Hello and welcome back to mission impossible; keeping a bunch of drunken kebab swallowing ‘athletes’ in the Premier League. Last time out we left you having made a bit of a recovery to drag ourselves out of the relegation places by the end of January. Troubling though that we have lost against a few of our relegation rivals and have been relying on unlikely draws with more upmarket sides. Also, we dropped a Bullock as Tony headed off to our bitter rivals Leeds United – last years PFA Player of the Year gone.

This has been a major blow as Dave Watson has failed to be as successful in the following games. That said, it’s a thankless task keeping our goal. The next few games prior to the run in may well see us drop back into the danger zone:

The next 7 games sees us play 6 of those against top 10 opposition. I’ll be happy with 4 points. The run-in through April and May see us go toe to toe with most of the clubs looking to avoid the drop.

Due to an FA Cup and League Cup backlog, we don’t play until late February and we’re now back in the bottom three with two games in hand. We visit Pride Park where we snatch a draw with mid-table Derby County. With two cleared off the line, it feels like points dropped.

We take an absolute kicking from Spurs (4-0) which does us absolutely no good. We didn’t turn up until the second half and now our other Bullock is suspended for two games.

We fair better against 2^nd placed Aston Villa, but we go down 1-0 as we have 4 shots cleared off the line and Novotny gets a 10 and MoM.

It’s not impossible, but this run against the top teams is killing my chances.

Big Al is out for a few weeks too.

Again, a valiant effort against a significantly superior Liverpool, and a late comeback just isn’t enough. We are just not clinical enough. We are now 5 points from safety…it all seems too much.

We lose the big derby 1-0 and I have to say, 8 points a drift and a complete inability to finish…I cannot see us escaping the drop at this point.

Our woes get worse as Martin Bullock becomes injured for two weeks after coming back from suspension and due to Man Utd’s cup exploits our fixture backlog extends. The gods do not like this spot of Yorkshire, that much is certain.

Another potential good return tossed out with the old kebab leftovers! Burton’s dismissal will see big Al return to the starting 11…as I have no other strikers. League Cup winners Blackburn put us to the sword, and it is all but over. Watson is about as leaky as a prolapsed rectum.

We get a draw at Old Trafford and the big dane denies big Al on the 90^th minute…what a victory that would have been.

And this is the shit that pisses me right off. Big Al has one chalked off for offside and Moses sticks one in his own basket (and still gets MoM)…

The crazy gang live up to their name, and despite gift wrapping it for us, we win but really should have done some damage to the goal difference. Well done to the basket for getting us going.

We follow-up by giving the old faithful at Oakwell something to behold…a dreary 2-0 defeat to Arsenal. How they are down the bottom of the table I’ll never know. We are now 7 points adrift with 3 games to go…it is inevitable.

The board are simultaneously delighted but expect a higher league position…hmmm. The brutality of our squad and the seasons punishment has taken its toll:

And with a whimper, we are down. With Moses going off and De Zeeuw suspended, we played most of the game with two full-backs standing in against Duncan Ferguson…that was never going to end well. Devastated, all that is left to play for is pride.

The board are very disappointed at our relegation and are now only ‘satisfied’ with my performance as manager. Hopefully all that money I haven’t spent will help keep them happy.

Sheeeeeeeeeron…has his shot saved, but the real big Al takes the spoils for Newcastle. As Michael Owen sharply pointed out, the team that scores the most goals usually wins…

We sign off on our Premier League adventure in typical fashion with our 14^th draw of the season. Our inability to either score or maintain a lead has been critical in our downfall. I am certain that had the man from Leek Town not left we’d have stayed up.

So, here’s the final table:

Liverpool roll-home with Sunderland and Newcastle in tow. At the bottom Forest and West Ham join us in relegation and the crazy gang survive to live another day.

All we needed was a goal scorer. Had Fjortoft not been out for 15 months, we might have scraped a few more points together. Clayton Blackmore is STILL the only other potential signing available. Lets take a look at those all important stats:

Jones can be discounted having played 3 games, which demonstrates the complete lack of ability we were playing with. I’m surprised we weren’t relegated by Christmas! Liddell ended up top scorer with 12 goals, Markstedt was next with 5 from midfield and Moses with 4 from defence.

In case you were interested, Bayern turned around the Bundesliga to win by a country mile, Real Madrid won a thrilling Champions League final:

And Real Betis break the duopoly of Barca and Madrid despite selling their best players to their rivals. So despite relegation, I leave Barnsley in a very stable financial position with funds available to consider a re-building exercise and return to the Premier League at the first time of asking.

I leave you with the end of season awards, of which this year, we achieve none (unsurprisingly).

Thank you for following our journey to the pits of despair and beyond. It has been one of the most tense seasons I have experienced. Maybe we’ll be back soon with a different mission…