There are many who damned Mauricio Pellegrino five months ago, there are some that where prepared to give him little bit more time, most are agreed now though that his time is up, he has had all his chances.
The defeat at Newcastle looked very familiar, how could a side that had 63% possession lose a game by three goals ?
The fact now seems to be that we have tried everything to arrest the slow decline this season, there is only one more thing to change and it needs to be done.
There are some who will use losing a few football games to decide that everything is rotten within the club, that is far from the truth, however the buck stops with Les Reed.
To be honest Reed has got a lot of unfair press and must feel a little agrieved at how littl credit the fans have given him especially over the last four seasons, yes he is not the most peronable media friendly of people, but that is not what he is here for, he is here to do a job and most of that job he has done well.
He is not the first director of football to get a managerial appointment wrong, to be honest more Premier League clus in a season actually admit that is a season by sacking their manager than those who keep them, but the trick for any DOF is to know when enough is enough and this season Reed does not seem to be able to do that.
I can understand why Reed did not sack Mauricio Pellegrino a month ago, the signs were there that we could pull clear, if we had beaten Stoke & Newcastle we would have been 12th this evening, but here we are and we are not.
The deafeat at St James Park was very familiar as I have said, we have watched it countless times, a side poorly motivated and with predicatable tactics getting the same result.
Even the most fair minded Saints fan has now had enough, to be blunt the side at Newcastle could not have performed with less passion, less organisation or less motivation if they had tried and they were a team that did not look like they were trying too hard.
There seemed to be no managerial input, they are no longer being managed, Pellegrino appears to be little more than a car park attendant, pointing cars in the right direction, there is no other input.
If you has sat 18 players in that dressing room and 2.30pm this afternoon and slid the team sheet under the dressing room door with the starting XI on it and the instruction to get on with it an they would not have performed any worse than they did today.
Sorry Mr Pellegrino but you have had your chance and have not taken it, you have to go, change is needed and sadly it is any change, it needs to be someone different, anyone different, anyone at all.
In the case of Les Reed he is about to blow 8 years of hard work in one fould swoop, in one season he is about to destroy something that he has worked on since 2010, something that he has had little credit for from the supporter base, but are who are about to pin all the blame on him.
Reed now needs to lead from the front, he needs to change the manager and he needs to change him fast, two games ago perhaps Pellegrino could have changed things, such s football he might just have had the best season in the Club's history, but that chance is now too finely balanced to keep gambling on him that he might.
The fans have lost faith, it seems today that so have a fair few of the players, he has lost the dressing room, he needs to go now, Les Reed however still has a chance to make this a great season for the club, but he needs to be decisive, he has gambled on Pellegrino, but like online betting sometimes you have to cash in before you lose all your stake and that is the choice for Les Reed, sometimes you have to hold em and somtimes you have to fold em.
Now is not the time to do nothing, press the panic button Les !