Veteran firefighter Neil Warnock takes on another rescue mission with struggling Middlesbrough

“Jonathan has my full support. Jonathan is not the problem. He is dedicated to this football club and has a vision for a style and approach that we all endorse,” said Boro chairman Steve Gibson 114 days ago.

One draw, one win and one loss later, Gibson sacked him as head coach and appointed Neil Warnock.

When Woodgate was unveiled a year and nine days ago, Gibson said: “When we talk about the style of play, we’re totally aligned.”

Many Riverside regulars had tired of Tony Pulis’ pragmatic approach, and appointing the then-39-year-old was all about that. In turning to Warnock, Boro have zig-zagged back.

That is not to say Warnock is a bad choice, far from it. No managerial appointment comes with guarantees but when the over-riding goal is keeping Boro out of a division they have not been in since 1987, Warnock is a safer bet than most.

Some love him and his methods, some hate them but few English fans are indifferent. In the Football League, they usually work, which is why he is in the League Manager’s Association’s hall of fame.

One panic-inducing defeat at home to Swansea City was all it took to change course. Fan pressure could not be blamed with the terraces empty, this was a chairman with a well-earned reputation as one of the best thanks in no small part to the patience he historically shows his managers spooked by a dreadful performance.

Of all the English teams returning from the coronavirus pause, only Burnley, at Manchester City, suffered a heavier defeat first up. Boro’s could have been on the same 5-0 scale had two early Swansea efforts gone in rather than hitting the post.

As alarms go, it was a pretty frightening one, and Gibson clearly heeded it.

“One thing we’re going to have to be is patient,” he warned on Woodgate’s first day, but it ran out yesterday morning.

Saturday’s 3-0 loss dropped Middlesbrough to within two goals’ difference of the Championship relegation zone with eight matches to play. Perhaps Woodgate’s response was most worrying. After three months to plan a game originally scheduled for March 14, he reflected: “We need to go back to the drawing board.”

But Gibson had also had plenty of thinking time – and 40 games, nine won and 16 lost – to assess his “hunch” in appointing Woodgate, and sticking with him in lockdown suggested he was clear in his mind. Woodgate had survived two 10-match winless streaks in the Championship. His side looked utterly bereft in November’s 4-0 defeat at Elland Road, prompting rumours Warnock would be installed then, but responded with one defeat in the following nine matches before the next slump. His constant changes of tactics could be seen as a man flailing about for a solution, or flexibility. By giving his “full support”, Gibson appeared to have come down on the latter side.

Gibson has always been patient, unafraid of loyalty and bold appointments, giving Bryan Robson, Aitor Karanka and future England managers Steve McClaren and Gareth Southgate first managerial jobs. Even now his support remains to a degree, keeping Woodgate at the club whilst relieving him of running the first team.

It was not hard to feel sorry for Woodgate, who took over as Boro were cutting their cloth after losing their Premier League relegation parachute – some would say because of it. Boro sold goalkeeper Darren Randolph in January and Patrick Roberts, the No 10 Woodgate loaned from Manchester City to provide much-needed creativity, soon picked up a hamstring injury.

Losing his best defender, Daniel Ayala, was difficult too, but at least Woodgate stuck to his principles by telling the centre-back to stay away for the final weeks of his contract when his attitude became a problem.

He did, however, compound the issue of his inexperience by appointing an equally green assistant in Robbie Keane.

Warnock football will not be for the purists. It will be hard-nosed and rely heavily on the senior members of his squad if history is anything to go by. A 71-year-old with a long and successful cv would be daft to reinvent the wheel now, and he is certainly not that.

At least swapping managers before Woodgate properly put his imprint on the squad means Warnock will inherit plenty of players Pulis signed for their suitability for the jobs he will require too. And he faced tougher than this pulling Rotherham United out of the mire in 2016.

The boyhood Blade’s big finale has been beautifully set up at Hillsborough. Sheffield Wednesday have twice relegated Boro but with a verdict on their misconduct charge expected before then, the tables could even be turned. All he will be sorry about is there will be no Owls fans to boo him into retirement, if this is the final hurrah for a man addicted to management.

But when the season is over, Gibson will need a long, hard think about what direction he wants his club to go in.

Whatever he decides may not be as set in stone as it appeared last summer. Principles are all well and good in football, but pragmatism has a nasty habit of getting in the way.

It makes the stability success is usually built on very hard to achieve.