This is the hardest pro-Sam Allardyce blog I've ever had to write ...

... and I’ve written a few. Prior to Christmas I was arguing solely with those who never wanted Sam as manager. Four matches and one solitary point later, many of those who shared my support of the big man say enough is enough.

I sympathise. The only match of the four I attended was the 3-3 draw with West Bromich Albion. To see the team throw away the lead not once but twice was not what I signed up to as a supporter of Allardyce. Life under him was supposed to be about killing the game. If I’d wanted to watch such lily-livered defending I would have given my backing to Avram.

There was something incredibly spineless about the players wilting as West Brom walked their way through them within moments of us retaking the lead. Turning a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 victory could have been the spur for another great escape. Surrendering the lead once again felt like waving a white flag. The Fulham match compounded that feeling of hopelessness.

Allardyce’s mistakes have been plentiful.

His persistence with Kevin Nolan is frustrating because his reasons for doing so are so transparent. A refusal to drop a player he has managed since 1999 is a refusal to break his strongest link to the rest of the team. Nolan represents the manager on the pitch and to leave his captain on the bench would be for Allardyce to demote himself.

Sadly, Nolan has not been able to cut it in the Premier League. He deserves praise for his goals and leadership in the Championship but in the top flight fans have witnessed a player out of his depth. On Saturday’s Match of the Day, Alan Hansen decided to put together a montage to demonstrate Nolan’s effectiveness. It was a bizarre piece of analysis which included Nolan missing the opportunity to make a straightforward pass. Hansen’s point seemed to be that at least he was there. A fitting epitaph perhaps: Kevin Nolan – he was just sort of there.

Another flaw of Allardyce’s is his preference for putting square pegs in round holes rather than dropping the supposedly better players. This season Mohamed Diame has got lost on the right of midfield, George McCartney and Joey O’Brien have been left exposed in the centre of defence, while numerous games have been played without a striker.

Why? Because a significant number of the first-team squad – Elliot Lee, Pelly Ruddock, Leo Chambers, George Moncur, Dan Potts, Mladen Petric (before he was released) – are not deemed good enough to start a Premier League match even when the squad is so blighted by injuries. That’s a hell of a lot of players to carry in the squad for no discernible purpose.

Don’t have faith in the youngsters, Sam? Then don’t keep them on the payroll.

And I haven’t even mentioned the massive balls up that was blowing the entire transfer budget on an injury-prone striker and another player who should have been a back-up for the aforementioned striker, but wasn’t.

So why, then, am I part of the 44% (according to a KUMB poll at the time of writing) who believe sacking Allardyce would be the wrong thing to do? In short, because I think he will sort it out.

With even just half of the injured players – Andy Carroll, Ravel Morrison, Winston Reid, James Collins, James Tomkins – fit again and with a couple of new signings, we will be a much better team, superior to most of the bottom-half clubs. We were poorly prepared for this spate of injuries but even with a starting XI barely worthy of the Premier League, we are still picking up points and being only narrowly beaten.

There are still 18 games and 54 points to play for.

Many people are pointing to the upturn in fortune of teams that have changed their manager – Fulham, Sunderland, Crystal Palace, West Brom. In the short term, they have had a bounce, as is often the case, but that’s very different to being able to sustain that form over the rest of the season. On Wednesday, Sunderland and Crystal Palace both failed to win their home matches against Aston Villa and Norwich – the sort of results that in West Ham’s case would add to the number of fans calling for Sam’s head.

If only because of the large number of teams that have pressed the panic button, it is inevitable that one, two or even all three of the relegated teams will be clubs that have changed managers. Sacking the boss is not the panacea that Vincent Tan would have you believe.

Unless you have a genuinely excellent alternative lined up – which we don’t – then there’s much to be said for sticking with a man who in nine Premier League seasons has never been relegated, despite having managed the sort of clubs prone to the drop.

His success is not down to good luck in the same way our poor season to date has not been down to bad luck. Bad decisions have been made, but the worst one of all would be to ditch a manager who in his first two seasons in charge turned the fortunes of this club on its head. It’s not about loyalty, it’s about putting faith in the man with the expertise to clear up the mess he's made.