That’s a fair point but I thought his workrate and all round contribution improved under Blackwell. I remember one game after being regularly accused of laziness where he ran over half the length of the pitch to make a last ditch defensive tackle. It’s all subjective but I thought he improved under Blackwell. I’d say Killa and Ugo were perhaps the two biggest improvers though. They went from being very suspect to looking too good for the division.
For me, Blackwell’s problem wasn’t an inability to get the players to perform. His biggest issues were recruitment. During his reign (from memory so not perfect), out went Beattie, Hulse, Stead, Shelton, Naughton, Walker, Killa, Speed & Ehiogu (retired), Sharp, Cotteril, Gillespie, Bromby, Armstrong, Alan Quinn etc. and in came Taylor, Williamson, Seip, Spring, C. Beattie, Lupoli, Henderson, Nosworthy, Simmonsen, Evans, Bartley, Harper, Howard, Bogdanovic, Ertl, Yeates, Cresswell etc. There was the odd good signing like Halford, Ward etc. but overall, player trading during that period was woeful. We were actually pretty good when Blackwell was working with players he’d inherited rather than those he signed. Admittedly we were “cutting our cloth” but even with the budget reductions, he got awful value for money overall.