How did it come to this? Questions questions and not many answers. Yet.

As had been anticipated in this column and elsewhere, City's visit to Loftus Road last night may well prove the end of the road for Grant with City residing in the non too lofty position of 22nd.

We are now staring down the barrels of what could well prove to be a long and grim winter relegation battle, with frankly no guarantee that we will win it. Although much thought and column inches will be taken up with the question of how it came to this and who to replace Grant with, it seems inconceivable that he can survive, it is the coming months which concerns Stanley the most.

A look at the coming fixtures and the full horror starts to come into view. We have just had possibly the easiest 10-match streak of the entire season. From here on it things start to get tough. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

How bad things are at the moment are perhaps illustrated by the fact that much of the second half Stanley spent in heated debate, not over whether or not Grant should be sacked (let's face the few remaining Grant loyalists gave up the ghost last night) or which players are to be blamed for travesty of every City display this season, but whether this was the worst City team in our lifetimes.

Is this worse than when Hamilton was in charge? For the record Stanley argued that despite the statistics suggesting otherwise we aren't as bad as Hamilton's City. Yet. But it's a moot point which speaks volumes. The fact that Grant can be compared to Hamilton says it all.

Those statistics don't half make grim reading, whether league position, length of goal drought or the whole raft of QPR ones, games without win, games at home without win, games since last taking the lead, games since last keeping a clean sheet. Streaks all ended with our visit to Rangers Stadium last night. The killer for Stanley though was the fact that QPR out gunned us 16 shoots to two. A team that had just conceded nine goals in the last week barely had to defend. One-way traffic away from home, yet again.

So much for Grant's supposed guiding philosophy ?front foot? football. We currently don't actually have any idea how to score. There is no plan or pattern of play, just ?kick and hope?. Even the one-trick pony approach of get ball, look up and give it to Hucks has been forgotten.

When we do score a goal at some point this autumn it is difficult to envisage it triggering a goal glut. It's not simply the lack of goals, but the lack of chances of any kind that we are making that threatens to sink this very sorry ship.

In many ways Chris Brown will come to symbolise the Grant regime. Not simply the obvious problem of having never scored. Brown is actually a good footballer, composed, technical competent, neat of touch and thought, but ultimately painfully ineffective. A good footballer in theory, but who in practice just doesn't cut the mustard. A better footballer than Iwan or Earnie but, for reasons hard to pinpoint, not in same league in terms of their effectiveness on the pitch.

If you compare Grant to Worthy a similar conclusion has to be drawn. Grant is technical more astute, but doesn't have that magic dust a manager needs to get players to perform. Banging on about round pegs in round holes (something Stanley holds his hand up to doing ad infinitum) is all well and good, but without desire, heart and passion (things which can't be coached and imparted via endless instructions and note taking) no team will ever win, whether in the Championship, on a Sunday morning up Sloughbottom or on a Wednesday night up the UEA Sportspark.

So who next for the hot seat? Stanley doesn't know, but what troubles him is the sense that the appointment of Grant a year ago was a missed opportunity. When we needed an experienced hand on the tiller to put the ship back on course for the Treasure Island called the Prem' we appointed a rookie destined to learn on the job and sail the good ship Carrow straight at the rooks.

Stanley has a nagging doubt, the size of City's overdraft, that big Mo' is now well and truly against City and the watery depths of League One awaits the next incumbent no matter who that may be.