Head Coach Graham Potter was happy to see West Ham United finish the 2024/25 season with a win at the end of an emotional few weeks for his squad.
The Hammers followed up a first victory at Manchester United in 18 years with another deserved away win, 3-1 at Ipswich Town, on the final day of the campaign.
James Ward-Prowse, Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus hit the net at Portman Road, where Potter gave goalkeeper Łukasz Fabiański a final start in Claret and Blue and introduced Vladimír Coufal and, to universal acclaim, former Ipswich favourite Aaron Cresswell as second-half substitutes.
West Ham’s win means the Londoners finish the season in 14th place, above Manchester United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur, and secured welcome extra Premier League prize money by climbing three places in the final three matchweeks.
Potter’s planning for next season is already underway, working closely with Head of Recruitment Kyle Macaulay to identify potential summer recruits and mould his squad for his first pre-season and first full season as Head Coach.
It’s a very nice way to finish the season.
Three points, a good performance in front of our supporters, who were fantastic again, and then obviously a great send-off for the boys.
It was a very emotional day, and an emotional few days and few weeks actually, so I'm very proud today to be connected with this fantastic Football Club.
Łukasz deserves it because of the person he is and his performances every day in training.
As a person, he's an inspiration, I would say. Forty years old, or young, shall I say, but how he's had the career he has is because he's made the most of himself. Talent is one thing, but the way he approaches training every day, the way he approaches his craft, is there for all to see.
So, he deserved that and I thought he played really well. So good, so clean. Again, that epitomises his daily work.
Credit to Ipswich. Obviously, they try to play and they're a well-organised team with Kieran McKenna, he's done a great job here for a couple of years, but I just felt that our physicality could cause them a few problems.
We had a ten-minute spell in the first half where we lost our way, but apart from that, I thought we were in decent control. We were better when we were more aggressive pressing, and I think the first goal was an error, but a force from us. And then actually, I thought we started the second half quite well and looked good, and then we conceded.
So, credit to the boys, they recovered from that, and Jarrod's fantastic finish was a great goal. And Mo has just topped it off, but in the end, it was a good performance, a solid professional performance in a tricky game because, like I said, there's a lot of emotions for us.
Personally, I'm going to spend some time with the family, but you're just working in a different place, to be honest.
Your phone's on and you're doing different stuff. [Head of Recruitment] Kyle [Macaulay] has been busy, and we've all been working as a Club.
We need to plan, we need to reflect, we need to make the right decisions, in terms of what we want to do going forward, and it's going to be an exciting, interesting summer.
I think, in an ideal world, you want to do things early [in the transfer market], but sometimes it's not like that. You have to be patient.
Again, you have to do the right things rather than the quick things. If we can do anything, we will. But, at the same time, I think making the right decision, aligned together, is the focus for us.
