[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Jeff Astle outjumps Marvin Hinton, watched by Chelsea inside-forward Terry Venables, 2nd October 1965

A fortnight on from yet another unacceptable and frankly unsurvivable performance and result, and still the pantomime of Pulis's tenure grinds on to what now seems an inevitable conclusion. As Albion face Chelsea at home on Saturday we're in essentially the same boat as in the game against Man City, albeit in a worse position in the table. There's a nasty sense that John Williams is keeping his fingers crossed for a scrappy 1-0 win somewhere along the line to keep Pulis on board, but the discontent among fans is slowly reaching Gould/Talbot levels, and it's almost unanimous. To put it simply, if Pulis manages to keep his job through the winter it's going to get ugly.

For the sake of our Premier League status, that scrappy 1-0 win would be welcome. But in the long term, it might just prolong the agony of what's been for some time now an utterly untenable position.

Laurie Cunningham goes for goal against Chelsea on the opening day of the season, 20th August 1977