A visit to Pride Park for last weekends’ match against Crewe would have left no one in any doubt as to the fact that supporters were not happy to be on the end of a 4 –2 defeat.
The majority of those who showed their displeasure did so by leaving early. Some booed the team off while there were those who demanded the manager be replaced. The sooner the better.
It is a not unnatural reaction, and one that was repeated the following day at the Walkers Stadium where Leicester failed to overcome lowly Brighton.
I am sure that there have been numerous similar episodes throughout the season up and down the country.
Football is a game of opinions and I have no desire to deny anyone that right.
In truth I think that websites such as this exist to encourage a wide range of opinion as well as freedom of speech.
I also instigated the current poll to see if you thought that clubs were responding too quickly or not to shouts for sackings.
The results of the poll so far are inconclusive. For although there is currently a majority believing that clubs are being too hasty, the split between the yeses and the nos are too close to be definitive.
This is not intended as a Burley must go or a Burley must stay piece but I would like to give you a couple of things to muse on.
Firstly a good manager does not become a bad one overnight, and similarly a bad one will not become good no matter how long you stick by him.
Secondly if you look at the manager of the Crewe side that headed this article you will see the benefit of not acting in haste.
Dario Gradi has been in charge of the Railwaymen for 21 years. It has not been constant success for the whole of that time, and in fact they have faced relegation on a number of occasions – and actually taken the drop a number of those times.
The directors have weighed up the plusses and the minuses and decided that on balance Gradi has done a good enough job to deem replacing him unnecessary.
It is a similar story at Old Trafford where Sir Alec Ferguson is possessor of the record of most successful manager of the modern era.
Yet it was strongly believed that he was only days away from the sack when he beat Nottingham Forest in an F A Cup 3rd round tie that took them on a run to winning the competition and ultimately set up the decade of success that followed.
Even back on home territory Brian Clough achieved nothing in the way of improved league placing at the end of his first season in charge at the Baseball Ground.
In each of those cases the Chairman and Directors took a decision and stuck by their man – even when popular opinion was not necessarily with them.
The truth is that there is no miracle cure all in football. Just look at the millions invested by Chelsea last term yet still the league title was no more than a distant horizon.
Any managerial replacement would of course demand time if not money to impose his ideas on a club. And there is no guarantee that a new man would ultimately be any more effective in ALL departments than the man before him.
I am not saying that hanging on forever will prove better than the alternative. But those demanding change really must weigh up all the alternatives before taking any course of action or they could do nothing more than making matters even worse than they perceive them to be.