No disagreement with you here except I am not shifting blame at all. My point was about shared responsibility, not to take the onus off Milford. He has a clear responsibility to be at optimal fitness, to knuckle down and just do it, as does every player. However again, I have some misgivings about the club's fitness and conditioning standards, for example, playing Lodge when he hasn't fully recovered - unfit as well as not fully healed, and the same for playing Milford before his hamstring was fully healed. Also, many in here have commented on the overall lack of fitness in the entire squad, again, for mine, a shared responsibility. As for your point about Milford's talent deflecting responsibility onto others, that was certainly not my intention.
I still remain steadfast in my belief that it is on the coaching staff not to play anyone who is not 100% fit and in top condition, or you end up with predictable consequences as we have seen.
I however disagree with you about Milford being poor for the last 3 years. In '18 he was good. The decline began under Seibold which affected almost every player. I remain convinced that Milford's issues are the same as those of the squad - a lack of belief, in the coach, and the club, and that reflects in the drop in self belief which for mine, impacts everyone's performance, and most evident in the most talented, as we expect so much from them.
You can't reach peak physical fitness if your mental fitness is poor, and digging yourself out of that hole on your own is not easy. We have an expert on that in the squad but it seems, not amongst the coaching staff. Hopefully, that will be addressed when the new coach takes over.