Just when he was within touching distance of the pipe and slippers, Roy Hodgson was dragged into the Wagatha Christie battle of footballers' wives.
Instead of counting down the hours to retirement, the former England coach was revealed, in former Three Lions captain Wayne Rooney's testimony from the witness box, to be uneasy about Jamie Vardy's wife and her alleged pursuit of fame. That squalid soap opera and its narrative of spurious tosh has at least brought strangely addictive drama to the end of the season.
Sadly for Hodgson, he will bow out of management after presiding over Watford's relegation from the Premier League without a whimper. The Hornets' decision to replace 70-year-old Claudio Ranieri with a man four years older has yielded just nine points from a possible 51.
