I think the role of a List Manager is to almost constantly be in a rebuild and thinking three to four years ahead. Regardless the guy wants to keep his job and professional reputation so was never going to admit he let the list hit rock bottom and is now starting again.
Logically the Football Strategy (FS) committee would be responsible for setting the direction of the List Management (LM) committee. FS would consider the question; Where are we at, are we contending? They would then direct LM based upon what answer they arrive at. LM then get together and discuss what decisions to make based upon that direction. LM are still responsible for awful decisions based on player ratings, who gets contracts and for what value and how long. So when FS says keep going, we're contending, that doesn't give LM a pass for the decisions that they make within that direction, ie over-contracting JJ and Lynch, overpaying for Gibbs etc. But it's time to;
1) cease blaming Justin Read because his job is mostly to execute the decisions of a committee, although he would be a part of that committee.
2) cease blaming the List Management committee, because they implement the direction provided them by the Football Strategy committee.
Argue the individual decisions for sure. But the reason that we find ourselves where we are, both list wise and footy dept staff wise is because this is where our Football Strategy committee has led us to. And is it any wonder when that committee includes Chapman, Fagan and the financial controller. That tells you all you need to know about how decisions are geared when they are being made at that level. And the answer is very, very simple. It's all about maximising revenue in the now and minimising costs in perpetuity. And that's why there's such a heavy representation of purely numbers people.