The only crumb of comfort to come out of last night is that Lowe and Schumacher can't possibly still think Wootton and Canavan are League One standard. They were poor signings when they first came in: Wootton had just been part of a relegated defence and Canavan wasn't even playing for struggling Rochdale. It's fair to say both have lived up to their low-key billing.
That said, I could see why Lowe kept them around in the summer. Even though neither of them convinced me last season, they had clearly earned RL's trust and helped win him a promotion. It would have been ruthless in the extreme to let them go after that.
But it's now obvious to all and sundry that League Two is their ceiling. In fact, Wootton is probably National League standard, and even then his levels of concentration are so poor that he'd still make mistakes even in that league. I've lost track of the number of times he gets caught ball-watching, letting his man run off him in behind (just like he did last night in the build-up to Rochdale's third - it was almost comical).
As a defender, it's not really about how many headers you win or tackles you make, that's your fundamentals of defending and any professional should win his fair share of those (it's like saying a goalkeeper is a "good shot stopper"; of course he bloody is, that's why he's in goal). There's so much more to it, though: mentality, concentration and focus are what separates the good players from the bad ones. Wootton scores low on all three and needs to go to a league where his lack of focus won't cost his team too many goals.
You get stick on Pasoti for constantly criticising a player, but I like to think I've always been fair on Wootton and given him his dues when he's had a rare good game. I praised him for his first-half at Leyton Orient earlier this season, when he was excellent (though he inevitably dropped a clanger in the second-half that cost us the game), and towards the tail-end of last season when he seemed much more composed on the ball and even his distribution was vastly improved. Unfortunately he keeps reverting to type, and it's now obvious that he's only ever going to be a liability for us if we stay in League One. He isn't up to it. Simple as.
All that said, unfortunately both Wootton and Canavan signed new deals last summer so I'd imagine we're stuck with them until 2022 - unless they only signed one-year deals. Maybe we can find someone willing to take one or both of them for free, but I won't hold my breath.