Welcome! It’s the final update of season 10 and my oh my there’s a lot to get through. The Academy are still in…everything. League Cup. FA Cup. Cup Winners Cup. FA League Winners Cup Cup. Cup. Here’s a reminder of our league position before we go any further:

It’s exhausting but let’s get the all important first leg of the pointless cup out of the way.

There, now wasn’t that a treat? Minhoha is the re-gen of Japhet N’Doram, he’s always good. I think we’ll probably struggle to overturn that deficit.

Reading in the cup and OH LOOK, another draw. We really are determined to play every game possible this season.

As predicted, we couldn’t overturn a two goal deficit. We win on the night but no Wembley for us. Remember, you get nothing for winning the League Cup.

Here, Chelsea. Get out of the way. One of our best ever 20 minutes as we put on a show and thrash Chelsea. Not sorry. I am sorry for Tony Hool who will be out for a month.

The Reading replay is remarkably easy. Makes you wonder why we didn’t just beat them at home in the first place. Ah well, a quarter final with Aston Villa awaits.

First though a trip to Old Trafford for Michael Owen’s twice yearly goal fest.

Just the one Michael? You spoil us.

A trip to Lisbon though promises to be fraught with danger. Lukic continues his great form and we lead 3-1. I’m a bit edgy when they get it back to 3-2 but the lead is held and we’ve got every chance of a semi final.

Cup quarter final time and…yep. Replay. Donald MacRonald is sent off but we can’t break down the 10 men. It’s Man Utd in the semis anyway, so that might not be a hotly contested replay.

We have so many games in hand. We lose one of them to Wolves. That’s not Kevin Muscat by the way, there’s a sickening chance they have let him breed and there’s another in existence. Awful.

A league trip to Villa Park and Lukic gets his now custom goal. It’s a draw. It’ll do.

Sporting Lisbon can’t complete a comeback. They do briefly try but it gets shot down very quickly. Strasbourg in the semis!

Ah man. It’s been a while.

I’ll miss you Sedgey.

Welcome, Alan Lavin. You…can head. And shoot. Otherwise you are nothing to me.

Jon Friars can’t run but he can take a set piece and shoot. He might be…Sean Devine? Not sure. Anyway, things are about to get worse.

BERT! NO! Actually for all he is valuable he’s useless. He’s scored about 4 in 22 and given the amount of cup games he plays, that’s nothing to be proud of.

Bert is the codeword for danger, of course.

Old beanpole Friars has picked Chelsea. Scum, subhuman scum.

Newcastle take the lead and Heritage is sent off. Boo. Thankfully, our ten men are better than their 11 and it’s a win to finish March.

When clubs say the FA don’t help them, they don’t know the half of it. I don’t want to play on consecutive days!

That problem is multiplied when we have to go to Extra Time at Villa Park after our lead is cancelled out. Lukic and Lunt, recalled after the striker exodus, score in the same minute to book us a place in the semis.

Less than a day later and it’s Strasbourg, who have Bakayoko. Lukic, obviously, gives us the lead but by 90 minutes we are totally out on our arses and Elias equalises. I don’t want to walk with Elias.

Three days later and it’s the FA Cup semi final. Maybe we should play tired more often. Three goals before half time and we’ve got one foot at Wembley. McCallum seals the deal but there’s a late consolation. I don’t care. What a result!

Not even Steffen Iversen can ruin my mood.

Nor the mackems. Lunt proving useful off the bench again.

A good Easter is finalised with a comfortable home win. We head to France in good spirits.

Maybe this was a game too far? Or maybe we’re just not very good. Bakayoko is banned but we’re 4-0 down after 26 minutes. Still we fight though and we get it back to 4-3. They have 10 men. We push with everything we have but can’t score. Our run is over.

That means we have to win the FA Cup or finish in the top 6. A draw away at relegated Brentford does not help us.

Neither does a loss at Everton.

We do however manage to keep out Chesney Hawkes as Lukic takes matters into his own hands. We’re in the mix!

Man City are currently 6th so if we can just beat them, who knows? Naturally we’re 4-0 down before a late consolation.

Bland.

Narrow.

Seventh.

I think this calls for Len.

Not relegated.

What it does mean though is that the FA Cup final looks like a must win. Once again though our defence lets us down and despite some brief rallying, we lose 4-2.

West Ham finished 4th which would be a UEFA Cup spot. Does that help? Everton came 3rd but win the Champions League. What I love about this is that Perrotta got two pens in a minute and missed them both. Great stones, no bottle.

This man though. Rarely have I seen someone contribute so little else on a pitch other than scoring goals. It’s not a bad thing I guess but it’s unusual to see such a low average rating for a man who scored 34 goals.

I face a nervous wait to find out if we’re in Europe. I’m guessing not. We didn’t win anything and we finished outside the top 6. A recipe for disaster. If that is the case, then so be it. To be honest though West Ham winning the cup should do us a favour and I don’t know if Everton’s Champions League win means there’ll be three sides in? I think there might be. That would also help. Our bank balance is £108m, I’ll just bribe our way in.

A 7th place finish once again shows good progress though. Some new blood in the summer (I’m waiting patiently for Ryan Giggs to retire) and who knows what we’ll achieve. We played over 60 games this season. Ignore the fact we have nothing to show for it, it’s not good for my morale.

Do join me next week for season 11, won’t you? Here’s our graduate of the week:

Graduate of the Week

Michael Twiss! The man who signed towards the end of Division 3 and left having got us to Division 1. The highest transfer fee fetched to date. Looking at it, he was cast aside by Chelsea rather abruptly and now he’s in the SPL.

He only played 57 times for the Academy and scored 11 goals and he left too soon. Granted he played in the Premier League for a number of years which basically proves me wrong but whatever.