Grilled Birds would be reminded that the flip from the highs to the lows could happen at any instant, as they went from two S-League titles in a row, to getting relegated. Many reasons would be offered by the club's apologists in retrospect: the departure of too many underrated contributors, such as Kalle ter Berg, Bernie Egan, Wu Jinglong and Mateja Jeftić; the grievous injuries suffered by Bilal Mohammad Harun, that limited arguably Grilled's most complete midfielder at present to only ten starts, and many of them at less than full capacity; the indifferent form of Grilled's expensively-recruited starting defenders, forcing a slowing Bhavya Panigrahi to shoulder many more games than expected; a few bad days too many by goalkeeper Jānis Salmiņš; or simply complacency after the team's glut of honours in recent seasons.

Whatever it was, it was quickly clear that the magic that had sustained the Birds for the past seasons had been lost, starting with a terrible 0-4 home loss to Sarcastic Fringeheads in the curtain-opener. Grilled would not win until the fourth league round, with United and Villains holding them to draws, and that was a close shave against eventual zero-pointers Crypto Moon. More losses against Curiosity and RFC followed, but it was evident that the team had given up on the title by then. Their switch of focus to other competition didn't go well either, sadly, as they were unsurprisingly knocked out of the Hattrick Masters at first asking - although they ran Los Courtney respectably close. They were then put out of the Singapore Cup in the sixth round by East Coast Warriors, and later in the Emerald Challenger Cup finals by Robbie Football Club, after ten harrowing penalties apiece.

Chan Ze Han would pay RFC back in the league over the weekend, but Grilled's indifferent form wouldn't pick up, and they were left with a qualifier against Joker 9, after losing their final two league games. They lost that too, quite miserably. Indeed, it would be extremely difficult for their loyal fans to find anything at all to console themselves, with perhaps Kalki Parvathaneni's enduring reinvention of himself on the wing being the only bright spot - which however would only come at the cost of a disheartened Heng Dong Chu's playing time. More disappointingly, Bakhtiar and the club management would remain passive in the off-season, and word is that they are looking to rebuild from the bottom up.

The other Grilled clubs fared nary any better. Farmer Bunnies, already down to the third division, failed to claim top spot, with Kungfu 11 deservedly taking the crown with their consistency, capped by a last-day victory over the Buns. It was a story of neither here nor there for the team, with the former giants of the Tham Leng Teck generation, but a pale shadow of their former selves. This had to be expected, given that they were all pushing forty, and the redoubtable Vishnu Tallapaka would remain productive from set pieces. The Buns' defence however remained a work in progress, and some levels below their peak. Vitaliy Efendiev brought some much-appreciated fighting spirit to the attack, but he often found himself hopelessly isolated.

Actually, the Buns didn't do too badly in league competition, with just two draws and a single defeat marring their record before the final showdown - which was also the first time they conceded more than one goal. A glaring lack of true firepower would hobble them fatally there and elsewhere, with WNBN Architecture steamrolling them in the third round of the Singapore Cup. As with the Birds, their secondary cup ambitions would crash after drawn-out penalty drama, through a draw against Sarcastic Fringeheads had to be counted an accomplishment, in their current condition.

Grilled International would severely underperform expectations too, as they went from bona-fide title contenders, to the bottom half of the table as well. Even more than the Birds, it was difficult to pin down the malady that afflicted them, with them almost always managing to find the goals - only to somehow leak a greater number out of nowhere. It got so bad that they had seven losses out of eight rounds at one point, and there would be mass demonstrations outside the stadium against head coach Didi Reidenbach, when International suddenly got it together, and won their final three league matches. A heavy 5-1 thumping of Knights of Dol Amroth in the qualifiers would mollify the supporters somewhat, but if pressed, one would imagine them not being overly convinced of the team's capabilities of putting together a good challenge next season.

The defence would be easiest to point fingers at, what with them committing schoolboy errors on the regular, and the aging goalkeepers would not escape criticism either. It won't be Vadym Gorozhankin's problem any longer, however, as the 39 year-old Number One semi-retired at the end of the season, after one injury too many. Hardi bin Besar would offer himself as a solid regular in attack, and while he would not offer the sheer excitement that Fausto Perono had in preceding years, that wasn't really where International fell short anyway.