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?
