2015/16 Premier League season review

Leicester City won the 2015/16 Premier League with 81 points, ten clear of Arsenal, a year after spending more than four months at the bottom of the table. Bookmakers had offered 5,000-1 against them at the start of the season, under a new manager, Claudio Ranieri, whose appointment Gary Lineker had called uninspired.

Jamie Vardy scored in a record 11 consecutive league games, and Riyad Mahrez was named PFA Players' Player of the Year. Mahrez also finished as Fantasy Premier League's top scorer, with 240 points.

You can replay the season here with a £100m squad picked from 338 players across all 20 clubs, or read on for how it unfolded.

A new manager and low expectations

Leicester went into 2015/16 as a club that had only just survived. In 2014/15 they spent about four and a half months at the bottom of the table, from late November to mid-April, before winning seven of their last nine games to finish 14th on 41 points.

Nigel Pearson, the manager behind that escape, was sacked on 30 June 2015, with the club citing "fundamental differences in perspective". Claudio Ranieri was appointed on 13 July. His previous job had been a winless four-game spell in charge of Greece that ended with a 1-0 defeat by the Faroe Islands, and Gary Lineker called his hiring an "uninspired choice".

The summer signings were modest. Christian Fuchs arrived on a free from Schalke, Robert Huth from Stoke, Shinji Okazaki from Mainz and Gökhan Inler from Napoli. The most important of them, N'Golo Kanté, cost £5.6m from Caen.

The bookmakers' verdict was 5,000-1 for the title. The defending champions were Chelsea, under José Mourinho.

How Leicester won the 2015/16 title

Leicester's season was built on goals from Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, and on a defence of Wes Morgan, Huth and Kasper Schmeichel with Kanté in front of it. Vardy scored in 11 consecutive league games, the last of them against Manchester United on 28 November 2015. That broke the Premier League record of ten set by Ruud van Nistelrooy in 2003.

There were setbacks. Arsenal won 5-2 at the King Power Stadium in September, and Leicester also lost at Liverpool. But they returned to the top after a 3-0 win over Stoke on 23 January 2016 and stayed there for the rest of the season.

Two results in February defined the run-in:

• 6 February: Leicester won 3-1 at Manchester City, with two goals from Huth and one from Mahrez, and went six points clear.
• 14 February: at Arsenal, Leicester led through a Vardy penalty, went down to ten men and lost to a Danny Welbeck goal in the final seconds. It was their last league defeat of the season.

The title was settled on 2 May 2016 at Stamford Bridge, where Tottenham needed to win. Harry Kane and Son Heung-min put them 2-0 up, but Gary Cahill pulled one back from a corner and Eden Hazard, on as a half-time substitute, equalised eight minutes from time. Tottenham collected nine yellow cards, still a Premier League record. The draw made Leicester champions, the first top-flight title in their history, with two games to spare.

Five days later Leicester beat Everton 3-1 at home. Vardy scored twice and missed a penalty, Andy King got the other, and Andrea Bocelli sang before kick-off. Morgan and Ranieri lifted the trophy together.

Leicester finished on 81 points, with 23 wins, 12 draws and only three league defeats. Mahrez was PFA Players' Player of the Year, Vardy was named Footballer of the Year by the football writers and Premier League Player of the Season, and Ranieri was Manager of the Season.

Tottenham's collapse and the race for Europe

Tottenham were Leicester's last challengers, and their season fell apart in the final four games. After draws with West Brom and Chelsea, they lost 2-1 at home to Southampton and 5-1 at Newcastle on the final day, and finished third, a point behind Arsenal. Kane still won the Golden Boot with 25 goals, one ahead of Sergio Agüero and Vardy, and Dele Alli was PFA Young Player of the Year.

Behind Leicester the table looked like this:

• Arsenal finished second on 71 points. Mesut Özil made 19 assists, one short of Thierry Henry's Premier League record of 20 from 2002/03.
• Manchester City took fourth on 66 points and the last Champions League place.
• Manchester United also finished on 66 points but were fifth on goal difference, having scored only 49 league goals. They won the FA Cup.
• Southampton were sixth and West Ham seventh, with 62 points, a club record for a Premier League season, in their last season at the Boleyn Ground after 112 years.
• Liverpool were eighth. Brendan Rodgers was sacked on 4 October 2015 and Jürgen Klopp appointed four days later.
• Chelsea finished tenth on 50 points, the lowest finish by reigning Premier League champions. Mourinho was sacked on 17 December 2015 with the team 16th, and Guus Hiddink took over.

The season even ended late. Manchester United's final-day game against Bournemouth on 15 May was called off after Old Trafford was evacuated over a suspicious device, which turned out to be left over from a training exercise. The match was played two days later, and United won 3-1.

The relegation fight

Aston Villa finished bottom with 17 points and three wins. Tim Sherwood was sacked in October, his successor Rémi Garde left in March, and Villa's relegation was confirmed by a 1-0 defeat at Old Trafford on 16 April.

Newcastle and Norwich went down together on 11 May, when Sunderland beat Everton 3-0 with a game to spare. Newcastle had replaced Steve McClaren with Rafael Benítez in March, too late to save them. Sunderland survived in 17th under Sam Allardyce, who had taken over from Dick Advocaat in October with the club 19th.

The other two promoted clubs stayed up: Watford finished 13th and Bournemouth 16th.

Surprises and disappointments

Leicester were the season's great surprise, but they weren't the only one.

• N'Golo Kanté, signed from Caen for £5.6m, made the PFA Team of the Year in his first season in England.
• Riyad Mahrez scored 17 league goals and became the first African player to win PFA Players' Player of the Year.
• West Ham set a club record for Premier League points in their farewell season at the Boleyn Ground, and Dimitri Payet made the PFA Team of the Year.
• Southampton finished sixth, and Watford and Bournemouth, both promoted the summer before, stayed up.

Others had seasons to forget:

• Chelsea went from champions to tenth, the worst title defence in Premier League history at the time, and sacked Mourinho before Christmas.
• Aston Villa won three league games all season and went through two permanent managers.
• Manchester United scored 49 league goals, the fewest in the top eight, and missed out on the Champions League on goal difference despite winning the FA Cup.
• Tottenham were the only side to push Leicester into May, then took one point from their last three games and finished below Arsenal.

2015/16 in Fantasy Premier League

More than 3.7 million managers played Fantasy Premier League in 2015/16. Dimitri Nicolaou won with 2,458 points in his first season playing the game, taking only one points hit all year. He won comfortably, even with Chris Smalling in his team for Gameweek 38, when Smalling scored an own goal in stoppage time.

Riyad Mahrez was the game's top scorer with 240 points, seven more than Eden Hazard's winning total the season before. Mahrez also collected 38 bonus points, more than any other player. Vardy and Kane shared second place on 211 points, and Mesut Özil was the next best midfielder, 40 points behind Mahrez.

The Leicester story ran through the game too. Mahrez was owned by more than half of all managers on average across the season, and he won the fans' vote at the end-of-season FPL awards with 58%.

The PFA Team of the Year

Leicester and Tottenham supplied four players each to the players' own Team of the Year.

Mesut Özil and Sergio Agüero were the most talked-about omissions.

The season's awards: Mahrez was PFA Players' Player of the Year and Alli PFA Young Player of the Year. Vardy won the Football Writers' award and the Premier League's Player of the Season, and Ranieri was Manager of the Season.

2015/16 quick answers

Who won the Premier League in 2015/16? Leicester City, with 81 points, ten ahead of Arsenal.

What odds were Leicester to win the league? 5,000-1 at the start of the season.

Who was relegated in 2015/16? Aston Villa, Newcastle United and Norwich City.

Who was the Premier League top scorer in 2015/16? Harry Kane, with 25 league goals, one ahead of Sergio Agüero and Jamie Vardy.

Who was PFA Player of the Year in 2015/16? Riyad Mahrez. Dele Alli was Young Player of the Year.

Who scored the most FPL points in 2015/16? Riyad Mahrez, with 240.

Who won Fantasy Premier League in 2015/16? Dimitri Nicolaou, with 2,458 points.