Rate the 2025/2026 season

[toon25]

Appreciate this is a reflection of a shit set of results today, but the immediate reaction is that surely we've got to see folk moved on after this shit show of a season.

 

 

[Jonas]

There's been worse season obviously but there were no expectations or reflective spend or standing then. 

Relative to where we started, spend power and realistic expectations this has been one the worst and probably the poorest return. Down there with 97/98

Basically its surpassed everybody's lowest expectations with ease.

[midds]

2/10

 

It's been a complete disaster from Celtic Park to Craven Cottage. It's been so bad I've not even wanted to discuss games since February. The regression and damage that this last 13 moths has done to the club is monumental, we've spend a hundred million to get massively worse and seen about 8 clubs overtake us in the process. Can't underestimate how shocking it's been, it's been a fucking disgraceful decline to watch and every single person at the club needs to take stock of it.  

[Collage]

8 minutes ago, Jonas said:

There's been worse season obviously but there were no expectations or reflective spend or standing then. 

Relative to where we started, spend power and realistic expectations this has been one the worst and probably the poorest return. Down there with 97/98

Basically its surpassed everybody's lowest expectations with ease.

But in 97-98 we reached the FA cup final, qualifying for Europe the following season. And we beat Barca in the CL 

[Fak]

1 minute ago, Collage said:

But in 97-98 we reached the FA cup final, qualifying for Europe the following season. And we beat Barca in the CL 

 

And we unleashed Aaron Hughes on Barcelona for the very first time at the Nou Camp. 

[Chicken Dancer]

Voted 2 and that’s purely based on the performances in the cup and CL.

 

League has been fucking dire, played like shit in 90% of the games (including ones we’ve won) and looked like a disjointed side for the most part. 
 

Glad it’s done an hopefully it is an anomaly, but I’ve next to no confidence in the backroom staff and I hate to say that. 

[Jonas]

3 minutes ago, Collage said:

But in 97-98 we reached the FA cup final, qualifying for Europe the following season. And we beat Barca in the CL 

It was more fun its just the expectation was to challenge for the title not be playing Barnsley in a relegation 6pointer over Easter. 

[Optimistic Nut]

3.

[UncleBingo]

16 minutes ago, midds said:

2/10

 

It's been a complete disaster from Celtic Park to Craven Cottage. It's been so bad I've not even wanted to discuss games since February. The regression and damage that this last 13 moths has done to the club is monumental, we've spend a hundred million to get massively worse and seen about 8 clubs overtake us in the process. Can't underestimate how shocking it's been, it's been a fucking disgraceful decline to watch and every single person at the club needs to take stock of it.  

Playing devil's advocate, a cup semi final, cup quarter final and group stages of the champions league would have been seen as our best season ever before we won anything last season, no?

 

[HaydnNUFC]

1 minute ago, UncleBingo said:

Playing devil's advocate, a cup semi final, cup quarter final and group stages of the champions league would have been seen as our best season ever before we won anything last season, no?

 

It’s splitting hairs but we got to UEFA Cup quarters, FA Cup semis and League Cup 4th round under Souness in 04-05. Not too dissimilar in league position and points total either.

[Jonas]

5 minutes ago, UncleBingo said:

Playing devil's advocate, a cup semi final, cup quarter final and group stages of the champions league would have been seen as our best season ever before we won anything last season, no?

 

No. Nobody thought the seasons we got to cup finals under Dalglish (and LC QF) and Gullit and a semi-final (and UEFA QF) under Souness were anything but bad seasons

 

 

Edited May 24 by Jonas

[UncleBingo]

Just now, HaydnNUFC said:

It’s splitting hairs but we got to UEFA Cup quarters, FA Cup semis and League Cup 4th round under Souness in 04-05. Not too dissimilar in league position and points total either.

As much as I despised Souness, I would never have rated that as a 2/10 season.

[Kilcline]

A solid 4 

[UncleBingo]

Just now, Jonas said:

No. Nobody thought the seasons we got to cup finals under Dalglish (and LC QF) and Gullit and a semi-final (and UEFA QF) were anything but bad seasons hence why they all left soon enough after.

But neither of those managers had been instrumental in taking us to those lofty heights, surely?

[Teslact]

Season has been odd overall. Both major European comps have needed 8 points less than last season:

 

24-25:

Champions League: 66 points

Europa: 62 points

Survival: 26 points

 

25-26:

Champions League: 58 points

Europa: 54 points

Survival: 40 points

 

We cocked up the league when Europa was there for the taking, but Jesus wept Maresca had Chelsea in 5th when they fired him.

 

[midds]

4 minutes ago, UncleBingo said:

Playing devil's advocate, a cup semi final, cup quarter final and group stages of the champions league would have been seen as our best season ever before we won anything last season, no?

 

I think League games are always the best barometer, there's too much fluctuation in Cup results and performances. We've done reasonably well in Europe this season which has been the only highlight of this dismal season tbh. To go from 5th to 12th is a huge drop off. Throw in the struggles to score and the struggles to keep clean sheets, the fact we've bottled having the lead so often, the lack of points when we've fallen behind, the lack of effort and enthusiasm, losing all of the intensity we used to have and the stubborn manager who has watched every minute unfold before him paints a pretty bleak picture. I'll stick with my 2 tbh

[Moose]

2/10. Relative to expectations, the most depressing season I can remember. The relegation seasons felt inevitable and ultimately deserved, in the Ashley era, expectations were low so it was hard to get too scunnered by the club, but after the highs of last season, it feels like we've been taking body blow after body blow, football's way of telling us 'you've had your fun now get back in your box'

 

Recruitment was truly abysmal and could set us back years. 

 

Stale quagmire of a squad with tired out tactics, the easiest team to play against in the PL.

 

Only Bruno, Miley and Hall emerge from this season with any credit, a few other players elsewhere get pass marks, most were somewhere between underwhelming and abhorrent.

 

2x pathetic derby performances. 

 

An untold amount of late goals conceded.

 

Very few enjoyable games, our football is really boring to watch for the most part.

 

The CL campaign was fine, but truthfully, we beat the teams we expected to beat.

 

Howe looks like a broken man and hasn't shown any signs of being able to adapt or rejuvenate this shambles of a squad.

 

Done fairly well in the cups until we faced the financially doped City.

 

The hard graft and intensity that used to win us games alone is completely gone, we're now passive mentality midgets.

 

There's probably loads more I could go into, like the rat saga but I really CBA, you get the idea.

 

[gbandit]

3.5/10, solely because of some good European nights and decent work in the cups. In the league I can’t go higher than a 2.5 based on performances 

[GEFAFWISP]

A generous 3.

 

We had some decent individual performances (mainly CL) but it's been an absolute cluster fuck and we've basically signed 6 soft shites and look extremely soft because of it. Can't defend, play tepid ponderous possession football when our players can't play that style, fold like a pack of cards over, and over and over again, and play two jokers in goal gifting teams points all season. The derbies and the cup crash outs were the lowlights, as was Elanga's technique or Wissa's blimping.

 

Major rebuild required due to age, few of the signings from last summer being toilet and due to PSR, as well as PIF back seating, it'll probably be a bit of a shitter again for the next few months as the cartel keep on gazumping, Spurs come back from the dead and Chelsea have an actual manager.

 

I really fucking hope Howe can do it, but it all feels a bit SBR and we'll be shipping him after the first few games come September at this rate.

[Carlito]

2/10. The cups were papering over the cracks.

[Unlucky Luque]

We just never, ever got started. Lost confidence in december. Had no idea where we would be able to pick up points.

[TheEntertainer]

3/10 for me, the league has been a shocker, but probably not a 1, more of a 2 and the champions league and league cup pulls it up to a 3 for me. Could have maybe gone with a 4, but the league is massively the most impacting on how I feel about the season so I'll stick with a 3. 

[Yorkie]

I've been harping on about ending the season with positive vibes for the last four weeks, and I think the reaction after today sums up why. Last week was a good day for the club and, today, anything other than a miserable defeat would've sent us into the summer with nothing worse than weary relief that the season is over. However, they delivered an abject performance and one last morale-sapping defeat, thus re-sharpening the knives and denying us the ability to calmly just draw a line under it. Very disappointing and frustrating.

 

I think the season is quite easy to sum up: it's been hugely disappointing with it's many lows far outstripping it's infrequent and unmemorable highs.

 

There's been a conveyor belt of negativity ever since the Celtic friendly and it's been a season of consequences and knock-on effects. Losing Isak in the manner we did and Wissa being a complete disaster are the two things which I consider to be the biggest reasons for why the season has panned out the way it has. Bad goalkeepers comes next, plus we've had a shit-ton of injuries and a very unforgiving schedule. But most things stem from the striker situation imo.

 

In terms of the manager's performance; I'm quite forgiving of him because I think he's had a difficult job this season, trying to withstand gutpunch after gutpunch. I certainly don't blame him for the way the summer panned out and there's only really Elanga where I'd really question his judgement. However, there's no getting away from the fact that, by and large, he's not helped us enough this season. If he'd paid for it with his job, I'd have been bitterly disappointed but I wouldn't have had too many complaints.

 

All that said, on the 19th March, we'd just had brilliant back-to-back wins against Man Utd and Chelsea and were fantastic at home to Barcelona. We were six points from sixth and looking at the bracket to see a route to the Champions League final. At that point, you call it an imperfect season with a lot to do if we're going to achieve anything, but there was hope, and the mood was very good. 

 

The season turned on a dime that night in Barcelona, where the manager got it horribly wrong. It was a humbling, painful defeat, and the mackem game was hugely influenced by it. Suddenly the entire season is on the ropes. I think we might have rescued it if we'd won at Palace but we lost late again, and we were truly cooked from that point. From there it was basically damage limitation, with everyone to a man seemingly desperate for the season to end.

 

This is where conclusions about the manager based on the run from Palace to Fulham are, imo, not really worth making. The season was full of near-fatal bullet holes after the Sunderland game; blood poring from it's torso. Mateta's 94th minute penalty was the headshot which finished us as any meaningful outfit this year.

 

Which takes me back to the top; we've been playing for vibes for weeks now and sadly we've ended it with bad ones. 

 

4/10

[Nobody]

3 hours ago, Weezertron said:

I’ve enjoyed the season if you take Newcastle out of it. 

What? It's been a fucking god awful season all things considered man Long throws, awful shithousery, Arsenal winning the league by scoring from corners, VAR fuck ups. It's been fucking horrendous, the worst season in a long time, even ignoring the Newcastle part of it. 

[TheBrownBottle]

2/10.  We didn’t go down, so not a 1/10