I think you're being very naive and possibly disrespectful to assume there aren't eight better managers in league 2. If you consider that there are two managers with true playoff credentials likely to be starting next season in league 2, then there's the teams who came down with us, Port vale have given the caretaker manager who gave them a higher finish than us the job full time, Swindon are on the look out for a new manager and you'd have to say that is probably an attractive job at this level so chances are that they are going to appoint someone half decent at this level, then you have the managers who have just gained promotion to league two. You also have to consider that the final table can be irrelevant to the quality of the manager. Many managers in the league will have overachieved given their resources, does that make them a better or worse manager than a manager who has superior budget, facilities, team on paper etc. but only does marginally better?
Let's face it MR is going to have to overachieve for us to finish in the top 8 even if we do end up with a top 8 budget there's a massive load of toxicity at the club he's going to have to overcome. If we end the season in the top 8 I'll be delighted and pore every accolade on him I can muster. If we don't I'll probably still be defending him (within reason) because I understand what a difficult job he has. Will you? Insisting that we'll have a top 8 finish because we have no ne of the top 8 managers in the league seems to me is setting yourself up for a fall.
We saw all this with TM. People didn't keep themselves grounded to the reality of our situation, jumped on anyone who wouldn't accept he's the messiah who would perform miracles and many of who were also the first to call him a very naughty boy.