Okay - now the season in England is over, one can take a proper look at everything.
Overall -
6.5. Decent, nothing spectacular. Promising start, understandably tough middle, bafflingly poor end. Some reasonable foundations to build on.
Ange -
6.5. Decent, nothing spectacular. As I said earlier, I think we've seen both his floor and his ceiling - I'm confident we'll be competitive in and around 4th/5th, but also think we're unlikely to go much higher under him. That seems to be what we're content with as a club, so he'll be a roughly good manager on the whole.
Vicario -
7. Promising start to life at Spurs. His weakness is clearly his lack of physicality and dominance of the box at corners - he'll need to bulk up a little, which is achievable. But other than that, I believe this is the first season in the last 15 where we have conceded 0 goals from goalkeeper errors - that is testament to his reliability and shio stopping.
Defence -
6.5. Generally positive. Van de Ven has been a revelation, Romero has had a great year, Porto and Udogie have led the league in terms of offensive statistics for fullbacks. But a) we conceded ridiculous numbers of goals regardless, and b) we refused to learn some easy lessons like 'mark your men at corners' for far too long.
Midfielders -
5.5. Real mixed bag here. Maddison had a great start but fell off rapidly post-injury - Sarr and Bissouma had similar declines post-AFCON. Bentancur is struggling to get back to his best post-injury (understandable), and Hojbjerg played well only situationally (ditto Skipp). Controlling the midfield needs to be high on our agenda for this summer window, imo.
Forwards -
7. A generally good year for most. Sonny has once again posted 20+ goals and assists, a ludicrously consistent return - he took to the captaincy reasonably well. Richy has proven a useful piece and finally found some goalscoring form. Both Johnson and Werner actually delivered at a greater rate than their critics would have you believe - Werner was productive in terms of xg/Xa in the limited time he's had, while Johnson actually had a better debut season than Son did all those years ago. Kulu struggled, Solomon unfortunately was injured throughout, Gil anonymous. But otherwise, while we do need a new ST, LW and RW...I wouldn't underrated the job the existing ones have done.
Overall positives:
Attacking, flowing football - good to see us try to control games again after 5 years of dour Mourinho, Nuno and Conteball.
5th place - higher than most expected this year, solid base to build on.
Overall negatives:
Late-season collapse: we went in the opposite direction to what you would expect of a new system being bedded in - with a mostly fully fit squad, we got worse and worse as the season wore on. That remains a concern.
Final thoughts:
There's a lot to like from this transition year. Also a lot that raises reservations. But overall, I'd just like to point to the fact that Kane going has really lowered expectations as to what we are as a club, which has otherwise masked some dispiriting comparisons.
Fact remains, that in their worst season in 20 years, United have now won more than us - while we bombed out in the 4th round, again. Despite this, Ten Hag was sacked.
Chelsea finished 3 points behind us while also getting to a League Cup final and an FA Cup semifinal - despite this, Poch was sacked.
Unai Emery came in and got Aston Villa winning straight away, and unlike us, they never stopped winning - CL is a just reward for the incredible job Emery has done since taking over.
Ange and the club got a lot of leeway this year for finishing as trophyless wonders yet again, because most of us accepted this was a transition year.
But, categorically, it's hard to argue we (or Ange) have had a better season than any of the above. And that's my pont about lowered expectations - ENIC have done such a good job depressing everyone's idea of what is possible, that we take rough diamonds and celebrate them while the actual silverware and history go to the others.
This season alone, Leverkusen ('Neverkusen'), Atalanta and Bilbao made history - last season Napoli did. Similarly sized clubs that broke their droughts with trophies. But somehow you just know that won't be us. Always the bridesmaids, never the bride - and this is now a reality many of us have accepted.
Ah, well. Personally I have made peace with the idea that this is forever our ceiling under these owners, and I don't fuss over it. Managers come, managers go, but this is our limit under this ownership model.
In the mean time, I can enjoy the little things. And maybe that's all you can really ask for, who knows.
A pleasant summer to you all my friends. I haven't posted as much as I would like, but I have deeply enjoyed talking to all of you when I have. Here's to more excitement next year!
