Sheffield Wednesday's Danny Rohl is an exception, but most mid-season sackings have made Yorkshire clubs worse

Huddersfield Town (twice), Bradford City, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United, Sheffield United and just when you thought the carnage was all over for 2023-24, Barnsley, changed manager when their seasons were still live.

Since then, the Millers (again, to Steve Evans), Huddersfield (again, to Michael Duff) and Hull City shuffled the pack once targets for the campaign were missed.

Out of seven mid-season sackings in Yorkshire only one – the Owls replacing Xisco Munoz with Danny Rohl – achieved its aim.

There comes a time where every football club has to admit things are not working and change manager. But things need to get better. Usually in White Rose country, it has made things worse.

With Leeds United's season into the extra time of play-offs, only Hull, Wednesday, Doncaster Rovers and Harrogate Town have made strides forward. In the case of Hull, not far enough or attractively enough to keep Liam Rosenior in a job.

Graham Alexander got better results at Bradford from November and moved them up League Two, Chris Wilder nudged Sheffield United's in the right direction, but only a tiny bit. The Bantams still missed the play-offs, the Blades still finished bottom of the Premier League.

Darren Moore, then Andre Breitenreiter, dragged the Terriers points-per-game ration down (from 1.14 under Neil Warnock to 0.9 under Moore and 0.67 under Breitenreiter) and pulled them into League One. Moore's football disenchanted supporters, an exasperated Breitenreiter aired dirty linen in public.

Now a club so buoyant when Warnock saved them from relegation last May, and which got new owners in the summer, looks in disarray.

Leam Richardson took a bad Rotherham side and made it worse, and was sacked after relegation.

Barnsley caretaker manager Martin Devaney’s one league match dropped them down the table, producing a harder play-off which they lost to Bolton Wanderers.

It is hard to blame Devaney too much for not dealing with his hospital pass, easy to blame a board who seemed to think they could get Dominik Thalhammer in as manager in under a week despite him not qualifying for a work permit, and permits not being quick to obtain even for those who do not need exemptions in post-Brexit times.

Cluttered thinking is a feature of these mid-season changes.

Owls chairman Dejphon Chansiri deserves praise for appointing Rohl, one of English football's outstanding managers this season, but it is hugely tempered by him interviewing the German in the summer and deciding Munoz was a better bet. By the start of October Munoz was gone.

PPG=Points per game

*Treats play-off games as league games for PPG purposes

The thinking at the New York Stadium seemed equally confused. What felt like a long search for a manager (28 days) saw Richardson emerge with a brief to look long-term when short-term survival was in play. Once that had gone, he was shifted aside for Evans, with instructions to provide the quick fix of instant promotion.

In fairness to Wilder, he too was brought in to restructure, so whilst Evans should be judged next season on whether he can get Rotherham straight back up – and his record inspires confidence – Sheffield United should be judged differently.

Not that it always works like that.

When Huddersfield decided in September that re-appointing Warnock that summer had served its purpose, "Darren (Moore) emerged as the standout candidate to help us achieve our short-term objective of stability and longer-term vision of growth and development."

That longer-term vision stretched to 23 games before chairman Kevin Nagle realised what Sheffield Wednesday fans could have told him, that the ex-defender favoured functional over fantasy football when working with limited squads.

Still, he got 29 days of the January transfer window, denying Breitenreiter scope to reshape a squad he left bitterly disillusioned with.

Whilst all this was happening, Harrogate were having the best season of their Football League lives – 13th in League Two – with a manager, Simon Weaver, they have stood by since 2009.

Injuries or no injuries, Grant McCann would surely have been sacked at most clubs for being 22nd in League Two by the end of January were it not for the faith he earnt in his first spell.

It turns out, when McCann kept banging the drum about it being a 46-game season, he had a point, leading Rovers to fifth, beaten on penalties in the play-off semi-final.

A bit of patience can go a long way but stubbornness can be as bad as change for change's sake.

It is all about carefully thinking through what you do next, and too many Yorkshire clubs have been found seriously wanting on that score.