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Fulham captain and Eurosport-Yahoo! blogger Danny Murphy gets some well-earned rest and looks back on a thrilling season.

In the summer most footballers I know will now get away, play some golf and spend time with the family. It is a time to just chill out and do things they don't get a chance to do during the season because it is so hectic.

I try to see friends and some team-mates, depending on where everybody goes. I always see old friends when I go to Portugal and hang out with them. I'm actually there now.

I watched the Champions League final with Steven Gerrard and a few others. I'm playing golf with Jimmy Bullard too. Some of the Fulham players are also around so I am sure I will see them in the coming weeks. That said, spending time with my family is the priority.

Keeping fit is always difficult in the summer because you do switch off mentally and you need that break from the daily rigours of the training regime. That said, with everyone fighting for places in pre-season and as you get older, you realise you have to keep some kind of fitness up, eat the right things and do a bit in the gym or running over the break.

Gone are the days when you have six or seven weeks doing nothing, letting yourself go and getting it all back pre-season. Now you have to be ready, especially when you have games as early as we do - our Europa League campaign starts in July.

Looking back on the Premier League season, I have found it really gripping, as both ends of the division were so tight for so long.

There were a host of teams in the relegation battle, and the see-saw between Manchester United and Liverpool at the top was great to watch. I really enjoyed it.

For me there were a few defining moments. The one that stands out the most is the home win for Man U against Villa, when they were losing and then managed to turn it around with Federico Macheda's fantastic debut goal. That was the moment when Man U pipped Liverpool to win the title. It was an unbelievable comeback and the decisive moment in the title race.

At the bottom, of course, you had teams like Newcastle and Middlesbrough who most people didn't predict would be down there fighting every week to get the results. For me, that was a big difference from previous years.

Often, at the bottom of the table, it can be won and lost fairly early on in the season but this year all the teams hung in there until the bitter end; and it made the whole season really exciting.

From a Fulham perspective, it was the best season in our history and we finished in our best-ever position, which all added to it being a wonderful campaign that I will savour for years to come.

I think Stoke and Hull have done amazingly well to stay up. Firstly, they didn't go crazy spending millions in the summer to add to the squads and, secondly, they were such favourites to be relegated and no one really gave them a chance.

What they have done is remarkable given that their squads didn't differ that much from the season before in the Championship. Credit to both the clubs for that - a fantastic achievement.

In terms of disappointments from the season, there is one glaring choice and that has to be the relegation of Newcastle.

A club of their stature, size, player quality and fan base being relegated was as much a shock as a disappointment. The fans must have been shocked to see themselves down there and nothing else that happened over the season compared to that. It has been a while since a club of that ilk was relegated.

Danny Murphy returns on Friday with his final blog before the summer break, a look forward to England's World Cup qualifiers .

Eurosport