Adi_Dem
Well-known member
Bear with me here.
This is the model that we’ve been crying out for. We have a recruitment team that isn’t perfect but is now consistently bringing relatively unknown players in and then selling them on for huge profit. That’s the model. I used to call it Ajax-lite and it is precisely the right approach, the only approach, for us as a club.
And Carrick has done an awful lot of things really well. We wanted an expansive, exciting brand of football that saw chances and goals and we have that. We play in the main attractive, effective attacking football. We have a clear identity on the pitch and I understand that’s cascaded down through the age groups. Another big tick in the box.
The problem though here is the one we’ve all identified and in respect of which Carrick appears to either have a blind spot or a stubborn refusal to address and it is halting our progress.
We have not recruited well at the back. We now have a collection of left backs, a bunch of crocked centre backs and only a handful of fit defenders. We rely on a clearly ageing Ayling too much and, to coin a recent phrase, the football has left him. VDB has been pretty poor and out of form for some time now and Fry and the dreadful Edmundson simply aren’t technically good enough or mobile enough to play this way.
On top of that, Carrick refuses to adapt. We look disjointed, positionally exposed and generally weak out of possession. We also seem to have a very weak mentality when the going gets tough. That squarely falls at the manager’s feet. If a world class holding midfielder and a world class centre back can’t set us up to be less exposed whilst still being the same attacking threat then we won’t ever progress. You can only compromise defending to an extent in favour of attacking football. There has to be balance and we don’t have it.
So the real question for me, having thought about it and reflected on not just last night but the reason that this season see us scrapping for a 6th place finish, is whether I believe Carrick can take us forward from here. The evidence is that he either can’t or won’t. So we will keep seeing this pattern. A great run of form like we had in November with goals and wins followed by kamikaze defending and poor runs of form because we simply cannot win or even play ugly.
He should see the season out and at that point we should look for a fresh manager to build on what are many many successes since Carrick joined.
This is the model that we’ve been crying out for. We have a recruitment team that isn’t perfect but is now consistently bringing relatively unknown players in and then selling them on for huge profit. That’s the model. I used to call it Ajax-lite and it is precisely the right approach, the only approach, for us as a club.
And Carrick has done an awful lot of things really well. We wanted an expansive, exciting brand of football that saw chances and goals and we have that. We play in the main attractive, effective attacking football. We have a clear identity on the pitch and I understand that’s cascaded down through the age groups. Another big tick in the box.
The problem though here is the one we’ve all identified and in respect of which Carrick appears to either have a blind spot or a stubborn refusal to address and it is halting our progress.
We have not recruited well at the back. We now have a collection of left backs, a bunch of crocked centre backs and only a handful of fit defenders. We rely on a clearly ageing Ayling too much and, to coin a recent phrase, the football has left him. VDB has been pretty poor and out of form for some time now and Fry and the dreadful Edmundson simply aren’t technically good enough or mobile enough to play this way.
On top of that, Carrick refuses to adapt. We look disjointed, positionally exposed and generally weak out of possession. We also seem to have a very weak mentality when the going gets tough. That squarely falls at the manager’s feet. If a world class holding midfielder and a world class centre back can’t set us up to be less exposed whilst still being the same attacking threat then we won’t ever progress. You can only compromise defending to an extent in favour of attacking football. There has to be balance and we don’t have it.
So the real question for me, having thought about it and reflected on not just last night but the reason that this season see us scrapping for a 6th place finish, is whether I believe Carrick can take us forward from here. The evidence is that he either can’t or won’t. So we will keep seeing this pattern. A great run of form like we had in November with goals and wins followed by kamikaze defending and poor runs of form because we simply cannot win or even play ugly.
He should see the season out and at that point we should look for a fresh manager to build on what are many many successes since Carrick joined.