Define success

Success = what ever the chairman / board class as success

for the fans success = promotion

Failure to get promotion is not automatically failure. It's perfectly conceivable that we play superbly well all season but just get beaten to the title by someone like Barnet. We could win our play off 5-0 yet still miss out in the final to a poor refereeing call or whatever. In that scenario what would we possibly have to gain by sacking the manager?

Hurst should have the target of promotion obviously but not meeting a target should not be a reason by itself to sack him. The question about whether the manager should continue in his job should not be  always be whether we would have more chance of success by changing the manager.

I agree with MeanwoodMariner.

It is not so easy to determine  absolutes in advance.  Eg, we could play brilliant attacking football in the play-off final and be 2-0 up.  Then very poor referring decisions and/or bad luck give our opponents 3 goals.  We lose 3-2. How is this Hurst's fault?

York won their play-off final against Luton (2-0) and one of their goals was clearly offside.  Luck plays a part of getting promotion as well.  We lost our against Gateshead with a very rare goalkeeping  error and a bad sending off.  

Our day will some.  

Quoted from MeanwoodMariner

Failure to get promotion is not automatically failure. It's perfectly conceivable that we play superbly well all season but just get beaten to the title by someone like Barnet. We could win our play off 5-0 yet still miss out in the final to a poor refereeing call or whatever. In that scenario what would we possibly have to gain by sacking the manager?

Hurst should have the target of promotion obviously but not meeting a target should not be a reason by itself to sack him. The question about whether the manager should continue in his job should not be  always be whether we would have more chance of success by changing the manager.

Failure to get promotion is not automatically failure---Yes it is

Answer to the original question - promotion... this season ... no other answer applies....!!

Success is a top five finish - that's a good achievement given our wage bill and size

Quoted from GrimRob

Success is a top five finish - that's a good achievement given our wage bill and size

Success = Promotion and nothing else.
Good achievement = the lack of ambition that has run through this club from the top down for the last few years.

success by its actual definition is defined as acheiving ones goals......the clubs clear goal is to get promotion ....no promotion no success

Success or failure is largely govern by what happens in the close season,Barnet for example manage to sign players of the class of Akinde,They have got off to a good start and the rest of the teams are following their pace.This gives them a psychological advantage ,Winning is just as much about  mental attitude as physical ability.
This is something I believe we as a club do not pay enough (of indeed any) attention to.
Most top flight clubs employ motivational coaches and sports psychologist,do any of the lower leagues.Footballers confidence can be very fragile and especially younger players require a great deal of emotional support.

Which leads me to speculate as to whether LJL's  problems are largely  psychological and he panics when he gets into a scoring position,just a theory ,no hard evidence.

I think goalscorers tend to be born, not made. Well, you know what I mean!

In the pressurised instant where a chance comes to a player, some have the ability to keep calm and stick the ball past the opposition keeper by hook or by crook where others fail. It's a pretty rare ability which is why goalscorers are so much in demand at all levels and the problem with LJL is that he's just not got this in his game. As is often said, if he did, he'd be playing a couple of divisions higher.

One thing which does surprise me, however, is that many of his missed chances come from so close in to the goal. When you see some of his excellent finishes from the edge of the box in recent weeks, it is hard to believe that the same player could miss some real sitters close to the goal. I think calling it 'panic' might be a bit too harsh but he obviously tenses up when these instant chances come to him. Could this be worked on? I'd tend to doubt it, but as I've mentioned in the past, it wouldn't surprise me if he was knocking them in from all angles in training but is unable to repeat it in a match situation!