IT'S the final day of the Premier League season and, truth be told, there is little to get excited about in the way of uncertainty.

(Shhh... don't let Sky hear you.) The lone undecided matter is whether we will see Hull or Newcastle join Queens Park Rangers and Burnley in the second tier next season. But it is hard to see even the embattled John Carver screw this one up for the Toon.

Newcastle would have to lose at home to a free-falling West Ham side that hasn't won on the road since 2014. And Hull, who have lost three on the bounce, would have to beat Manchester United. There is also the permutation that should Newcastle draw and Hull win by seven goals, that would send the Toon down, but that would be real twilight zone stuff.

The thing is, whichever one of these two clubs goes down, we might not see them again for a while. Hull's summer net spend of £25 million left Steve Bruce working with the threat of a Financial Fair Play penalty hanging over the club. It is hard to see the situation improving should they go down.

As for Newcastle, once you enter Mike Ashley territory anything can happen. If they go down, he may well figure that continuing to run the team on a shoestring while extracting big profits makes sense, more so than selling at a depressed price.

As storylines go, we have seen more compelling ones. And unless you are from Newcastle or Hull, you have probably grown a bit blase about Bruce's plodding side or the epic tragicomedy at St James'.

It does feel as if the season is petering out. And with no major summer tournament to look forward to, we find ourselves thinking of next year and, in particular, the transfer market. Football is a 12-month sport these days - in some ways, it has always been - but rarely has the off-season encroached so deeply into early May.

That's what you get when both the champion and the top four were decided so early. Even the relegation battle, once you get past the stunning comeback of Leicester City and Tim Sherwood's revival at Villa Park, was predictable. Yes, Burnley and QPR were that much worse - the former because they did the footballing equivalent of entering a Grand Prix race with a tricycle, the latter because of long-standing epic mismanagement - than everyone else.

So let the football played on the pitch make way for the auxiliary version, the one that fills airwaves, blogs and supporters' dreams.

It's not such a bad thing. A few months of hope and ambition may actually be more enjoyable than a season where, for most, all you get is confirmation that you're either not good or not good enough.

IF the rumours and the well-placed deep throats around Madrid are to be believed, today is the day that Carlo Ancelotti will meet Florentino Perez to discuss next year. And this is when the president of the current European champions will tell him that his services won't be needed next season.

That is what a trophyless season gets you. (Well, not quite trophyless: Ancelotti's Real Madrid did win the Club World Cup, which means they get to call themselves world champ-ions for another 12 months or so.)

That Perez should sack Ancelotti is not surprising, it is simply foolish. What is shocking is the choice to replace him: Rafa Benitez.

Nothing has been decided and the Napoli boss has indicated he won't even broach the subject until tomorrow at the earliest. But Benitez is, by any measure, a curious choice.

It is not that he's a bad manager, he's a very good one (though whether he's on a par with the man he's replacing is debatable). The problem with Rafa is that he's not a diplomat, nor a man-manager, as evidenced by the rows he has had over the years with players and owners. And if there's one thing we know about the Madrid job, it's that it requires a Job-like patience.

It is hard to imagine Benitez conjuring up a line-up that shoehorns in all of Perez's Galacticos. Or one that includes both Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo without two Nemanja Matic clones behind them.

And it's hard to see him massaging the egos of his divas, keeping a lid on controversy and being happy for someone else (read: Perez) to determine the club's transfer strategy based on commercial, rather than footballing, principles.

AND, just like that, hopes are deflating and heads beginning to hang. Until a few months ago, it seemed possible that maybe, just maybe, Sepp Blatter would hit a road bump on his way to re-election to the Fifa presidency. He left South America and Asia without an official endorsement, CONCACAF seemed on the fence and even Africa was lukewarm in expressing their love.

Now, however, the situation has changed. First Michael van Praag, head of the Dutch FA, pulled out and then, less than 24 hours later, so did Luis Figo. The Portuguese legend pulled no punches when he said: "This process is a plebiscite for the delivery of absolute power to one man - something I refuse to go along with."

That leaves Jordan's Prince Ali standing in Blatter's way. Despite the fact that both Figo and Van Praag have urged their supporters to back him, football politic geeks seem to believe it will be a blow-out come Friday.

Ali and Van Praag issued an updated manifesto which included plenty of nuggets for the smaller nations: a 36-team World Cup, more funds from Fifa and more development opportunities. But an object at rest tends to stay at rest. And "at rest" is exactly where so many of Fifa's voters are and have been under Blatter. He has taken care of them, sharing the world game's riches and breaking up the European-South American hegemony. They see no reason to change, just because some of the Western media have their knickers all in a twist.