qwertyell

Don't be said because it's over, be sad because it happened.

Their longest run without defeat was 6 games. He's only won 17 games in total.

I knew a guy who got his testicles twisted like a set of iPod headphones and needed surgery to open up the bag and get them all untangled.

I'd forgotten he was a religious loon, among other things, and it was God's will that he was pant-soilingly useless with us.

My objection to O'Neil is that he's a shit philosophy manager - and we've had our fill of them, surely. I watched a Wolves game earlier in the season where they were a goal down at home with ten minutes to play, and they didn't attack. At all. They just continued methodically passing slowly, sideways and backwards in rigid formation, barely making it to the halfway line, then turning around and going backwards to start again. The crowd couldn't roar them on because they literally did nothing but pad their passing stats. In the end the fans became apathetic and simply shrugged their way to another passive defeat. Fuck that.

I see Rusty turned up on Match of the Day 2 last night. It's the perfect gig for him - he gets to preach his visionary football hypothesis to the waiting nation, whilst simultaneously lecturing why everyone else's approach is stupid and they're not brave enough. Or something about scar tissue. Takes some front to shamelessly sit there dissecting the shortcomings of - in this instance - Chelsea trying badly to play out from the back, and Tottenham being a defensively disorganised rabble. A bit like how Gary Neville has somehow become the all-knowing authority on everything, in spite of making an absolute fool out of himself when someone called his bluff and (briefly) gave him a manager's job.

Hope to be wrong, but I can only see Ryan Seager in Ballard: prolific scorer as a youth, but ultimately didn't have any weapons for top level senior football. Like Seager, Ballard isn't very big, physical, quick or creative. He can sniff out a chance, but that kind of "fox in the box" striker that contributes next to nothing in general play died out years ago with the dawning of the lone number nine role that 99% of teams have favoured over the last decade. I'm probably doing him a disservice - Seager wasn't the England age groups regular that Ballard has been coming up - and his ceiling is higher, but it's a comparison that still stands out to me when I see him play.

Chris Rigg (Sunderland): "“I laugh at it, you’ve got to enjoy it or football isn’t the game for you. There was this one time, we were playing Southampton and I was shoving one of their defenders. I was marking him and he just said: ‘You’re still getting breastfed, aren’t you?’ That was a good one, but it doesn’t knock me out of my stride. They are testing me mentally as well as physically.” Got to be Stephens, the dressing room bantsmeister general.

Made his senior debut for Lyon at the weekend, playing the last 20 minutes. Just turned 17. Not sure there was much we could do to hang on to him - he didn't want to sign a scholarship, so that was that. Good luck to him. He's a talented boy.

Just a note for those who are convinced most of our current squad options will be fine for a Championship promotion push. Luton got relegated from the PL last season on 26 points (15 more than we're going to get), scoring 52 goals (we've managed 25), and conceding 85 goals (we're on 82 with 3 games to play). They retained mostly the same squad. And they'll be in League One next season. Football's pretty merciless when you're a bunch of losers who have become comfortable with losing. Clear them out. Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

He's not walking. That's him at full pelt.

Hard to know what our market is - how attractive a draw Saints in the Championship might be. But assuming (probably wrongly) that players from the top divisions in much smaller leagues are possibly within reach, we might want to have a look in Romania for Cluj's striker Louis Munteanu (22), who is a very decent all-rounder not entirely dissimilar in style to Gyorkeres. Had an unsuccessful taste of Serie A with Fiorentina (too young for the step up, maybe? He joined them at 18), but he's developing nicely now he back in Romania and banging them in from all angles. Ask Dan Petrescu to do the tapping up?

They're losers. They were losers when they went down without a fight two years ago. Scraping to the bare minimum when limping through the play offs, having finished 4th in the championship with supposedly one of the strongest squads in the division, didn't change anything. The same bums are back breaking all kinds of loser records this season. There's not a single player I'd be sad about leaving the club. Even the one or two who have been passable are infused with this squad's loser DNA. Burn it all down. We need a clean break from this era.

So, a lack of height, a lack of mobility, and not very good at defending. Sounds perfect for us.

Mentioned it before, but Thomas Kaminski (32) would probably be available on the cheap if Luton went down - and he's a solid, experienced keeper who didn't disgrace himself when he went up to the Premier League. Hull are still not safe. Their keeper Ivor Pandur is very decent as well. Only 25, so an investment in a player with plenty of time to develop. Again, if they're relegated, they might have to sell, and at a reasonable price. The Leicester keeper Mads Hermansen (24) might come on the market now they're down and seemingly in the financial mire. Can we take advantage of that? He'd probably be the best keeper in the Championship.

We've already got an entire squad of Championship specialists. They might as well manage themselves.

1) he's the current Dutch national team manager - one of the two "dream jobs" he's always longed for (the other being Barcelona). 2) he's not leaving before the World Cup in '26 for any amount of money we could rustle up.

He's scored 20 goals twice in six Championship seasons. Which is no mean feat, but the idea that he's a guaranteed goal machine at that level is a bit spurious. I wonder where his head is at. He's had three cracks at the Premier League and been absolutely useless every time. It can't be an easy thing to digest for a player, coming to terms with the realisation that they've already hit their ceiling and can't cut it at the top level - and probably won't ever get another chance to try. I'm not really surprised he's struggling at West Brom - that's not where he would've envisioned his season ending up. The disappointment/disillusionment must be palpable. There's got to be a good chance that his confidence is in pieces and the hangover will carry on long into next season. I don't know the answer - he's obviously got something to offer the squad at Championship level - but a clean break might suit both parties. If we're serious about returning to the Premier League and staying there, he's not part of the bigger picture. And he surely knows that. Which in turn can't do much good for his confidence. Maybe it's better to pull off the band aid sooner rather than later and move on.

Honestly, who really cares at this stage? Whether we scrape to 12 points or not, we are the worst team in Premier League history - and should carry around that well-deserved branding as a constant reminder to everyone at the club that has overseen this absolute farce of a season. It should have to be the opening line on every one of their CVs. Derby County spent around £20m (adjusted for inflation) to be as bad as they were. We've spent around £100m to get relegated earlier than anyone has ever done. I don't think one point here or there makes this season any less embarrassing. We're not exactly fighting for bragging rights, here.

Which is why recruitment is going to be so hard. We need to bring in players who are PL quality, or that have the potential to become PL quality; or who are at the very least in the top percentile at Championship level - because getting promoted is priority one. And they need to a) not be wanted by any clubs above the Championship, b) want to play in the Championship, c) want to play for us in the Championship. And available and affordable. It's a narrow field. Anyway, goalkeeper cdajfu: Thomas Kaminski (32). Held his own in the PL last season, experienced, solid, and might be available for a song as Luton are in danger of going down to League One.

I mean, QPR were conceding 1.32 goals per game before our star centre back was nonsensically allowed to forgo single handedly saving our season to go and shore up QPR's defence to the tune of, uh, 1.4 goals conceded per game. Sure, he might have made their defence statistically worse, and a 5' 10" centre back of no great pace or physicality is at odds with the player profile the new sporting director wants to bring in, but at least he looks composed. That's the main thing, I guess.

I'd be watching the Jonathan Rowe (winger, 21) situation at Marseille. They're trying to find a way to get out of an obligation to buy him from Norwich at the end of the season. I doubt they'll be able to wriggle out of it if it's an obligation not an option, but De Zerbi doesn't want him. So he's potentially going to find himself in limbo. He's a proven Championship talent on the wing with a high ceiling and with attributes - pace and physicality - we both need and desire. Perhaps there's a little deal to be made there between us and Marseille? They sign him, loan him to us for a season with an option to make it permanent upon promotion for the same price (about £17m)?

Irrelevant. Players can only play official games for two different teams over the course of a season.

Should've scored four or five, fell to pieces in the last fifteen minutes. All the subs made us worse. Shame. Thought we were really good until Dibling and Fernandes went off.

Can't argue with the clean sheet - and well deserved; the defence knuckled down and did the basics without overcomplicating things. Wood actually looks a half decent prospect. Going forward we were atrocious, though. As bad as I can remember. There was just nothing there. It's been a bit of a running joke all season that our entire attack rests on the shoulders of an 18 year old, but it really feels that way. Armstrong and Archer were complete passengers. The midfield couldn't pass water. I'm not sure Ivan will be doing cartwheels tonight looking at the resources available to him. If he really wants to play with energy, pace, aggression and physicality there's fuck all of that about.