On the Stick or Twist thread 70% have voted to stick, so maybe the OP is representative of the majority.
There's truth in both camps as far as I'm concerned. Too many poor performances this season, points squandered. But we still might make the playoffs and finish above the allegedly superior Oxford and Lincoln. We looked a good side last weekend, but it was our final home game, and we still nearly squandered a three goal lead.
Next season we will have to replace the spinal quality of Dembele, Byers and Ekpiteta, and find some strikers. Would we rather Critchley did that, or someone else? I'm not really sure tbh. If we changed manager it could go either way we could easily regret it, or we could be delighted that we did. Or we might feel like it didn't make much difference.
The only sides that have consistently ground out results this season are the top two, and maybe Bolton. There are Bolton fans who moan about Evatt and lack of consistency. Portsmouth and Derby are big clubs. Peterborough is the only other side with more than two points above us, and they have some quality players. We are in the next bunch of 4 teams.
We could have got into that top group but we took ages to get the defence settled with Marv in it, the wing backs were poor for far too long, Norburn has underwhelmed, Dougall flounced, and only Rhodes has looked potent up front, and only for half the season. Is all that Critchley's fault? No, but some of it is.