When Alan Pardew was sacked at Crystal Palace this week, fans were divided over whether he should have been given more time.
That's a huge amount of loyalty bearing in mind the Eagles have the worst points-per-game ratio in the whole of the Football League in 2016, having won just four games at home this year. That's where sentiment kicks in over statistics. A reputation can ignore the reality.
Pardew's spell as a player at the club - he scored a goal in that classic 4-3 FA Cup semi final win over Liverpool - gave him a lot of leeway with the Selhurst Park faithful.
Dougie Freedman lost his first four games at the beginning of one season which worried some. But he was a club legend for his years as a striker with them and most fans were prepared to give him time. They were right to. When he left later that season, he'd already bought well with limited resources (Bolasie, Delaney, Ward, Jedinak and Murray) Palace were in the play-off places and went on to win promotion.
Palace fans are now torn over the arrival of Sam Allardyce. He has a well-earned reputation for keeping sides up. Yet he can't shake off the tag of being regarded as a lover of the long ball. Most West Ham fans couldn't wait to see him go as they felt he ignored the club's tradition of playing good football.
But don't forget he built a fine side at Bolton, improving them year on year - and the likes of Youri Djorkaeff, Ivan Campo, and Jay-Jay Okocha graced the Premier League at the Reebok. Not many managers could have convinced those sort of players to come to an unfashionable club like Bolton.
And it's only a few months since most England fans accepted Allardyce was the best man for the national job, as someone who clearly had a knack of getting the best out of players down the years and getting a team to play above itself.
Equally, Pardew has a reputation for starting well at a club, and then struggling. But the facts tell a very different story. Most will be surprised to hear that in all his spells as manager, he's only left one team (Charlton) worse off than when he'd joined. He got Reading and West Ham promoted - and left them in a higher division than when he arrived.
Newcastle reached the quarter finals of the Europe League the year after finishing fifth (for which he also picked up the Manager of the Year award that season), and he's taken West Ham and Crystal Palace to the FA Cup Final.
While in his single season at Southampton they won the Football League Trophy, and just missed out on the play-offs - despite starting the season with a 10 point deduction.
Allardyce has never been relegated from the top flight - despite being at clubs that then did go down after he'd left (Blackburn, Bolton and Newcastle). And only last season he beat all the odds to keep Sunderland up.
He's renowned for embracing the latest sports science to try and eek an extra couple of per cent out of his players.
And if you ask those players who've worked under Allardyce, they'll all have a story about how good he is at motivating them. One former player tells me Sam walked into the dressing room 15 minutes before a crucial relegation battle and told them they'd all get five days off if they won. The whole squad - even those who hadn't made the bench - were leaping around the dressing room, and then screaming the team on for 90 minutes. It worked - they won the game comfortably.
Big Sam will be looking to get Palace organised defensively. There's not been a problem going forward - they're still the sixth highest scorers in the division.
The reasons they're conceding so many (only Hull and Swansea have conceded more) are hard to fathom, as Ward, Delaney and Dann are three of the four players Tony Pulis turned into the meanest defence in the division a few seasons back. So defending as a team, and from set pieces, has to be a priority.
If Allardyce can get that balance between scoring and defending right, he'll soon have the backing of everyone inside Selhurst. And he'll keep his reputation and reinforce that record of never having been relegated from the Premier League.