Chelsea

Good news for all the Chelsea haters out there: you are still permitted to hate them.

The bad news is that Chelsea are still eminently hateable because they keep winning in that eminently hateable Chelsea style of theirs. Based on Monday's 2-1 win against West Ham, Antonio Conte's side won't finish 10th again this season.

The first Chelsea goal of the Antonio Conte era came via an Eden Hazard penalty, which seemed inevitable after Chelsea players kept running into the area then falling down, writhing and shrieking. Oscar is particularly adept at this.

Frank Lampard was unstoppable for New York City FC throughout July, registering six goals, one assist and one MLS Player of the Month award.  

It was only last May that Lampard was being booed by his own supporters, but he’s transformed into the toast of New York after leading his team to the top of the Eastern Conference standings.

105,826 crowded into Michigan Stadium, better known as “The Big House”, to get a glimpse of Real Madrid and Chelsea stars like Marcelo, Oscar, Eden Hazard and James Rodriguez. At the end of they day, they were all talking about Real Madrid’s 22-year-old Dominican forward Mariano Diaz Mejia, simply known as Mariano.

Marcelo put in a man of the match performance, and Eden Hazard scored two wonderful late goals for the Blues, but Mariano’s goal was absolutely world-class.

As much as the people in charge would like for it to be a competitive tournament, the International Champions Cup is a collection of friendlies between big teams trying to grow their fan-bases in new, previously untapped markets. The players will run around a little, the coaches will evaluate some youth academy players and everyone will be nice before heading home. They're just friendlies. No one is taking them seriously. Except for Cesc Fabregas.

Look what happened when Cesc and Liverpool center back Ragnar Klavan go after the same ball.

The living legend that is Didier Drogba is approaching his 20th season of professional soccer, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. The former Chelsea striker lifted the Montreal Impact into the MLS playoffs for the first time in their history last season, and he’s almost certain to have an even more influential campaign this time around following his resounding hat-trick against Philadelphia. 

There’s no athlete in the world of sport quite like Diego Costa. On his day, he’s a brutally effective striker who blends determination, power, physicality and a mean goalscoring streak. On that same day, Costa also demonstrates a red hot temper, a clear lack of self-control and a penchant for the absurd.

NFL franchise the Minnesota Vikings had a little bit of fun with Chelsea FC this week, as they challenged the club to a so-called "football vs. football" challenge. The challenge comes as Chelsea prepare to face A.C. Milan at the new U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on August 3. It will be the first event to take place at the new facility.  

In hindsight, Leicester City’s €15.5 million purchase of French defensive midfielder Nampalys Mendy was an exact like-for-like replacement for the eventual sale of breakthrough star N’Golo Kante.

Not that Leicester City supporters will be okay with seeing Kante leave, especially to EPL rival Chelsea.

As the 2015-16 Premier League season draws to a close, it’s time to honor and award those whose performances have captivated us over the course of the last nine months. It’s also a great time to shame those whose performances call into question the morality behind million dollar contracts and the myth of the sporting superhuman. These are the players whose performances will stick with us for all the wrong reasons; the biggest underachievers and flops of the 2015-16 Premier League season.