I can't believe the season is finally over! Absolutely fantastic. Loving it, obviously. Six weeks off in the sunshine. Brilliant. This is why I love being a top professional footballer.

I don't want to seem like I'm gloating or trying to rub your faces in it, but I can't tell you what a fantastic feeling it is when the season finally comes to an end.

Us guys at the top end of the sport work incredibly hard, day-in, day-out, for 10 and a half months of the year. It is a long, hard slog, it really is. Physically it takes it out of you, obviously, but mentally too.

There is a lot of pressure on us. The media, the fans, the manager, the chairman. Everyone wants something from us. Everyone demands that we succeed. Everyone expects us to live up to their expectations.

For ten and a half months of every year, we are worked like dogs - so you'll have to excuse me if I seem a bit excited at the prospect of a few weeks off. The relief when the final whistle goes in that final game of the season, it's immense.

I think I can honestly say that I know how that old English dude must have felt this week when he reached the top of Mount Everest. It's that sort of feeling. Giddy, nervous, excited and happy.

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect you guys to remotely understand. That feeling of overwhelming joy and the sense that you have really achieved something special, I think there are probably very few people on the planet who experience it.

Top professional sportsmen, mountain climbers, pop stars after they've finished making a new album, people who row across the Atlantic – these are the people who'll appreciate what I'm talking about.

These are not feelings you get when you've done something small like finished cutting the grass or made a nice chicken pie. This is an adrenalin rush like you've never felt before. It really makes you feel like you are alive. Makes you feel that life is worth living, you know?

I can guarantee that every single footballer in the Premier League is feeling exactly the same way I am right now. Just getting through that long, hard season, we should all be really proud of ourselves, every single one of us.

Making it through all those games, all those training sessions, all those mindless interviews, endless autograph sessions, kickabouts in schools and community centres.

We should be all be given a medal, I reckon. We're all winners in my book. Every single player in the Premier League can raise a glass or two of champagne to celebrate what they've achieved over the last ten and a half months. We are all superstars.

Obviously, I don't include the Newcastle, Middlesbrough or West Brom players in all this. They've not really done anything to be proud of, have they? I mean, getting relegated – that must be gutting.

The feeling of shame. I can't even begin to imagine. The humiliation must be crippling. Probably slightly less so for the lads at Middlesbrough and West Brom, but definitely for the Newcastle boys, because they're supposed to be good players.

I mean, it's tough to get your head around how bad they must be feeling. Getting relegated from the Premier League, there can be no worse feeling in football. Probably in life in general.

As a footballer in this country, you are either in the Premier League, or you don't exist. The Championship is nothing. Barely even deserves a mention. The skill level, the lack of media interest, the half-empty, crumbling stadiums. Very, very depressing.

And of course, there'll be pay cuts. All contracts signed these days have clauses put in by the clubs stating that your salary will be reduced by 25% or so should you get relegated.

I'm on £25k-a-week, right, so if we got relegated, I'd see my contract cut to, what, £17k-a-week? Doesn't seem fair, does it? But that's the reality of modern-day football, I'm afraid.

Thankfully, I've never been relegated in my footballing career. Hopefully never will, either. I just don't know how I'd cope. I think if it ever did happen to me, I'd probably just retire on the spot, there and then. Unless I still had a decent contract and a few years left on it.

But I tell you what, I'd hate to be a Newcastle, Middlesbrough or West Brom player right now. How are you supposed to enjoy your summer holidays with the shame of that hanging over your head.

Actually, I've got to stop talking about this. It's making me feel depressed, it really is.

Obviously, the Manchester United players, they still have a match to go – and a pretty big one too! I'll be back later in the week to blog on the Champions League final.

Hope you enjoy it. Until then, PB.