That's where I think you're wrong. The majority of pundits, that includes Carra, honestly haven't got a clue what they're talking about and are stuck in the time when they were still playing. All they do is point out the obvious and kick in open doors. Modern football is different in a lot of areas.
Klopp was on this show with Carra where they were analysing different situations in which we either conceded a big chance or a goal. Carra said something like:"In this situation, I would do this or would want my defender / full back to do that." Klopp then asked to rewind the whole thing and explained what he wanted the players to do in that specific situation. It was the complete opposite of what Carra thought.
The way we set up, you can't see the defence as a different part / isolated unit of the team, you don't just have the "back four" you can take apart and coach. We defend as a unit, we press as a unit and depending on which pressing system we're playing, it's often the player closest to the ball or in a good position to press, who will press. If that's a full back, then it's a full back and then he will be the one joining the press. If Carra would come in and coach the back four, you'd have situations in which the back four is running back (which is what Carra would do in those situations) while midfield and the rest of the team are pressing, you can't have that.
In my opinion our midfield starters (Henderson, Wijnaldum, Lallana) as a trio are good enough and offer enough defensive cover. What we see is that whenever one of our two 8's is missing and replaced by Can, Milner or even Coutinho, that we lose a lot of the midfield stability and cover that the three of them provide as a unit. Keita coming in next season and Chamberlain, in time when he gets used to the tactics, should go a long way to solving the midfield problems.
Spot on and here's the video for anyone who hasn't seen it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIm_BhgVgqwJürgen discusses so often our ability to defend our offensive situations and in this video you can clearly see his explanation of things but what will force him to change personnel is the type of individual mistakes that are happening on a far too consistent basis. Like the throw-in against Spurs, the fact that becomes such a simple goal can only drive any coach in the world mental. You can't coach players not to make such simple errors, you can improve their concentration levels and you can drill them over and over in commonly occurring situations but a throw-in like that, at this level should need no coaching whatsoever.
What is clear from the video, as you rightly point out, is how far away from the bigger picture Carra's mind is and how far removed he is from the original error which starts the house of cards to collapse. I was guilty of it too, most especially with Moreno, I used to think he was permanently out of position, then I developed that thinking and accepted it must be part of the system, but the light bulb moment was when you posted the analysis from Babayagu. That for me was like a twisting of the lens, I was so much more able to see our patterns and recognise our traps after that and I've really grown to appreciate Moreno since.
Now I'm not saying he's Maldini but in our system he's working extremely well but the question has to be are the pillars of our system too fragile to rely upon them so heavily. Does one pillar collapsing mean the whole thing comes crumbling down, or can one fall and the shoulders of others can bear the burden. Well, again, I think you hit the nail on the head, when we have Lallana and Gini our pressing and manipulation of the opposition's attacking opportunities are far better than when we have to rely on Emre or Cou. Now this isn't to say Cou isn't good enough to adapt to the role, he is and he can fulfil his defensive role but he needs a more willing partner than Emre. Along with that when you have a CB who is so wildly inconsistent and unpredictable we essentially start the game with the an unfair burden on our other key defensive players.
So when people moan about the system or the coaching I struggle to agree, as the system has produced brilliant performances time and time again and the quality of the coaching can be seen from this. However when it comes to personnel then some of our players have gone beyond the defensible and unfortunately there's no way of dressing that up other than a failing on our recruitment. It's no surprise to see the leaks in the media about Jürgen's frustration that we couldn't 'manipulate the transfer' market after he'd convinced players to join because we're suffering from those botch ups. Hopefully come January a repair job will be done but it'll always be a huge frustration looking back on this first half of this season because while others will say we're struggling and we're a joke defensively, I'll always look at it as what could have been with VvD and Keita secured.
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