Here’s my column from last week’s Leader. It forms part of the paper’s comprehensive pre-match coverage every Friday, featuring interviews, an in-depth look at the opposition and lots of statistical analysis. All content in the column (c) www.leaderlive.co.uk.

What price loyalty?

We all demand loyalty from our players and managers. We expect them to pledge an undying affiliation to a club they have no link to apart from the fact that it pays their wages. The relationship a fan has with his or her club is very different from the relationship and employee has with it. Fans literally love their club; players and managers surely don’t love their employers. Who does?

People in football understand the transient nature of the game, that they might have to transfer allegiances at any given moment, and therefore don’t connect on the same level as fans do. They simply can’t afford to.

I understand why some fans struggle to follow that, and demand a similar commitment from their players and coaches. What I don’t understand is why the notion of loyalty doesn’t always seem to cut both ways.

Andy Morrell is on the worst run of results in his managerial career, and as a result his job security is on the agenda. An outsider looking at that statement probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid. Football is a cut throat business after all, and when managers falter they immediately find themselves in the firing line.

But what if I was to tell that outsider that this is the first time he’s lost back-to-back matches in the two years he’s been in the Racecourse hot seat. I think they’d reassess the situation, frankly!

Let’s just stop and have a think about that. Morrell has lost consecutive matches once in two years, and people are calling from his head. How absurd does that sound to you? It sounds pretty crazy to me.

I’m not stupid. I don’t think everything in the garden’s rosy. The squad is not as strong as it has been for the last couple of seasons but as the budget has been reduced, and with good reason, it was never going to be. I’m not privy to the details of that budget of course, but based on what I can see, I agree with some of the decisions Morrell has made and disagree with others.

What I won’t budge on is this: Morrell has earned the right to make those calls. We’ve enjoyed a remarkably run of success under him, and although we’ve missed out on promotion that’s down to the iniquity of the two-up two-down system more than anything else.

Morrell has been remarkably successful. Despite the disappointing start to the season he still has both the best win and loss percentages of any Wrexham manager in the club’s history by some distance. Doesn’t that mean he has earned some loyalty from us?

Because football fans just love loyalty. We expect players to run through brick walls for us, and managers to stay true to us through thick and thin. Well, Morrell’s done exactly that, as player and manager, a key figure throughout the complicated birth of our fan-owned club. Now he’s having a tough time, shouldn’t we return the compliment?