With the 2014/15 Premier League season come and gone, Richard Jolly names his worst performer from every team this year.
Arsenal
Mikel Arteta: Francis Coquelin showed just how much Arsenal benefited from having a proper defensive midfielder. The ageing Arteta struggled on his appearances.
Aston Villa
Andreas Weimann: Started well, with early goals, but the Austrian lost his way and his place.
Burnley
Lukas Jutkiewicz: No lack of effort but the goalless striker just lacked the class for the Premier League.
Chelsea
Juan Cuadrado: The January signing wasn't the final piece in the title-winning jigsaw, but an irrelevant, expensive replacement. Much more will be expected of Colombia's World Cup star next season.
Crystal Palace
Adrian Mariappa: It says a lot that Palace didn't win a league game the versatile defender started.
Everton
Antolin Alcaraz: An increasingly hapless figure whose mistakes were a major cause of Everton's Europa League exit.
Hull City
Tom Huddlestone: A focal point of the team last season, but error-prone this year, when he was sent off twice.
Leicester City
Paul Konchesky: Leicester's best form came without him. The left-back looks past his best.
Liverpool
Mario Balotelli: Scored a solitary league goal in the worst season of his career. A £16 million failure.
Manchester City
Edin Dzeko: Only scored twice since September as the Bosnian, who struck 26 times last season, ranked as the greatest underachiever in the City ranks.
Manchester United
Radamel Falcao: Arrived with the reputation as one of the world's great strikers. Looked slow and utterly impotent in a dreadful loan spell that only yielded four goals.
Newcastle United
Emmanuel Riviere: A regular scorer in Ligue 1, he waited nine months and more than 1,000 minutes for a goal in the Premier League.
Queens Park Rangers
Mauricio Isla: The Chilean World Cup star lost his place in what proved the worst defence in the division.
Southampton
Shane Long: Hard worker but, played out of position, failed to justify his £12 million fee.
Stoke City
Phillip Wollscheid: One of the more forgettable January signings. Mark Hughes's search for a centre-back may go on.
Sunderland
Ricky Alvarez: The Argentine was anonymous, ineffective and injured. Now Sunderland are forced to pay £11 million for him.
Swansea City
Angel Rangel: Showed his age and lost his place when Kyle Naughton was signed in January.
Tottenha Hotspur
Roberto Soldado: It seemed his second season couldn't be any worse than his first. It was. Soldado scored a solitary Premier League goal. He is a waste of £26 million.
West Bromwich Albion
Cristian Gamboa: The Costa Rican was one of several summer signings who made a negligible contribution.
West Ham United
Kevin Nolan: Looked slow and old in comparison with West Ham's more dynamic midfielders.
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Business Insights
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If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
'The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey'
Rating: 3/5
Directors: Ramin Bahrani, Debbie Allen, Hanelle Culpepper, Guillermo Navarro
Writers: Walter Mosley
Stars: Samuel L Jackson, Dominique Fishback, Walton Goggins
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Company%20Profile
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Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale
Starring: Nayanthara, Vignesh Shivan, Radhika Sarathkumar, Nagarjuna Akkineni
Director: Amith Krishnan
Rating: 3.5/5
Company%20Profile
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The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
The Intruder
Director: Deon Taylor
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Michael Ealy, Meagan Good
One star
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
