IT started with a few grumbles of discontent.

Then came mounting voices of concern and now, based on the boos that followed Saturday’s stalemate with Bolton Wanderers, it would seem the alarm bells are ringing loudly around Portman Road.

I doubt even the most cynical, downbeat supporter could have anticipated a start like this.

Winless after nine games, second from bottom in the table, susceptible at the back and badly lacking spark up front.

It’s been disappointing and frustrating, to say the least, and all the indications are of a long, hard slog ahead.

So what needs to change?

Plenty on the pitch, for sure, but certainly not the manager.

Paul Hurst is coming in for fierce criticism - some of the rhetoric in the post-match local radio phone-in was way over the top - but I’m keeping faith.

Is he the right man for the job or is he out of his depth?

Only time will tell but ‘time’ is the operative word and it’s something he fully deserves.

Fans must be patient, as taxing as that may be right now, and calls for a change are knee-jerk and ludicrous.

It would be destructive and disastrous and any talk of pulling the trigger now should be shelved.

Confidence levels are already sapped, without the prospect of managerial change – a turn of events that would send out completely the wrong message, leave the club in limbo and be deeply unsettling.

It barely seems like five minutes that Hurst was paraded at his first press conference, in early June.

He’s barely been in the job four months and nine games is an absurdly short amount of time to judge anyone, be it a player or manager.

The tan from his family holiday just before that press conference has only just faded, so to suggest he should be replaced now is crazy beyond belief.

Obviously it was a poor result from a winnable game on Saturday, especially given Town’s numerical advantage following Marc Wilson’s first-half red card for the Trotters.

But, for me, it was one of those example of being harder to play against ten men than 11.

Bolton got bodies behind the ball, packing their defence with two banks of four.

Town didn’t have the ability or nous to break them down – a worry, I admit - but it might have been a different story had it stayed 11 v 11.

Better still, imagine if Kayden Jackson had been a few yards further forward when he was yanked back by Wilson.

The referee would have pointed to the spot, you’d expect the penalty to have been converted and it could have been an altogether different story.

Of course, that’s hypothetical and pie in the sky. We’ll never know.

But overall there were chinks of light amid the gloomy, uninspiring final score.

Town were generally solid at the back and it’s not often we’ve said that this season.

They kept their first clean sheet and haven’t conceded in three halves of football.

Toto Nsiala was commanding on his surprise return to the side while skipper and star man Luke Chambers was heavily involved at both ends, including nearly scoring with a header that was acrobatically saved by Ben Alnwick.

Town played some tidy football in patches but everything fell apart in the final third.

They are the joint-lowest scorers in the division (Rotherham have also managed a paltry six goals) and, clearly, that has to improve.

They need goals and in terms of their attacking football, be it personnel and/or formation, something has to change and fast.

But certainly not the manager and to suggest differently, as some have this weekend, is a nonsense.