That Was the Season that Was - Part 2

Stephen returns with part of his 24-25 retrospective. Patience, patience, it does get better... Eventually...

September

As sure as international breaks ruining the season, nothing stays quiet at SJP. Straight after the transfer window our sporting director was out and telling us that the club had done everything it could to improve the squad over the summer within Eddie’s parameters. There we go Eddie, get back under that bus.

Football wise this was a strange month, two wins, a draw and a defeat - not one performance convincing. Spurs were the better side but couldn’t score (hilariously they would get far worse than this as the season wore on). Maddison lost his rag and got hooked, Isak dominated their back line (again) and we won. A win at Wolves where it took a block buster from Schär off Dawson’s head and a Barnes rocket but we’d been poor. Then a hiding at Fulham (fully deserved) and a draw with City which looked good but they’d just lost Rodri and were about to fall apart.

The lack of European football meant we were supposed to see improvements in team performance. Not on this evidence. If anything the poor form of the Jan-Mar period in 2024 was continuing.

October

AFC Wimbledon (the real one) at home in the Carabao. I remember this mainly for people just refusing to pass to Will Osula, and his excellent chant which everyone spent the second half singing. He had one chance near the end but he took it too fast. Big, strong, quick but very raw, he was obviously a player that needed some training ground time, but already probably a better option than Callum Wilson.

Isak was still out for the trip to Everton who started like a train and had an early goal disallowed. I won’t miss Goodison. It’s great to go to old, storied football grounds but not when their condition and facilities still seems to be set in the Victorian era. Pickford saved a pen from Gordon with relative ease. They never looked like scoring; more worryingly neither did we. Long way to go to get back at 1 am.

Brighton at home where Danny Welbeck did his usual thing and scored against us. Isak was back, but air-kicked at what looked a certain goal - no joy there and the players looked leggy. The one game a week stuff wasn’t making an impact. The international break hadn’t helped but there were some murmurings. How come Sandro could go and play ninety minutes twice for Italy but couldn’t get going for us? Why wasn’t he playing as the 6, or holding midfielder like he did for them.

Then Stamford Bridge. I will admit, readers, I walked out of this game fearing for the manager. To ask Dan Burn to chase Cole Palmer into midfield was silly and was shown to be very quickly. Our equaliser was a mere respite. Strangely in the second half we had a chance to draw level, Isak missing and not squaring to a wide open Joelinton (who was furious). We looked like we barely knew each other or what we were doing.

Then somehow we beat the same opposition at home with relative ease in the cup and Lloyd Kelly at the back. Didn’t even seem to break a sweat. Who was the star of the show? Sandro … it might catch on.

November

A truly mixed bag. Arsenal well beaten at SJP thanks to an Isak header from a Gordon cross starting on the right. He might not be happy playing there but he’s bloody effective and you can see why he might want to consider it. Saka did his fake “I’m injured so I’m walking stuff” and nobody fell for it and we all laughed. Arteta was as petulant as always and we probably should’ve scored more.

Forest was a game of two halves, we were poor and allowed them to get an early lead although I think Ryan Yates could’ve been sent off twice for them. Then we got our groove back second half and blew them away, Tonali and Barnes combining down the left for our third. An international break to come and a home game against West Ham who were about to sack their manager if he didn’t win, the old NUFC would have lost. This one?Well, the new NUFC lost as well, best summed up by one of my mates saying that Aaron Wan Bissaka was not a threat going forward and then he stuck away the second. God we are still so predictable. The fact that the first goal came after a goal for us had been disallowed, a 50/50 was won by Jarrod Bowen and he was just allowed to gallop across the field to win a corner, from which we marked nobody … it was a painful watch.

Speaking of those, Crystal Palace. To score a goal with an xG of something like 0.07 is impressive, to get the chance to win when that is your total xG for the game is crazy. Yet that was NUFC’s attacking output in south London. But for a 94th minute equaliser they’d have won as well … it’s ok we’d fix it for Liverpool midweek!

Stephen Ord

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