Being sent down by your local rivals won't have helped.

As 'Ginger' Pirlo would put it.

Didn't see the game (and no MotD! WTF is that about??) but understand most of our team played like they had a bigger game in a week on their minds. Your guys lifted themselves to play us, especially Hazard, who I understand had one of his best games of the season.

Still, that point of yours does pretty much guarantee your team a top-half finish, so well done.

LOL, yes - worst finishing position for at least 15 years. No European football next season. It's been a weird season and not just Chelsea's sub-par performances.

Think we can agree on that!

With Chelsea, the crap start to the season was case (from a non-Chelsea fan perspective) of "fantastic result, but they'll start winning soon". And then the poor results just carried on. Maureen was tantruming all over the place and there seemed a huge rift with some players (has the full story about that woman doctor come out yet?)

Meanwhile, at the other end, everyone was thinking "fantastic result, but they'll start losing soon" about Leicester.

But just as weird was Spurs challenging for the league!

De Boer for Everton?

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/this-is-just-the-start-mauricio-pochettino-on-signing-new-tottenham-contract-a3246521.html

You must be relieved, what with the Everton job now come up for grabs!

Agreed, the biggest job in Liverpool too.

Just to add.

I was in my local sports bar last night - the little Bulgarian hottie running the show as usual when it came to which matches were being shown.

When the matches first started the majority of screens were showing the Dippers vs the Chavs. After protests from yours truly (and others) claiming that the match was an abjectly meaningless end of season encounter she made the big switch with eventually 11 out of the 15 screens or so showing the far more important Sunderland Everton game.

You've been listening too much to our bitter neighbours in blue.

I think that the fiasco with the club doctor was the start of the serious problems; I think that damaged team morale as well as making Chelsea and Mourinho look rather foolish. She may have erred a little but it was trivial and he overreacted badly and then failed to repair the damage.  He went down in my estimation at that point.  But I don't think as much was made of the team morale issue as perhaps should have been.

Too many of the Chelsea squad were out of form; you can carry the odd one or two but not when several key players were underperforming every week.

I was looking at how the odds on Leicester City winning the league moved through the months - they were still over 1,000:1 well into the autumn.  I'm not a betting man but I wish I had stuck £10 on them at that point....

What can I say about Spurs?  I thought they played some attractive football and have a very good manager.   Pity that they lost their collective heads at Stamford Bridge and put on a shocking display of foul play and poor behaviour.  I guess they're not used to coping with the pressure of such success..... 

What will 2016/17 bring?  Will any of the three relegated sides ounce straight back up?  Will there be any surprises in the Premier?  Will Leicester manage to reproduce their form and stay in the top 4?

Going back to the post I made last night re Mike Ashley, it beats me why he's remained at Newcastle for as long as he has. Many fans made it pretty clear during the season leading up to their first relegation in 2009 that he wasn't wanted; I think that was largely to do with how he handled the situation with KK at the start of that campaign.

If I were him, I'd cut my losses sooner rather than later, put Newcastle up for sale and try and find a buyer for the club, someone that knows a bit about the game in that part of England and can bring some passion back to the Magpies.

Martinez finally put out of his misery.

Clearly mid-table mediocrity and a couple of cup runs isn't sufficient.

Perhaps David Moyes will go back to Goodison....

If I was an Everton fan I'd be more than happy to see him back at Goodison. OK, he didn't win anything but he took them from relegation contenders which they were when he joined them in 2002 to challenging for European places. I'm not sure of this but I think that in each of the three seasons they've had under Martinez, they have finished lower in the table than they did in the preceding season.

Everton fans have massively unrealistic expectations and unsurpassed levels of delusion when it comes to their club.

I often listen to Radio Merseyside in the car, and for the past 6 months the Monday Football Phone In has increasingly been comedy gold.

In terms of the new manager, they're currently arguing amongst themselves stuff like whether they'd actually want Mourinho as their manager. Or whether Pellegrini is the man to take them to the top. Or if Koeman could reproduce at a bigger club.

I personally think Tim Sherwood would be a good fit.

Watford have got rid of Quique Sanchez Flores

After a summer of turmoil (where Watford sacked the manager who'd got them promoted and brought in 15 new players), he's guided them to a comfortable campaign where they were never really in the relegation mix, and got them to the FA Cup SF.

A great achievement for a small fry club. Who do they think would do a better job? That they could actually get, like.

That was rumoured several weeks ago.  The stupidity and over-ambition of club board members never ceases to amaze.

That comment is not limited to my local club - Everton have just done the same thing.

So, this season:

Advocaat   - Sunderland (were 19th, finished 17th)

Rogers      - Liverpool     (were 10th, finished 8th)

Sherwood  - Aston Villa   (were 20th, finished 20th)

Monk         - Swansea     (were 16th, finished 11th)

Mourinho    - Chelsea      (were 15th, finished 9th)

McLaren     - Newcastle   (were 19th, finished 19th)

Garde        - Aston Villa   (were 20th, finished 20th: 3 managers in the season, no impact)

Martinez     - Everton      (12th)

Flores        - Watford      (13th)

Interesting perhaps that of the 9, 2 went down and one just survived and 5 of the other 6 ended up in mid-table.

Thing is, I can actually see the reasoning/understand the issues with most of those. Maureen had to go from your lot, as his presence was creating a toxic atmosphere amongst the players. Rogers had been on his last legs for a while, after being unable to rebalance the side after Luis left and squandering oodles of dosh in the process. Throw in that one of the most highly-rated managers in the world was interested in taking the job should it become available, and the decision was simple. I even think it was time for Everton to change their manager, as the fans had totally turned on him.

But it's the antics of Swansea & Watford that get me. They're 'nothing' clubs, who think they have some sort of right to be doing better than mid-table & the odd cup run.

I think you are being a bit disingenuous there Saint. No club has "the right" to be a member of the top six club. Man City, Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs etc, are only there by spending huge amounts of money, but as Leicester has just proven, if a team plays well enough, they can win this league.

With more money being available from TV rights from next season for everyone, expect the domination of the "chosen few" to be in question in the future.

Leicester were still in the "they're doing well but they'll fall away soon" stage when Swansea sacked Monk, who, the season before, had led them to their highest ever finish.