I was 12 when we won the FA Cup so saw early success in my early years as a Town fan. How spoilt I was to see Beattie, Wark, Muhren Thijssen et al.

How amazing was it when we beat a second-placed Manchester United 6-0 while also missing two penalties? So many amazing European nights with perhaps the best being the 4-1 win away to St Etienne who with Michel Platini and Johnny Rep were one of the European super-powers at that time.

I’ve enjoyed watching teams managed by Bobby Robson, Joe Royle and George Burley but have seen tough times too especially during the Marcus Evans era.

Paul Cook has delivered League Two titles for Chesterfield and Portsmouth and a League One title for Wigan but performances since he arrived have only been good in parts and results have been mostly dreadful.

I’ll let the happy clappy brigade make the case for the defence but encourage the more pragmatic supporters to ignore the aggressive language they often use against anyone suggesting Cook isn’t the right man for the job. They embarrass themselves with statements like “get out of my club”, “you must be a budgie”, “you’re only an armchair supporter”, and my personal favourite “anyone with any understanding of football will know it takes time for a team to gel”.

The Bobby Robson analogy gets trotted out with every manager who starts in underwhelming fashion and it’s all highly predictable. These people refuse to acknowledge that TWTD is a forum for debate and they want to bully their opinions into general acceptance as if they were fact.

The reasonable majority must continue to debate with good manners and personal insight. Good humour and banter is a great part of football culture but social media spitefulness is already an outdated phenomena and at times on here we see the worst of that.

Many don’t like fans booing and say stuff like we need to get behind the boys like you are a traitor to the club if you dare criticise any player or the manager. You support your team by cheering them for the 90 minutes of the game. If you want to boo at the end then that’s legitimate as your way at the final whistle to communicate your opinion on that performance.

Likewise making a negative comment on TWTD is often lambasted which is part of the happy clappy culture of applauding failure and resisting change.

Most of our fans are amazing. I don’t know any of the Blue Action lads but I see their emergence as a real force for good and over my many years of travelling far and wide with Town it has to be said our away support over recent seasons is the best I have ever known and makes me so proud when we turn in full voice and such great numbers.

When Paul Cook joined Town we were three points off the play-offs. The collective hope was that with his CV he would bridge that gap and we would at least have a crack at promotion. Performances didn’t improve, results were worse but morale was kept high because Mr Demolition Man told us that we would be getting rid of most of the squad and replacing those players with 'Championship' standard alternatives and most of us (including Cook) are delighted with the newly-assembled group.

The backroom staff was also overhauled but some of our fans immediately pointed to a lack of experience in those ranks and no assistant manager was appointed with Leam Richardson taking the chance to manage Wigan.

It's unfortunate to say the least that we’ve been plagued with just as many injuries as last season's crop of players, fitness levels aren’t very impressive (we certainly aren’t executing a high press) and Cook looks short of ideas and with no obvious foil to bounce ideas off (certainly during the game).

Cook is insisting on playing 4-2-3-1 for every game, every opposition, home and away and has been shoe-horning players into that formation rather than adapting the formation according to opposition strengths or the best available starting XI. If that stubbornness had worked we would be singing his name not shaking our heads.

Cook and the happy-clappy brigade say this squad needs time to gel. They all ignore the high numbers of recruits at some of the sides we have faced who Cook then lauds as being very good teams at post-match interviews.

When I look at our squad compared to the teams we have faced I expected 'time to gel' to mean a scrappy 2-1 win rather than a fluent 3-0. I didn’t expect to see us being terrorised by Cheltenham throw-ins, conceding more goals than any other team in the league, and watching Cook bring on Kayden Jackson in two of those games in preference to the newly-acquired alternatives.

Some fans have said they never expected us to get promoted this season but what an appalling lack of ambition that is.

I don’t share Cook’s faith in Lee Evans, the defence looks like it needs a period of playing five at the back (until we stop shipping goals so heavily), Kane Vincent-Young doesn’t seem the player he was before Cook arrived and Woolfy has hardly blossomed. Tomas Holy could have done better than either of the two keepers and several of the new signings are yet to shine.

I’m sure it will all come good but isn’t Cook’s skill meant to be to accelerate that process faster than you or I could manage and also to judge how quickly to introduce new members of the squad to the starting XI? Sam Morsy, Bersant Celina and Kyle Edwards were missing yesterday but to get promoted you need to perform regardless of injuries.

The fixture list has been unbelievably kind to Cook and continues to look pretty favourable for the remainder of Septempber and to the end of October but in November we play Wycombe, Oxford, Sunderland and Rotherham in consecutive games and all are currently shorter priced odds than us to win the league.

We are eighth-favourites to win the title (we were joint-favourites with Sunderland the day before the season started) and we are yet to face a team more highly fancied than us to win the league.

I think now is the time to change Cook and hopefully bring someone in who will leave us as excited as was the case with so many of the summer signings. It has to be a possibility that our owners see it the same way but maybe they might be concerned about the PR damage of ditching Cook too soon.

Chairman Mike O’Leary said Cook was the man the new ownership would have appointed, maybe he is the kingmaker for the time being. Or does the decision lie with Mark Ashton? I imagine the decision is taken by the owners but only after discussion with O’Leary who then works jointly with Ashton in drawing up a list of candidates.

Another notable interested party is Mark Steed, the chief investment officer for the Arizona firefighters whose money we are spending. When news of the takeover first broke he wrote on Twitter “God have mercy on League One, because we won’t. COYB.” I wonder how long he thinks we should wait for the team to gel.

Marcus added 00:10 - Sep 27 I was 3 when we won the Cup, a little young to fully comprehend what it meant, but still a memory I had watching it on TV. It was the whole community spirit furthered with the UEFA Cup win three years later - I remember Bobby bringing it in to my school and we were told not to touch it when it was on the teacher's desk. I suspect I'm not quite the 'woke generation of happy clappers', but I will defend them. Using 'happy clappy' while criticising people who have disagree with your view is disingenuous. You're wrong to assume everyone is super happy with the club just because they are not booing. Consider many realise the young players we have on the field appreciate encouragement more than a knife in the back? A season without fans did offer the opportunity to hear more of what is said on the pitch - between all the swearing it has been common to hear experienced players, in particular captains, talking up the confidence of younger players, especially if they have made a mistake. Most supporters accept part of their role is to be the 12th man and more believe it's better to be a supportive captain than a grumpy fringe player. Time to gel does have limited use. It needs to be quickly replaced with signs of improvement and development. I think September is far too early to hit the panic button, we have the squad Cook has assembled, and that's what we have until the January transfer window. It's therefore reasonable to allow him the chance to show what he can do over the next couple of months, at least. I don't think any of our former chairmen - the Cobbolds, Kerr, Sheepshanks - would be considering replacing someone at this stage in the seasons. It's far too early. What they may be thinking is appointing an assistant, even if it goes against the wishes of the manager, and I hope the current regime don't change the club's way of supporting managers that has held us as a respected team for generations. We've had unprecedented change at the club. Yes, other teams have been busy in the transfer market, however we have also changed owners, CEO and the vast majority of the coaching staff. We also have a number of rejected players still in contract at the club, no doubt some are bouncing off the walls a bit, creating a bit of atmosphere behind the scenes. It's reasonable to accept we're still a work in progress, however it's also reasonable to accept we should have done better against the opposition we've faced.

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Dear_oh_Dear added 23:16 - Sep 28 Game just changed :-0
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FBI added 15:20 - Nov 6 This isn't ageing well, is it?
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