As Lady Bracknell might have said, "To lose one striker, Mr Hinshelwood, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness."

Quite how she would have responded to the knowledge that we'd also lost a goalkeeper is probably unprintable.

In the week when Paul Kitson added his hamstring injury to Bobby's ligament damage, the loss of the former Dutch Marine adds to the list of things that really shouldn't happen to a football manager during his first month in the job.

Hinsh knew it was never going to be easy but it's an awful lot easier to be gung-ho before the event.

At the Fans' Forum earlier this month, he was confident he could deal with the inevitable demands for his head on a pole as soon as the Albion gave away their first corner.

Unfortunately, they've given rather more than a corner away in the last three matches and the pessimists are gathering and muttering like Old Testament prophets of doom.

The internet always provides an ideal opportunity for predicting the worst and after Monday's game against Walsall it was no surprise to see a cheery message headed "We're Going Down and We Might as Well Accept It", posted on one of the Albion message forums.

This, in direct contrast to earlier messages proclaiming "It's Gonna Be Three In A Row!" posted just before the season started.

The reality is probably somewhere between the two, although ironically, another back-to-back championship would be the worst of all financial news for a team still playing at Withdean.

Assuming that relegation is a done deal this early in the season is just plain daft, but the team's performance over this Weekend of Discontent has got to ring warning bells. Not least about the need to turn out a Division One quality team to survive at this level.

From the brief conversational encounters I've had with Hinsh, he strikes me as a thoroughly decent sort of bloke but this very decency may make his job all the harder. Particularly if he has to made hard choices about players who have given their all over the last two Championship winning seasons.

I'd never question Micky Adams's integrity but he was nobody's Mr Nice Guy when tough decisions were necessary and while his particular brand of public relations owed more to the hitman than the spin doctor, he did what had to be done. The results speak for themselves.

Dick Knight is no pussy cat either and he's currently in the firing line for not opening his bottomless purse so that Hinsh can buy a whole new "ready to assemble" Division One team.

But even if the money were there, would it guarantee success? Even the manager with a bottomless purse is still waiting to reap the benefits from his £30m investment in Rio Ferdinand.

It's worth considering the effect on any other Division One team if they lost both strikers and a goalkeeper.

Is it realistic to expect that they have top quality substitutes prepared to sit on the subs bench week after week? Or is it more realistic to expect that the effect would be pretty devastating and not bode well for the immediate future?

There's no doubt that somebody has some difficult decisions to make and that wallet opening is necessary but losing all confidence in Hinsh and the Board at the moment isn't the best way to get behind the team.

At least Dick Knight is a visible presence and does actually read the mood of the moment. He might disagree with it and he might not always disagree gracefully.

But he doesn't address criticism by banishing fans from the ground or by running away. Unlike One Eyed Bill Archer and his Gofer.