I think my overall criticism of our leadership over the years is that unlike some clubs, we seem to settle for being enough. A few years ago , we were in far better shape than Leicester, Burnley, Palace, Brighton, Leeds, Wolves, Southampton and a few other established premier league teams. We had a good crop of youngsters coming through, a good youth system, a strong squad and a solid structure. At the time, we were content to stand still (stay up) and therefore went massively behind and dismantled all of the good work it took about 10 years to implement.
Since Lai came in , we've simply had no ideas, energy, innovation (as well as money which we never had) and became a Sunderland style club , let's appoint him as he has a bit of experience at keeping teams up or let's appoint him as he has done well in the past with seemingly little long term vision. I mean Dowling ran the football side for the past few years so that speaks volumes for me as to the benchmark the club set!
Nothing to do with money for me (we've never really had it and had to work to get it), but I see no progress, innovation, energy or ideas to progress as a club. Meanwhile Brentford, Norwich, Swansea and others are methodically building something in our old vision whilst we fall further behind by looking for the next short term fixes.
We're just flat and stagnant. We will remain so unless we overhaul the top of the club completely and start with a clean slate.