We are only hours away from the opening of the January transfer window and if Plymouth Argyle are to have any chance of escaping relegation from the Championship this season it needs to be a very productive one for them.

Yes, there is the prospect of the club's lengthy injury list finally starting to reduce but it is clear new blood is desperately needed within a squad which is reeling from a run of only one win 14 league games. Of course, those recent results and the Pilgrims' position at the bottom of the table is not exactly conducive to persuading players to sign up but that is the reality of the situation they are in.

Then, of course, there is the question about the future of head coach Wayne Rooney, who is coming under increasing and entirely understandable criticism from Argyle fans about how it has gone so badly wrong on the pitch over recent months.

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The continued calls from supporters for him to be fired are inevitable. The only way that changes is if the Pilgrims can arrest their alarming decline and get back to winning ways, or the club decide to part company with him.

Rooney's predecessor as head coach, Ian Foster, had a very difficult three-month tenure at Home Park before he was dismissed on April 1, and another change at the top so soon after that would not reflect well on the Pilgrims' decision-making process.

I have approached the club requesting an interview with either owner and chairman Simon Hallett, chief executive officer Andrew Parkinson or director of football Neil Dewsnip about the current situation and am awaiting a response.

It is important, I think, to accept that Argyle are a small fish in a big pond. The Championship can chew clubs up and spit them out. There have been plenty of examples of that happening to bigger ones than the Pilgrims. It is a very difficult, relentless league.

However, that does not mean Argyle should not be competitive, fighting for every single point they can pick up, and bloodying the noses of some of the big boys. That can be done, but it takes everyone pulling together in the same direction and the Pilgrims seem to have lost a bit of that, at least from my outside perspective.

So the big call for those in power at Argyle is this: Do you make a change of head coach now with the transfer window opening on January 1 and give whoever takes over a chance to put their own stamp on the squad?

Or do they stick with Rooney, whose task has been made difficult by the never-ending series of injuries since the Pilgrims were comfortably sitting in mid-table in early October, and support him as much as they can in the transfer market in a bid to improve the squad and, therefore, hopefully the results?

There will be those among the Green Army who passionately believe in one or other of those two options, although the number of those who are losing patience with Rooney, or have completely lost it, is clearly increasing.

What should not be an option is sticking with Rooney for now and then making a change say in mid January, giving his successor little time to have an influence on transfer dealings.

While under Argyle's data-driven player recruitment model there is input from several people about potential new signings, the head coach has the final say. Rooney confirmed that very point in a recent media interview.

But a scenario of bringing in players over the next couple of weeks who have his seal of approval and then expecting them and their team-mates to try to make it work under a different boss from mid to late January onwards would not be sensible at all.

So do Argyle stick or twist? If they choose to stick, then they need to commit to that, give Rooney their full backing and then hope for the best. If they opt to twist, clearly an appointment would need to be made swiftly to give the new boss as much time as possible to make an impact.

As bad it might seem at the moment, we are only at the halfway stage of the season. There are 23 games to go for Argyle - 13 of them at Home Park - so all hope is not lost, but this is not the time for the club to be indecisive.

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