'Finally...'

It's finally over. One of the worst seasons in living memory, the long drawn out, slow and painful road to oblivion, has reached its conclusion. It has ended with the resignation of David Moyes, something that was greatly welcomed in my household I can tell you. The whole season has been an awful experience from start to finish. From Sam leaving, the lack of signings, the M'Vila saga, the lack of an apparent plan, the negativity; a plague that grew, multiplied and infected the entire club, the Moyesisms, the awful attitude of the players, the 'dead legs', the 'thigh strains'... it has been an absolutely horrendous time for anyone associated with Sunderland AFC this season. It's been miserable, abject, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, painful and embarrassing. We've gone down before, some of our fans wearing relegations on their sleeve as badges of honour, but the manner in which we've surrendered our top flight status this season has been nothing short of scandalous. I've been reminding myself that some of my best memories of watching Sunderland have come from seasons in the second tier. That little crumb of comfort will keep me going as the club embarks on an extremely important summer period.

We gathered only 14 points at home; the lowest total in the league. We've won only 6 times, losing 26 matches. We've won 34 games from the last 160. Need I go on? I think the players who want to be here for the gruelling Championship campaign, have already publicly said so. The others, believed to be around 15 of them, will go, most of whom we'll be glad to see the back of. Moyes himself has now gone, his Sunderland 'hell' coming to an end. Several newspapers have claimed he offered his resignation amid claims that Ellis Short won't release a penny of the £45m parachute payments for any player investment. I certainly think the picture is bigger than that, there's a hell of a lot under the surface ready to erupt up and out into the public domain. No doubt we'll be hearing more stories emanating from the club in the coming days. 

It also appears Moyes' departure had been on the cards for quite sometime, certainly since the Bournemouth game when relegation was finally confirmed. Claims of players feigning injury and Christmas party cancellations paint a very sorry picture of the situation at Sunderland. Moyes made it clear very early, too early even, that he didn't rate most of the squad and wanted to replace most of them. His now infamous quote about being in a relegation fight with 36 matches to play will be forever carved into the minds of every single Sunderland fan. Thankfully the majority of those players won't be here next season, and now we know Moyes won't be either. I won't dwell on the politics of the current situation much longer, I'd be here hours dissecting the aftermath of this season and quite frankly, I want to completely forget about 2016/17 and everything that comes with it.

If we can learn something from Moyes' resignation, it is that perhaps it'll have proved that all along that he did not want to take a hold of this challenge by the scruff of its neck, or maybe that this was indeed, a greater job than he realised back in August? Which raises the question, if David Moyes doesn't fancy it, who does?