Well, I thought towards the end of last season it certainly looked as though the team didn't have the same desire to play for JC, is JC not a good manager?
By the way, I'm not sticking up for McGhee here, if players are not trying they deserve every single piece of criticism going in my book. By all means, give stick to the manager as well if that's what you want, but trying to absolve the players in any of this is nonsense in my opinion.