Which team has let down their fans the most this season? 2016/17 edition

Which side has been the biggest disappointment?

With a month to go until the end of another Premier League season, there are fans everywhere buzzing about what their teams could be about to achieve. 

Chelsea fans will be ecstatic, with their team on course to secure another title this year, while any team from 2nd-6th could make up the rest of the top 4.

At the other end of the table, Bournemouth, Burnley and Watford are all on course to maintain Premier League status for another year, which is a big deal for their fans.

However, there are always fans left massively disappointed by what they’ve seen over the course of a season. Think of a cycle of a Premier League year- you make signings in the summer, you keep up with pre-season, then that first game of the season arrives and suddenly, 30 games later, all the excitement you had at the beginning of the season has gone and you’re just waiting for the season to end so you can look ahead to the next one.

There are some teams this season who I think have been particularly disappointing for the standards they will have set at the beginning of the season. It’s obvious that the fans and club board have individual targets they expect their team to achieve at the end of the season, and failure to hit these targets leaves a lot of frustrated and unhappy fans, with the optimism they had in August long gone.

Which begs the question, with 5 games to go, who has been the most disappointing side this season? Here are our candidates.

Arsenal

The elephant in the room. Arsenal actually made this list last year when I wrote the 2015/16 edition of this article. And the most frustrating thing for Arsenal fans will be that, absolutely nothing has changed. In fact, this year they’ve been an even bigger disappointment. I write this the morning after the Gunners’ embarrassing 3-0 loss to Crystal Palace. Players were hounded last night with chants of ‘You’re not fit to wear the shirt’ by travelling fans. The club is a mess from top to bottom. Arsene Wenger has lost the dressing room but the board don’t care about anything apart from their own pockets. For the club to move forward, they need a new manager, fresh talent, and someone on the board who actually cares about football, because otherwise, Arsenal’s demise could soon be up there with the Milan clubs.

Their Champions League showing was an embarrassment, and they’ve taken 6 points from 8 games against their fellow top 6 rivals. After the Palace game, they have conceded 3 goals in each of their last 3 away games

Sunderland

If it wasn’t for Jermain Defoe, these guys would be down already, and they’re very lucky that isn’t the case. David Moyes arrived back in English football at the beginning of this season with a big point to prove, and he’s failed dramatically to stay up. They currently sit 10 points adrift of safety with just 7 games left to play, and haven’t come out of the relegation zone since September. They didn’t even win a match until their 12th game of the season against Bournemouth.

After narrowly avoiding the drop last season at the expensive of rivals Newcastle, it appears as though those tables will be turned come the start of next season, with the Magpies on course for instant promotion back up to the top flight under Rafa Benitez.

Manchester United

In the summer, United were the big spenders in the league. They had many reasons to look forward to this season and I think many fans secretly expected to fight for the title. They brought in Jose Mourinho, who replaced Louis van Gaal. They brought in Zlatan Ibrahimovic for free, who, in fairness, turned out to be an excellent signing after scoring 28 goals so far this season. On top of Zlatan, they spent £145million on talent, including £89million on Paul Pogba, the most expensive football player ever.

However, they’ve been far from challenging for the title. Pogba has been a big disappointment for the price, and United have been unable to make Old Trafford the feared place it once was. It’ll lead to more spending in the summer, with Antoine Griezmann and Romelu Lukaku being linked with moves. With their games remaining at this stage of the season including Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham, I think they’ve left themselves with too much to do to finish in the top 4, and for the money they’ve spent, that is a HUGE failure for a club of such size. They also spent 134 days in 6th position between 6th November and 19th March, exposing themselves to large amounts of ridicule from the rest of the league.

West Ham United

After a strong season last year, and the big bonus of the stadium move for the Hammers, big things were expected of them this season. However, instead, we’ve seen a horrible decline of form for Slaven Bilic’s side. They lost their best player, Dimitri Payet, after he decided he no longer wanted to play for the club. Fights amount their own fans have been causing trouble inside the new stadium, and their Europa League campaign was over just as quickly as it had begun in August.

They look like they’ll probably manage to stay up this season, but relegation was a real possibility for a lot of this campaign. Last season may have been an over-achievement, but they’ve had the resources this season to at least maintain a top-half finish.

By Ben Kelly – @benkelly_10