Farewell No. 6, your time is up

Chris Powell, Jose Riga, Bob Peeters, Guy Luzon, Karel Fraye, Jose Riga. Six managers in two years and the Jungle Drums are suggesting we may be about to appoint No. 7 assuming Jose Riga says farewell after Saturday's end-of-season ritual humiliation.

Jose Riga's speech at Sunday's Player of the Year Dinner (sic) was regarded by many as a goodbye one and The Times has run with a piece today saying he is expected to depart once again. The bottom-line, of course, is that relegation is the ultimate football failure and invariably calls for a change of manager, particularly if the club is about to suffer a significant change of playing staff. Ironically, there are clubs, like Burnley (and indeed ourselves back in the day) who decide to hold on to what they have and to gamble. If we are honest, not only is that unrealistic given the ambitions of our better players but it's also a commercial imperative given the end game of break even and the tumultuous hole in finances that Katrien Meire has caused through the alienation of the club's supporters and her short-sighted and short-termism management decision-making. 

So, Jose, you leave us once again where I don't believe any of our fair-minded fans would really say anything negative about you. You showed our club and it's supporters the appropriate respect and you did your best. I think you got as much from the players available as might have been expected. Decisions like Sanogo didn't ultimately work out but you did it once before against all the odds and you were brave enough to try again. If you have been brought in six weeks earlier you may have just done it but the pig-headinesses of Duchatelet trying to prove, once again, that he knows best cost us in the end. 

You will always be welcome back in SE7 - a decent man who spoke his mind and respected those around him. The handsome man in the grey suit.

Having said all that, a more experienced manager with appropriate Championship grounding, like Neil Warnock, might have managed what Riga failed to do. If you can do it with Rotherham's squad, it should have been even easier with ours, although there's no accounting for interference from those unqualified to do so or for the poisoned barrel in which Riga was operating. Neil Warnock might well have called a few things out and walked off. 

So, what next? Will Douchebag admit defeat and allow Katrien and the former-Receptionist to appoint the sort of manager the fans have been screaming out for, or will Geppeto insist on yet another Flemish speaker so there's no room for miscommunication of orders?