Is it ‘time up’ for Paul Ince at Blackburn?

It is sad to see it but Blackburn manager Paul Ince must be on borrowed time. His side’s very poor performance in their 3-0 defeat at Wigan yesterday must have raised the possibility that his chairman will decide that enough is enough.

Overwhelming

In my opinion, to get rid of Ince at this stage would be wrong. He deserves longer to prove himself and show that he can turn things around but the pressure on the Chairman to make a change is becoming overwhelming. It is ridiculous that just seventeen games into a managerial tenure there is a very real possibility of it coming to an end, but that is the life of a manager in the modern game.

Blackburn Rovers are one place off the bottom of the table and yesterday slipped to being five points away from safety. That might not sound like too much, but when you have lost six games in a row and have only won three all season, five points begins to look like a mountain to climb.

Lives on the line

In truth, watching Blackburn yesterday, it is difficult to see where their next point is coming from. We are led to believe that Paul Ince hasn’t lost the dressing room and that the players are 100% behind him. Knowing that his job is under threat, the players who took to the field yesterday didn’t look as though they were laying their lives on the line to save him.

Ince sounded a little desperate after the game and who could blame him? He had just seen his players produce an abject performance that saw them concede twice in the opening quarter of an hour.

“There is no point in the players feeling sorry for themselves. They have just go to keep believing. We felt we could not only get something out of the game but win it. Everyone was buzzing in the changing room and then with twelve minutes gone we are 2-0 down and the game was gone. What can you do? It is no good improving in the second half. It doesn’t do anything. I’m very disappointed with the players. We are hurting at this moment in time.”

The Blackburn fans have remained supportive of Ince on the whole but some of them turned on him and his players yesterday. Ince fully understood why they did so.

“We let our fans down. Obviously they are going to voice their frustration as anyone would, and rightly so because we let them down. They are going to voice their opinion.”

It is now getting close to decision time for Blackburn Chairman John Williams. Does he stand by the man that he chose for the job just four months ago and support him in his efforts to turn things around? He knows that for Blackburn, relegation could mean disaster, as it could for so many clubs. You only have to look at the bottom half of the Championship to see Charlton, Nottingham Forest, Southampton, Norwich, Barnsley, Derby, Watford and Coventry to see what can happen if you go down. You can add the likes of Leeds and Leicester, who have slipped even further.

Stick with him

The question for John Williams and his board is what is the best way to stop that happening to Blackburn? Stick with and support the man in the job, or bring in someone new?

I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision. My heart would say stick with Ince but my head would be telling me that things have gone too far after watching yesterday’s debacle. It really is a tough call.

Safety

Blackburn’s next seven games are against Stoke, Sunderland, Manchester City, Fulham, Newcastle, Bolton and Middlesbrough.. Out of those teams only Fulham are in the top half of the table and they are only tenth. This is a crucial run of games for the club and they must pick up enough points in them to take them to safety.

Can Paul Ince turn things around quickly enough to ensure that the side can start to pick up points in these ‘must not lose’ games?

Success

My personal fear is that he won’t be able to. I hope he is given the chance to do so and I hope he succeeds. He is a very promising young English manager and it would be great to see him go on to be a huge success.

Having said that, in the current circumstances, John Williams will be a very brave man if he doesn’t make a change.