I DON’T think anyone was too surprised when it was confirmed that we’d been relegated back to the Championship.

Our lack of goals in the last few weeks has been the real killer and you do have to wonder what might have been, had that clinical touch in front of goal not deserted us.

MORE TOP STORIES:

The defeat to Leicester City a couple of weeks ago will probably be highlighted as the result which sent us down and that 60-second period, from missing the penalty to the Foxes getting the goal at the other end, is typical of the way our season has gone.

Work must now start on preparing for next season and lessons need to be learned.

We made a big thing about automatic promotion giving us an extra month to prepare but we did nothing with it.

Our stock is still relatively high so we desperately need to pull together and start securing deals for the players who will give us the edge next season.

We’ve been prudent this season, sometimes frustratingly so, and that should give us a great platform to build upon.

The Championship gets tougher every year but we’ve more than enough resources to be competitive.

We need to do everything to keep hold of Sean Dyche and while the gaffer was a little coy on his future on Saturday, we need some clarity around his contract situation.

I wholeheartedly believe he is the right man to lead us back to the Premier League and I just hope he believes we are the right club.

On the pitch, I think we’re all expecting Danny Ings to leave and I hope that if he does he gets a move to a club that will help to continue his development.

The likes of Kieran Trippier, Jason Shackell and Tom Heaton are key cogs in the machine and I do think we’ll face a battle to keep hold of them after impressing all season.

There’s plenty of reasons to be cheerful, so lets not let the relegation get us too down.