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Think there's an extremely strong argument for Guimaraes, in fairness, who ticks most of those boxes. But I think Gordon is the right winner.

Not even sure Isak makes the top 3.

Player of the Season: Anthony Gordon Young player of the season (21 or lower): Tino Livramento Season to forget: Many candidates 1. Sandro Tonali 2. Sven Botman 3. Our medical team 4. Sean Longstaff 5. Needs to be forgotten so much that it's already been forgotten - Matt Targett Most Improved: Anthony Gordon Unsung Hero: Externally - Fabian Schar, Internally - Jacob Murphy Signing of the Season: Tino Livramento Goal of the season: Fabian Schar Vs Paris Saint Germain Moment of the season: 25th Nov to 2nd Dec - three heroic performances and results (Chelsea, PSG, Man U) that finally snapped the rubber band and heralded a dark winter. Low point of the season: Victory away at Fulham in the FA Cup, 27th Jan. Realised that in spite of the result we had a long, difficult season ahead. Manager rating (Out of 10): 7.5

People said the same thing about having Sports Directors over managers once upon a time. Rotating first team players more often than injury or form demanded, too. What he said was very strange but it's not as ridiculous as you're making it sound. It's dystopian, but if multiclub models became more entrenched, I could even see groups moving managers between their clubs like corporations move employees between departments.

We might get relentlessly booed for what we've done to him

The perineum to be precise, nicely nestled under their ballbags.

I'm 80-90% of the way with you but, with respect, I think you're mixing up the closeness of either decision being accurate with the closeness of the players' bodies. I think you're massively overestimating how much acceptance there'd be of decisions from the Artetas and Arsenal fans of the world. The real problem is enforcing either decision with VAR. We'll just end up with fractional decisions about whose shoelace is where. Or, more likely, MUCH deeper defending, with the emphasis on keeping your opponent in front of you, making the offside rule quasi-obsolete. I don't necessarily think that's a terrible thing, by the way, it would open up a lot more space in the middle of the park which could be interesting for a while, at least. To be clear, I'm against technological solutions and pro-90s style refereeing. I think we've made a total mess of the game and are making it gradually less appealing to kids. But if there was a technical fix, it would probably involve sticking tracking sensors to the seat of the players' shorts. That's approximately where you'd gain overall acceptance over whether an attacker has received an advantage or not.

In the same way that Isak lost against the offside trap at Anfield. Simple as that? I don't think either decision is really acceptable.

As you know, we're very closely aligned on the current implementation of the offside law. But here's the problem I have with the Wenger law: That red attacker would be onside as I understand it, due to there being no daylight between the two players toes. And that looks like a recipe for madness to me.

It's one of those things that's arguably impossible to prove. I'd dig into statistics to try and better evidence my view on the league, but honestly I can't be bothered! It's more of an eye test thing. Just feels like the league has contained a lot more paper tigers this year. Spurs haven't been THAT good and they'll comfortably finish 6th if not 5th. West Ham are 9th and they've been on holiday for a little while now. Chelsea kids are squabbling over who takes penalties, and they're frightening us and a Man United that ought to be staring at the bottom half. Last year, it seemed like anyone in the top half was a pack of skilled, dogged bastards who could give anyone a game. So - with some very good excuses - it does feel like a missed opportunity for us.

My private target was 5th. Considering how the season's gone, we can be pretty satisfied. I think I'm most pleased that the club/squad seem to have held it together psychologically, which Eddie can take a huge slice of credit for. It's been a season of highs and... Not exactly lows but big struggles. But if they hadn't kept their togetherness, there would've been big lows. My happiness is balanced out a bit by my view that the league overall has been worse this year. That's why I think last season was an especially epic achievement. If our team (inc. injury spell) had been playing in last season's division, with teams like Brighton and Brentford snapping away, consistently accumulating points, I think we'd end up about 2 or 3 positions lower than we will. So we've gotten away with our disastrous middle spell relatively lightly. Next season? Like you say, depends on the summer for us and others. 3rd-6th and a cup sounds decent. But I'll probably judge it more on whether I feel we've improved on this season, particularly on areas I think we could e.g. fatigue management. If we keep Bruno, I'm really pretty excited about it.

Fwiw the media always seems to make Parish the lead operator when it comes to their managerial decisions. What we could really do with is a lurking Palace fan to make themselves known... Any takers? Not you, Alan.

...And if there's any truth to the wages talk, then we'll have to get used to him being here for a long time to come.

I like him as a player (or I think I do - it's so long ago it's hard to remember), but we'd be taking the mick to expect much more than £5m for him given the past 2 seasons. It's a real pity.

Would guess Freedman has good contacts in the famed South London market as well...