WEST HAM 'DISGRACE' BLAMED ALONGSIDE ASTON VILLA FOR LETTING SPURS OFF THE RELEGATION HOOK

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

Since the first season of the football league there has – unless I’ve missed any! – always been at least one team beginning with W in the top flight.

With West Ham and Wolves playing in the Championship next season, and Ipswich, Coventry and Hull promoted, a streak of some 130 years’ duration comes to an end.

Michael C, a Spurs fan whose only interest in yesterday’s matches was alphabetical, honest…

Thank you, fixture computer

Can I, on behalf of all Spurs fans, thank the Premier League Super Computer for pulling Everton at home for the last game of the season.

Jim – Spurs

In Andrea Pirlo’s Autobiography, he talks about the illustrious AC Milan Trophy room, with all their accolades. He said he always felt there should be a sombre black plaque in there to commemorate AC Milan’s collapse against Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League Final. He felt it should be a mark to remind them never to forget.

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

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR CHAIRMAN DANIEL LEVY LEAVES AFTER 25 YEARS IN CHARGE

In news that will send shockwaves through the entirety of Spurs, Daniel Levy has stepped down as Executive Chairman of Tottenham Hotspur after serving in the role for nearly 25 years, which made him the longest serving chairman in the Premier League.

In a statement on the Tottenham Hotspur website, Levy said “I am incredibly proud of the work I have done together with the executive team and all our employees. We have built this club into a global heavyweight competing at the highest level.”

“More than that, we have built a community. I was lucky enough to work with some of the greatest people in this sport, from the team at Lilywhite House and Hotspur Way to all the players and managers over the years.”

“I wish to thank all the fans that have supported me over the years. It hasn’t always been an easy journey, but significant progress has been made. I will continue to support this club passionately.”

Changes

The statement also said “As part of its succession planning, the club has made a number of senior appointments in recent months … This is all part of the Club’s ambition to ensure that it is set up to deliver long-term sporting success.”

This was called back in July by Spurs insider Paul O’Keefe on X as he said that Spurs would “see a management reshuffle as well as new roles. Likely Levy stays but potentially in a different/reduced and perhaps even non-football related role – Vinai’s appointment and the departure of Cullen were the first part of a broad realignment of the club.”

Levy didn’t end up staying and his departure has been the most high-profile of these changes. Peter Charrington steps into the newly created role of non-executive chairman, presumably taking up some of Levy’s duties.

Charrington said of his appointment, “This is a new era of leadership for the club, on and off the pitch. I do recognise there has been a lot of change in recent months as we put in place new foundations for the future. We are now fully focused on stability and empowering our talented people across the Club led by Vinai and his executive team.”

Vinai Venkatesham was appointed as CEO over the summer to work alongside Levy to run the footballing operations of the club but will now take a more hands on approach with the day-to-day running of the club following Levy’s departure.

It should be noted that Levy’s departure has nothing to do with the ownership structure of the club as, according to reliable Spurs journalist Alasdair Gold on X “Levy and his family still own (or are beneficiaries of) 29.88% of ENIC’s share of the club.” Spurs confirmed as much in their statement on the website.

Other changes included the return of Fabio Paratici in a consultancy role before reassuming his old job of Managing Director by the 1st of October following the conclusion of his 30-month worldwide footballing ban.

The aforementioned Donna-Maria Cullen, someone who was on the board of Spurs for over 20 years and was considered one of Daniel Levy’s most faithful allies, also departed earlier in the summer.

On the pitch, club legend and former captain Heung-min Son left to join LAFC and in the dugout was yet another change as Europa League winning boss Ange Postecoglou was sacked. This paved the way for ex-Brentford boss Thomas Frank to take over as men’s first team coach. Spurs Women manager Robert Vilahamn was also sacked and replaced with Martin Ho.

Protests

Levy’s departure comes off the back of some of the most visceral and passionate protests against Levy and ENIC’s ownership since the European Super League proposals. At one such protest, thousands turned out to march and show their unified discontent at ENIC’s ownership and a perceived lack of ambition.

Chants echoing around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium included “We want Levy out, say we want Levy out.” A more creative one included Spurs’ Swedish attacker Dejan Kulusevski. “I don’t care about Levy, Levy don’t care about me. All I care about, is Kulusevski.”

For some Spurs fans, Levy’s departure will feel like Christmas come early, such was the discontent and malevolence felt towards him by some sections of the fanbase. In their eyes, Spurs were treated like a business, not like a football club. They became content with top 4 finishes, prioritising Champions League revenue over trophies.

They didn’t maximise the potential that the early promise under ENIC had shown. With the lowest wage to turnover ratio of any club in the Premier League, Spurs are amongst the most financially healthy clubs in the world, but with a trophy cabinet unbefitting of that status.

They didn’t back managers when they needed it, most pertinently the “painful rebuild” Mauricio Pochettino demanded, only to be sacked a few months after making those comments. He would later come to be proven right, angering those same sections of the fanbase that would later come to protest him.

For others, Levy’s departure will feel bittersweet. After all, Levy and ENIC turned Spurs into a global footballing powerhouse (trophies aside), with one of, if not the, best stadium in the world and facilitated the infrastructure that bred the teams of Redknapp, Pochettino and Ange’s Europa League winners.

Whichever way you look at it, this summer has looked like the beginning of a new era for Spurs, more so than any other “new era” since Pochettino’s departure and the new management team will have to ensure success is delivered under their watch to avoid another 17 year wait for a major honour to come to N17.

- Mikey Kouwiloyan