Looking at the message boards – the wrist slashers are out in force. We lost at home to Everton who had a comfortable afternoon.

So Billy Davies (BD) is getting it in the neck and some of the players are too. Particularly Lewis.

Again, as I've said before, for those of you with short memories – BD built a team to get out of the Championship – and to our surprise we found ourselves in the Premiership. Now we have to play catch up.

I know there are those who don't like BD. I've never met the man so I can't say that I like or dislike him but to me he tends to talk a lot of sense. When he first came he said it would take several transfer windows to get a decent squad together. He keeps pointing out that the players are working as hard as they possibly can. That's all they can do – work as hard as they possibly can. And along the way add quality bit by bit.

And that's why it's so unfair to castigate people like Lewis who are doing as honest a job as they can. And footballers like everyone else have days when worries about families, rows with the nearest and dearest, or even anxieties about parts of their bodies affect their concentration levels. Don't we all worry when we have an ache somewhere and go to work feeling uneasy about this ache?

This may not be fashionable – but I know that I would rather be with BD and his team. Sacking him, in my opinion, would be disastrous. Who would we get? Little Sam? Martin Jol? Paul Jewell?

The truth is continuity often pays off – Moyes has been allowed to build an impressively solid team on the verge of challenging for Europe every season, while lower down the scale Crewe have competed well beyond their level with Gradi. There are times when I sigh and wish we had never sacked him and Murphy to be replaced by Docherty.

But club chairmen tend to have myopia. I think Len Shackleton, the Sunderland legend, got it about right when he devoted a page or two in his autobiography to “what football directors know about football” and left them blank.

Betting has hotted up for who's next for the sack: Sanchez, Hutchings, Southgate and Bruce with a surprising addition this week – Rafa Benitez. After spending so much money in the close season, it must be galling for Liverpool to be bottom of their Champions table, and of course, pulling off the local idol, Gerrard was not a popular move.

My guess is that Ramos will knock Spurs into shape along with a cool £40million to re-shape the defence. Megson will turn Bolton back into their old snarling selves, but actually fail to add the essential element of having sufficient skills to beat other teams. I predict a wholesale departure lead by ‘one-club-a-season' Anelka. Already, Speed is said to be on his way out.

So from my point of view, Bolton will be hot contenders for relegation as will Fulham. I saw last week's Fulham match against Derby and came away thinking that they have a lot more to worry about than we do. After spending in the region of £30m, they don't have a team that has much shape, or actually played much good football. And Sanchez went on record as saying the Konchesky had been their best player – someone West Ham were happy to off-load as by popular agreement by the fans he was devoid of a football brain.

Middlesbrough seem to be in disarray – Southgate doesn't seem to be learning fast enough, and it would not surprise me if they were heading for the likes of Darlington in the not too distant future.

Any team that has Titus Bramble as a key defender is asking for trouble in my opinion so I reckon Wigan will struggle to stay up and it would not surprise me if the Board at Wigan push Hutchings off their renowned pier before too long.

So while Derby haven't been doing too well, I feel there is some cause for optimism – there are some dire teams around and watching Derby knock the ball around with increasing confidence as opposed to the whirlwind tempo they played in the Championship which made one dizzy while watching gives me hope.

The other thing that passed almost unnoticed last week at Fulham was we actually lost three defenders in one match, yet we still didn't give away a goal. Can you imagine what Ferguson or Wenger would have said in their post-match analysis if they had lost one – never mind three - of their back four in the match?

Progress is being made and yes, it's painful, but BD seems to know what he needs to do, and I'm going to stay a believer.

Photo: Action Images

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