Well, it was an unlikely scenario but ultimately not an impossible one.
However, contrary to popular opinion, this squad is a good base to build on, and considering we'll sign at least 4 players, 3rd or 4th is definitely achievable next season. Not likely that we can compete with City and Arsenal, but none of the other teams are light years ahead of us.
There's a lot of reasons to be optimistic, and 6th-8th with shit performances won't fly again next season...unless the performances and underlying stats are good, and we are somehow very unlucky.
Yet it happened and I’ve basically stuck by it all year.
There are already several mitigating factors why I think this upcoming season is a write off and we won’t be able to assess ETH completely based on its outcome, which I also think is the reason why INEOS want to give him a new deal and assure him of his future.
Firstly, you want to see how he will perform with the new structure but that structure isn’t even in place yet and won’t be functional before season starts. We are largely going into Summer transfer window without all appointments being finalized which will delay our business and may lead to fewer transfers or even wrong transfers.
This brings me to the second issue ie he’s apparently not going to be picking players anymore which will make it more difficult for him to get the best out of any new acquisitions at least initially - this should also give him more time to bed them in and assess how/if to use these players.
Lastly, I am not feeling very confident about the shape of our current squad: quality and ability to stay fit. We have already seen that the quality of our play is predicated on having full squad or close to it healthy, and that replacements are inadequate. There are too many issues to fix to get to a place where this is addressed to expect it all to happen in one Summer. Then there’s of course tactics issue, where he clearly wants us to play a certain way that will require significant player turnover.
I think what we are doing here is making a mid/long term commitment to ETH and we have to be willing to invest time into his vision. Whatever happens in 24-25 is therefore going to still have a huge asterisk over it and it won’t be until later on that we will be able to sit and have a honest review of his performance. If anything now is the time to let things grow and collect rewards when the time comes (or pull the trigger if there’s no improvement then).