Been thinking about this, and some of the material posted on well renowned and well informed sources such as Wilder's Army Not For Snowflakes, and it appears the knives are well and truly out for Wilder, to the extent that some clearly would love to see us get hammered just so they can put forward their own agenda of hammering Wilder and the players.
I really feel for Wilder and the players at this moment in time. He hasn't become a bad manager overnight and these haven't become bad players overnight either.
We are struggling more than most without the fans in. We have struggled missing key players through injury and Henderson having gone back to Manchester United
Our biggest summer signing is a talented young player with bags of ability and potential but needs time to grow and develop, which we haven't got.
I can't even remember an injury effecting us as badly as we are missing JOC. He was the fulcrum and heartbeat of the team, executed his role to perfection and didn't look out of place in the PL. He is very, very hard to replace.
After everything Wilder has done for us since 2016, we deserve to back him, allow him to make his own decisions and arrest the slide, and if we go down, we go down with him as we will come back up with him.
I think it's a bit unfair to depict all of the fans that think Wilder's time might be up as "having the knives out" or of maybe forgetting everything he's done for us, or even as thinking he's become a bad manager overnight.
I'm none of those things.
The reality for me is that I think he looks defeated, completely out of ideas. That his confidence in his own ability is completely knocked. I don't think he's a busted flush, far from it, but he looks like someone that needs a little break from the game.
One of my main reasons for really liking Wilder (particularly post-Adkins) was his ability to call things as he saw them and it usually alignied with the views of the fans. Straight talking, no nonsense...
Now when I listen to him, he sounds completely delusional, stubborn & at times a little unprofessional.
He goes on about his precious system and buying players to fit it, but it's astounding to me that he can't see that it no longer works. The players have no idea what they're doing. We look completely disjointed and unable to get a foothold.
I also think this is rubbing off on the players and I can see that we're getting progressively worse.
Unbelievably, it already looks too late for us to survive this season. So I don't think sacking him can "save our season."
However, I also don't subscribe to the theory that we should just stick with Wilder no matter what. That he's definitely the best man for next seasons promotion push, regardless of what happens this season.
If we continue on our current trajectory (& I'm talking about performances now, as the results can't get any worse) then I don't think we can just stand by him. We're being embarrassed in matches. Unable to string a few passes together. We're not getting hammered on the scorecards most weeks because we're literally just playing at damage limitation, unadventurous, poor.
Behind the scenes that won't be doing any of the lads any good and I don't think you can just flick a switch and expect everything to be better in the Championship.
Chabuddy G made the case for Eddie Howe. Quite honestly, if we could get someone of that caliber then I would probably advise us to go for it at this stage.
