I remember a midweek home game against, I think, Shrewsbury where we were utterly, utterly, rubbish and ended up drawing 1-1 by the skin of our teeth. Think Nickey Shorey played for us and it was abundantly clear his legs had gone. We were spiralling out of control & relegation was almost a foregone conclusion had SOD stayed.
But, as the OP correctly says, we cleared the decks a bit and brought in JET, Pack & Fielding and laid the foundations for the renaissance.