By Alex RobertsTheir season started in the Champions League qualifiers against Benfica after they managed to secure a fourth-place finish in 2024/25, but ultimately, they failed to reach the tournament proper. This season, they were expected to do the same if not better.Now, they’re a two-legged play-off against Saint-Etienne away from being relegated. Which would be disastrous for Sir Jim and INEOS, who are looking to sell up seven years after buying the club.The ownership have gone from promising to topple PSG’s monopoly to completely losing interest as they put all of their attention into Man United. Investment has all but dried up – last summer, Nice spent €35.18m on transfers and brought in €108.00m.Nice have three games in which to save their seasonAmong those sold were three of their best. Jean-Clair Todibo made his move to West Ham permanent, Evann Guessand went to Aston Villa, had little impact and was shipped out to Crystal Palace, and long-serving goalkeeper Marcin Bulka secured a no doubt lucrative move to Saudi Arabia.It was going to be an uphill battle from the start. The board had left them out to dry and had no intention of bringing in the quality needed to replace the key players they had lost. Kevin Carlos, signed to replace Guessand, has failed to score a league goal. Manager Franck Haise could see the writing on the wall last autumn, complaining that he didn’t have the players to be challenging for Europe, then going even further to say he couldn’t “create a group” from the squad.As they struggled for results, the fans really go on their backs. Their anger was largely directed at the players, which feels a little unfair, but sporting director Florian Maurice and President Fabrice Bocquet weren’t spared their ire.In November, striker Terim Moffi and winger Jeremie Boga were attacked by fans as they climbed off of the team bus at the club’s training ground after arriving back from a defeat at Lorient. A few months later, they were both gone.Bocquet departed shortly after, then, and probably most importantly, Haise left in December, before joining Rennes in February. The 55-year-old has been a revelation since heading to Roazhon Park, securing European football for the side from Brittany. It’s amazing what a calm working environment can do!So, what Nice went and did was re-hire former manager Claude Puel, who has been a contentious figure in football for a while now, having tarnished his reputation with some terrible spells in the Premier League with Southampton and then Leicester.And it’s been a disaster back at Nice. Puel had a lot of credit in the bank following his impressive four-year spell between 2012-16, but that’s all gone now. The veteran coach has won just two of his 18 league games, and his tactics and team selections have been widely criticised.Puel isn’t to blame though. He walked into a burning building with nothing but an oxygen tank and with the foundations pretty much gone. He played the cards he was dealt poorly, but the issue is deeper than the manager.The current crisis could have been averted on the last day of Ligue 1. Nice faced the already relegated Metz, a side who had only won three games all season. Survival was in their own hands.All they needed to do was something they hadn’t done since last October: win a football game at home. But Nice couldn’t pull it off, their game against Metz ended 0-0, and the fans invaded the pitch at the Allianz Riviera almost as soon as the whistle touched the referee’s lips.The vibe inside the ground was off from the get-go, and not for the first time. Anxiety, anger, and desperation all packed into the arena. As time went on, the overarching feeling became anger.At least the Nice ultras waited until after the game to storm the pitch, things were worse at Nantes in their final game of the season, where the game had to be abandoned after just 22 minutes as their fans took things into their own hands.Puel said their “disappointment is legitimate” and he’s right. No one at the club seems capable of fixing it, or even really cares. INEOS want out and if they do sell the club this summer the buyer will inherit a completely broken institution. Which is perhaps a red flag for United fans.Remarkably though, after all of this, they still have silverware to play for. Nice will face RC Lens, French football’s story of the season, in the Coupe de France final a few days before their relegation play-off.“Everyone to Paris,” read one banner held up by the fans in their final day draw with Metz in reference to the final as a chant of “Get your arses into gear,” rang around the stadium. It’s not over yet, no matter how bleak things look.The Coupe de France has been a bit of an escape for Nice. The once highly rated striker Elye Wahi, on loan from Eintracht Frankfurt has loved it, scoring two goals and providing one assist in his three games.Club captain and legend Dante will also want to leave the club on a less sour note. Now 42-years-old, the oldest and wisest player in top flight French football, he’s retiring at the end of the season. Signing off with a trophy and NOT being relegated is the least he deserves.The worst part about all of this is that it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel for Nice. It all depends on who comes in and buys the club, hopefully they care at least a little bit. The relationship with INEOS is completely fractured at this point.We wish we could sign off with a positive note for any Nice fans reading this piece. At least you (probably) live in a beautiful city in one of the best parts of the world.(Images via IMAGO)You can follow every Nice game with FotMob – featuring deep stats coverage, xG, and player ratings. Download the free app here.Add FotMob as a preferred news source on Google by clicking – here.