I think you have missed the point a little. We simply cannot prove that we would have done better last season had MacDonald played instead of Nyatanga, Byrom instead of Taylor and D'ath instead of P Anderson. The only way we will ever know if Page's judgement was flawed is if the players he ignored / froze out / moved on come back up to at least League One level and perform.
He was a poor manager, his recruitment was poor - we can objectively prove that with the stats. We can't do that with these players as they have no stats at that level to back that up, we're just guessing
Yeah. Just think the league 2 champions deserved the benefit of the doubt and a proper go at league 1 based on how well they did the year before. The other promoted clubs seemed to do well enough although not sure how much of a change in personnel they went through.