The manager hasn't had his hands tied, he tied them himself by choosing to buy anyone except a decent striker or play to the strengths of one already at the club.
By choosing to play dire defensive football regardless of what he has in his squad, he ties his own hands and has to take the blame when it goes wrong.
Yeah he could potentially have bigger fee signings with bigger wages but he chose what he chose so he needs to make it work instead of bemoaning what he has and basically making it known to his players that he thinks they're basically garbage or not good enough, when the reality is he finished 10th and has enhanced the squad, not weakened it.
No it's not at all.
The only reason it's deemed to be in disarray is because people want to boycott or stand outside of shops with banners or chant all kinds of names to the owner, all because the messiah isn't backed how he wants to be backed and all because a record isn't broken on a transfer or we aren't buying in a few top quality players for big fees.
If this is not the case then what is?
Worrying about what Ashley might be pocketing is nit picking speculation because there's no proof of anything.
You can choose whatever you wish to choose out of that. Feel free to decide.
He's made mistakes and he definitely could do better, no doubt about it.
The problem is he's too untrusting to delve into anything other than running the club in a business like manner.
He's basically fell out of love with the concept of owning it alongside his business, I think.
He will still run it financially stable and do what's necessary to a point, is my guess.
He's not going to dish out presents to fans who spew bile and hatred at every turn, or try to disrupt his business, whether they feel it's their right or not.
The point is, by all means do it but don't expect him to change.
All you can hope for is a new owner comes in and carries this club further forward than Ashley is willing to...but hope that it's a long term strategy and not a short term fly by night job where early excitement and the ridding of the supposed devil turns to despair.
That's the worry.
As we are now we are fine in one respect. We'll live.
What we aren't doing is being treated to decent football and we deserve to be and can be because we have a squad that can actually play far far better into the mix than just headless chicken running.