But he's happy to work within the structures/parameters because if he wasn't he'd be looking for another job
Of course the owner and the board take a massive portion of blame but Thelwells job title is Director of Football and that is to oversee everything which include transfers.
We're in the bottom 3 due to gross negligence on all levels so I'd say as an Everton supporter I'm well within my rights to say he's absolutely ballsed up because as of right this moment, we don't have 1 quality striker to call upon when Dominic Calvert-Lewin is injured.
You're within your rights, of course, but it isn't a statement of fact, it's an assumption.
Thelwell may be happy to work in this structure, despite it potentially not giving him the autonomy he'd ideally like.
Thelwell, in theory, oversees everything. However...
Did he appoint Frank Lampard (statistically the 2nd worst manager in our history)?
Did he decide if/when to sack Lampard?
Did he decide who the new manager should be?
Is he responsible for the budget available for transfers etc?
Is he solely responsible for who we buy/sell?
Is he solely responsible for negotiating deals for who we buy/sell?
Has he had full clarity about the budget available to him in the last transfer window?
Is it remotely possible that Maupay, the striker he did buy in the summer, is actually a reasonable replacement for DCL and it was just that he was massively mis-used by the previous manager who didn't adapt his tactics when DCL was missing?
There's a whole raft of questions that the answers to are simply unknown or blurry. We can't possibly evaluate his performance in the context we have. The same could also be said of Marcel Brands if you want to go down that road. People can make all the assumptions they want, but the irrefutable facts are that the club is appallingly run and as a result of that we are simply in the dark as to where the blame lies for our shortcomings. That in itself is one of the reasons the clowns in charge should be sent packing - for all you or I know, Thelwell might be doing an incredible job, he might also be genuinely useless. It's almost a pointless discussion as things stand.