January 31st
By then we'll have played: West Ham (home, FA Cup), Man City (home), West Brom (home) and Palace (away) plus any possible further FA Cup ties. If we're still deep in the mire after the Palace game then there's no future in debating this. There are 3 opportunities in those 4 games (losing to City with some measure of pride and effort would be acceptable). The game on Tuesday is fairly pivotal to the state of mind of the manager and the players - lose this one and it looks like it may all come crashing down. Get a win or a replay and it's a stay of execution. Get nothing much (lose or draw) against a battling Albion and then fail to beat (presumably an equally battling) Palace and there's nowhere to hide. With games against Liverpool and Chelsea to follow it would be quite likely we would be on the precipice of the bottom 3 come mid February.
So, in summary - for me he's got until the end of January to turn things around.
By then we'll have played: West Ham (home, FA Cup), Man City (home), West Brom (home) and Palace (away) plus any possible further FA Cup ties. If we're still deep in the mire after the Palace game then there's no future in debating this. There are 3 opportunities in those 4 games (losing to City with some measure of pride and effort would be acceptable). The game on Tuesday is fairly pivotal to the state of mind of the manager and the players - lose this one and it looks like it may all come crashing down. Get a win or a replay and it's a stay of execution. Get nothing much (lose or draw) against a battling Albion and then fail to beat (presumably an equally battling) Palace and there's nowhere to hide. With games against Liverpool and Chelsea to follow it would be quite likely we would be on the precipice of the bottom 3 come mid February.
So, in summary - for me he's got until the end of January to turn things around.