Richie Barker has departed Portsmouth Football Club via "mutual consent" with Andy Awford handed the manager's job until the end of the season.
Assistant manager Anthony Williams has also left with Paul Hardyman and Alan McLoughlin taking that role until the season has finished. Steve Coppell has also relinquished his director of football role at Pompey, which is hardly unsurprising.
It may have taken some time, but I believe the board has made the right decision. Barker had lost the support of the board, the fans, and most probably his players after he continued to criticise them in the press whilst refusing to take any blame for some of the terrible results under his management.
His rapport with the Pompey fans was poor and his attitude towards everyone associated with the club, whether it be swearing at supporters or arrogantly dismissing threats of the sack, meant that he was always going to struggle to win everyone over whilst his own team wasn't performing.
The statistics say it all. Twenty games in charge yielded just four victories (all painfully difficult-to-watch and barely deserved 1-0 wins), eight (bore) draws and eight defeats. To score just eleven goals in that time was simply unacceptable even if the defence had tightened up for a spell.
Barker's style of football was absolutely dreadful to watch. The performances at Southend and Chesterfield were the only games fans could walk away and say they had been entertained and deserved more than the result in those games. The other eighteen games were dross and that must have been a factor in the board's decision to relieve Barker of his duties.
Andy Awford steps into the breach once again and his first task will be to recruit loan players before the window slams shut at 5pm. Jamie O'Hara has been linked with a "sensational" return to Fratton Park having hardly played for Wolves but surely his wages would be too high?
Awfs may well get his team to go back to basics and at least he will have the backing of all Pompey fans for the seven "cup finals" which will determine the fate of our football club. If he fails to keep Portsmouth in the league then he will shoulder little blame.
The board have done the right thing in disposing of Barker but it is cruical they get the next permanent appointment right. However, for now, we need to get behind the team with Pompey's Football League status in the balance.