The play-off dream finally was extinguished at Bescot on Saturday as a 3-1 defeat to Bournemouth continued our poor form in 2008, particularly since the sale of Fox and Dann in January.

Comments and reflections on the season have been pouring in on the message board - this is PhiltheSaddler’s assessment:

Where to start? Maybe with the starting line up. Betsy out wide, yet Deeney up front? Oh come on. Our only tactic is to boot the ball up in the hope Mooney gets a flick on, so why have we got our fastest and therefore most likely player to get on the end of a flick-on, out wide? The same player who’s started to look dangerous the last 3 games - out wide? Yet playing the player who looked really quite good on the right wing earlier in the season yet couldn’t hit a cows backside with a banjo - upfront? Why?

Finally DD sees this and moves Deeney out right, and Betsy upfront. Deeney gets a knock and comes off, and despite having a ready-made right winger on the bench in the form of Nicholls, we decide to bring a central midfielder on [who incidently should have started in place of the atrocious Dobson who i’ll come to later] for a right winger, giving us a midfield of 1 left winger, and 3 central midfielders. It was no surprise therefor that we suddenly became dreadfully lopsided. Money told Weston to get forward, but as anyone who knows anything about football could have told you, he was immediately out of position because he was so far forward, with no cover. Despite this strange 3-1-4-2 formation, we still couldn’t keep the ball to save our lives. Anyone who watched MOTD2’s analysis of Newcasltes different tactics this season under Allardyce and Keegan will have seen our tactics almost exactly, Allardyces plan was to boot the ball up, they couldn’t keep the ball - and look what happened to him! Now look at them, they keep the ball, they pass and move, pass and move, open up spaces and get the ball in to the box and shock horror they actually shoot.

Our attacking was simply dreadful, we’re so slow and ponderous going forward its untrue. Our crossing was abysmal - and thats being kind. How many corners didn’t even beat the first man? Thats simple stuff. Really simple stuff.

And Dobson … Oh Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear. How on earth this chap ever made it as a football player is beyond me - I suppose it gives me hope though, ‘cos if he can make it, then so can I. He was worse than useless. By that, I mean we could have literally had no one instead of him, and we’d have been better off. He can’t run, his passes only just reach their target, he can’t tackle, he turns slower that the Titantic and his positional/footballing brain is non-existant - At one point, we were under pressure coming back towards our own goal, and instead of giving an option, he simply ran away from the ball, with his back to the play

We need to get back to basics, we can barely pass, we dont create chances, when we go forward, we simply dont have a clue - it actually looks like they literally dont know what to do. We all know DD is defensive, but I swear they dont even practice attacking in training, I mean the way we attack is nothing short of utter sh!te. Every time we get the oppurtunity to cross, we wait, and wait, and wait, and then finally get it in. Going through the middle, we are relying on a defender messing up somehow, and we betide any walsall player who wins a 50:50! Even when theres two Walsall players on one Bournemouth player, the Bournemouth player came out with the ball more often than not. Thats simply and utterly disgraceful. Any decent manager would be going absolutely mental at that. Yet DD just sits quietly. We all know DD is moody, I just wonder whether he’s just as pead off as the rest of us at the events of January, ‘cos he clearly doesn’t give a f*ck any more. Why should we?