It is absolutely the reality.
Taking hardnose decisions on the back room staff is also the start of actually fixing our structural problems.
Hope he continues the ruthlessness. I like having blues like Big Dunc, Unsworth and Baines at the club, but their coaching ability has to be up to scratch. I suspect those 3 all are, but are lads like Phil Jevons and Scott Phelan really the best we could get in their respective positions? I'm sure I heard that Baxter and Jeffers were working for us too. Bin off the jobs for the boys in favour of talented coaches.
On Rafael, he's shown that when he has a first strength XI to work with he can get us playing attacking, functional footy that brings results and is actually decent on the eye too. When his best players are out and he's left with dross like Iwobi, Holgate, Davies, and Rondon (OK this ones his fault) then we struggle. Those 4 wouldn't get into many other premier league teams as far as I can tell. Others have already eloquently pointed out the financial issues he's faced with too, and that he's paying for the mistakes of Walsh, Koeman, and Allardyce mainly. Brands isn't blameless either. He gets plenty of time from me. We need stability, almost nobody would come in and do any better at this stage.