Your last paragraph, exactly.

Definitely underformed throughout the season with flashes of half decent play against, ultimately, average part-time teams.

There's also the train of thought, or certainly mine, that most of the players are just not good enough. That's not their fault of course, it's just the way it is. Yesterday's villains a case in point. Hannah did OK last season and was lauded as the new Franco Baresi when he signed a deal at the beginning of the season. He's maybe looked slightly better than he is beside the hapless Douglas however he's played in a team that constantly leaks piss poor goals