Stephen O'Donnell isn’t pulling up trees in his first season in management, but the whole year is a trainwreck so a bit of perspective is required.
St Pat’s are struggling and travel to Derry City this evening without a win in their last five matches in all competitions.
They also haven’t scored in any of those games and sit third from bottom, just four points off automatic relegation.
It makes grim reading for the 34-year-old ex-midfielder who won six league titles as a player but is still finding his feet on the other side of the fence.
I’ve heard some Saints fans questioning the appointment after the fact. They’re wondering where they are headed under his watch and I get that.
But it wasn’t long ago that Shamrock Rovers fans were calling for Stephen Bradley - who is one year older than Stevie - to be sacked and look where they are now.
You can’t fart in football these days without it being analysed to death. It’s the culture we live in and people don’t get time.
Dundalk’s change of manager was ridiculous and so too was the commentary around Stephen Kenny after two games.
Stephen O’Donnell is a young manager and I’m convinced he can put the club on the right track if the people above him show patience and ambition.
St Pat’s problems are deep rooted and go way beyond a first-team manager trying to turn the club around.
As long as I’ve been in the league, St Pat’s have always had great potential.
The trouble is they never fulfilled it, or at least not since their greats days in the 90s with the likes of Brian Kerr, Eddie Gormley and Paul Osam.
They haven’t moved on and that’s surprising because they were once such a progressive club.
For instance, they deserved huge credit when they built the all-seater stand and large dressing rooms at Richmond. It was unheard of at the time but that showed ambition.
They were probably hindered by the fact nobody else was doing it, but now they have to find their feet again.
Recently, they have struggled to generate a larger and more consistent fan base.
You look at what Bohs have achieved in their community and you wonder why St Pats have fallen short in that regard.
The club was rocking under Pat Dolan. Whether or not you agreed with everything he said, he generated positivity and the club had an identity.
Now, St Pat’s seems broken. They could be so much more and it’ll take more than a managerial change to fix it.
On the pitch, let Stevie get on with it because I think he’ll come good.
They have the basis of a good team, but the mentality around the whole club is wrong and it’s been that way for years.
Yes, they won the league in 2013 and followed up with an FAI Cup in 2014 but that was a 12-month spike and they didn’t build on it.
But judging a manager - especially a young one - on a reduced 18-game, stop-start season in the middle of a global pandemic is madness.
Turbulent off-season lies ahead
COVID is testing us all in every walk of life, and I expect it to hit the League of Ireland again during the off-season.
I’d be surprised if there aren’t a spate of retirements.
We saw the rigmarole that clubs went through just to get the current season up and running in its reduced format.
But whatever about planning for the rest of this year, clubs haven’t a clue how next season is going to pan out financially.
And because of that, I’d be surprised if they’ll be firing out contracts this winter.
Players who are not already tied down will be left in limbo and I’d imagine some will consider their future in the game.
There’s no long-term security in Irish football so players reach a point where they have to hang up their boots and find a career.
It was the same 10 years ago when the economic crash hit. The salaries in football fell off a cliff almost overnight.
I was towards the end of my career and made a decision to retire earlier than I would have liked, but it was the best thing I’ve ever done.
Players have to do what’s best for them, because nobody will do it for them. Clubs won’t think twice about showing them the door.
Right now, we live in a very confusing world and people don’t need any more instability in their lives.
There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t mean to sound overly negative but it’s just a fact.
We’re seven months into this pandemic and anyone who says there’s a ray of hope on the horizon is lying because they just don’t know.
Players who were already weighing up their future are likely to have their mind made up for them. They need something stable and who can blame them.
