Patrick Vieira and a sacking swimming in an ocean of melancholy

The Premier League is the greatest cult in the world, a microclimate of hot air, dependent thought, confused entitlement and pound notes. On Friday morning, hitherto popular member Patrick Vieira disappeared, no questions asked. Who fancies some Kool-Aid?

Crystal Palace’s decision to sack Vieira, who by every reasonable judgment has done a fine job at Selhurst Park, leaves the least pleasant taste since Football Daily drunkenly decided to go toe-to-toe with some mouldy ricotta. Palace have gone 11 games without a win, it’s true, and they are only three points above the relegation places, but all of those matches were against teams in the top 11. This season’s Premier League splits into two tiers, with Palace top of the second, also known as the relegation battle. Twelfth is where they finished last season, too, while reaching an FA Cup semi-final and playing some of the more stylish football seen at Selhurst Park.

“It is with enormous regret that this difficult decision has been made,” wailed the inconsolable Palace chairman Steve Parish. “Ultimately, results in recent months have placed us in a precarious league position and we felt a change is necessary to give us the best chance of retaining Premier League status.”

Yeah, about that. The consensus is that sacking a manager increases the chances of survival. Tell that to the 21 clubs in the past decade who did exactly that and still went down. Watford’s decision to set up a state-of-the-art P45 factory hasn’t exactly been conducive to stability and progress. With the run of fixtures coming up after this weekend’s trip to north London, there was almost no chance Palace would have been relegated under Vieira.

With the recent progress Palace have made on and off the field,