I certainly agree with you that even with the lack of depth/quality in the squad that an appointment of the "right" manager from the start of this season would have seen us mid-table at least and maybe even pushing for play offs. I don't personally think that Morrison is a massive factor in our failings this season though.
The biggest error, IMHO, was the appointment of Ramsay. Mason lacked the necessary experience, made some bizarre selections at times and we both failed to put games to bed under him and conceded far too many late goals. However, we did also put in some decent performances under him and he did seem to have the players onside. Was it the right thing to dismiss him when we did? I believe it was because you could see the self belief drop away alongside the points as we slid down the table and it looked increasingly like he would not be able to turn the ship around. We got shot of him with half the season left to play and an opportunity to reverse our fortunes and even, perhaps, battle for a play off position still.
The appointment of Ramsay (along with meddling from Nestor?) put paid to that. Yes, we have refereeing decisions go against us this season more than for us, yes, we have had injuries that have put key players out at a time when we lack depth of quality in the squad and yes, we have had poor recruitment including some very well paid players whose performances certainly do not reflect their pay packets, but I honestly believe that the turning point this season was the appointment of Ramsay. For myself, it was he who squandered too many opportunities to get more points in that quick succession of early games through his stubbornness in trying to play a system totally alien to them. I honestly don't know what our budget was, but it seems highly unlikely that we managed to hire the best we could have within it !
I'm not saying that Ramsay was100% at fault by any means as too many of our players must also shoulder their own accountability for poor performances and lack of desire, but if we had got the management appointment right then, I believe that things might be quite different now.
At the end of the day though, there isn't much point going over what has happened as we need to face into what we need to do now and just pray that Morrison can get enough out of this lot for us to survive and then hope for a rebuild in the summer with many of our expensive failures off the books.


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