Merrick has championship winning pedigree. New club, new challenge, who knows what he can achieve?
I think the biggest problem with Merrick is that he is a known quantity to us, so it doesn't seem like that exciting an appointment off the back of a "world-wide search".
I also refuse to buy into this crap about coaches only knowing how to play one way. They may get stuck in a rut sometimes, but any top coach should know how to adapt a playing style to a group of players, and vice versa.
One thing's for sure - this has been a pretty exhaustive search by the club conducted with a high degree of professionalism. If Merrick has made it through that process and the club still think he's their man, then I'm right behind him.
If it's him of course!
IMO, to be the best we need to leverage our biggest (argueably only) advantage over the other a-league teams and that is the fact that kiwis don't count as foreigners. I don't believe Merrick is going to add much there.
How many players did Merrick actually develop through the youth system? I don't recall many at all, you could make an argument for Kruse but then he started at Brisbane. Victory were the best team in the league, Merrick should take credit for that but they were very well resourced and gradually stagnated because, again imo, they lacked that internal development that we so badly need. Instead they just went out and bought the best players, young and old, that they could.
If it is him I am not going to stop supporting the team, that would be f**king lame, but it doesn't mean I think he is a good choice. I would also love to be proven wrong.