Ball's Drop

SO Paul Jewell reckons one club will "do a Wimbledon" and drop like a stone into the relegation places. And Lawro thinks it could be City just because the games in hand are against Chelsea and Arsenal.

A home win today should blow the latter theory out if the water but City being City we'll probably conspire to make sure nothing is settled until much, much later. And we haven't won in the Premiership since the first day of 2007 so we are hardly in hot form.

I'm old enough to remember three top-flight relegation seasons - the 1983 slump that did indeed see us plummet from a position of security to be beaten by Luton on the last day, the mid-80s one that had been inevitable for months and the Alan Ball disaster a decade later.

It was the latter that affected me the most and I have no idea why as, after all, I was a fully-grown adult supposedly capable of coping with disappointment as opposed to a whinging brat in '83. I suppose it was the sheer wastefulness that drove me mad. Luton had been fighting for their lives and had to win to save themselves while Liverpool had been quite happy to roll over at Maine Road, watching in bemusement as City players pinged in own goals and headed for the corner flag on Bally's orders.

I can still picture Steve Lomas gurning on Match of the Day and it was probably 48 hours before I even said a word after that. If City do go down this season then it will be a minor irritation compared to the great cock-up of '96.