Chris Hughton is too polite to say it himself, so I'll say it for him.

Norwich made a huge mistake when they got rid of him.

The Canaries come to the Amex on Saturday much worse off than they were when they sacked Hughton.

He guided them to 11th in his first season in charge of them in the Premier League, their highest finish for 20 years.

He was axed less than a year later with Norwich, predictably, fighting another relegation battle.

They were 17th but they were still five points above the drop zone - and panicked.

The rescue plan? They promoted Neil Adams, whose credentials were limited to being a popular former winger at the club and managerial success at youth level.

Norwich took one point from their last five games and went down by three points. Then they handed Adams a three-year contract.

He lasted eight months before resigning. Norwich were seventh in the Championship after one win in ten.

The Argus: Alex Neil (above), via Hamilton Academicals, took them up through the play-offs and straight back down last season.

Again, it was not a surprise. That was the 144th season of Norwich's existence and they have been outside the top flight in 119 of them.

The hierarchy and supporters at Carrow Road, like so many other clubs up and down the country, need a reality check.

When Hughton was at the helm it was just about as good as it is ever going to get for a club of their stature.

The same applies to Albion and most of the rest. Going up, staying up, gradually establishing yourself until you can challenge for the top ten, perhaps a place in the Europa League, and good Cup runs. That IS success.

Dare to dream, of course. That you might, one day as a one-off, do a Leicester, but stop stamping your feet and howling for managerial change if you are the 17th best club in the country.

In fairness to Norwich, they gave Hughton 22 months, a lifetime by today's knee-jerk standards.

Four Championship managers have been jettisoned already.

Roberto Di Matteo lasted 124 days at Aston Villa. That is 124 days to rebuild a once-great club on the road to ruin, rotted by poor decision making from the top and poor player recruitment.

To make changes, instil your own ethos. Not very long is it?

Nowhere near as long as it took Dr Tony Xia, the man who fired the bullet, to grow his billion dollar business empire.

Rotherham gave Alan Stubbs 13 matches. They are bottom but where did the men at the top and their supporters honestly expect them to be? Seventeenth would be success for them and Stubbs, allowed the chance, might still have achieved that.

Paul Trollope, Hughton's coach at Norwich and Birmingham, was given less than five months by Cardiff.

Exactly four months after his appointment, Nigel Pearson (below) was suspended and then subsequently dismissed by Derby following a bust-up with chairman Mel Morris.

The Argus: Even if they had got on like a house on fire, how long would it have been before Morris pulled the plug based purely on disappointing results?

Steve McClaren was available to Derby (again) when Pearson was selected, likewise Neil Warnock for Cardiff and, effectively, Steve Bruce for Aston Villa, considering he was so obviously unsettled at Hull.

Why were they not chosen in the first place? How did Dr Tony, Morris, Vincent Tan at Cardiff and Tony Stewart at Rotherham - who has now turned to Kenny Jackett - get it so horribly wrong?

The teams tackling each other at the Amex on Saturday, second and fourth in the table respectively, have two of the five longest-serving managers in the Championship.

Gary Rowett at Birmingham (seventh) and Simon Grayson at Preston (ninth) are two of the others.

Ipswich are currently 17th under the longest serving of them all, Mick McCarthy, who has performed miracles to have them regularly in play-off contention on a shoestring.

Norwich's neighbours are not, by nature, hirers and firers. If they keep the faith I bet Ipswich are nearer the top six than bottom six by May.

Meanwhile, the Canaries' loss is the Seagulls' gain. Alex Neil is young and bright but there is (possibly) only one manager you would swap Hughton for in the Championship.

He will, hopefully with Albion, get the fair crack in the Premier League denied him by both Norwich and Newcastle.