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Not so much the recent turgid performances or conservative selections / use of subs (both of which are true), but the fact that so many of our fanbase are just gagging for him to fail. There’s a group who didn’t like him first time around, a group who didn’t like him running his contract down, and a group who didn’t like the way he went about going after Fellaini / Baines.

A year ago we were heading for the Championship. We’ve had some narrow escapes over the last few years but I really did think we were toast - especially with the group of players that we had and the playing style they’d been coached to over a number of years. To turn that around so quickly and have us comfortably safe…I’m really not sure there’s many who could’ve done that. And certainly fewer still who’d have been willing to join us.

This season, we were 5th at the start of December and top ten at new year for the first time in forever. We’ve had injuries, suspensions and AFCON since hit an already wafer thin squad and we’re in the middle of a really bad run - both results and performances.

But we had similar ups and downs in Moyes’ first spell with us; it wasn’t until four or five years in that he really started to establish us as a consistent top eight team. This go around he’s had less than a year and one transfer window to correct a start point that’s as bad as we’ve had in years. We’ve been through countless managers trying to come close to even where we’re at, right now.

I don’t think he’s faultless. As I posted the other day, I’m really not convinced that we managed our summer business according to need (and, as Jon posted below, was Kenny Tete really the only right back out there?). I think there are times when he’s been overly cautious with selections, made poor subs (Brentford) or been too slow to change things (Wolves). But there’s a lot of short memories and a lack of patience among many (as well as some longer memories when it comes to his past).

Righting the many years of wrongs was never going to be a one window job. It’s miserable right now, I agree. Moyes hasn’t always helped himself, I agree. But God knows where we’d be without him. And when you look at the next messiahs who’ve been lauded by many (Potter, Thomas Frank, Amorim, Chelsea’s carousel of managers…even Glasner’s Palace are below us in the league and just had a more embarrassing cup exit) do we really have the confidence that there’s someone out there just primed to step in and do better?

I’m not advocating giving him forever but surely he deserves one poor run at a time when circumstances (was it nine senior players unavailable today?) are most certainly altering the case? I suspect there’s a few who are revelling in feeling vindicated, however, vs accounting for the context of where we’ve come from, where we’re at, and that the journey to where we want to get to isn’t going to be beautifully linear.