Ange and Big Sam have had their share of nightmares too. That's why Ange wasn't in the A league.
McG is a completely different player from Elliot. James is a little closer to Elliot. But still in a different mold.
Said it earlier in the thread- we lacked a bit of leadership and passion. Players like Brown, Nelsen, Reid and Sigmund do this, as someone said did Rory, and I thought Wood was quite fired up. But I think there is some intangible that lets player like Smeltz find a way to score in injury time or Nelsen or Siggie to make that block with total disregard to their safety and we were missing a bit of that out on the pitch.