IT’S the end of the season tomorrow for the Premier League.

Apart from the play-offs, it’s already finished of course for the other three divisions. It’s always time to look back, and forward, hoping that you do just as well next season, or better.

Unfortunately, in Saints’ situation, it’s got to be the latter.

Let’s be fair, we had a great cup run, getting to the semi-finals. We had one or two good spells in the league, but hoping we can get a win tomorrow, takes us probably into 12th position, which I think is good. As I’ve always said, the league is six-eight-six and we are a middle eight club.

But if we can’t win at West Ham, we could be just two or three places above relegation, so let’s hope for a win.

But the other thing that normally happens at this time of the year is managers coming or going, more so now than the old days.

But talking about the old days, a couple of oldies have been in the headlines this week. Sam Allardyce has said he is not carrying on at West Bromwich Albion. They of course got relegated. When he took over in December, his main target was to do what he had always done at clubs – keep them up. He had never been relegated before, but unfortunately it did happen.

So he has decided not to complete the remaining year of the contract he signed. It will be interesting if he comes back in.

And the same with the other one, Roy Hodgson, who will be leaving Crystal Palace.

Roy and I go way back. 1976, which was a big year for Saints, was also the year he started in coaching, even though he was only 29 years old.

His playing career started at his local club, Crystal Palace, as a youth player. He never made the first team and carried on in local non-league.

But also, having had a good school career, took his coaching badge still in his late 20s and he must have studied language at college, because his first trip took him off to Sweden, managing Halmstad. Would you believe, since then he has managed 16 different clubs, worked in eight different countries, with a total really of 45 years in management. This included managing in places such as Italy, Denmark and Norway and at international level, Switzerland, Finland and the UAE, as well as, of course, England.

His last job, which I don’t think he needed to leave, was probably one of his longest as he has been at Palace for the last four years.

It must have been a very emotional evening at Selhurst Park when they played Arsenal on Wednesday. He got a tremendous ovation. Anyone who has been at Palace’s ground will know the managers come out at the far corner and walk all the way around, one of the longest in the league.

Unfortunately for him, his walk-off at the end would have been better if he had a win, but they lost 3-1 to local rivals Arsenal.

His last game tomorrow will be at Anfield and knowing the Scousers, I’m sure he will get a good welcome because fortunately now you can have supporters in the ground, even though it is only a quarter of the crowds that would’ve been there.

But believe me, 10,000 or so in at Anfield will make as much noise as many more would at other grounds.

It will be interesting to see what Roy does now. At 73, with due respect, he’s probably not needing to go to the dole! I’m sure he will have a few bob in the bank, but it was interesting to see how he was now stepping away from football for a while, while he would consider his future, which may be back in the game, or elsewhere.

The next thing of course will be, who gets his job? The list of rumoured candidates is already out with people like Frank Lampard and Chris Wilder, who recently lost their jobs. I think people like them will be desperate to get in. Whereas others who have been linked, like Sean Dyche at Burnley, who has done such a good job for a long time there, I can’t see him wanting to move down to London at this stage, but who knows?

So, well done Roy, happy days and as I said back in ’76, he was starting off abroad and it could well be he goes back to different countries. He speaks so many languages. He has actually been a pundit in different countries and that could well be his future.

But he is a very popular man, not many around these days like him. But life goes on.

Let’s hope the three big get-togethers which used to be on, the PFA, the FWA and the LMA end of season dinners, when people like Roy, Alex Ferguson and all the oldies could get together and put the world to rights, can all happen again.

Let’s see if our game comes back to normal after this weekend’s final fixtures and everything, whether it’s football, sport or life in general can get to normal as soon as possible.