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 !

Photo: Action Images

the_saint added 09:32 - Mar 11 Reed appointed the last two managers so how can it not be his fault, he has sold all our best players ok that might not be his fault as if players want to go or their contracts are running down his hands are tied, black box to get players in to replace leaving ones well bloody scrap that and buy fifa 19 next year. Reed has had the chance to sort this mess but hurried his head in the sand or is it the hockey man. We are in a mess and nobody at the club knows what to do but accept relegation. It’s clear the players aren’t playing for mp. Club rotten to the core yes it is only fans with tinted glasses on think it’s not. But again I go to West Ham and hope and pray something will change. Could be worse though........ no can’t think of anything

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saintmark1976 added 09:44 - Mar 11 I never thought I would say it but I now have some belated admiration for the Dark Lord. At least Rupert Lowe had the strength of character to face the music and didn't hide in China,Switerland or Canada when things went wrong.
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skiptonsaint added 09:56 - Mar 11 Not much to say ...the away fans were pretty restrained I thought yesterday. Just a realisation that we are pawns in a bigger series of events at the club that we don’t understand at the moment due to Mr Gaos silence. Clearly a winning football team is some way down the agenda.
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ashley007 added 10:36 - Mar 11 I agree with above comment, it's not pressing the panic button now, it just time to make a decisive move, which is well beyond when it perhaps should have been made. So Les, please just get on with it NOW!
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SanMarco added 10:58 - Mar 11 That performance has to be it for MP. There are two choices: sack or keep. If we keep him we are down, if we don't we are probably down. I go for probable relegation over certain relegation. It is as simple as that.
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KriSaint added 14:26 - Mar 11 I agree on the criticism of Cedric. His through balls and crosses suck. He NEVER scores. He is physically weaker than most of his opponents. Time to give Pied a chance. Any news of Austins body transplantation and when he will be back?
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BoondockSaint added 16:07 - Mar 11 Agree with Nick: How dare you criticise Les Reed?? In just two years he has rebuilt a floundering mid-table team into a Top Four/Champions League side! You ungrateful Scouse should worship the ground he walks on!! Uh......hang on.......this is the Saints site??? Sorry, my mistake...
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Gobbledegeek added 17:25 - Mar 11 No need to panic - there are still winnable games available. We have the advantage of a better goal difference than most of our rivals. In two or three weeks we might find ourselves challenging for Europe. COYR
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saintfrance added 18:29 - Mar 11 Gobbledegeek if we continue as we have we will no longer have a goal difference to save us. To my mind we lack leadership both on and off the field, there is nobody in the team capable of being a captain/leader, SD is a nice bloke and that is his problem, likewise in the boardroom, WHO is in charge. Ralph-Kat-Gao !!! it appears nobody is or MP would have gone before xmas, if we made a mistake with Puel it has been compounded with Pelligrino, he hasn't a clue about the English game who his best players are or what position to play them in, no wonder they look lost on the pitch.

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SaintBrock added 20:53 - Mar 11 It's all words lost in the wind. We are down of that there is no doubt.
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Jesus_02 added 23:44 - Mar 11 I preferred the "Cortese experiment" Nick ... All that wasted money on average players makes Osvaldo look like great value, hell it make Delgado look good value
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underweststand added 14:00 - Mar 12 If we can sack Claude Puel for getting us to a Wembley final ..and finishing in 8th spot . .. then Pellegrino stands little chance - even if we do survive AND win the FA Cup.
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