Let’s be serious here - that squad was gutted. In the summer they lost their best player MVila (a loan player) as they would not stump up the fee. They also stayed up because of Kone, Kirchhoff and Khazri. Kone almost came here (a bullet dodged) and then went on a season long strop as he never got his move. He also needed Kaboul to steer him through games, but he left for Watford.
Kirchhoff was a career permacrock who played once or twice the whole season and Khazri was just terrible and lazy. These were all Big Sam signings by the way.
Somehow they were still in touch in January, so the board sold their most valuable player in Van Aarnholt to Big Sam’s Palace and replaces him for half the price with Bryan Oviedo.
add in the various injury crises and I don’t know who could have kept them up. They were still good enough to beat Marco’s Hull, a result which ended their survival hopes though!