Mid table is more quality thing than a position thing for me.
Juve and Inter top table teams.
Napoli Lazio Roma Atalanta mid table teams.
Then 14 relegation candidates/bottom table teams.
So amongst the 4 he's a middling manager. His fluke round of 16 qualification aside.
Mid table quality teams finishing near the top is nothing new. We saw this with giudolin - udinese, and delneri - samp. UCL had a better format back then and they were summarily dumped out in group stage qualifiers.
Delneri made the move upwards to a bigger club after that and faced the same fate as gasperini.
Delneri had one lucky season with Cassano and Pazzini. He has failed almost everywhere he's been.
Guidolin is a more worthy comparison. He had consistent success with Udinese in a similar fashion as Gasperini. Wasn't given a shot at a top club. He seemed a bit too "nice" for big clubs and big egos though, but that's just an assumption.
Gasp is a cunt. He might lack a few things, but not toughness.
Genoa and Atalanta are the only Serie A clubs that gave him a full season and he has been very successful with both, in a very similar manner, showing it's not a fluke and it's more on him than the club.
The other two clubs are Zamparini's Palermo and Moratti's post-treble Inter.
All your conjectures are based on.......the short stint at Moratti's post-treble Inter, with a proudly unprofessional Sneijder, a drunk Maicon and a bunch of complacent, old Argentinians?
They had only one star still delivering for them(Eto'o) and that's the one they decided to get rid of to "prepare" for Gasperini.
Klopp, Poch, Conte, any demanding coach would've failed with that bunch.
Gasp, and the above mentioned coaches, need players that can and are willing to work hard.
He inherited a squad that was too old, too satisfied and too proud for such tactics. He arrived in the worst possible moment. It was doomed to fail from start.
Inter have come a long way since then. They now have one of the hardest working, most fit squads in club football.
I'm not ruling out Gasp being only fit for provincial clubs, but having such strong convictions based on the Inter stint is down-right ridiculous.