Unseen work behind the scenes eh? Sounds familiar.
I don't think we can lay all the blame at his door. The lack of investment in the JTW for example was shocking.
But he has brought in several players that we can all see are poor, but he insists on picking week in week out. He has presided over many poor, performances. He makes changes far too late and brings on either bizarre or lacklustre replacements. He took far too long to assess what he had and make changes to personal and tactics.
For a guy with his CV and at this level, he has been utterly disappointing.
I just think it's incredibly difficult to judge his performance without knowing the full facts about what has been going on behind the scenes.
It would seem to me that:
Salmon was a done deal before he arrived
He signed the 20+ goals a season striker we'd been missing since Ched
We signed Woolford as a back-up for Murphy
Murphy is then sold
Our cover is either Che (who doesn't work there and K Wallace who gets injured)
He brings in Edgar who isn't perfect but an improvement
He probably assumed taking on a big squad who almost play-offed last season would require a fe tweaks but what he finds is a mess
There are too many players, too many injury-prone players, a drinking culture and a lot of players who don't care
He attempts to patch up all the holes but the money he's promised for the JTW is withdrawn
He brings in Hammond, a player he knows and trusts, to shore up the centre and try and sort things out behind the scenes. Then he discovers his legs have gone and it doesn't work on the pitch and there's no one else in the squad who can partner him in midfield
He brings in Baptiste who is a big improvement
He ships out a raft of problem players. None of whom are successful where they've gone
He simply doesn't have the players he needs to play the way he wants to. Finally finding a formation which kind of works with people playing out of position
He's seemingly spent the season trying to plug leaks with far to few corks.
This is why I believe he deserves next season. His interviews are appalling and he's underperformed as a manager this season, but we need to have some consistency as a club and he's got a great track record. Getting rid of us just continues the issues we've had for years. Let's see what he can do.