I would say they are a very big part of the problem.
Just watch the players reaction to situations occurring in-game, its a real eye-opener. The coaching/ management from the touchline is either missing, or is just a series of dumfounded looks on everyone's face. Patterns of play are limited to the ones LvG introduced, in a vain attempt to hold on to the ball, on the basis "they can't score whilst we have the ball", trouble is we're not skilled in these matters, move too slowly and its only put into action many times out of a sense of panic and /or ' we don't know what to do syndrome'.
Admittedly lots of things happen in a match that can present a surprise situation, but there are lots of repeat patterns occurring that our players don't seem to understand or respond to, set pieces are a joke, corner taking laughable, playing out from the back unbelievably bad, applying a high press .... er whats that boss! This is all basic training/coaching that either is not being undertaken, or players are ignoring or don't understand.
Football is a simple game, or should be!
Confidence is low, as low as I can remember seeing, yes the manager takes the ultimate blame, but what happens to the coaches? SAF use to regularly freshen up his backroom boys, from his no 2 position (e.g. Brian Kidd through to Mike Phelan et al).
Some times watching the antics of our players, you begin to wonder if they all train on the same pitch?