Carrick's struggles don't vindicate Amorim or Ten Hag
The nostalgia for the previous two managers ignores that their problems were ideological, not executional, and that recruitment was built around the same flaws.
That Carrick is struggling does not mean Amorim or Ten Hag had it right; the pseudo-nostalgic whitewashing is understandable when the club is doing poorly, but really misses the point.
Both Amorim and ETH decided to pursue fundamentally flawed game models, which the club decided to support with fundamentally flawed recruitment models.
Their insistence on progressing directly and attacking without much structure, skipping entire phases and mechanisms used by good teams, were acts of deep insecurity, attempts to get results fast without taking the time to gradually improve all in-possesion phases.
And it sometimes worked - for ETH, it worked for almost an entire season - until opponents figured out they either need to let us have the ball or press us aggressively, to exploit playmaking weaknesses in deep build up.
Their out-of-possession ideas and structures were based on their prior experiences of dominance in lesser leagues, in which the quality gaps were significant and rest defense flaws went unpunished.
These were not matters of poor execution; there were issues of core ideology.
Yes, better personnel would have helped both ETH and Amorim, but fundamental flaws would have still been there, exploited by opponents virtually every week.
Carrick’s basic ideas of controlled build up, short passing & central progression are much closer to how a top team should try to impose control, even if they are lacking specifics, especially in the final 3rd.
His in-game management hasn’t been good, and he’s made a number of unforced errors in team selection, front line composition and out-of-possession structure.
But this notion, lately prominent on social media, that Amorim or ETH dominated games and were somehow unlucky to get poor results is ludicrous.
As is the idea that they were building something of note and needed more time. They were not, and were in fact given much more time than was necessary.
Does Carrick get this right? I’m a skeptic: the pre-season was the right time to implement new ideas and correct things that were not good.
We haven’t seen evidence of this happening. It seems very much like last year, with some minor tweaks & some new players.