The pool of potential FTSE 100 chief executives was pretty small to begin with. If you believe the Reed Elsevier board, it just got smaller still. The media group’s directors seem to have concluded that you can’t have someone with no previous experience of a company’s sector trying to steer it through turbulent times. It is just too difficult. Since times are likely to remain turbulent for the foreseeable future, that is going to cut down the choice a bit.

The spin on Reed’s decision to dispense with Ian Smith’s services, after only eight months as chief executive, is very curious. The company is not saying that the original decision to give the job to someone without any background in media was wrong. It became wrong only when the global economy took a dive after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

This is far from convincing. Life may have got tougher for Reed, but it is not as if the bottom has dropped out of its world. Nor are its businesses that difficult for an outsider to understand. Mr Smith is a very experienced manager, with a diverse background in consulting, healthcare, logistics and housebuilding. Asking him to run Reed is not like asking a grocer to run Goldman Sachs.

Admittedly, Reed’s businesses are pretty unusual. That means there are very few external candidates who could be said to know them well. Which leaves internal candidates, such as Erik Engstrom. It is true that some big shareholders cited Mr Smith’s lack of media experience as part of the reason they were unimpressed with his performance, particularly his presentations at the time of the £824 million fundraising in July.

But there is surely more to it than that. Reed clearly botched the original decision, perhaps because the then chairman, Jan Hommen, was rushing off to save the Dutch banking system. He was advised by Anna Mann, in another public relations disaster for the headhunting industry.

Mr Smith failed to win the confidence of senior executives, or the new chairman, Anthony Hapgood, who acted with brutal speed.

Mr Engstrom looks a safe pair of hands, but the shares fell sharply. Perhaps that reflects the fact that even if he, too, disappoints, he will get a lot longer to prove himself.

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