2 hours ago, Blanco said:

Over coaching them? Ffs 🤦‍♂️ that is definitely not the case. They are not being coached at all 🤷‍♂️

it would appear like that. but its true. he has his players thinking about to much, preventing them doing the basics. football is a simple game made difficult by idiots. 

I honestly think we’ve relied so much on Lenihan defensively that without him we look lost for ages he’s a great leader and keeping the lads in shape, we need him back 

24 minutes ago, Dynamo Kev said:

it would appear like that. but its true. he has his players thinking about to much, preventing them doing the basics. football is a simple game made difficult by idiots. 

Whatever Carrick may be, he's not an idiot. However, I do agree that the players seem thoroughly discombobulated with whatever he's teaching them on the training pitch.

Maybe Carrick needs to take a leaf out of Mike Bassett's book? At least everyone knows how to play 4-4-effing-2.

27 minutes ago, Tarmo Kink Army said:

I honestly think we’ve relied so much on Lenihan defensively that without him we look lost for ages he’s a great leader and keeping the lads in shape, we need him back 

He played all of the first 8 league games, and we only won one of them.  I think what's been happening over the course of the season is that we've 'looked lost' without a number of players.  We were missing Forss, we were missing McGree, we were missing O'Brien, and so on.  Then we get the players back but nothing really improves.  For what it's worth we are clearly missing every player we have injured at the moment, and we missed all of the players who were injured throughout the season, but I don't actually think that there would be much difference if they were all available now.  I think we'd be better but not enough that people would be all that happy with how we were doing.  We've been poor for most of the season.  We've won 7 games since the end of October, and those 7 games represent every game won outside that run of 6 wins in a row that came out of nowhere.  I mean without that run we have got 26 points out of 27 games, that's a relegation team.  I know it's not fair to ignore sets of games but we'd be stuffed without that run, that's how bad we've been all season long.

Edited February 25, 20242 yr by Changing Times

12 minutes ago, RiseAgainst said:

Whatever Carrick may be, he's not an idiot. However, I do agree that the players seem thoroughly discombobulated with whatever he's teaching them on the training pitch.

Maybe Carrick needs to take a leaf out of Mike Bassett's book? At least everyone knows how to play 4-4-effing-2.

hes not an idiot, but hes overcomplicating things. which is a stupid thing to do. our biggest game in ages vs chelsea, he had howson dropping into defence and even the commentators were baffled by it. carrick overthinks everything. by trying to be tactically clever hes actually being tactically stupid. 

Based on who we had available to play in the second leg against Chelsea, not sure who else he could have asked to pick up World Cup winner Enzo other than Howson. Presumably Pochettino had tactics that included Enzo cutting through the right of Boro's defence, which would have meant Howson trying to deal with that rather than leaving Rav to pick him up

5 hours ago, HorsehaySmoggie said:

Based on who we had available to play in the second leg against Chelsea, not sure who else he could have asked to pick up World Cup winner Enzo other than Howson. Presumably Pochettino had tactics that included Enzo cutting through the right of Boro's defence, which would have meant Howson trying to deal with that rather than leaving Rav to pick him up

Defensively (not for the first time) we were such an embarrassing shambolic mess that night it is impossible to try and figure out what on earth Carrick's tactics were supposed to be regarding Howson. Certainly all the expert pundits were baffled by it and almost being kind in their criticism it was that cringeworthy. If indeed it was some complex man marking job which I don't think it was considering how poor it was then it was a cluster&#ck of epic proportions and don't get me started on the passing it out from the back against a side who had subs that cost more than our entire squad. 

Yeah, i'm still completely baffled regarding Carrick's tactics for the 2nd leg against Chelsea. Even more annoyed after watching the match yesterday. I think we could have given that young Liverpool side a decent game.

The Chelsea match was certainly interesting in what Neville in particular was saying. He could see straight away that asking Howson to drop into defence isolated Rav on the right and was creating gaping holes in our defence. He picked it out straight away - we got away with it a couple of times and still Carrick didn’t change it. Then the inevitable goals came and game over. 

The worrying thing for me was Carricks comments. We’re not playing this system or that, we’re being fluid with our formation. And he’s saying the same again now with the lack of playing a striker - oh it’s fluid, false 9, we’ve done it before etc etc. this is what he needs to learn and put right. This group of players (all players?) need a system and to be very clear on their roles. They look utterly lost. 

11 hours ago, Dynamo Kev said:

it would appear like that. but its true. he has his players thinking about to much, preventing them doing the basics. football is a simple game made difficult by idiots. 

Yeah I really don’t think that’s the issue. I think carrick is just poor at preparing the team for games. I suppose it’s something that he can learn. Tactically he seems fairly inept. 

1 hour ago, Skinemrippers said:

The Chelsea match was certainly interesting in what Neville in particular was saying. He could see straight away that asking Howson to drop into defence isolated Rav on the right and was creating gaping holes in our defence. He picked it out straight away - we got away with it a couple of times and still Carrick didn’t change it. Then the inevitable goals came and game over. 

The worrying thing for me was Carricks comments. We’re not playing this system or that, we’re being fluid with our formation. And he’s saying the same again now with the lack of playing a striker - oh it’s fluid, false 9, we’ve done it before etc etc. this is what he needs to learn and put right. This group of players (all players?) need a system and to be very clear on their roles. They look utterly lost. 

Not seen the comments from Carrick, but the last thing we look is fluid and consistently sticking to the same 4231 is hardly being fluid.

Changes are made for occasional games - Leicester - but then we revert to the same system, just with random players in attack.  Hasn't worked well all season, but nothing concrete changes, just the names on the teamsheet.

23 minutes ago, Borodane said:

Yeah I really don’t think that’s the issue. I think carrick is just poor at preparing the team for games. I suppose it’s something that he can learn. Tactically he seems fairly inept. 

I wouldn't say he's poor. He's inconsistent. He's set up the team to beat decent teams like Leicester twice, Chelsea, nearly grab a draw at villa, West brom, Southampton plus we have dominated a couple of games against lower teams like Preston,  Cardiff and Sunderland. Not to mention the performances from last season. 

He's inconsistent as you'd expect from any new manager, same as a young player. He's been in the job less than a year and a half. We're going through a rough patch right now there's no doubt about that. But we've came out of one of those already this season, I just hope we can again because if we go into summer in this form things could get very difficult. 

Seemed ironic, with the same clock ticking to full time last saturday you could see & hear red faction chanting, hearing the drummer, the very ones who were threatening to walk out in the 30th minute, yet after going two down in the 30th minute they stayed throughout the dire Boro performance in an almost deserted Riverside stadium

2 hours ago, Skinemrippers said:

The worrying thing for me was Carricks comments. We’re not playing this system or that, we’re being fluid with our formation. And he’s saying the same again now with the lack of playing a striker - oh it’s fluid, false 9, we’ve done it before etc etc. this is what he needs to learn and put right. This group of players (all players?) need a system and to be very clear on their roles. They look utterly lost. 

The problem with his "fluid system" is that it has become diarrhoea like in its consistency and stinking the place out. Players and Fans alike are all in an utter state of confusion and disbelief when suffering the consequences to the extent that its giving us all the trots.

I genuinely and sincerely hope that this isn't Carrick going off on one of those managerial career ending, eccentric, blinkered, stubborn melt downs.

The defending for the second goal is so unbelievably bad. Gyabi being able to turn in midfield, completely unchallenged, is criminal. Barlaser appears to be marking nobody. Rav is then done by Hardie. Awful stuff.