It may not be the ideal moment but it’s perhaps worth recalling now the season is all over the moments when Champions League football was lost .
And we can probably identify the Christmas period as the reason why it’s the Europa League rather than the big one given that we were just two points outsude the top four at the end of the campaign.
We went into what turned out to be not quite such a festive period with high hopes after coming through a really tough run of games.
During it we had beaten Leicester away, drawn with Spurs and Man City, and beaten Fulham, Sheffield United, Villa and Leeds.
We had every righto to feel more than confident but sadly we were held to draws by Palace and Brighton and then Fulham early in February, matches from which we might have expected to take more than one point in each case.
It’s too late to cry over spilled milk but in the world of what might have beens Christmas was something of a non event all round.
Newcastle and Everton.
I also see the match vs Man united in which VAR got the ball going out wrong for their first goal. After that the momentum totally shifted in that game ultimately losing 3-1.
Quite simply it was the 2 games against Chelsea.
Win one of those and we would have gained CL football.
Didn’t turn up in either.
A lesson learnt for next year as we will be playing many more top teams
Thanks Hugh – while those results were important, I feel that to properly belong in the top four we need to take more points from other top-four sides – we only manged one (vs Man City at home)
Also losing twice to Newcastle is my personal low for the team – I am looking forward to doing the double over the Geordies next season
It was still an incredible season
Imho there are no key games, if we had 3 more points we would have been CL, think of all the games we won, coming back from behind numerous times, what cost us was the depth of the squad, lack of striking options and cover at left back but considering all of that we absolutely smashed it out of the park, not too mention the ESL rubbish that seemed to coincide with a slight drop in focus, enough to cause us to falter. Those 6 clubs should all be penalised but won’t be, it was certainly far more serious than third party ownership that we were massively fined and punished for.
To be balanced and fair All the “what might have beens” should include Lookmans failed Panenka and Ollie Watkins disallowed toenail equaliser as that’s 4 points right away that on another day we wouldn’t have got. Lanzinis equaliser could also have ended up in row Z . Just saying that it works both ways and I’m over the moon what the team has achieved this season.
The Arsenal and Everton games were far more important than the Xmas games .
I think the Newcastle games were the ones ‘that got away’ – losing twice to a fairly poor Newcastle team wasn’t great. However, no complaints on this season at all – to even be mentioning the Champions League in our targets is incredible. We’ve got the foundations for good times ahead and I only expect us to get better and better.
I expect a challenging season next season, with us having to play more games and navigate Europe but let’s just enjoy the ride and hope for a solid PL campaign to go with it. If Moyes is properly backed, I fully trust in him to bring good times to the London Stadium
We should have got more from both Arsenal games, and without doubt the three losses to Newkie and Everton cost us massively.
2nd top in terms of hitting the woodwork (23 times) did not help either.
The next step is to do better against the ‘big’ teams and if we do and we keep up our form against the lesser teams we’ll be in with a CL shout again next season.
Overall an incredibly positive season which genuinely feels like the start of a new era, but can’t help but feeling like this was a unique opportunity to get CL football that we let slip and that next season the likes of Arse and others will be much improved..
Only two points from champions league is a bit gutting. To win either of the Newcastle games would have been enough, but who can complain after a fantastic season like that.
How negative today. Rather talk about the games which earned us a Europa League spot.
Glass half empty, eh, lads?
Let’s not get carried away, acting like Jim Bowen (“Let’s see what you could have won…”).
We’re in Europe!