I’m sure there will be many of you reading this who are relieved that the season is now over, and I suppose in a round about way, I am too. This gives us all a chance to reset, for Potter to build a new squad and for us to start again fresh in August for the new season. The biggest positive to take away from the last season is that we weren’t relegated because most other seasons, we would have been in a real fight for survival given our position for most of the season. But because of the nature of the three teams that went down, we were never really in any real danger of being dragged into the battle or even any threat of being relegated.
Bowen and Wan-Bissaka: The Standout Performers
When it comes to taking positives from this season, Jarrod Bowen and Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s performances have to be right up there. There were our standout performers without a shadow of a doubt. They did it for us consistently for the majority of the weeks, didn’t they? They were, at times, single handedly carrying the team. Unsurprisingly both Aaron and Jarrod were up for Hammer of the Year with Wan-Bissaka rightly, in my opinion, winning it for the past season purely because of the amount of games he played compared to Bowen. Sure, he started a little bit slow but he got better as time went on, and even in a couple of those games that he didn’t play, we really missed him. That’s always a good sign isn’t it? I think if Jarrod hasn’t been injured, then he might well have taken it again, like he did last season, because he undoubtedly would have scored more goals and assisted more, and had an impact on those games he missed.
Ollie Scarles’ Development and Tactical Future
Blowing Bubbles has given young player of the season to Ollie Scarles and from what I’ve seen of him this season, he’s a confident lad isn’t he? I suppose this season will tell depending on how we’re going to try and play. If we play a back four, then he really is going to need to concentrate a little bit more on his actual defending. You know what I mean? Because that’s part of being in a back four, isn’t it? That’s the first thing you do, defend. So if we play as a four then that’s certainly something that he needs to work on. But if we play as a five then he’s got the natural attributes to do that as well. I think that may well suit him more than being in a back four at this present time but he’s still young enough. From past experience, as a youngster, you just learn and work hard, don’t you? So it’ll be interesting to see how we set up and what happens with his career in the next year or two.
Goal and Team Performance of the Season
The Blowing Bubbles team have given Bowen’s goal against United as goal of the season and whilst that was a good team goal, for me, his goal against Forest was my favourite goal. That was exceptional, wasn’t it? I think at that time, he was probably the only player in our side who would have been able to score that goal, you know what I mean? Of course, it being the most recent certainly helps to help stick in my mind for now compared to Bowen’s goal against Palace and Emerson’s free kick against Arsenal earlier on in the season. I agree with the Best Team Performance of the Season being away at Arsenal. It was one of those games where the plan worked a treat. It was a smash and grab but with what was on the game and how we were playing at the time, that one sticks out for me.
The Never-Ending Football Calendar
But we aren’t going to have to wait long for football to return to our screens. Fresh from the extraordinary Champions League final, we’ve got some international games coming up, then the FIFA Club World Cup and the Women’s Euros. And then, before you know it, West Ham will be on their pre-season tour to the US and we’ll be back with a brand new season. Football feels like it’s never ending nowadays. It’s on TV for 12 months of the year. But I’ll be a little bit more selective in what I’ll be watching this summer. I think some teams will be gunning for the Club World Cup more than others, but I’ll probably watch more of the women’s Euros than the Club World Cup. By the time you’re reading this, the fixtures for the new season will nearly be out, and we’ll all be looking at them to see how many games at the start you’ll win or not going to win. Looking at those first four fixtures and debating whether we’ll be at the top or bottom of the league. I used to look out for the local derbies and the high profile games too and from a players’ perspective, I’m sure that’s still the case today but, I know I’ve said this before, all the games are big now in the Premier League.
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