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‘A Grade season’ report won’t please some Irons

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Declan Rice (left) and Jesse Lingard have been outstanding in a great season for West Ham

West Ham have been handed an ‘A’ grade pass on last season in a Mail on line assessment of each Premier League club’s 20/21 campaign.

But they will have set feathers flying in some directions by claiming that an empty stadium helped the club achieve its best ever points total.

That really won’t go down too well with some but in a bizarre season when half the away teams won more points away than on their own manors iy’s also a little contradictory.

And it’s not necessarily a quote which will go down to well with David Moyes who achieved miracles.

Regardless of all that the Mail hands out the A pass to a team that has turned it’s form upside down under the Scot although they rightly make the claim that he still has much to do this summer.

Holding on to Declan, getting Jesse in and  reinforcements generally are now his big jobs.

The report declares: Nobody will admit it but an empty London Stadium suited West Ham this season.

Remember how fractious things were getting as they had a relegation close shave in the summer of 2020, with regular protests against the owners?

What a difference a year makes. Now they’re Europe-bound after a sixth-place finish and a season full of memorable results and performances.

David Moyes had the Hammers playing attractive football with the decision to take Jesse Lingard on loan from Manchester United an inspired one.

Top marks to Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek, Michail Antonio and the back line as well. Everyone has played their part in a memorable campaign.

Moyes has seen his managerial reputation restored but the summer will be key. Can they sign Lingard on a permanent deal? Can they keep hold of Rice? Who needs to come in?

But, for now, they deserve to bask in the glow of a great season.

Grade: A

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Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

3 comments

  • Diamond Geezer says:

    Can you imagine the response of the crowd when blew a 3-0 lead? Three games in a row? It would have been depressing jeers and hostile abuse, almost bound to have an effect on the team and take the confidence they were already losing straight away.

    We might not like it, but many of us aren’t very nice and expect far more than we reasonably should. There’s no doubt the negativity that would been generated by the opening losses to Newcastle and Arsenal would haven’t had allowed the team to recover as they did. Like or not, we can be more a liability than a twelfth man.

  • Chris says:

    They are correct, no fans has suited west ham more than most teams.

  • Geoff says:

    Personally speaking I have to agree with the rating—but also with the comment about the empty stadium. Hopefully next season will prove me completely wrong but I fear the return of fans in numbers could well derail our progress. Far too frequently our crowd turns into the twelfth man, but for the opposition. It seems a sizeable minority are waitng for the first mstake so they have an excuse to vent their spleen on whichever player happens to be selected as the one to blame.

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