This weekend brings to a close one of the dullest Premier League seasons the world has ever seen.

The top-seven clubs have been the same every week since January 17. Chelsea top, Man City second, Man United back in the top four and Spurs and Liverpool sleepwalking towards the impending doom of the Europa League. The only change of significance in the final 16 games saw Southampton and Arsenal swap places in the Champions League spots.

The bottom six are largely the same, too. Leicester did mount an unlikely escape from relegation in the final month of the campaign but if you take them out of the equation on January 17, then the three teams going down would be Burnley, QPR and Hull.

Hull could yet avoid the drop, of course, though they will have to beat Man United on Sunday to stand a chance of overhauling Newcastle.

Perhaps the sole intriguing subplot of the final day is the return of Sam Allardyce to St James Park.

Newcastle only need Hull to fail to win to ensure their survival, though the West Ham boss would surely love to put one over on the side he managed for six months of the 2007/08 season before being unceremoniously sacked.

All week pundits have been claiming West Ham will be fired up because of the Big Sam factor, however if you’re relying on a portly 60-year-old former centre-back to win you a game of modern day Premier League football, then you’re in all kinds of trouble.

It doesn’t matter just how fired up a manager is, if the 14 players who can actually go out there onto the pitch and affect the result are not bothered, then it’s all irrelevant.

Those players know that West Ham go into the final day in 11th place, with an outside chance of finishing either 10th or 12th. They have end-of-season dos to look forward to, a post-season night-out this weekend, probably a trip to Vegas next week. They don’t even know that Sam will be their manager next season – in fact, if the rumours about him asking for meter readings from the utility companies are correct, then he probably won’t be.

It might not be right but I don’t expect these Hammers players to show anything other than what they have shown all year, shocking away form and a glazed look of indifference and if they do raise their game for the finale, then it suggests to me at least they have been cheating their fans for the past few months.

I’ll watch it of course and this time next week I’ll miss it like a long-lost friend, yearning for the first action of next season’s Barclays Asia Trophy but this season has not lived up to expectation and I hope that’s not a sign of things to come.

o0o

Formula 1 and I might not get on but I’m not so blinkered that I cannot hail this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix as one of the true spectacles of sport.

The high-rise backdrop, the sweeping shadowy turns, the crystal waters and bobbing yachts laden with glamorous beauties and rich old men – it’s like nothing else on the sporting calendar and the closest you’ll find to it on these shores is a drive round the harbour in Folkestone on a July afternoon.