Swindon Town could wait no longer and pulled the trigger after just 13 games on Mark Kennedy and are moving in another direction.

After waiting 136 days and essentially writing off more or less half of last season to appoint Kennedy at the end of May, talk of a long-term project and getting away from the churn of players and managers, his reign lasted 150 days.

Two wins, 90th place in the EFL, and a fan base rapidly turning even more sour than the Toxic Waste sweet it already started as made this a very difficult position.

Five permanent managers and a long-term interim one into the Clem Morfuni era placed the club between a rock and a hard place. You simply cannot keep chopping and changing, throwing continuity to the wind and expecting that five-card trick to blow back at you – but how can you persist with something if you know it is wrong?

For a 30-minute period at Cheltenham Town and 45 minutes against Newport County, this thing felt like it might have legs but there were many afternoons that begged to differ. The style of play that Kennedy saw and the developments he spoke of were not as obvious to those in the stands and evidently in the boardroom.

Some lessons from last season did seem to have been learned over the summer, recruiting a more defensive-minded manager and experienced players. But none of it seemed to fully fit. This team didn’t have the frequent potential to devastate teams in attack like they did at the start of last season and whilst Kennedy fixed the defensive fundamentals, the leaks in the pipes seemed to remain. Being a team which has to grind out results because they don’t score with frequency is tough when you are prone to coughing up cheap goals.

The results Kennedy achieved were never going to win people over but the fans never identified with the way that he presented himself. I often understood his points about where things were better than they appeared but that feeling never seemed to get beyond the press room. The message that people never connected with was the only thing at the club that remained consistent and it went beyond just being a new pair of shoes, they simply didn’t fit.

Appointing a replacement was tough enough in the summer with a fanbase openly communicating their dissatisfaction through TrustSTFC and season ticket purchases, the club having faced two EFL charges, and a general downward trend of league finishes. This one is going to be even tougher as this has confirmed the job is one of the EFL’s most poisoned chalices.

The realisation I have had is that there is only one important quality that this next appointment needs and that is charisma and an ability to galvanise.

If the plan is to keep the money on the pitch and drive improvements from there then the next boss must win hearts and minds as well as football matches and contrary to what Henry Kissinger thought, that is easier when you don’t Napalm the locals.

Richie Wellens was not a lauded appointment and his first season was hardly a rip-roaring success on the pitch - but you always knew there was something about him, something to believe in. That quality is what is needed again.

The culture is what doesn’t work anymore. Tumbling crowds sit there numb to the pain of two-and-a-bit years, grumbling about a regime they don’t trust any more but not sure what to do about it. Can just one person change all that? I don’t know but this move implies the club think so.