It would have been thematic with other exchanges on here plus I really hate the usage of extremes, especially when subtlety has been deliberately used, so I am often aggressively dismissive of them.

I recognise the gamble of discarding/replacing Roy. Equally, I recognise and would also be inclined to believe that the limited resource he has to work with is the primary issue too. I am also happy to concede that changing manager could be as disastrous as it could be revolutionary for us.

At this stage however I would be willing to take the gamble. That's just my stance, I'm not saying it is correct nor that others should be aligned with me on it.

My ideal situation is 4/5 points from the next three, perhaps a signing or two, and a smoother and more optimistic road ahead, with Roy. I'm not hugely confident of this however and am braced for us further sliding downhill.

I am more confident of Roy being shifted than I am of all our players returning and staying fit and/or us signing a winger, central midfielder and full back(s) to strengthen our depleted first team.

Precisely.

Of course, what we don't know is what (if anything) is happening behind the scenes. Parish famously sacked De Boer in record time, and didn't give very long at all to Warnock, either, but yet he doesn't have a 'trigger-happy' reputation particularly.

I think that is because, in the case of FDB it soon became apparent that the manager's methods were all awfully wrong, and that in the case of Warnock, he just wasn't up to the job at that level (something his career has proved).

I think that is part and parcel of SP being in the building - the decisions to sack the manager are not taken on the basis of runs of results and form alone, as they would be with an absentee owner. I imagine Parish speaks with people, gets the vibe, and to some extent listens to his key staff (the players).

We don't know if Vieria got the boot partly because of Parish's sense of relationships behind the scenes (it is rumoured, though who knows?). One thing for sure, twice Parish has turned to Roy to take over and steady the ship, on about four occasions he has given him a new contract when perhaps it was not obvious that he would, so he must trust the way he runs things.

Thats not certain to protect Roy from the chop of course, but it might be a key difference between Roy and those who got the chop.

Warnock was appointed 2 games into the season with the team 19th on 0 pts.
He lasted 16 PL games and when he departed the team were 18th on 15 pts.
After 2 games under Interim Manager Keith Millen, Pardew was appointed with the team 18th on 17 pts.
We ended the season in 10th place.

No doubt about it - Roy does exactly what he says on the tin!

Regards your final paragraph, I think this is where I am a little at odds with one or two in this conversation.

For me, recognising that one is bored, dissatisfied, frustrated, or fearful of what might next occur in any particular situation is only the first part of the process. The second part is having some sort of idea (even only in very vague terms) of a better alternative, and establishing that it seems at least feasible. I feel like, generally speaking, far too many people speak very clearly and convincingly on the first element, but seem not even to have given thought to the second (not true in every case, of course).

Changing a manager isn't just a gamble - it's a strategic decision. The normal way to plot a course through the decision is to think about where one wants to end up, whether it would be better, and if it could be possible.

All of which leads me back to my original point - I just don't see that we have the players to play noticeably better football very often. I think that when we occasionally do play nice stuff it is form, not method, and there is a good reason why nobody has managed, in a decade, to do anything much better than we have seen this season.

I get the urge to change (Christ knows I've had enough of the Premier League version of football generally myself, and find this ten year stay at the top has actually done more to kill my love of supporting Palace than anything) but that's me just seeing the problem, and not considering a viable solution.

I think that is part and parcel of SP being in the building - the decisions to sack the manager are not taken on the basis of runs of results and form alone, as they would be with an absentee owner. I imagine Parish speaks with people, gets the vibe, and to some extent listens to his key staff (the players).

Like him or not I believe that Simon Jordan was correct when he said that chairmen should not speak to players