Erikse

Second longest-serving manager in the PL behind Arteta. Third longest if you count Championship aswell (behind the Wrexham manager).

Isn't this how it would've panned out if Isak was sold in may? Gordon did nothing wrong, but who on earth would be a cunt about a move if you get the move before the window even opens? Noone knows how he would have acted if we kept rejecting bids until august, saying that he was not for sale. Edit: Just read through the pages, I guess this has been covered already.

I actually think that Man City will do better with Maresca than Liverpool will do with Iraola. Maresca is underrated in here imo. Chelsea is the problem, and he did improve them. Man City is a much better place for him to come atm.

Only for Big Joe to kick his knee too hard.

Romano often gets our numbers slightly wrong, and it's allways to make our deals seem slightly worse. Never the other way.

Can we please just get a good replacement for a decent price and I'm happy. That's really the only worry.

Given that several clubs want him we should be able to negotiate some.. If they wait they'll just lose him to a different club. Liverpool was the only team willing to pay that kind of money for Isak, so they weren't in a hurry. Plus, getting Gordon before WC could matter a lot. Getting Isak so late did end up screwing Liverpool over, btw.

From Iniesta - Villa - Messi (or Neymar - Suarez - Messi) to Anthony Gordon..

Why not 8 years? Clearly wants a move.

5 points off Europa League is a bit of a moot point, and rather just highlights the missed opportunity in a season where reaching Europa League required so much less than in earlier seasons. In the 23/24 season we finished 11 points higher than this one, and we didn't even get Conference League. Last season 7th got 65 points. This season Sunderland got Europa League with 54. That's probably a new record.

Not getting out of that CL group stage, given the opposition and required points tally (top 24), would have been absolutely scandalous. Whether you could expect us to get past the next stage highly depended on who we faced. Most PL clubs would get past Qarabag on a normal day. The biggest achievements were holding PSG and Barca to a draw. The same goes for the cup really, we beat Bradford, Fulham and Spurs. Winning 3 rounds isn't bad, but once we face a team like Man City, we didn't stand a chance. This is why I didn't give the season more than a 3/10, because I don't think that we did anything special to outweigh the poor league performances.

It's mad how bad West Ham have been lately given the situation. Gotta give de Zerbi and the players a lot of credit for the recent games, but the timing of that Villa game was also a bit of luck. I guess that was more than justified considering the luck you've had all season. I agree about de Zerbi, I highly doubt that you will be anywhere near the relegation spots next season with him there, so it's all about staying up now. Just remember how hopeless it all seemed for Everton even when they kept escaping relegation (which seemed like it would be inevitable in the end), and look at them now. You have more financial power than them.

I guess what you really wrote was this, so maybe not exactly what I remembered: Are you looking forward to another season in the Prem now, then? I definetly see some reason for optimism with de Zerbi.

I thought you said that going down was for the best like 2 months ago? As someone else pointed out you don't need to win.

That's a pretty good humblebrag.