Rate the season

[RamboandBruno]

Best in my living memory. The Europa league is in my view more prestigious that even the 90s version of the league cup. To finish as high in the league is harder now than in 96. I loved the 96 team, i love this team more. This also feels its been building for a few years, making the relief/happiness all the greater. Im also 52 now, so times ticking etc, making this now, so meaningful.
As has been said, I hope its the start of our time.

[olaftab]

This season was great but not quite 1981. Closest to this is 95/96 when Brian Little won the league Cup, reached the semi-final of the FA cup and finished 4th.

[Nii Lamptey]

*9/10

...to give me room for a 10/10 next season when we do the league/Champions League double. 😉

[Chris Harte]

Marvellous.

Just bloody marvellous.

[paul_e]

As seen on MOTD.

Of the final top 5, we finished joint top of the mini league versus each other.

Of the same 5 we finished bottom in comparative results against the leagues bottom 5 teams.

Unai likes a challenge, and he likes teams who press us high and man-to-man. I kind of prefer it this way, more fun really to beat Arsenal than Burnley in the end.

Overall - after that start we finished a clear fourth when fifth would have done, beat Man City home and away, had a thousand huge memories (Buendia against Arsenal? Tammy vs. Sunderland?) - oh yeah, and ended the three-decade drought with a proper European trophy we'd never won before. That's worth a weirdly bad day or two against Wolves, or Palace, or even Spurs.

For me this is the clearest sign of all that our biggest weakness is squad depth. People like Rogers and Konsa have to play so many games that they sometimes aren't quite up to it against the poor teams but we  also can't afford to rest them most of the time. 3-4 signings who are around the standard of the first them and we'll be able to take a very different approach to those games.

[VancouverLion]

For me, the best ever.

11/10

Your heart is our heart!!

[Somniloquism]

Like Rambo,  I was too young to remember 80/82 era with my only real memory of it seeing a picture on the mantelpiece at my uncles which had my 3-4 month old cousin sitting in the trophy.

So this is the main one followed by 95/96 and 93/94 with Emery's other seasons jostling with SGT and Big Ron's second place seasons in the following places.

[CT Villan]

I think it was way better than A+ Smirker, though I understand your reasoning. Had we not had the majority of our central midfield out for so long I may agree with you, but despite that we finished 4th, and won the EL. Those are remarkable achievements alone, but when you consider all of the restrictions from TPTB, what we achieved was beyond incredible.

[Smirker]

I think it was way better than A+ Smirker, though I understand your reasoning. Had we not had the majority of our central midfield out for so long I may agree with you, but despite that we finished 4th, and won the EL. Those are remarkable achievements alone, but when you consider all of the restrictions from TPTB, what we achieved was beyond incredible.

Agree with it all but I've gotta leave some room for a title win/CL/quadruple.

A+ I think is fair.

[brontebilly]

It has been a strange season. At times we looked untouchable, at times we put in performances that were woeful. We sarcastically cheered someone who made a successful pass who went on to win Europa player of the year and is off to the WC. We scored a number of breathtaking goals and had spells where we looked incapable of even having a shot on target again. Spells where we never looked like dropping a point and spells where we never looked like winning again.

Way I see it too, a rollercoaster of a season. There was the OT debacle to finish up the previous season, a disastrous summer/transfer window and unsurprisingly that led into a terrible start. Brentford, Sunderland...these were some of our worst PL performances since the Garde/Black days. But there was no dramatic tactical changes just old fashioned gritting of the teeth from Emery, McGinn, Cash etc and it turned around. Very quickly too. Unbelievable run of form took us into an unlikely title race that injuries dropped us promptly back out of. We seemed stuck on the line of top 3/4 for what seemed forever before getting over the line in the final games. The EL win was memorable, we looked far too strong for that competition from early on and proved it beyond doubt in the knock outs. Home game v Forest matched the PSG performance. Final was reminiscent of the 96 league cup with outstanding goals.

We are blessed really to have lived through some utter stalwarts in the claret and blue - Martinez after his OT kamikaze effort and then trying to leave, still simply the best, Cash the boo boys favourite (best RB in the division?), McGinn our leader, no team without him, Watkins a warrior, Buendia the redemption king, Konsa once he got his head out of his arse showed his quality, Rogers the star boy - some great characters in the group and led by a superb manager and coach. Doesn't get anywhere near enough credit for his man management skills.

In saying all that, I think this is possibly the end of this era/team and a rebuilding job is ahead for Emery to build our next team. But the 25/26 season will live long in the memory. UTV