Top 10 Underachieving Sides this Season

Europe’s title races are generally being fought by familiar names, but there are a variety of clubs who have suffered a significant dip compared to last season.

Here are ten of the biggest losers in 2013/14 so far…

10 – Freiburg

Freiburg’s decline is more about them overachieving last season, rather than underachieving this season. Nevertheless, it’s been a sharp drop from their exciting 2012/13 campaign, when only a final day defeat to Schalke saw them miss out on Champions League football for the first time.

There’s no secret to their problems – they’ve lost the stars of last season. The excellent strike duo of Max Kruse and Jan Rosenthal (the main reason why Freiburg excelled) both departed, with Kruse excelling at Borussia Monchengladbach and Rosenthal joining Eintracht Frankfurt. Combative midfielder Cedric Makaidi and steady winger Daniel Caliguiri also left.

With an inexperienced squad and Europa League commitments causing problems, Freiburg’s league form has been poor, and they’re lucky the Bundesliga contains two genuinely terrible sides this season, in bottom-placed Braunschweig and winless Nurnberg. They’ll improve, and should be safe from relegation, but European football already seems a distant memory.

9 – Montpellier

The 2011/12 Ligue 1 champions slipped to ninth the following season – and so far, this campaign is even worse. Montpellier are just two places above the relegation zone, having won three games all season.

Their terrible form led to the resignation of Jean Fernandez, who found title-winning coach Rene Girard a tough act to follow. The 2-0 weekend win at relegation rivals Sochaux might prove a turning point, however, and the club still have good players amongst their ranks – while the title-winning spine of Olivier Giroud, Younes Belhanda and Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa has long gone, centre-back Hilton and attacking midfielder Remy Cabella – a Newcastle target – remain for now.

New coach Rolland Courbis should guide Montpellier to survival. He guided the club back to Ligue 1 in 2008 (before starting a prison sentence for involvement in the Marseille corruption case) but has the support of fans.

8 – Udinese

Udinese have overachieved consistently over the last decade, excelling with their superb knack of uncovering talented youngsters and selling them on for a profit, not to mention manager Francesco Guidolin’s tactical brilliance and Antonio Di Natale’s steady stream of goals. Today, the club are currently three points off relegation. Strangely, this was one summer where they didn’t lose a great deal of talent, aside from Mehdi Benatia leaving for Roma.

Realistically, the man who elevated them to their previous level is the reason for their decline – Di Natale, having hit 103 league goals in the last four seasons, has managed just five this campaign. Two have been penalties and two have been free-kicks, and he hasn’t managed an open play goal since mid-September. This was probably one season too far, and the striker has already announced he’ll retire at the end of the campaign.

Last year’s fifth-place finish was secured with seven wins from the last seven matches, and Udinese – and Di Natale – will be hoping for another late flourish.

7 – PSV

There was a huge overhaul at PSV last summer. With the likes of Kevin Strootman, Mark van Bommel, Jeremain Lens, Dries Mertens, Wilfried Bouma, Erik Pieters, Marcelo and Ola Toivonen all leaving the club, and legendary midfielder Philipp Cocu replacing Dick Advocaat as manager, PSV put their focus upon youth and exciting technical football.

They started extremely well – they won their first three matches, went unbeaten for their first seven, and thrashed champions Ajax 4-0, gaining some kind of revenge for losing the title decider to the Amsterdam club last season.

But PSV have since slipped back to eighth, and the 1-0 weekend defeat to Ajax leaves them 14 points behind the leaders. They appear incapable of defending, especially away from home where they haven’t kept a clean sheet all season, and are frequently wasteful upfront. Cocu’s vision is clear, but PSV lack efficiency at both ends.

6 – Pacos de Ferreira

The tiny club from the north of Portugal – average gate around 1100 – stunned the country by finishing in third place last season, qualifying for the Champions League preliminary stages for the first time.

But things unravelled quickly. Manager Paulo Fonseca was poached by champions Porto, and former Portugal midfielder Costinha (with his old midfield colleague Maniche as assistant) barely lasted ten matches as his replacement.

Inevitably, Pacos had their best players stolen, too: goalkeeper Cassio, free-scoring winger Pablo Hurtado and central midfielder Luis Carlos departed, following defender Antunes who left for Malaga last January. With no wins in the last six, Pacos could well be relegated – it simply shows what a fine job Fonseca did.

5 – Valencia

We knew this would happen. Valencia’s financial problems are well-documented – they have one stadium they can’t finish building, and another they can’t manage to sell, and as soon as they dropped out of the Champions League places, they were going to face real problems. Fifth place last time out wasn’t enough, and the rot set in.

While there were plenty of departures, Valencia are accustomed to that. The real problem was the quality of the replacements – a bunch of over promoted players from the youth system, or run-of-the-mill players used to finishing in mid-table. Helder Postiga has done OK but hasn’t replicated Roberto Soldado’s goalscoring, Dorlan Pabon isn’t good enough, while Javi Fuego makes you long for the days of David Albelda and Ruben Baraja.

Miroslav Dukic was sacked in December with Valencia in ninth, but successor Juan Antonio Pizzi isn’t faring much better. Valencia will remain mid-table for the rest of the season, and the real concern is further departures in the summer.

4 – Lyon

With seven consecutive titles in the mid-2000s and regular Champions League qualification since then, Lyon aren’t accustomed to finding themselves in mid-table. After one-third of the campaign they were in the bottom half, however, with former Arsenal midfielder Remi Garde clinging onto his managerial job.

It’s a long-term decline due to poor financial management rather than evidence of short-term problems, although the club is currently building a new, 58,000 capacity stadium due to be ready late next year, which has harmed their ability to compete in the transfer market.

Still, Garde deserves credit for sticking it out and turning the season around. Lyon are now on the longest unbeaten run in Ligue 1, have scored the second-most goals in open play behind PSG, and should climb back into the European places.

3 – Anzhi Makhachkala

Anzhi were briefly one of the highest-spending clubs in Europe, following the takeover of billionaire Suleyman Kerimov. They signed a variety of exciting attacking players and some solid defensive players, creating a peculiar situation where Christopher Samba and Samuel Eto’o were in the same side. Eto’o was supposedly on €400,000 a week for a brief period.

But Kerimov’s Uralkali fertilizer company lost nearly €400m almost overnight, and he immediately announced a dramatic ‘reformatting’ of Anzhi’s long-term approach. Essentially, the money dried up. Eto’o, Samba, Lassana Diarra, Igor Denisov, Willian, Yuri Zhirkov and Lacina Traore all left, and coaches Guud Hiddink and Rene Meulensteen followed.

The result? Anzhi are P19 W0 D8 L11, and likely to be relegated. Few will be sorry to see their demise.

2 – Manchester United

Everyone knew it would an extremely tough task to replace Sir Alex Ferguson, but few realised it would be quite so difficult for David Moyes. Manchester United are barely even in the title race, and are trading at as high as 3/1 with Ladbrokes to finish in the Champions League places.

Moyes has some excuses – injuries have robbed him of United’s best three performers from last season (Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick) in recent weeks, and there were underlying problems with the squad, particularly in midfield.

Nevertheless, it’s difficult to imagine United slipping below their current position of seventh and not making a managerial change at the end of the campaign. Moyes should be in charge of United this time next year, presumably with a squad that actually feels like his – but United can’t afford to not qualify for the Champions League.

1 – AC Milan

Milan’s slow decline from the most dominant side in the Champions League into Serie A also-rans has rather hidden the fact they were excellent throughout the second half of last season in Serie A, losing just one match – to champions Juventus.

The club still possesses a very talented squad, albeit with weaknesses at the back, but there’s both the creative talent and the striking firepower to suggest they should be doing significantly better than 11th place, where they were left by recently sacked manager Max Allegri.

Clarence Seedorf’s appointment has been hailed by fans, players and directors, but this is a man with absolutely no managerial experience, and he remains an unknown as a coach. Individual brilliance from Mario Balotelli, Kaka and Robinho should ensure the club finish in the top half, but Milan are at their lowest point this century.