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| Would West Ham have stayed up if Lucas Paqueta was sold earlier? |
The relief at Spurs is immeasurable but for West Ham it has been a long time coming, with plenty of blame to be apportioned in relegation.
Honestly, though. What on Earth were Everton doing?
West Ham’s downfall
So, Spurs got the inevitable result against Everton and our win was irrelevant. But we weren’t relegated today, it has been a few years in the making and accelerated this season. The culprits as I see them;
David Sullivan – most of the problems come from the top. Sullivan selling a few jazz mags does not qualify someone to be director of football at a Premier League club, and some of the signing certainly show that to be true. The problem isn’t investment in the playing squad, they’ve actually spent a lot of money, but the recruitment has been terrible with no semblance of a long term plan. If relegation leads to Sullivan following Brady out of the door then I think a lot of West Ham fans will accept that as a fair price.
Graham Potter – it’s important to remember just how bad we were at the start of the season. We conceded from virtually every corner and he kept picking Max Kilman.
Nuno – since mid January we’ve been pretty good. Comfortably in mid-table form. But the problem is that Nuno joined in September, for 3 months we just drifted and looked doomed after losing to Wolves & Forest. Fair play for turning it around, but when you’re 7 points from safety its a bit too late.
Lucas Paqueta – no coincidence that performances and morale drastically improved after he left. Maybe the FA investigation took a toll on him, but his work rate was a disgrace.
London Stadium – it is possible to get a good atmosphere there, and Upton Park has been mythologised to the point you’d think we never lost, but the stadium move can only be viewed as a failure. Financially it was a no brainier, but it’s probably 10k too big and the gaps between lower and upper tiers means that atmosphere fades and dies too regularly.
Leeds and Sunderland – it is outrageous that two newly promoted teams were so good. How can mid-ranking PL sides like West Ham coast along in 12th-17th when teams come up and play so well?
West Ham fans – I don’t think we can be absolved of all blame. If the team performs well, we’re a very supportive bunch, but we’re too quick to get on player’s backs. Booing the team off at HT today was stupid and is symptomatic of the toxic feeling throughout the club.
Aston Villa – I’ll never forgive them for that ‘performance’ against Spurs. Genuinely gutted when they beat Freiburg.
VAR – hasn’t caused relegation by any means, but if I’m having a good moan I can’t leave out VAR. It needs binning and most match going fans feel the same, there has to be something fans can do to get rid of it.
Off for a few drinks now, and then wake up tomorrow looking forward to Lincoln away, Millwall at home and 44 other great fixtures with the hope that we’ll be back soon.
Andy the hammer (relegation isn’t the ideal way to get rid of VAR, but I’ll take that small win)
In any other year, West Ham going down would be funny.
Love you all.
Finlay x
The end of an era
Thank you, fixture computer
Spurs should take heed. Put a black plaque in their own trophy room (Yes, haha, there’s plenty of room). A reminder of the sins and near catastrophe of this campaign. Never again.
As a Spurs fan, there’s little delight, but there’s pure relief at the end of this grueling season. There’s really no saying how bad relegation could’ve been.. Spurs might never have recovered. To survive by the barest of margins on the final day is not ideal.. but that’s enough, and that’ll have to do.
It gives us a chance to recover, to get our squad back healthy, to purge the squad of weak minded and weak skilled players, to build upon the foundations that Roberto De Zerbi has quickly constructed. He’s done an incredible job with this Great Escape, especially considering how bleak the mood was in the camp when he came in, and the devastating injuries across the squad that he faced. Amazing.
My last mail to this fine forum was on April 13th, after Spurs lost to Sunderland, and lost Romero for the season. My mail barely crept in, through the howling laughter of other fans, F365 writers, Mailboxers, Gary Neville, Sadiq Khan, The entirety of PGMOL and f**k it, probably Vinai Venkatesham and Johan Lange too. Spurs were going down! The giddy glee had fans from ‘The Other 14’ clubs frothing at the mouth… but I warned you:
“6 games left and people are salivating over Spurs demise. But I’m sorry to tell you, like they’ve done for us fans for so long: Spurs will disappoint you.
Salvation seems miles from us for now… but one win can change everything. De Zerbi will make more progress. Xavi Simons, Bergvall, Van de Ven, Porro, Tel will step up. Maddison might even return.
Spurs will stay up… and I can’t wait to be back here when they do!”
Rumours of Spurs’ demise have been greatly exaggerated, my friends.
Despite *everything*. All the injuries, all the negativity, all the bad luck, the dodgy VAR decisions, the zero penalties, the other fans wishing for their own teams to lose to send Spurs down… despite it all, Spurs fought their way out of hell.. and Spurs are staying right where they belong!
See you next season!
COYS,
Andy, Eire
Perhaps Tottenham ought to unveil new front-of-shirt sponsors in Viagra (or Cialis) for next season, marketing around staying up and being such hard men that they are in so doing.
Eric, Los Angeles CA (Two from the last 12 points on offer to grab fifth place with aplomb, hooray.)
Am sure you’ll get loads of these…..yes Spurs have been shocking (and need a huge reset), but RDZ has managed to do something……however, more importantly, it must be infuriating for Chris Sutton, Alan Smith and others that Spurs stay up.
Dan, Hornchurch (Although begrudgingly, I expect Alan Smith is pretty happy)
Is De Zerbi the new Sam Allardyce?
Robert, Birmingham
Deafening Moyes
Hello ed,
Insipid, hopeless, benign. These are now the adjectives of performances to which we aspire.
Moyes probably loving the fact West Ham went down, makes him look loads better by comparison. Also distracts from His mismanagement of the squad, substitutes and clueless in game adjustment.
I could go on and on, but he’s already on the hot seat for next season, he’s sodding off to do commentary for talksport, at least Roberto Martinez went to a World Cup he got ESPN and some sort of tiki hut on Copacabana beach, that fills me with dread already. 3 points from 21! 1 more point than Sean Dyche’s point deduction season Eesh.
EFCraig (there’s going to be 3 worse teams next year… right?)
Never go full John Terry
It was good to see Saliba, Raya, Trossard, White and Timber didn’t go full ‘John Terry’ and opted for just wearing the jersey for the photo op.
Seamus, Sweden
I spoke too soon…
Seamus, Sweden
Sun loungers
When was the last time a promoted team qualified for Europe? Fair play to Sunderland for that achievement. My team of season. And they finished five places above Newcastle. I wonder if there’ll be more beheadings than usual next week in Saudi Arabia off the back of that.
Danny, Brighton
Honour among thieves
Finally, the final week of the season is over. A week that has seen the British Press fall over themselves to laud Guardiolas time at City. We all know he wouldn’t have been there without the oil money and nor would the vast majority of the players.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more cringeworthy you have the game being stopped for Guards Of Honour for Bernardo Silva & John Stones. Even more pathetic was Villa joining them.
Thank god for the League Of Ireland to keep me sane
Yours
Seán, St Patrick’s Athletic, Inchicores Finest, Dublin
Clutch? Professional
Thoroughly enjoyed the piece on “Mikel Arteta transfer decisions that made angry Arsenal fans look stupid” just as I’ve enjoyed the myriad of sports journalism that complimented the efforts of Arsenal and Arteta since Jorge Graham took charge.
With regards to Trossard, I did have to look up what a clutch player is. And by extension, what a clutch goal may be.
So, strap yourselves in fellow old men and prepare to shake your hands vigorously at the clouds, because apparently a clutch player is an athlete or competitor who consistently performs exceptionally well under high pressure, especially during critical, game deciding moments.
In other words, a diligent, talented and focused professional.
A clutch is type of handbag, pedal or to grip tightly, not a footballer.
Eoin (Is it me who is out of touch? No, it is the children who are wrong) Ireland
Pep for England
So I saw an article in The Guardian, headlined ‘Pep Guardiola will not rule out possibility of managing England’ written by, of course, Jamie Jackson.
Apparently Pep was asked by someone (by some unidentified tw*t, we’ll assume with the initials JJ) at a presser ‘if the England role would be of interest’.
Pep replied ‘I don’t have any absolute plan about my future’ amongst other stuff about wanting a break etc, but Jamie interprets this as ‘Pep Guardiola has left open the possibility of managing England in the future’.
But he makes this interpretation, despite also including this ‘Asked if this was not a no, Guardiola said: “Yeah – [but] nobody cares”‘
I’m not a journalist, but I would take that to read that ‘Is that a no’ followed by ‘Yes, that is a no’!
So basically Jamie seems to have deliberately misinterpreted an answer from Guardiola to concoct a nonsense story, just before England go to the World Cup with a manager who has recently signed a contract extension!
Can you lovely people at F365 explain this to me, I’m confused!
A, LFC, Montreal.
Squad goals
Don’t worry, every national squad has similar debates. For the France squad, people are up in arms about Marcus Thuram up front, the Hernandez brothers, Konaté, Rabiot, Mateta, Koundé, all debatable selections sure, and then the absence of Lepaul, Thauvin, Camavinga, Udol, Mayulu. But guess what, just like Tuchel, Deschamps knows what he’s doing (he’s proved that in the last 2 world cups), and I’m sure he’s got a plan. Who was it – I think was Rassie Erasmus the South African rugby coach – who said you don’t pick up the best players, you pick the best squad, for your gameplan and compatible players. And he would know, he’s won 2 world cups.
Deschamps himself said he’d never pick a player for the world cup if he’s never played for the national team yet (he made an exception for the 3rd keeper, but only because he does not expect him to play). Hence no Lepaul, Udol or Mayulu, even though they’ve had great seasons. So Let it go for now, and reserve judgement if/when it all falls apart.
Mike, London, the French Chelsea fan
Being from a country that didn’t qualify for the World Cup, I am in awe of the spoils of the English squad depth, and the thoughts of the impact one or two castaways may have on my countries chances at qualification. So question to the mailbox, could a team assembled of players who didn’t make the England squad qualify for the World Cup? And could they do it without moving continent as well as country (ie could they qualify via Europe as remembering Haiti qualified)? Also, do you think you could assemble an England B team that could beat Tuchels A team?
Ron Carr (country location withheld for fears of nationalist reprimand)
- Football365
