Pundit Simon Jordan has indicated that he would keep Sam Allardyce on as manager of West Brom next season ahead of - barring a miraculous set of results in the remaining matches - a Championship campaign.
Jordan, formerly the chairman of Crystal Palace, has seen glimpses of Allardyce's Albion producing the level required to compete in the Premier League, but it's not something they've been able to display on an anywhere near regular enough basis.
It's let Albion well adrift of safety with four matches left to play, and now the club's hierarchy have a decision to make. Allardyce signed an 18-month deal when he arrived at the club last December, but there is a break clause in that agreement which could be activated should the club find itself in the second tier again.
Yet Allardyce has a proven track record of leading sides back to the top flight at the first time of asking, having done so with West Ham in 2012, and the man himself has already hinted that he would be willing to stay on if the club's ambitions matched his own.
In that event, Jordan argues it'd be a case of the board wanting a return on their decision to hand Allardyce the reins in the first place.
"The problem for him at West Bromwich Albion was that when he went in as 'Fireman Sam', he never had the talismanic players he'd had in other environments," Jordan said on talkSPORT. "He didn't have Jermain Defoe, who banged in goals and got Sunderland out of trouble.
"He didn't have Kevin Davies and Jay-Jay Okocha the way he did at Bolton, to get them out of trouble. He didn't have Wilfried Zaha at West Bromwich Albion. He didn't have the players to give him the Fireman Sam routine, which he needs to be able to get them out of trouble.
"It's all well and good saying you've got to stop conceding goals, but you still have to score goals to win games. He'll know, and he'll have said it himself, that they haven't got enough ability to score goals.
"The idea that Sam is a guaranteed safety net is something that we've perpetuated based on his performances. There was always going to be one reach too far, but West Bromwich Albion have proven that they're a good side by beating Chelsea, but they haven't proven that they can do it over a repeated amount of games.
"They're not the greatest defensively, but he got some spirit in there. I'd like to see Sam stay and repay the investment that will have been repaid into him back.
"If I was at the top of West Bromwich Albion, and I'd employed Sam Allardyce, then the same reasons for employing him would be prevalent in my reasons for wanting to retain him to get us out of the division beneath us.
"I didn't make the appointment of Sam Allardyce and I don't know if I would make that appointment - I think I probably would, because I'm a great fan of his. He was one of the most generous football people I met in my time at Palace.
"I like him, and I think a lot of the nonsense perpetuated around him about how he plays, and this 'dinosaur' outlook is for the birds - I think he's a very innovative manager."