DE.

Yep, that makes it official for Southampton, although in reality it was over weeks ago for them. For Forest a win would have probably been enough to see them safe, but a point isn't enough. They've got Arsenal at home next, then Palace away. Two difficult fixtures. If Leicester lose tomorrow against Liverpool then realistically they'll probably need two wins from Newcastle away and West ham at home. Looking really grim for them now. After City tomorrow Everton have got Wolves away and Bournemouth at home. They probably have the best chance of securing at least 4 points from their remaining fixtures, which would probably be just enough to see them safe. Leeds meanwhile have West Ham away and Spurs home. Four points from those two may be enough to see them safe, but really they'll likely need to win both of those to survive.

As you say, two poor teams. Leicester, Leeds and Everton all really need Chelsea to avoid losing at the very least.

One of Leicester or Everton will almost certainly be looking at relegation if things stay as they currently are between Chelsea and Forest. I would say Lampard is getting revenge on Everton, but truth is he's just an awful manager.

Didn't we only finish 4 points behind Derby?

It would be very harsh of Sunderland to get rid of Mowbray at this point. Regardless of personal opinions he's done a good job there since being appointed, and has earned the right to continue.

4-0, wow. What a collapse. Hard to see them coming back from this now.

No problem with that, just try and keep a level head 👍

Exactly what they didn't want. Deary me.

I mean, it's not like Szmodics was alone when it came to struggling in the first half of the season. Despite our decent points haul there were very few players who looked comfortable adapting to JDT's style of play. The fact he grew into it as the season went on is great, and suggests he's going to be one who can really kick on if JDT stays.

Even if we had ultimately missed out on the playoffs, I wouldn't mind all of this so much if we'd got a fee of some kind for BBD or he'd actually showed up for the second half of the season. As neither of those things happened though it's all just a bit irritating to me.

It's a genuine one-off season where a team gets 96 points and doesn't even get a top two spot. To then go out in the playoff semis does seem cruel, and not especially fair when the 6th placed team was so much worse than 3rd over the course of a season, which is supposed to be what the team is ultimately judged on. Still, that's the playoffs for you. Not necessarily a fair system but it is what it is. Sheff Weds still have time to get back into it. Even if they nick a goal and go into the second leg 2-1 down they'll have a good chance of getting through.

No need for that last line Chaddy. Let's keep things civil.

If Pears is being extended as our backup keeper, no problem. He's proven himself capable. If he's being primed as our #1 with Kaminski departing then you can't help but think it doesn't bode well for the summer, and JDT's comments about us having no money were in fact the truth, rather than a ploy to supposedly trick other clubs into thinking we're rattling around with a begging bowl whilst having a wad of cash in reserve.

Sheff Weds 2-0 down to P'Boro near half time in the first leg of the L1 playoff semi. It really will be harsh if they finish 3rd on 96 points, then go out in the semis of the playoffs to a team who finished 6th and got 19 points less than them over the course of a season.

Sure, but if JRC is in midfield as a more attacking option (as I interpret 'goalscoring midfielder' to mean) who do you play alongside him to balance things out? Would you have a DM behind JRC and one other, or stick with the two in midfield? Do you think a player like Szmodics could play both AMC and DM as what would essentially be a box-to-box midfielder?

The discussion has been about all of those options and how they'd be utilised - what do you mean by this?

Considering how utterly cursed the second half of this season has been, probably.

Yeah, but I'm going off the description of him being a goal scoring midfielder, which suggests defending won't be his priority. If he's mostly in the middle and further back then it's less of an issue.

There are possibilities, but I feel like something in the approach will have to change if we have JRC and one of Wharton/Bucko playing beside him. Assuming Travis stays then he could play behind them in a DM role, potentially, but that's not the shape JDT has typically lined up with this season. I think asking Szmodics to cover AMC and DM would be a lot to ask, even with his excellent workrate.

If we are doing okay again at the midway point next season, it'll be interesting to see how half season ticket sales go. Considering we've had two consecutive seasons now of collapsing from January onwards, you have to think those that bought them may not have felt like they got their money's worth. Especially this season when the end of our 9 game winless streak came away from home. But then, it's relatively small numbers (< 1k?) so maybe it won't have a significant impact either way.

Yeah, exactly why I'm raising the point. Yes it's nice that JRC will be played in his best position, but if it's in a more offensive role and we stick with a two, as JDT seems to prefer, are Wharton or Buckley likely to partner him considering neither have any physical presence? Can't help but think if they do we'll be leaving ourselves open at the back, especially to teams like Rotherham and Preston who thrive on the physical aspect of the game. 4-0 and 4-1 L's this season respectively...

Assuming we stick with a midfield two, and JRC and Wharton are our main pairing, who's doing the defending in that scenario if JRC is being primed as a goal-scoring midfielder? Wharton is a class act passing the ball around at the back and indeed from the back, or anywhere on the pitch really but is he doing to be expected to fulfil the battling DM part of the role as well? If we change to a midfield three with someone behind those two then fair enough, but where does that leave Buckeroo as he's certainly not suited to that DM role either.

Take wages into account and you're well above £7m as well. Typically we'd have expected to get that back and then some with a decent sale, but now they just go into the same black hole as everything else, with absolutely nothing to show for it.

The problem with using predictions at the beginning of the season as a base point for comparison is that nobody knew what the standard of the division would be like. It became very clear when we were consistently in the playoffs and as high as 2nd at points, despite playing poorly, that the standard was not particularly good. A couple of decent January signings and we'd be sitting pretty. That's what makes this so hard to take. Going back to pre-season predictions brings me zero comfort as we didn't know at that point how big of an opportunity was there. Now we do, and we squandered it for the second season in a row.

That's a big part of it too. With BBD reverting to BB we had nobody to step up. All we really needed was three or four more goals from anyone across our range of attacking options and it would have been enough. Instead the best we could ever manage was a single goal in almost every match from January onwards. When you look as goals conceded in that time we were doing fine, so the defence can't really take the blame. It's all on our piss poor attackers collectively failing to put the ball in the net.