The Premier League satisfaction-o-meter 2024-25: Joy, misery and gallows humour
'Are you taking the p***?'
This is David L. And David L is asking an entirely reasonable question. Because David L is a Manchester United fan and, as a Manchester United fan, David L is not entirely happy about a request from The Athletic to offer some feedback on the season just gone. Because the season just gone has been a total f***ing omni-shambles for Manchester United and so being asked to rate his satisfaction level feels futile and offensive to David L, like one more jab to already fractured ribs.
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And so, in the comment section, David L unburdens himself and he howls in anguish. And here in the comment section, David L is far from alone. Sihan T says, 'Is this a joke??' Steve S says, 'FFS! Is this a windup?' Enzo D says, 'The Athletic going full troll mode with this one,' a statement that, at the time of writing, has been liked 139 times. To which, in response, we can only say: we see you, we hear you, and we understand.
But this is science, David L. This is statistical purity. In our laser-focused drive for truth, we take no account of the colour of your shirt, the stripes on your back, the badge on your chest, the good or bad. There is no bias here. We have asked the same basic question of each and every club in the Premier League, we have crunched the numbers and built a table and, without fear and without favour, we present the results in all their stark simplicity. We capture a moment in time and record it for posterity.
And then — but only then — do we actually take the p***.
With that out of the way, it is a hearty welcome to The Athletic's inaugural Premier League satisfaction-o-meter, the older, greyer, wearier, grumpier, angrier (and much less snappy) sibling of the hope-o-meter that we inflict upon you every August, gauging your mood as the whole shebang lurches into action. Hope is often beautiful and deluded, fleeting and fragile and precious, but satisfaction and its opposite are real. It is based on what has happened rather than what might happen and, as we all know, reality is quite often bloody awful.
Let's head back to the Manchester United comments.
This, from Edward S, has been edited for hilarity. Sorry, sorry — I mean brevity.
'Very satisfied — I love relegation form. I enjoy the anaemic, s*** passing. I enjoy a formation that lets you finish 17th and knocks you out of Europe so you can practise it more the next season without annoying European matches getting in the way of learning it more. I like the fact that INEOS have saved us from the Glazers' mismanagement. I like (Ruben) Amorim's hair and his press conferences. The team plays like they're in the (National League), but he's gorgeous to look at.'
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For the record, Edward S may not be wholly sincere (or actually very satisfied). He is also not wholly correct, because they finished 15th.
As should be crystal clear by now, when it comes raging, fulminating discontent, Manchester United sit in the relegation zone of the satisfaction-o-meter; 88.3 per cent of respondents to our survey describe themselves as very dissatisfied with the season and 7.7 per cent are merely dissatisfied which, in turn, means that remaining four per cent surely pressed the wrong button by accident. Hey, we all make mistakes! Particularly Manchester Uni… no, that's just too easy.
As it goes, in places the satisfaction-o-meter reflects the Premier League table, which is entirely logical. Liverpool finished top and 99.5 per cent of their supporters feel shades of satisfaction. Southampton finished bottom and 88.9 per cent feel shades of dissatisfaction. Smart, forward-thinking clubs like Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford and Fulham take evident pleasure from reaping the rewards for doing things differently, and why shouldn't they?
And then there are the other trophy-winners, with Crystal Palace (FA Cup) and Newcastle United (Carabao Cup), overwhelmingly happy. In the Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur lost 22 matches and finished 17th, one spot above the relegation places, but then they beat Manchester United (paging David L) in the Europa League final and more than 90 per cent of their fans count themselves satisfied. It hangs by the slenderest of threads, but glory trumps it all.
At this point, some apologies are due. Ten months ago, Nottingham Forest supporters topped our hope-o-meter with a whopping 95 per cent and my riposte was a snarky 'What is all that about?' Well, George, you total buffoon, it's all about having a really good team with a really astute manager and the best and most generous and handsome owner in the world, so please don't ban us like you did with Gary Neville. Forest fans are 96 per cent very satisfied, which feels 100 per cent right.
Another big sorry goes out to Rob Tanner, The Athletic's brilliant Leicester City writer. Having called out Rob for his portents of misery and strife in August — 'The promotion party is well and truly over,' he said, bleakly — the brutal accuracy of his prediction is now evident. What came up went juddering back down; that 32.3 per cent of our Ipswich Town responders declare themselves satisfied with the season is surely novelty speaking. On that front, they will come to learn.
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In other regards, self-congratulation is in order. In terms of hope, Arsenal were second in our pre-season table, 'which is absolutely perfect,' I wrote, 'because they will forever be second.' And, with crushing inevitability, Arsenal did indeed finish second in the Premier League and, apparently, second is the antithesis of hope for Arsenal, because when it comes to overall satisfaction, Arsenal are very much bottom half. So perhaps you could call these thoughts second thoughts.
Credit to our Manchester City subscribers, who placed 13th when it came to optimism and who finish the season in a firm state of dissatisfaction. Neither one thing nor the other are Chelsea — albeit the survey was taken ahead of their participation in the UEFA Conference League final, which is pretty crucial — and Wolverhampton Wanderers, who ended the season strongly (at least until the very end), but began it in a state of frozen animation.
Timing is everything in football; how different would these results look if we had first posed the question on Monday, when Aston Villa had missed out on the Champions League by the skinniest of margins, rather than last week? Elsewhere, results calcified. West Ham United's overall dissatisfaction of 97.6 per cent was a league high (or low), while optimism bloomed at Everton as they said farewell to Goodison Park and said welcome home to David Moyes, a juxtaposition of past and future.
Nothing is eternal; not stadia, not managers, not Manchester City's dominance and not even Newcastle's long wait for silverware, which some of us had accepted as a lifetime's burden. Somewhere, sometime, somehow, Rob Tanner's face will break into the loveliest smile, Arsenal will no longer be second and maybe Manchester United will stop being quite so bad.
And then, David L, it will be your gift, your joy, your inalienable right, nay your solemn duty as a football fan, to take the p*** out of somebody else.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
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