th
Few football clubs have endured such highs and lows as Arsenal in 2020. From starting the year unbeaten until Project Restart and winning the FA Cup, to sacking their mascot Gunnersaurus, ostracising Mesut Ozil and capitulating in the lead-up to Christmas, it’s been a strange 12 months in north London.
Arsenal were in crisis mode before back-to-back wins over Chelsea and Brighton earned Mikel Arteta a reprieve in the final days of 2020. Looking back, it hasn’t been a terrible year for the club, yet the league table for games played these past 12 months has them in eighth position.
What is most concerning are the 12 defeats suffered. To give that some context, Liverpool have lost four, Spurs eight and even Burnley have managed fewer losses (11) since the start of 2020.
Losers: Sheffield United 17th
Sheffield United finished the 2019-20 season in a solid ninth place – but their miserable form during the summer belied what to expect just a few months later.
Chris Wilder’s men claimed just three league wins in June and July to surrender what at one point looked like a very good claim for a European spot. Three straight defeats ended the campaign and, perhaps most crucially, the squad was barely strengthened when the transfer window opened.
Since then, Wilder is yet to taste victory in the new season – and that includes an EFL Cup exit to Burnley. Just two points earned so far is downright horrendous form, and any other club and manager bar Sheffield United and Wilder would have parted company by now.
Is there any hope for 2021? The boss needs investment in this squad if his side are to escape relegation. And even then, January 2021 will be unrecognisable to how the Blades began 2020.
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