You can tell it's September. Questions about Micky's departure are now falling like leaves.

My esteemed fellow columnist gave a hart to hart chat about the perils of him going and even Andy Naylor, who much prefers sport to politics, took time off to ruminate during a match report last week.

This is likely to go on for months. Indeed, the only thing that will stop rumours about Micky going will be Micky going.

There's no point us agonising about the possibility, even less in wondering if it is all our fault. Already we can see people looking for reasons for any future departure.

Last year, one commentator suggested that a small group of loudmouths in the south stand at Withdean could well cause Micky to leave. Now the thought of our Micky flouncing out of the city sobbing that the nasty men were being horrid to him is beyond even my imagination. A letter to the Argus even said that it would be my fault because I had suggested that he should be less rude to the local radio station. Even more bizarre.

Similar things are happening again. Last week Micky apparently complained to journalists about things at the periphery of the club, saying that not only are they bad, but they are getting worse. I'm not going to criticise him for this because I don't know the background.

Perhaps he was asked by the club to raise the training pitch issue with the media. Maybe he had a sudden attack of Yorkshire or maybe he was misquoted. Maybe he wasn't even talking about the training pitches. It could conceivably have been the delays to the Falmer planning application that got him going.

Amid all these variables one thing is utterly predictable. Conspiracy theorists are now employing websites, airwaves and press columns to construct new and improved sets of reasons to explain Micky's eventual departure. According to current scriptures it will happen because the board is failing to look after him. I'm not going to take sides in this, mainly because I deplore the notion that there should be sides but also because I don't know the facts.

Apart from one. On the field we've never had a better manager than Micky Adams. In 30 months he's taken us to a league position closer to the top of the Premiership than the bottom of the third. I don't know what his secret is but somewhere in the elixir is an insistence that everyone works to the maximum of their own potential. As long as they do that, Micky will support them. If they don't, if they come back from the summer overweight for example, there will be little pity. He has built a squad in his own mould: players with a desire to get the absolute best from themselves. No coincidence that the two who survive from previous regimes are Kerry Mayo and Gary Hart.

Micky, however, is ambitious. He needs to test his own potential. I believe he'll go in time but we shouldn't get depressed about it. There's the old joke about one elderly chap saying to another: "It's terrible getting old" and the other replying: "Maybe, but consider the alternative." We too should consider the alternative.

The endearing Jeff Wood could still be our manager. We rejected peaceful comfort and chose instead to have a brilliant manager who has made no secret of his wish to move to higher things.

He's resurrected the club on the field just as the board have done off it. It's a simple fact that rennaissance off the field - the periphery as Micky calls it - takes longer than rebuilding the team. I don't know that Micky will be prepared to wait but let's not start blaming anyone for that. Not him, not the board. Life's too good to be bitter.