Huddersfield Town comment: Michael Duff went from 16 games unbeaten to sacked in 50 days – Bradford City patience showed the way

But Bradford City held their nerve, stuck with their manager, and are now second in League Two after 13 wins in the following 18 league games. On Friday Graham Alexander was named the division's manager of the month.

Football can be a schizophrenic business, especially in the Football League, where 46 games a season – and the rest – put huge demands on squads. Ebbs and flows are the norm.

Sometimes it needs a strong nerve and clear mind to see the bigger picture and rise above emotions. Stability is the route to long-term success.

When Bradford are outdoing you on that, something is wrong.

Half-an-hour along the M62, Huddersfield Town have also won four of 15 injury-hit matches. On Sunday they sacked head coach Michael Duff.

The tipping point was dropping out of the play-off positions after defeat at Bristol Rovers extended their losing streak to a whole week.

Momentum is going the wrong way but shifts quickly. It is only 50 days since Town’s 16-match unbeaten League One run ended. They are one place and two points outside the play-offs with 30 to play for – or 33 for Charlton Athletic and Bolton Wanderers, a further point behind Stockport.

The football has seldom been sparkling but Huddersfield's 13th manager in 13 years can look at a debilitating injury list and feel unlucky.

Fans of irony might like to note that last Tuesday chairman/owner Kevin Nagle lectured grumpy supporters: "The manager has had one of the longest (unbeaten) runs on record this season. We have to remember that."

By Sunday, the tune changed to: "We’ve had an unprecedented injury situation, particularly recently, but I believe the resources available are capable of more than the four wins we’ve registered in our last 15 games".

At the risk of dragging logic into football, does it make sense to hand someone a three-year contract and sack them for 50 bad days?

Nagle is hungry for promotion this season and has invested to get it. It is why he appointed Duff, a League Two winner with Cheltenham Town, a diving 123rd-minute Josh Windass header from guiding Barnsley to a penalty shoot-out to get out of League One two years ago.

But only three teams can get there, and the amount Birmingham City and Wrexham threw at the challenge led many to believe earlier in the season they had the automatic promotion spots sewn up. Wycombe Wanderers – hardly paupers thanks to American owners – have had other ideas, setting the glass ceiling for the rest at fourth.

Whether you finish third, sixth or anywhere inbetween is only about ego, so long as you win the play-offs.

That now falls to Jon Worthington, a club legend as a player, and a steady hand when winning two of his three games as caretaker last year.

He has already had one piece of fortune Duff could have done with, a blank fortnight brought about by Wycombe's international call-ups to get bodies fit and minds refreshed.

If Huddersfield go up, Nagle will be proven right. But have the odds really improved that much?