I think Samba is another case - he's someone they needed and went and got - then they didn't use him. Yes, he made a few mistakes (one really bad one), when he played, but what Revs defender didn't make at least one colossal blunder this year? That's a lost opportunity and falls squarely on Heaps' shoulders. We dump all over Burns, but here's a guy he got for Heaps and Heaps did nothing with him.
Yes, Samba is another great example. No disrespect to Barnes who has been a lontime servant of the club or Watson who has impressive versatility, but a guy like Samba from the Sporting system deserves plenty of minutes and spot appearances when injuries strike. He should have gotten Watson's minutes at CB IMO. In fact, I would have sent Farrell back to RB and paired Samba with JoGo to see whether they could develop an effective partnership. As for culpability, it's on everyone IMO. Either a) Heaps/Burns overrated Samba while watching him play in Portugal and Burns shouldn't have signed him or Heaps was either too stubborn, oblivious or simply refused to play him and let a CB partnership develop. Trying to give the revs the benefit of the doubt - it's also possible they knew he would likely go back in September after Sporting's season began and didn't feel it was worth investing the time and energy to develop him. If this is the case then I understand why they didn't give him many minutes, but it begs the question, why sign him if you're not going to play him? If the problem was work ethic/attitude/personality, why didn't they do enough diligence before signing him? It's a screw up by the revs in either scenario, IMO.