I don't think Scott does get much credit for that squad. We were so good because of Akpom, who Scott had nothing to do with, Ramsey and Archer were definitely due to the link with Danks, Hackney who Scott had nothing to do with and other pre-Scott players like Howson, Fry & Crooks. Forss was good as a winger but Scott signed him as a striker. Scott gets credit for Giles, Steffen, Lenihan and McGree but he's also gets the blame for replacing Tavernier with Mowatt, Muniz, Hoppe, Barlaser, Boyd-Munce etc.
Don't forget that the squad Wilder had at the end of the transfer window was nowhere near what he wanted and that is down to the recruitment team. No amount of Carrick coming n and working miracles with it makes up for the terrible job they did. Also, the majority of those good signings were loans which we had to give back at the end of the season.
This seems to be a fixture of ours in recent years. Having one way of playing and that is it. We don't seem to ever have the flexibility to change things as needed and I think we are worse for it. This should be what makes a good manager, being able to adapt and change things around to get the best out of your resources. It's alright having an ideal system for your ideal set of players but how often do you ever get to play your first choice XI without having injuries or suspensions somewhere. Unless you are better than everyone else you should be playing differently every week to account for other teams strengths and weaknesses. We never did that under Wilder, it was his single magical system or nothing, but I thought Carrick being a bit more considered would have different approaches to different situations. If he does we aren't seeing it implemented effectively which is a worry. We have lots of options with players, so we should have options with formations/systems. Against Blackburn they had runners up the middle all game and we didn't stop them. We should have spotted that and changed something to make sure we closed that off but we just watched it happen on repeat.
My biggest reservation when we appointed Woodgate was that he wasn't bright enough to be able to analyse situations and adapt to them and it proved to be the case. I didn't expect Carrick to be the same but maybe he is and not having someone alongside him better than Woodgate that can see those things might be an issue.
