When W&W took over the club was in a mess.
The organisation off the park has improved drastically. The stadium has required significant investment as well as the team, while the income streams are significantly hamstrung by Ashley and the onerous contracts written by previous boards. The legal recourse to terminate these contracts take time and significant finances.
It would seem that W&W have tried to utilise cheap quick fixes while the longer term changes take time to mature. They brought in 5 midfielders in the summer, 2 short term fixes in Barton and Nico and 3 longer term in Rossiter, Crooks and Windass. Yes, Barton and Nico were risks but there is no way any of us could have predicted the catalogue of injuries that the beset the younger guys.
Up front the addition of Garner and Dodoo seemed like good additions: Garner was starting to win us around before the injury, but I can't understand why Dodoo hasn't been given more of a chance as he has scored some cracking goals from the bench.
The defence is the biggest problem which has been exposed more by the insistence of playing from the back. When W&W first came we were much quicker in getting the ball forward and gave other teams little opportunity to regroup. I think we now pay the opposition to much respect and are unable to capitalise on our strengths which were fitness and teams tired chasing our shadows.
I thought we should have been challenging for the title this season but we have been desperately unlucky which has been augmented by some poor decision.
Celtic on the other hand have not had any significant injury problems. Add in the fact that in the first quarter season we played aberdeen, hearts and celtic away from home which has only been redressed in the last month thus giving celtic's season greater momentum.
Personally, I think we could have done with someone like Big Eck as manager to look after the first team while Warbarton sorted out the rest of the playing infrastructure of the club.