Autumn and a good portion of the winter. My position on the upturn that has got us into a reasonably good position is that we've played since then with freedom...the freedom that comes with no real pressure.
This lot are great at coming out from behind the couch after the fight has been settled. We know this through experience. For that reason I don't think we can draw any conclusions about bringing over this firm into next season.
Historically, it's true, we've played better when there's nothing to play for since
Moyes was in charge. There are reasons for that though. Mentally the players didn't truly believe in themselves under
Moyes, because his mindset was often negative. Martinez was the opposite, but he was so positive about everything that it ended up that he was the only one that believed what he said.
Koeman's squad additions have almost all got a bit more about them mentally than most of the players they're replacing. I think we'll end up with players who'll work hard ( as Moyes' squad did ) but also have more self belief ( as the squad did under Martinez in his first season ). There's also more of the snide, and less of the nice guy in this squad than there has been for a while, which will help.
Last weeks game against Spurs wasn't really important, but yesterday's was. Regardless of your thoughts about the Europa League, the majority of the clubs' management and squad will want to be playing in Europe next season. If we'd lost to our closest rivals for 7th place yesterday, then we'd have been looking carefully over our shoulders, but there was no panic, and no lack of self belief and we comfortably cemented ourselves in 7th.
Plainly to some extent you're playing devil's advocate, which is no bad thing, but it's also quite plain you're a glass half empty kind of bloke. By the way, when you finish that pint, it's your round.
