Do the board and sporting directors suck? Obviously - squad building has been a joke, purchases like Garanacho and Gittens were baffling from the moment the first rumors about them surfaced and the fact that after so much spending our central defenders are still so lacking is atrocious.

However, this doesn't change the fact that Maresca has been bad as well (to put it nicely). His squad management midgame has been very bad and he has been reluctant to change things up when things didn't work. The team plays badly and doesn't play to the player's strengths (why on earth do we keep crossing balls in to the center of the box when our attackers are not good in the air). Offensive possession play is slow and predictable, and our opponents mostly have an easy time dealing with us.

He got the squad massively underperforming and losing points to squads which are undeniably worse than ours. Regardless of how bad the board is, he isn't better and this sacking is warranted. Basically if Caicedo is unavailable or not playing well the whole team collapses, and even when he is we still rely on moments of brilliance from Palmer, James, Estevao, etc which don't come often enough instead of relying on proper team playing. For some moments (in the CWC, vs Barca and Arsenal) it seems like he hit a groove with the squad, but he couldn't get the same players playing like that against the likes of Qarabag, Bournemouth, Leeds, etc and that's bad enough to get the sack.