There's the usual excuse that our stadium holds us back from sustaining League 1 football but I think any relegation this season would be attributed solely to the chairman with a succession of really poor decisions regarding the football side of our club. It's all well and good saying the recruitment side of things is the responsibility of the manager but the squads that Page and JE were allowed to assemble strike me as a man who doesn't actually know a lot / care about football. And for what it's worth I don't think the Chinese owners have a clue either and have shown little strategy in which way they want to take our football club in.
I think this is a good point but to play devils advocate for a moment...
Imagine when JED was sacked and he made a statement along the lines of "things would have been different but the Chairman vetoed me signing 3 players because he felt I was building an unbalanced squad. It's a difficult enough job as it is without 'non-football' people interfering with the manager"
A bit crude but you can see where I am going with this. Probably a no-win for a chairman/owner of a club. Interfere with managers decisions = bad, doesn't interfere = also bad.
I think it is right that you give the manager free reign within the budget. IMO Thomas' mistake has been the men he appointed not that he didn't handle the recruitment.