We aren’t far away from getting this right

Adi_Dem said:
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.
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We are miles off. Nothing at the back, the keeper situation is a farce, barely anyone can tackle, barely anyone can head a ball. Messing around with goal kicks gifting chances, can't take a free kick at the other end or a corner. Miles away.
 
I kinda want MC to stay and finish what he started and he has done a lot of good, and I believe he will become a successful PL manager.
If he was to stay past this season, the club needs a change in how we see the defence, MC appears to be all about going forward without addressing the defence ( average Gks and average defenders )
Without adding defending into his plans, he/we will fail.
We absolutely should not have sold ELL until the end of the season and our incoming Jan players appear to be off script ( maybe Doaks injury changed their plans )
 
Nano said:
I don't think anyone is saying that Carrick should be changed based on current form. It's because over his time we have seen no progress and we are still making the same mistakes (gifting goals from mistakes at the back) and suffering with the same problems (unable to defend as a team, inability to cope with any sort of pressure, weak mentality).

It appears to me that we have a system/plan that when it works it works and we look great but when it doesn't we look silly. Carrick seems to be happy that in any given match any outcome can happen which means we roughly win one, lose one and draw one and that doesn't even account for the strength of the opposition. We're as likely to put in a performance against Leeds as we are Plymouth. It doesn't seem like anything is going to change significantly. We had obvious frailties and they haven't been addressed whilst simultaneously addressing problems we didn't really have so we had the resources available but have made poor decisions.

The only solution seems to be that we defend our weaknesses better rather than just relying on our strengths. It's an impossible task expecting our attackers to score 3 goals every game because we concede 2. That's not even always enough. We've had 5 occasions this season where we've scored 2 or more goals and not won, 3 of those occasions we scored 3 and didn't win. I think we've dropped the most points.

If there is a solution and Carrick isn't going to change anything then the only change left to make is Carrick himself. I don't necessarily agree that he is unable to change but it doesn't seem like he's going to and I don't find the notion of someone else coming in and making the changes that far fetched. Basically I've moved from being worried that someone else coming in would be a step down from Carrick to thinking the chances of it being a step down and not a step up, or at least sideways, is minimal.
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I don't think you are saying change the manager because of a bad run of form. I think that's exactly what plenty are saying.

To your point about Carrick turning things around. Who knows. He has done it multiple times in the past. He can clearly get us more solid and we have been in multiple games under Carrick. It is frustrating at the moment. I have no idea how any game is going to go or even from one 45 minutes to the next, to be honest.

There are plenty of mitigations though which we are all aware of, even if some don't acknowledge them.

For the record I wouldn't change manager, even if we don't make the playoffs, which I think we will.
 
We are weak and brittle, no passion ,no fight ,all frills with no real substance, 3 big wins against what we’re 3 poor teams glossed over our incompetence.We have lost the only player who showed any sort of inclination to graft .Mid table here we come , all teams suffer injuries etc but somehow ours are deemed to be worse and a mitigation for basically poor performances.
 
dribble said:
We are weak and brittle, no passion ,no fight ,all frills with no real substance, 3 big wins against what we’re 3 poor teams glossed over our incompetence.We have lost the only player who showed any sort of inclination to graft .Mid table here we come , all teams suffer injuries etc but somehow ours are deemed to be worse and a mitigation for basically poor performances.
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Absolutely, this claim we are so unlucky with injuries doesn’t cut it, especially as we are well into the second season of the excuse. In fact, it was one of the excuses rolled out for not beating Coventry in the playoffs. Like you said, every team experiences injuries.

I still don’t know what came out of the big investigation into why the injuries were being caused, I guess they couldn’t be bothered either doing it or implementing mitigations.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
I have a feeling if we are in the Championship next season, Carrick will walk away and look for a new challenge.
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i think the crowd will have let him know its time for a change tbh,theres a lot is discontent already and we are still in with a chance of playoffs,i personally feel hes struggling (carrick)
 
Uncletommy said:
We’re on joint points with 6th. I’d suggest that’s pretty close to where we expected to be despite being ‘dog sh@t’ for months. Did you think we were gonna run away with league like?
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No but at this stage of the season I didn’t expect us to be 3 points away from the lower half of the division . We’ve had people say give it 10 games , give it till Xmas , give it till the January window closes , now what ? Give it till may ?
 
Johnnyweetabix said:
No but at this stage of the season I didn’t expect us to be 3 points away from the lower half of the division . We’ve had people say give it 10 games , give it till Xmas , give it till the January window closes , now what ? Give it till may ?
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Just give it till we are ahead of Sunderland - remember, they are going to drop like a stone.
 
I didn't expect us to be 14 points off 4th by this point in the season.
We've dropped 19 points from winning positions I think? ..
That smacks of fragility/ brittleness.
And my opinion is that having only one formula works great on the front foot, but is very susceptible to counter pressure and adaption in game from others.

And the squad is full of 'unadaptable' players, with the adaptable ones having left bit by bit.
Crooks , Coburn, McNair , Jones.
The ones left in the squad are crocked more than not .. Forss, Mcgree, Howson, Bangura.

This window looks like a doubling down of the rigidity in 4 2 3 1.

Since November, we've played well 7/10, for most of the game , 60 minutes or more, once or maybe twice?

I do think the aim was " comfortably in the playoffs " and he should be given till the end of the season whilst it's possible.

After that.. I'm not convinced that it's not too intricate a plan for what isn't a intricate league.
It's a grind.
 
If the model is that we're gradually improving season upon season until we get where we want to be, then the ticket prices should reflect that. They don't, they reflect that of a premier league clubs. If you pay a premium for anything in life, you expect premium results. This is no different.
 
Tired Alan said:
If the model is that we're gradually improving season upon season until we get where we want to be, then the ticket prices should reflect that. They don't, they reflect that of a premier league clubs. If you pay a premium for anything in life, you expect premium results. This is no different.
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Unless we suddenly go on a run, the early bird ST numbers are gonna be 'interesting'...
 
morrissey said:
Unless we suddenly go on a run, the early bird ST numbers are gonna be 'interesting'...
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Agreed.

Low early bird numbers = big price increases for walk-ups again next season I reckon.

High early bird numbers = big price increases for walk-ups again next season I reckon.

Regardless of our finishing position, I think its going to need a big summer in the transfer market, and some real sense of direction going into next season to keep people onside.

People will see that we've just sold ELL for £20m and regardless of what happened during the January window, the expectation will be that that money is spent, and more.
 
Nano said:
I did and you are correct. This is what happens when you rely on AI instead of doing your own research. It's still not many though. That's only 3 in 14 seasons and none of those were when a team scraped in with a low points total. Derby and Sheff Wed both got 74 points.
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Coventry got 70 points and only qualified on the last day of the season and they were a Penalty away from getting promoted.

You can’t just include teams finishing 6th either as we’re currently a point off fifth with a game in hand, we could easily finish 5th. Like I said previously several teams have reached the final after finishing in those positions, and several of them have been promoted.

There seems to be a desire to say “this season’s over, it’s been a failure “, but it’s far too premature. We’ve been crap recently, but we find ourselves in a fortunate but reasonably positive position. Everything is still to play for.
 
ForssAwakens said:
It’s valid what you are saying, but when people mention the Brentford model or the Brighton model it’s not exactly following it, but a version of it

It’s funny you pick that season in isolation. To put into context your argument, but the season before the spent 35 million on transfers

Also the transfer market today isn’t comparable to 4/5 years ago
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That's fair enough but they also finished 3rd that season and lost in the play-off final, so it was always going to make sense to stick with Thomas Frank for at least another season.

We really need to finish in a play-off spot at the very least, otherwise I think Carrick will go. It's fair enough viewing this as a long-term project but we need to see some progression at least.
 
The Card Cheat said:
Coventry got 70 points and only qualified on the last day of the season and they were a Penalty away from getting promoted.

You can’t just include teams finishing 6th either as we’re currently a point off fifth with a game in hand, we could easily finish 5th. Like I said previously several teams have reached the final after finishing in those positions, and several of them have been promoted.

There seems to be a desire to say “this season’s over, it’s been a failure “, but it’s far too premature. We’ve been crap recently, but we find ourselves in a fortunate but reasonably positive position. Everything is still to play for.
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I don't think it's over. There is obviously still a chance but I don't have any confidence that we will be able to compete should we make the playoffs. Far too many people (not just us but fans of 7 or 8 midtable teams) see making the playoffs as a good season but realistically it isn't. Competing for the autos for a good chunk of the season is a good season. Where we are is not good but I still accept, and hope, that the outcome can still be good.
 
I remember MC first few games as manager and what I noticed was Everytime we got the ball which was usually Hackney we turned and always looked forward, always on the front foot and quicker with the ball, Hackney was superb. now Hackney or Morris drop way too deep causing problems, and we overplay so much at snails pace. I’d like to go back to how MC started please.
 
LowLaneSheriff said:
I remember MC first few games as manager and what I noticed was Everytime we got the ball which was usually Hackney we turned and always looked forward, always on the front foot and quicker with the ball, Hackney was superb. now Hackney or Morris drop way too deep causing problems, and we overplay so much at snails pace. I’d like to go back to how MC started please.
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I think MC is trying to.
The difference is, teams didn't know what we were going to do in 2022. 2 and a half seasons of trying to play the same way means every club we play against know what we are going to do so Hackney and Morris often don't have that space any more. If teams are well organised like Sunderland were in the second half against us, they will stop the passing lanes into CM which leads to our CBs and GK tapping it about waiting till an option becomes available.
The option is usually Hackney or Morris coming and getting it off them in a deep position as we refuse to go more direct.
 
I just don’t see any reason to stick with him other than blind faith or loyalty. He’s not addressed a single issue from last season, literally nothing has improved, we’re only slightly better off in the table because it’s a worse league than last season.

He hasn’t changed his approach until this point, why on earth would he change now? He had his say on the fans after West Brom, he can’t comprehend why people aren’t happy with him or his team this season.
 
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