Football feels like it is on fast-forward. Events that previously unfolded over weeks, months, and even seasons, are now measured in hours, days, and games.

I remember Mick McCarthy losing his first 11 league matches as Sunderland manager, yet he went on to remain in charge for three years, leading the club to the second tier play-offs, an FA Cup semi-final, and promotion as champions, before eventually being sacked with Premier League relegation all-but rubber-stamped.

An incoming manager surviving 11 successive defeats? Such a scenario would be unthinkable now at any club. Supporters would be calling for the manager’s head 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on social media - which did not exist back in 2003 when McCarthy crash-landed at Sunderland - and it would be impossible to ignore.

The change of pace I mentioned is neatly exemplified by Michael Beale’s first month in charge at Sunderland. Beale’s honeymoon period lasted barely an hour.

Chants of ‘Michael Beale’s red and white army’ in the early minutes of his first game in charge against Coventry City last month were rapidly gave way to fans singing ‘there’s only one Tony Mowbray’ in support of his predecessor, as the Sky Blues cruised to a 3-0 win on Wearside.

Two wins and a draw over Christmas and New Year represented comparative marital bliss. But the cracks began to show after a deeply disappointing display in the FA Cup derby defeat against Newcastle United, exacerbated by the club’s off-field gaffes in the build-up which had nothing to do with Beale but which hardly helped his cause.

Throw in the poor performances in defeats at Ipswich Town and then at home to Hull City, the latter accompanied by chants of ‘sacked in the morning’ and ‘we want Beale out’ and we are not so much at the seven-game itch stage as already heading towards the divorce courts!

Responsibility for results and performances can, of course, be laid squarely at the door of the head coach but there are undoubtedly other factors at play which have fed into and amplified the sense of disenchantment felt by supporters. And, as the man who fronts up to the media before and after each game and who is in the dugout every week, Beale has become the lightning rod for that anger and frustration.

I have already mentioned the disastrous handling of the derby build-up, where the ticketing arrangements - and especially the Black Cats Bar redecor-gate debacle - has damaged the relationship between the fans and owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus.

Then there are the 11 signings brought in by sporting director Kristjaan Speakman last summer. Only two of those, Jobe Bellingham and to a degree Jenson Seelt, have been a success so far, the jury remains out on most of the others, but the four strikers who came in have fallen well short.

And then, of course, there is the matter of the head coach himself. It is not Beale’s fault that Mowbray was sacked.

Nor is it his fault that he is a Londoner with a very different character and footballing background to the man he replaced. But Sunderland fans were baffled by the manner and timing of Mowbray’s sacking, and were then underwhelmed by the appointment of Beale.

He needed to win games to win them over and two victories out of seven has not been enough. The decision to sack Mowbray would have been vindicated if results had improved but that has not been the case. Worse, performances have deteriorated and Sunderland look less of a threat in the final third now than they did in the first half of the season, with the xG figures bearing that out.

At Beale’s introductory press conference, Speakman spoke of an ‘obsession with progression’ and conceded that Mowbray’s sacking was borne not out of a sense that ‘things were going wrong’ but

of ‘where we want to get to, and what is the next step in the evolution of how we want to do that’. Changing head coach when the team is struggling and clearly in need of a change is one thing; doing so when it is heading in broadly the right direction risks looking like hubris.

When Mowbray departed with 19 games gone, Sunderland were three points ahead of where they were at the same stage last season and had scored five additional goals; today they are a point behind where they were after 28 games last season and have scored four fewer goals.

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That is not progression, but regression.

How long Beale survives will ultimately depend on whether - and how quickly - he can deliver results. But, whatever the mood on the terraces, for now he can at least count on the backing of the boardroom.

In the current febrile climate, publicly and humiliatingly admitting to another high-profile failure would be an absolute last resort.