Cast your minds back 12 months and look at the difference now. We were staring down the barrel of impending doom and preparing to watch a majority of our best players flee back to the Premier League...
In truth, the transfer market wasn’t that painful besides the crippling fact that Parker joined Spurs. Demba Ba left for less than peanuts which was totally understandable but equally gutting. However the biggest offload was definitely that of the manager. Have we ever endured a longer or more embarrassing season?To say Avram left us in a pickle would be an understatement. The owners had, in my opinion, wrongly sacked Zola in summer 2010 after keeping us afloat with very little resources, and importantly, had the players playing for him. Something that was evidently missing for the main part in 2010/11.
Grant’s sacking paved the way for Big Sam to come in and steady the ship, and then face the daunting task of winning promotion back to the Promised Land. It was a hard slog, and despite our decent points tally (86), we had still come up short for automatic promotion. In the end, all was rosy, we smashed Cardiff home and away and we cashed in on the wealthiest game in world football. Everyone’s a winner then?
Wrong. This season the fans were spoon-fed drab football and excuse after excuse in games that we should have been winning at a canter. Never mind the immensely frustrating inability to win at home.
On the face of it, we’re promoted. I am not underestimating the league; statistics prove it is a difficult one to bounce back from and the football is highly competitive and alarmingly unpredictable. Only two others have won promotion at the first attempt back to the Premier League in the last three years.
I promised myself I would cut Sam some slack if he guaranteed promotion. After all, it’s not his fault that he came into a club with desperate disappointment overhanging it from the previous season. I wasn’t particularly in favour of his appointment but I was willing to compromise my views if he delivered the results regardless of his tactical approach.
His public demeanour angered me at great length this season though, he continually shot the fans down and patronised those in the stands by calling us ‘deluded’. The fans were well entitled to their opinion, we usually left Upton Park with one point, a neck ache and a mouthful of disregard.
I was also disappointed that Gold and Sullivan didn’t pressure the club into the automatic promotion places despite providing plenty of financial ammunition to Sam. The money provided should have been enough to ensure promotion, and had Blackpool taken their chances at Wembley we might be looking at a different proposition next season. Allardyce was guaranteed to keep his job regardless of promotion in the end, despite the start of season orders which basically stated: promote us or be fired.
For me, the top two was the minimum expectation this season.
That’s just my opinion though. On the flip-side he’s picked up Matty Taylor, Ricardo Vaz Te and Nicky Maynard who I’m interested in seeing play PL football next season. What Taylor was doing out of the top flight in the first place surprises me.
He also tightened up the defence and gave us plenty to twist and shout about on the road. This was the Championship though, and despite our huge financial resources, we were made to sweat right until the last competitive game of the Championship season.
I wasn’t sure what to make of Gold’s comments at full time on the Wembley pitch when he said that it was all part of the master plan to qualify via the playoffs. It came across cocky and arrogant, the attitude that has been a sour undertone to our season. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it and it was just a throwaway comment in an abyss of collective relief.
Whilst Southampton and Reading dashed past us to the automatic spots, we were left to face the play-off merry-go-round as we failed to win bread and butter fixtures at Upton Park. I’ll hold my tongue for the rest of the piece, the biggest counter-argument to my grumbling is West Ham are back in the Premier League sticker books next season. And that’s all that matters.
The remnants of people saying ‘you’re too good to go down’ still ring in my ears from 2003 and remaining in the PL is absolutely paramount next season. We’ve been relegated twice in my lifetime and with the Premier League looking significantly stronger each season, Big Sam and co. are going to have to pull something out to ensure this is not an unwanted hat trick next season.
I like the fact that we’ve got a good nucleus of English players in the team now, although it looks like Green will leave, we have still got some quality longstanding players which will now hopefully have the appetite for success in the Premier League second time around. Big Sam always had the ability to pull something out at Bolton; Djorkaeff, Okocha, Stelios and Hierro were all recruited under Big Sam’s golden Bolton era.
How we could do with a couple of names like that to add some magic for next season.
Personally I think we need another centre back to play alongside Tomkins, we could do a lot worse than sign Jonas Olsson if he decides to leave West Brom. We need a wide player and if Matty Jarvis is available from Wolves then I would be in favour of a move. Steven Fletcher is surely looking for a move back to the PL and I would take both him and Jarvis, probably costing around £15m for the pair.
McCartney looks like he’ll join and there’s been plenty spouted about Keiran Richardson who would add some more balance to the left hand side. I just hope Big Sam plays Taylor wide left, and not left back next year.
The goalkeeping solution is a tricky one because we have no ready-made replacement. I would advise against Jussi Jääskeläinen; he has fallen down the pecking order at Bolton and played second fiddle to Adam Bogdan for most of last season. I would like either Ali Al-Habsi from Wigan, although I don’t think he’d be cheap, or possibly the young Belgian, Thibaut Courtois from Chelsea, who had an impressive loan spell at Atletico Madrid last season.
These are just my suggestions, the only request I have of G&S and Sam is that they go and spend money because the team we have at the moment isn’t strong enough to compete week in-week out in the Premier League. I saw somewhere that he may be given around £30m, if he uses that money for three of four quality players then we’ll be ok.
Overall I am buzzing to be back in the big time and have a great sense of optimism for next season. Hopefully we can follow in the footsteps of Norwich and Swansea and nestle ourselves comfortably in mid-table next season.
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