My last Relegation.

That's what this will be, and I have no doubt at all that we are now down.

I think this will be the ninth for me, and that is quite enough for one man, although I realise there might be a few on here who have witnessed the one I missed. I have been going for 47 years and so I reckon I can allow myself this fatalism about our lack of prospects. Maybe it's all my fault ; I was born in 1957 and a few months later we were relegated for the first time in our history.

I have now come to the firm conclusion that we will always be a shite team, no matter what is done to try and change things. Not good enough for the top flight but a bit too good for the next one down. Nothing seems to make any difference.

We can win the cup and manage to lose the best players soon after and throw a good team away.

We can have bigger crowds than many, (including in the days when this really was a vital statistic), and still be out performed by the likes of Coventry, Southampton and so on.

We can put together a strong team, an aberration we now know, finish a good seventh twice in a row and within two seasons collapse to a pathetic 19 point relegation. 

We can attract new owners who throw tens of millions at the team, and then when they run short find another who does the same, and we are still utter rubbish.

We can go and appoint a manager with an outstanding record of working with money and without it, the only time in our history we have actually done this, and still gravity pulls us back to our natural place. Down among the dead men.

I genuinely believe that this will never change.

That showing today was so bad, every team that still has us to play will be licking their lips in anticipation. I should be utterly baffled how a team managed by Martin O'Neill can be like this one. It does not begin to resemble one of his previous teams. It has no pace, no urgency or bite in midfield, hardly any craft, very little courage and no leadership. We are appalling at set pieces and are ridiculously easy to play against. But I am not baffled, it is just the way it is with us.

I imagine if Martin O'Neill had went somewhere else, say West Ham or Blackburn, then that team would be showing great signs of improvement and probably in the semis of the cup. It's just that his old feelings helped to drag him here. I bet he bitterly regrets it, but it is no good us saying the same as it doesn't matter. We are due a relegation, the football gods have said so, and it's coming, and with timing that could not be more agonisingly exquisite, it's going to come at just the right time to leave us marooned .

We are shite and I can live with that fact, but I don't see me being there to see much more of it with my own eyes, they have suffered enough.

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