It wasn’t unexpected but last night’s defeat showed how far we are behind the best teams in the Championship at the moment. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us to get a squad together that is capable of competing at the top end of the league.
Many will question if Paul Heckingbottom is the right man to make that happen, and there is certainly justification for that viewpoint. So far we have seen very little sign of any real progress, and his record of two wins, three draws and five defeats really isn’t impressive at all.
Some will say that if we had left Thomas Christiansen in charge, he may have done a slightly better job, and although there is no way we can know that for sure, Hecky hasn’t instilled anyone with confidence that he has the capabilities of turning things around.
All he had to do was improve results even modestly to show that he can handle the expectations of the job, and make a greater impact once he has his own group of players next season. Yet, currently it seems like our last manager was performing some sort of witchcraft by winning the five of the first seven games of the season.
We are all frustrated so perhaps I’m being a bit harsh on our current boss, but it looks like we are going backwards under him. Certainly, the injury situation isn’t helping, and some of these players may feel they are not likely to be at the club next campaign.
However, if you looked at the team last night, surely they should be performing better. The likes of Samu, Pablo, Alioski and Jansson are talented players. If the manager is not getting the most from them now, when he is still relatively fresh in the job, there have to be question marks over his ability to make things happen in the long term.
I don’t think the owner will make a hasty decision on the situation. We are safe in mid-table, and he will likely see how things pan out by the end of the campaign. Things really aren’t looking good currently though.