The old joke in football is that some clubs write the managers name in chalk on his door, at Southampton FC it used to be carved, now they barely get the chance to get it up even in chalk.
The job at Saints was once seen as the safest seat in football for a manager, when Ted Bates took over in the summer of 1955 until Chris Nicholl was sacked in May 1991, those 36 years saw only three men at the helm, firstly Bates who unarguably built the foundations that still underpin the football club today, after his 18 years at the helm, Lawrie McMenemy came in and eventually presided over a golden period during his dozen years and even Chris Nicholl had stability and six full seasons in charge.
Then came Ian Branfoot and the start of a turbulent period, ironically Branfoot did two full seasons plus another half before departing acrimoniously in January 1994.
Ironic because Branfoot's tenure of 2 years and 7 months in charge including two full seasons has never been beaten both in terms of length of service as manager and in completing more than two full seasons in charge.
In the 36 years from Ted Bates being appointed till Nicholl being sacked we only had three managers, in the 26 years since we have had 20 including current Saints boss Claude Puel.
That means the average lifespan of a Saints manager is 15 months.
Since Branfoot completed his two full seasons and a bit, only one other man managed to complete two actual full seasons in charge at the club until Ronald Koeman arrived or rather left in the summer of 2015, yes only David Jones and Ronald Koeman have so far managed two complete seasons since Branfoot's sacking in 1994 over 23 years ago.
Along the way there have been reasons why managers have come and gone and we haven't sacked a manager since Nigel Adkins in January 2013, but in that time few have come anywhere near Branfoot's record sat in 1994, only Burley, who managed just over 2 years and Nigel Adkins and Gordon Strachan have actually looked like coming close, the latter two both doing around 2 years 4 months at the club but in that time they each only completed one full season, all arriving and being sacked mid season.
This time last year we were hoping that Ronald Koeman would be the first man to complete three full years in charge since Chris Nicholl, however that was not to be and emphasised the issues with the modern day game and the problems it creates for clubs and their managers, they either fail and get sacked or they succeed and get poached.
If we take Arsene Wenger out of the equation and also those managers like Eddie Howe or Sean Dyche who have been at their clubs for a long period but not continuously in the Premier League, the longest serving Premier League manager is Mark Hughes who took over at Stoke four years ago, then next up is Mauricio Pochetino who celebrates three years in charge at Spurs tomorrow.
That shows what the Premier League has become, of all this seasons clubs, only three have managers who have completed the last three seasons fully, Pochettino is the 14th longest serving manager in the entire 92 league clubs.
If Koeman had stayed at Saints this season not only would he be Saints longest serving manager in 26 years he would have been 15 th behind our ex manager at Spurs.
Claude Puel is 53rd in this list.
So that is why the Saints board are looking long and hard at Puel and his future, in the last 8 years since the Liebherr takeover they have craved that stablity and indeed since Cortese left looked for it understanding that is what is needed to give us long term success, but what they have found is that only Arsenal have achieved that and out of the 92 clubs only 3 have managers that have been in place more than 5 years, only 14 with more than three years service from their manager.
So that perhaps illustrates that Saints are not too far removed from the reality of the rest of football, although it has to be said that few clubs have had as many managers as us over the past 26 years.