Dan

I don't think our slide would've been quite as stark because Rodgers would've had less credit in the bank in the 2022/23 farce. But then maybe I'm wrong, because Aiyawatt and Rudkin seemed to be extremely blinded by him, and how useless they've been since Rodgers left tells me they knew they were a level below him. We should never want to trade it. I dislike the majority of those involved in it, which is sad, but these things last forever. I saw an argument the other day that a Tottenham fan would actually take relegation to stop Arsenal winning the league, which seems mad, but they made the case that Arsenal's title is in the record books forever. Being relegated is something that can be rectified in 12 months. Trophies should be prioritised. If they aren't then the entire thing is bogus as far as I'm concerned. Prioritising qualifying for a competition you probably won't win is a plague on the game, but it's financially motivated and many in the game now are of this persuasion.

We'll be fine. We have nothing to worry about. I'm sure they're working on it.

I'd be surprised if they didn't. They've got the we'll be fine mentality absolutely ingrained. The sight of Cambridge United and Burton Albion isn't going to mend that.

Stevenage and Bradford are the only two new grounds for me in League One. Potentially a third if Salford win the play-offs. A very rare instance of 2025/26 not pissing me off.

BOLLOCKS! The defender from Cukaricki has turned us down, citing a "strongly held love and passion for Cukaricki". That's a hammer blow because with this Serbian U22 thing, I'm going all out for anybody who fits this bill that will start every game. I'm seriously struggling to find many of them, but this Maksimovic absolutely did, and we didn't get him. Bollocks.

Another season done, 2030/31... Budget not as generous this season but it was never going to be. We still spend around a million net and brought in a few decent, albeit not gamechanging players. Key ones of interest were Vasilije Novicic and Igor Jovanovic of relegated IMT, and once again we bullied Cukaricki taking their number 10 Uros Miladinovic. Entirely domestic based recruitment again. The absolutely non rigged and totally fair fixture computer sent us to a 2-0 loss at Partizan as title holders on the opening day which was predictably bleak, but we were given a generous CL qualifier against Qarabag and beat them 8-0 on aggregate, Qarabag firmly getting the 'greyed out' treatment I'd imagine. We continue our bullying of Cukaricki by beating them 5-0. Our start in the league is reasonable but we're knocked out of the CL by RB Salzburg after a 2-2 draw in Austria and a 1-2 loss at home - no shame in that at all really. We're given Kairat Almaty in the Europa play-off and beat them 5-0 on aggregate. Europa League it is. The one thing that massively underpins my season in a negative way is that I think unless I've misinterpreted the rules of the league, we were benefitting from something last season that we shouldn't have been, and my squad building didn't take it into account. In this league you must have two U22 Serbians on the pitch at all times and we definitely didn't last season - it seemed to take Donno (Australian), Gotea (Romanian) and Croes (Aruban) as qualifying for this and it never really mattered. Unless U20 players just count regardless of nationality, but I see nothing that suggests that and this would make the entire ruling quite self defeating anyway. Anyhow, Gotea has gone, Croes and Donno are no longer counted as domestic U22 players, so we're constantly having to rotate our team to ensure that two of them get in the side. Luckily new signings Novicic and Jovanovic are both U22 for this season, but neither were signed to come straight in as I had pretty key players in their positions anyway. This meant bring in a couple of loanees, promoting a couple of academy players a bit early (one of whom is actually really coming along quite well tbf) and generally rotating. It was so annoying though. It meant I'd built my team meticulously around something that wasn't ever actually going to be achieved. So our entire season by default became a bit transition. I won't go into huge detail in the league itself because for this reason primarily, we were miles off the big two this year. Zvezda won the league on the final day, drawing with Partizan to secure it when a loss would've sent it the other way. We hit a horrendous run in April where we lost 7 games in a row in all competitions, but we finished very well and clawed ourselves 3rd place, and a Conference League play-off. For those who believe in xG - this season was a complete piss take. In pure xG terms we were by an absolute mile the best team in the division, I think finishing over 10 expected points ahead of 2nd place. But it's useless if you're letting every shot in and pretty much every forward is scoring less than they should be. The entire season was a bit frustrating domestically, but at least we finished well and at least we've got Europe again. A new stadium coming next season. Europe deserves a bit more attention though. Some royal nights were had. We win our opening league phase game at home to Croatian Osijek. Once again we come out on top in a balkan tussle and even funnier is that Partizan went out to this lot in the qualifiers. We lose 1-0 at FCSB in a pretty bleak showing but follow it up with probably the best result so far of the entire save. It massively flattered us but once one goal went in AZ just tumbled after largely dominating us in the first half. I couldn't believe the way they folded, every time we got the ball we seemed to score. We lose 4-2 at Celtic but win another balkan game away at Zeljeznicar Sarajevo 1-5 - they were truly awful. We beat Antwerp 2-0 before something even more mental. Now it's worth pointing out that Roma have clearly totally underestimated us and played their reserves (including Jordan James) but this was an extraordinary result; We draw 1-1 with Basel to put ourselves in the last 16. Unfortunately though Feyenoord are too much for us, we lose 2-1 in Rotterdam, scoring a last gasp goal where I actually thought we'd go through, but we don't really show up in Serbia and lose 1-3. No shame in the exit but a bit disappointing. This came in the run of 7 straight losses. A few points on this. We largely dominated Cukaricki and conceded 3 out of basically nothing. Think Leeds Leicester in 2024. Javor-Matis we had a red card after 4 minutes. Vojvodina we got heavily FM'd. These came in the midst of tactical changes as well - I think again it was just very bad variance. Confidence dipping. But we did beat Javor-Matis at home the game after, worth saying they also had an early red, and we never really looked back from it - powering to 3rd place in what was quite a tense battle with Cukaricki and Vojvodina. The league table is actually about as accrate a reflection of the level of the teams in it as possible, it was not far off exactly as predicted. The huge, huge black mark on the above screenshot though, the elephant in the room, is Graficar. The cup is the big one for us now. Out of Europe and presented with a very nice quarter final at home to Zvezda's farm club in the second tier. We completely dominated, only managed 1 goal, had 4 ruled out for offside (Jovanovic's low work rate really showing up here), concede a late penalty and I just knew what was coming after. A huge chance blown in a year where Partizan had suffered an early exit too. So a very mixed season. Tough circumstances. Some great results, some horrific, but a very steady finish overall really and even more money bagged from the European run. And you'll never guess which Serbian club my top transfer target this summer plays for!

It's unbelievable isn't it. A good five years of absolute rubbish piled into one season. That's following the absolute farce of 2024/25 as well.

Another total fix.

Christ the amount of likely opposition who are in our league already.

We just don't do goals that's probably why.

I think if you sign him, and an equivalent level player in central midfield and up front in January we survive quite comfortably. Not flashy but I just cannot believe he can be worse than Thomas.

Weirdly Matej Vydra was only one letter out.

I'd fallen out of love with it while he was still here and I don't think he fixes things. It's a plaster over the wound.

This lot are another level from Beckford, Danns etc.. Winks for example should've never played another minute after spritz gate. Incredibly tinpot from us that be did.

I genuinely used to think it was this when I was about 8.

These got 83 points. I'm sorry, this was an awful Championship. Getting relegated from this is unbelievable.

Absolute thug of a player. Sold.

They'd have done well to spy on our players going swimming to be fair.

Load of bluster from Cifuentes I'm afraid. He was never tough enough. Caved in to the old guard. Performances were awful, barely a single decent 90 minutes under him, nearly every win carried by a wondergoal from Fatawu or James. Nice bloke but he was terrible.

Completely spot on. Summarised my entire feelings to a word.

Still nothing on Rowett's future then. Relegated 20 days ago. This is all very last year.

This is precisely what VAR encourages. The idea that it was going to clear up the controversy has been one of the worst calls of all time. It's done the exact opposite. This has been a terrible Premier League season. One of the worst of all time in terms of the actual football on the pitch. The majority of games are boring so Arsenal will be fitting winners. Do wonder if there will be an overcorrection to this in future though as I do think football is cyclical.

That's the one. I knew they were getting some soft decisions but I went on a bit of a mad one on here about it being corrupt. I still don't entirely retract it either

That Fernandes penalty against Villa. That's the one time I remember just turning a game off in disgust at a decision.

That in itself is the problem though. And whoever this was against probably had the same happen for them etc.. I've never really believed "decisions even themselves out" and there is no doubt in my mind certain clubs do benefit. But **** me I think that myth was preferable to this garbage.