The same lack of strategy or planning above didn't stop Manning, he came in and brought an assistant, analysis and GK coach with him. He then worked with Ed Waldron in bringing some decent players in.
For me, what the last couple of months has shown is that
a) Manning is a really good coach and tactician. Him and Hogg, at least. It wasn't always pretty, but he had this same group of players rigidly organized, knowing exactly what they were doing and playing above their station. We weren't always creating bags of chances, but we were controlling games and that has completely gone out the window since he's left
b) Our summer recruitment wasn't actually all that great.
Rodrigues and Leigh were excellent signings (although I think anyone who knows lower league football could have told you they would be.....the trick was getting them to come here). Beadle was a great short term keeping option but as it turns out, just a six month fling. Harris is a good player being asked to take on a crazy amount of responsibility for one who'd only ever scored three goals a season before......
.....but Stevens and Mills were only OK, Edwards is another in a long line of capable but chronically injured wingers, Perkins (assuming he's the one that was supposed to provide striking depth) was an epic disaster, and McEachran & Thorniley have unfortunately both been poor - I don't think we were told exactly how long they signed for, but at the moment they're looking like being next season's albatross contracts for aging players that have gone past their peak.
In retrospect (which is the only way you can really judge it), it was maybe a 6/10 window, and still left us with a thin, lop-sided squad. And then when you parachute in an inexperienced manager and completely fail to give him adequate coaching support, you get what we saw last week.
I don't think this is a problem that you can realistically solve in the next four days. Papering over the cracks with a couple of loanee forwards is not going to turn us around on its own, and we're not going to sign the 5/6 players we need when we've already got so much salary tied up in Browne, Murphy & Henry (as well, now as Thorniley & McEachran). Tough spot that TW and GF (with an assist from KR) have put us in.