If we'd sacked him in November..

[BarclayWazza 91]

What you have to bear in mind is the positions the clubs were in before and the improvement brought about by tbe change. I dont have tbe numbers to hand but the points per game from Pulis and Poyet extrapolated to a whole season would have them safe.

[Rock The Boat 1,324]

The problem here is that if every club has changed their manager (which is nearly the case in the bottom half), given tht 3 must go down, you can''t say whether changing the manager made a difference or not. It is only clear if one manager has changed and all the rest have stayed in place, then you can see how that manager has improved league position relative to the others.

Relative position also cause another problem. A new manager coming in to team A may increase goals scored and reduce goals conceded and win more games.

But if a new manager coming in to team B does the same thing but just a little better, then team A will stay below team B in the table.

It''s an oddity. We think you have to be better than other teams to stay up, as in the example above, yet sometimes you can say we have to be slightly less cr@p than other teams and that will keep us up just as well.

[Jacko 0]

If CH was going to be sacked in November the time to have done that would have been after losing 7-0 to Man City. We were 18th with 8 points from 10 games (0.8 points per game).

We are now 13th having taken 24 points from our subsequent 21 games (1.14 points per game). That''s significant improvement in anyone''s book.

The only two sackings that have yielded any real improvement are Sunderland and Crystal Palace. It would be interesting to see if that improvement has been greater than an increase of 0.34 points a game.

I am not CH''s biggest fan but the board have done the right thing by continuing to stick with him and back him. We are probably three points behind where we needed to be at this stage (ostensibly through failing to beat Cardiff or Fulham) but I severely doubt a new manager would have us in a better position right now.