West Ham Fan View: What were the best and worst moments of the 2016/17 season?

The Premier League has been over for a week now and it’s fair to say that West Ham fans experienced a range of emotions during the season. We ended up finishing 11th in the table, only one point behind 8th. But what did I love and hate from the season?

HATE – Dimitri Payet leaving

Following Payet’s stunning performances in his debut season and in the Euros, we did expect that he would have multiple attractive offers. He did end up staying though it is clear that he was not happy at the club given the drop in the quality of his performances.

READ MORE: West Ham Fan View: Dimitri Payet must be sold

When Slaven Bilic revealed that Payet refused to play for the club, we were all angry but also sad. Payet was one of the best attacking midfielders in the world and he delivered numerous special performances during his time at the club. His quality on the ball, ability to entertain the fans and goals and assists meant that he was a massive loss to our team. We have struggled and will struggle, to replace the impact that Payet had on our team.

HATE – A poor summer led to a poor season

Our transfers going into last season could not have been any different to the season before. For the 15/16 season, we signed the likes of Payet, Manuel Lanzini, Angelo Ogbonna, and Michail Antonio who all solidified their place in the first team. But we could not repeat this in the summer after and this did cost us.

READ MORE: West Ham Fan View: Why we should not sign John Terry

None of the players that we signed have been an overwhelming success. Simone Zaza, Jonathan Calleri, Gokhan Toure, and Alvaro Arbeloa will not even be at the club next season which simply highlights our failings last summer. We had to improve our squad if we wanted to repeat our performances in the season before though the failure to do this meant that we struggled for most of the season.

LOVE – The team spirit showed

We had many parts of the season where it was difficult to be optimistic. We went on long runs where we failed to score, where we failed to win a game, where we leaked goals. At many clubs we have seen the players giving up on the manager, leading him to be sacked. But the team backed Bilic and we managed to avoid relegation when it looked a real threat.

LOVE – Our performance against Tottenham

There were not many moments to love in this disappointing season but beating Tottenham was certainly one of them. Tottenham were on a stunning run and we had put in very poor performances against the big sides during the season. We were not expected to get any points out of this game.

But we managed to produce the best performance that we have seen in our new home. We showed how good we could be. The win also secured our place in the Premier League next season and the desire that we showed in this game has to be replicated more consistently next season.