Go out with a bang, they say, not with a whimper. Unfortunately, at the Madejski Stadium on Sunday no-one was listening to that sort of thing.
Instead, Reading and QPR exited the Premier League with barely a squeal of angst.
And an abiding impression will be of some QPR personnel, apparently carefree, smiling, enjoying jokes and handshakes as, without embarrassment, they disappeared down the tunnel and into the Championship.
There is much made of the times in which Premier League football lives and the bubble it inhabits.
Chipping in: Queens Park Rangers striker Jay Bothroyd tries a lob over Alex McCarthy
Debate: Referee Kevin Friend (right) remonstrates with Reading's Adrian Mariappa (left)
Grinning: Jose Bosingwa was smiling as he left the pitch after QPR were relegated
MATCH FACTS
Reading: McCarthy, Gunter, Mariappa, Morrison, Kelly (Harte 76), Karacan, McAnuff, Guthrie, Pogrebnyak, McCleary (Le Fondre 64), Blackman (Robson-Kanu 56)
Subs not used: Taylor, Pearce, Daniel Carrico, Hunt
QPR: Green, Traore, Hill, Onuoha, Bosingwa (Fabio 74), Taarabt (Hoilett 68), Granero, Jenas, M'bia (Mackie 89), Remy, Bothroyd
Subs not used: Julio Cesar, Ben-Haim, Derry, Park Ji-sung
Booked: Granero, Fabio
Referee: Kevin Friend
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A lot of this relates to the under-achieving millionaires of QPR.
Chris Samba, ruled out with a virus, has become an emblem of this and did neither himself nor his club any favours by getting the day of this game wrong in a tweet.
For many people that will sum up what’s gone wrong at Loftus Road and beyond.
Yesterday’s disturbingly limp, goalless 90 minutes will only feed disillusion. A win would have kept either side alive for another 24 hours at least. You would not have known. This will be remembered for everything it was not. It was not intense, not vital, not passionate. It was apathetic.
The setting was Premier League, the fixture list confirmed this was the Premier League and both clubs involved belonged to the Premier League — well, they did at kick-off.
Twisting and turning: Nick Blackman tries to find his way past QPR defender Armand Traore (left)
Aerial fight: Reading's Pavel Pogrebnyak (left) tries to take the ball down while being pressured by Clint Hill (right)
Tense: Manager Harry Redknapp (left) and Reading boss Nigel Adkins (right) issue instructions from the bench
But this was a Championship match, a really poor Championship match. It gradually became an exercise in futility.
To return to 1.30 yesterday afternoon, Reading and QPR had the possibility of staying in the Premier League, avoiding relegation and the financial tornado that accompanies it, particularly QPR. Admittedly this was a remote possibility, but it existed.
Trying to set the mood, the Reading manager of four weeks Nigel Adkins signed off his programme notes with the words Carpe Diem. But Adkins had forgotten that not many of his players read Latin.
As for QPR, they would not have known the meaning of Carpe Diem had it been on their team-sheet. Seize The Day? There were phases of this game so loose that even the sarcastic notion that the clubs seized relegation felt flimsy. It had already seized them is clearly what some had felt as they put on their boots.
This must be the explanation as to why there was no sign of trauma from the participants, no sense that something was being lost. Instead, there was an obvious acceptance from the players that there was no way out of the bottom three. And that does not make for a contest.