Disgraceful.

Stood on the hallowed turf after it was all over and sneering in contempt at the lack of backbone shown by the players in their decision not to face the paying public, I tried to work out how many times I've come away from Pride Park this season thinking that was the worst performance I'd ever seen; given the debacles against West Ham, Aston Villa etc a fair few but this game, my word this game really saw witness to new levels of spineless inadequacy, the likes of which I'm not likely to forgive any time soon.

You wonder how much hope there truly is for next season when another relegated team comes to our home and puts four goals past us and whilst Paul Jewell appears to truly believe he can turn it around in just three short months, I fail to see how he's going to manage it.

Admittedly, and herein lies the hopeful portion of today's account of disaster, Billy Davies achieved it when given a threadbare squad to work with and hopefully Jewell, who could have never contemplated this level of incompetence from a team promoted to the top flight, can muster the same sort of magic as he once did at Bradford and to a lesser extent Wigan.

That's quite enough hope, back to the complaints.

We all knew this season was going to be tough and hand on heart I did expect relegation but who among us really thought it would be this bad? I expected us to go down in a similar manner to Watford, with a bit of pride and with a lot of cash stockpiled for the future. Instead I was party to witnessing this drudgery; again and again sitting through ninety minutes of pure disregard for personal pride and indeed the pride of thirty-three thousand fans paying hard earned money every week to watch those playing in the same colours as Colin Todd, Kevin Hector, Igor Stimac and even Leon Osman once did; players who displayed both class and desire in a Derby shirt, if only for a short period.

Instead, we get Kenny Miller jogging around without a care in the world and Robbie Savage preening himself at every available opportunity; if you don't want to be here gents, then do the decent thing and get out.

At least Eddie Lewis and Darren Moore actually put some effort into it.

Oh no, I mentioned Eddie Lewis; you know who that brings me onto don't you? Wee Billy himself; the man who put aside the interests of the football club in order to pursue his own self-gratification by purposely unsettling the team and the club the moment we had achieved promotion.

The more I think about it the more angry I become; Davies had the sheer audacity to think himself above Derby County and then he somehow contrived to think that he could sign the likes of Eddie Lewis and Andy Griffin and compete in the top flight and then beyond all that he still managed to paint himself as the victim when it didn't work out! Good lord no wonder I have a headache with that ego reverberating around the country.

It's amazing to think that just a year ago we were a couple of days away from the playoff semi-final second leg against Southampton, an incredible game played with passion and desire. I expected those attributes to help us at least make a fight of it in the world's foremost football league but somewhere along the line, the players just decided they'd done enough, whether that came from the egotistical Scottish one I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me.

As for Paul Jewell and company, I still give them the benefit of the doubt, even though you'd have thought the honest Scouser (if there is such a thing) might have been able to eek out a tiny bit of self respect from his players by now. He has of course lambasted his charges following the game and you wonder how many will be at the club in a month's time given his comments, which were spot on in my opinion.

The challenge now is to bring in players with desire and passion and the will to slog their way through the marathon that is the Championship; I don't expect us to automatically win every game next season and given the amount of changes likely to occur this summer I don't expect an overly dominant start but I do expect better than this if Jewell wants to keep his job, a job that will likely be under threat inside of ten games given the nature of football these days.

One piece of advice though Paul; Rob Hulse and Jordan Stewart aren't going to cut it if you want to keep the support of these fans.

As for the match report bit, as I said last week I will recommit to that next season; I just can't bring myself to describe this hogwash.

I will however say thank you; the supporters of this massive football club for your unwavering support during this pitiful season and thank you for reading these litanies of horror. Hopefully I shall see you next season!

Rams: Carroll 5; Jones 5; Villa 4; Miller 3 (Simmons 5); Lewis 3; Sterjovski 4 (Feilhaber 5); Moore 5; Mears 5; Ghaly 5; Savage 4 (Edworthy 5); Nyatanga 3.

Reading: Hahnemann; Shorey; Murty; Duberry; Lita; Hunt; Oster; Ingimarsson; Matejovsky (Cisse); Kitson (Doyle); Harper (Bikey).

Referee: M. Riley.

Attendance: 33,087.

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