In the words of the great Anchorman character Ron Burgundy, that escalated quickly.

Just a couple of months and five league games ago, Rob Edwards seemed to be on a relatively upward trajectory as head coach at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

He had overseen wins against Aston Villa and Liverpool in the Premier League, underlining a clear improvement in performances. His place in the dugout for next season looked pretty secure — even if relegation already looked certain.

Two months on, Edwards ended Saturday being called a “w****r” by a sizeable minority of his own club’s supporters after he went straight down the tunnel at full time, having already been booed and insulted for a second-half substitution.

Suddenly, it feels as if Wolves’ hierarchy have an unwanted decision to make about the direction of travel for next season, and whether Edwards should remain in his position.

One thing seems certain — Edwards has lost the faith of many supporters, and the vitriol was so intense after Saturday’s 1-1 draw at home against Sunderland, who played for more than an hour with 10 players, that it is impossible to see Edwards winning them back any time soon.

So, when interim chairman Nathan Shi and sporting director Matt Jackson next meet in the corridors of the club’s training ground, they will inevitably have two strong, conflicting arguments to weigh up.

As The Athletic’s reporter who has covered this relegation season, I’ve tried to make sense of those two schools of thought below.

Empty seats at Molineux during the 1-1 draw against Sunderland (Naomi Baker/Getty Images)

The case for making a change

When Edwards spoke to the media for the first time as Wolves head coach on November 21 last year, he was asked about his decision to walk out on promotion-chasing Middlesbrough in the second-tier Championship and join a Wolves team in freefall.

“What am I supposed to do? Say to the club, ‘Can you just give me another 30 games and wait?’” he asked reporters.

At that moment, there was an almost overwhelming urge to stand up and shout, “YES!”

Edwards was so well-regarded at Molineux from his time as a player, academy coach and interim manager that it felt probable he would get the chance again at a more inviting time.

There was also an obvious danger that he would end this season in the grim position he now finds himself in — a coach potentially tainted by a shambolic relegation season.

A long list of mitigating circumstances counts in Edwards’ favour, so it would be unfair to hold him responsible for much of what has happened since.

But any decision Wolves make next cannot be based on fairness — only on what is best for the club.

And there is a clear argument that the club’s interests would be best served by starting next season with as clean a slate as is possible and the minimum toxicity carried over from this campaign.

Rob Edwards and his players after the 2-2 draw with Brentford in March (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Fairly or not, Edwards is now inextricably linked to a monumental failure. A new head coach could provide a freshness that already looks beyond the 43-year-old.

After losing 2-0 against Crystal Palace in his first game in charge, Edwards pledged to “get around the whole stadium” after games and promised, “I’ll always do that, win, lose or draw.”

So by heading down the tunnel immediately after the final whistle on Saturday — after his second-half substitution of the popular Hugo Bueno had brought boos and a chorus of, “You don’t know what you’re doing” — he left himself open to unavoidable criticism.

“I just thought, ‘I’m not going to incite it any more at the moment. I don’t want to make the ground any angrier’,” he explained in his post-match press conference. Sound logic, perhaps, but a broken promise, whichever way he dressed it up.

It added to the growing sense that Edwards has passed the point of no return with a section of supporters.

Putting all of that aside, and allowing for all of the mitigation, Edwards has three wins and 16 points from 24 league games at the helm — a record that would leave any manager under massive pressure.

A complete clearing of the decks, including in the manager’s office, makes sense.

The case for holding their nerve

Wolves have been planning for this summer and life back in the Championship since Christmas, with Edwards both a central figure in the plans and a key member of the team drawing them up.

Removing him from them now, when the club are so close to the day they can start putting them in place, would be an absurd overreaction to a run of results that might well have happened under any head coach.

Edwards has an encouraging record as a head coach in the English Football League (EFL) with two promotions, including one from the Championship, and had Middlesbrough firmly in contention to reach the Premier League before leaving for Wolves.

He took on a horrendous squad, constructed during the worst Wolves transfer window of modern times, following an ill-conceived decision to give his predecessor, Vitor Pereira, and his ally, Domenico Teti, unprecedented autonomy in the market.

But Edwards has now had almost six months to get to grips with the players, so would have a greater understanding of skills and characters than any new manager would be able to generate from watching Wyscout in the weeks before pre-season.

Rob Edwards delivered a rare Premier League win against Liverpool in March (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)

That makes him uniquely placed to oversee the mass clear-out that appears likely once this dismal campaign draws to a close. The scale of that overhaul means next season’s team will be vastly different from the one who have laboured their way through the eighth and final year of Wolves’ latest stint in the Premier League.

For that reason, aside from the optics and atmosphere discussed above, what has happened this season will hold little relevance to what happens next.

If Wolves were hiring a manager this summer and Edwards was on the open market, he would be high on their list of candidates.

These are difficult times and the pressure is mounting for Wolves to act ruthlessly. But under former chairman Jeff Shi, they suffered from a lack of coherent strategy and consistent thought.

This could be the time to shut out the noise, stick to their plans and back their own judgement.