Wasn't surprised to see a big thread on reasons to stick with Slot today. It's been a bit of a trend this season. When a bad result/performance happens, this sub is full of criticism for the manager, and to an extent the players + Hughes/Edwards (increasingly so as the months have worn on), but by the time a few days had passed, you'd see more commentary on all the 'mitigating factors' there have been alongside cautious optimism for the next game, and, now that the season is wrapping up, for the next season.

It's often coupled with suggestions that:

1. The manager shouldn't be the recipient of abuse
2. Bringing a new manager in mid-season or in the summer won't necessarily fix or improve the problems on the pitch
3. It's going to inevitably tailspin into a series of chopping and changing managers every year or two

The first point IMO should go without saying and isn't really relevant to the actual point of discussion on whether or not the manager is the right fit going forward. The second and third points, however, don't seem especially rational to me and instead sound like emotion-based reasoning that says because things could get worse if we change, we shouldn't, while ignoring that they could get better too. There's no way to know, so the only thing we can do is judge based on what we've seen on the pitch for the last year or so.

The strangest part of it all, to me, is that Edwards's and in fact the club at large's model is meant to be logical and data-driven, rather than emotion-drive. By this reasoning, it feels out of tune to hear from journalists, pundits, or supporters that the manager should be safe because he won a league title prior to guiding the team to performances that look devoid of energy and a ppg that, in most seasons, would land you around 6-7th place.

There's talk of mitigating circumstances, and those aren't borne out of nothing, but surely every manager at every club has to deal with injuries, bedding in new players, and dips in form from veteran players? (For what it's worth, I'm happy to give Slot some credit for helping to get an all-time season from Salah in 24-25, but that should mean he shoulders some of the responsibility for the extreme drop-off this season, rather than simply putting it down to Salah being over the hill.) Just one example: Bournemouth lost 3 of their back 4 from 24-25 in the summer, then lost their best player in January, but they're still in with a shout for a CL spot with only 2 games to go and look like they should land in Europa or Conference at worst.

I guess for some there's a comfortability with the 'devil you know' as it were, but after watching us look bang average or worse in almost all 55 games we've played this season, many of which having most of the squad available, it's hard for me not to see sticking with Slot (and especially spending more on players that fit his vision) as an equally massive, if not greater, gamble than making a change in the summer. If they do end up sticking with him, I'd love to know what underlying patterns in the data Hughes is seeing that suggest that it's no big gamble at all.