It’s around about this time in the season that some football managers glance over their shoulder and discover a huge black hole is in danger of swallowing them up. The gravity of the situation means some may be in danger of crossing the Premiership survival event horizon, from which there is no escape. Their best hope is the journey through the wormhole into the Championship will not stretch their credibility as managers to breaking point.
You could say managers careers are a bit like quarks – up, down, top, bottom, strange and charm[ed]. It will take the finest footballing brains to calculate the best way to achieve survival in the coming weeks – though I doubt even Stephen Hawking would be able to find the right equations to help get some clubs out of the quark-soup they find themselves in.
So Aitor Karanka has six rivals in his battle to avoid relegation – a mixture of the up-and-coming, the tried-and-tested and the unpredictable. They’ve all come to the Premier League through different journeys but one thing they have in common is they definitely don’t want to blot their copy-books with a relegation. Some are household names but others are less well known but who is best-suited to the task at hand? I’ve done a bit of research and tried to summarise their careers so far – from starting out as a player to getting on to the manager’s merry-go-round. It’s by no means a comprehensive assessment of them as managers, but it may give you a brief insight into how they got where they are now.
Eddie Howe (39) – Bournemouth
Appointed: Oct 2012 – Position: 14th – Points: 26 – Form: DLDLLL
Howe spent nearly all his career as a defender with Bournemouth until it was cut short at 29 by a knee injury – he then took on the role of the Cherries reserve team coach and eventually was given the opportunity to manage the first team in January 2009 as they struggled at the bottom of League 2. He managed to overturn a 17 point deficit and escape the relegation zone and then went on to achieved promotion to League 1 in his next season, despite a transfer embargo still in place on the club.
He was snatched by Burnley in January 2011 and took them to 8th in the Championship in his first season – though he returned to Bournemouth in autumn 2012 after failing to settle at Turf Moor. He won promotion to the Championship in his first season back and two years later he took the Cherries to the Premier League. He gained a reputation for playing attractive passing football and managed to keep Bournemouth in the top tier by finishing five points above the relegation zone on 42 points.
Paul Clement (45) – Swansea City
Appointed: Jan 2017 – Position: 15th – Points: 24 – Form: WLWWLW
His playing career never progressed beyond non-league level, though his father Dave was a right-back for QPR and his brother Neil a defender at WBA. He chose instead to concentrate on coaching from the age of 23 and obtained his UEFA ‘A’ licence in 1999. He was soon appointed a coach at Fulham’s academy and also worked with the Republic of Ireland’s U-21 squad.
He eventually joined Chelsea’s coaching set-up in 2007 and was made a first-team coach in 2009 under Gus Hiddink. He was subsequently appointed assistant manager to Carlo Ancelotti and they won the title in his first season. He continued his relationship Ancelotti and followed him to PSG, where they won the French title in their second season. Then in 2013 he became assistant manager at Real Madrid when Ancelotti became head coach and went on to win the Champions League in their first season, but a trophyless second season got the Italian the sack and Clement walked out a few days later.
In June 2015 he got his role as a number one and was appointed manager of Derby County following Steve McClaren’s dismissal, but despite being comfortably placed in 5th with only one defeat in his last 19 games he was surprisingly sacked the following February. Once again Clement joined up with Ancelotti, this time at Bayern Munich, but after six months he took up the offer in January 2017 from Swansea to become their manager and save them from relegation.
Claudio Ranieri (65) – Leicester City
Appointed: Jul 2015 – Position: 17th – Points: 21 – Form: DLLLLL
Ranieri started playing football as a defender with Roma but achieve little first-team experience there and spent most of his 12-year career with less fashionable Italian clubs such as Cantazaro and Catania where he played in the first and second tier – though he managed to achieve four promotions as a player.
He moved into management initially at amateur level in Italy and then with a small minor club before joining Cagliari in 1988 where he made his name by getting them promoted from the third tier to Serie A in successive seasons. He developed a reputation for playing in a style that allowed for a smooth switch in tactics during the game.
This success lead to a short stint as manager of Napoli during the end of Maradona’s time at the club where he achieved a fourth spot in Serie A, but was dismissed in his second season after being knocked out of the UEFA cup. He then took over a Fiorentina and gained promotion to Serie A in his first season, then flirted for a time with the possibility of winning the title in his third season before falling away into fourth spot.
In 1997, Ranieri moved to Valencia where he established them as a growing force in Spanish football but only achieved a fourth place finish in the four years he was there – he left a popular man with the supporters and was responsible for developing several promising young players including a certain Gaizka Mendieta. He then briefly managed Athletico Madrid but apparently jumped before he was pushed by notoriously impatient chairman Jesus Gil as the club struggled financially.
Then in 2000 he arrived in England to become Chelsea manager, where he was tasked with rebuilding an ageing squad. It was when he was given the nickname ‘The Tinkerman’ in 2002 for his constant use of squad rotation though arguably it eventually paid dividends as a fresh squad made a late run and qualified Chelsea in the Champions League for the first time, which was achieved despite limited signings as the club struggling financially.
The arrival of Roman Abramovich put Ranieri’s future in doubt as the Russian coveted a big name manager, after speculation linking Sven-Goran Erikisson he was finally relieved of his duties as ‘Special One’ Jose Mourinho was appointed. Though it’s worth noting that the nucleus of Jose’s title-winning squad had been assembled by Ranieri and he’d built the foundations by increasing Chelsea’s points tally in each of his four years in charge.
Next up came a return to Valencia to replace Rafa Benitez who had just won the Spanish Title and UEFA Cup and was off to Liverpool. But criticism of his rotation policy together with an autumn slump and ejection from Europe lead to his dismissal after only seven months in charge.
After a two-year absence from management Ranieri returned to Italy to take over at Parma in mid-season to help them avoid relegation – a task he succeeded in with some eye-catching results along the way. There was speculation linking him with a return to England at Manchester City and Parma decided not to extend his stay but in the end Ranieri headed to newly promoted Juventus in June 2007 on a three-year deal. It started well and he finished an impressive third in his first season and the next season also began strongly but a two-month slump in form left many criticising his team selections and despite finishing third again Ranieri was dismissed at the end of the season.
Though he was soon back in work as manager of Roma and did well in his first season and topped the table for a period but was beaten to the title by Jose Mourinho’s treble-winning Inter Milan. His second season didn’t start well and he fell out with club captain Francesco Totti and following a long bad run Ranieri resigned in February 2011. He was then installed as Inter Milan manager five games into the 2011-12 season after they’d lost 4 out 5 opening games – Ranieri got them firing again and they were soon back in the title race, but a run of only two wins in three months towards the end of the season earned him the sack.
Ranieri headed off to France and was tasked with getting Monaco promoted to Ligue 1, which he achieved in his first season as winners and then impressively finished in second spot behind title winners PSG in his second season. A brief spell in charge of Greece ended abruptly after losing at home to the Faroe Islands, before in July 2015 he was appointed manager of Leicester City and the start of one of the most amazing stories in modern footballing history as they went on to become Premier League champions.
Marco Silva (39) – Hull City
Appointed: Jan 2017 – Position: 18th – Points: 20 – Form: LWLDWL
Silva’s playing career was almost entirely in the second and third tier of the Portuguese league, where he performed as a right-back until he stopped playing at the end of the 2010-11 season whilst at Estoril. The club then made him their director of football but he soon found himself in charge after they sacked their coach. In his first season in management he won the league with Estoril to take them up into the top division and followed that up the next season by finishing 5th and qualifying for the Europa league.
He went one place better in his next season which caught the attention of Sporting Lisbon who gave him a four-year deal as their manager. In his first season at Sporting he finished third and also won the Portuguese Cup, but was incredibly sacked four days later for failing to wear the club’s official suit at a game.
Silva then moved to Greece to become manager of Olympiacos and won the title with six games to spare, including a run of 17 consecutive victories to set a new European-wide league record for this century. He then subsequently quit the club after his first season ended citing personal reasons. His success as a young manager has now brought him to the Premier League as the manager of Hull, bringing his management team with him. What appeared a lost cause as the club sold their best players now seems to be a possible chance to impress as he hit the ground running.
Sam Allardyce (62) – Crystal Palace
Appointed: Dec 2016 – Position: 19th – Points: 19 – Form: LLLWLL
Big Sam started as an apprentice at Bolton and made his Second Division debut as a centre-half in 1973 but took a couple of years to establish himself in the team. Bolton finally got promoted in 1978 and spent a couple of years in the top tier before being relegated with replacement manager Stan Anderson. Allardyce reportedly didn’t get on with Anderson and also felt underpaid so decided to move on.
He turned down Norwich and agreed to join Derby but a the last minute chose Sunderland after an offer of better money – though after two seasons at Sunderland he lost his place in the team and decided to leave. He turned down a return to Bolton because they could only pay half what he earned at Sunderland and instead made a surprise move to Third Division Millwall who not only matched his wages but gave him a £30k signing-on fee plus £10k loyalty bonus. He was actually offered the manager’s job at the Den in 1982 but turned it down as he thought at 28 was too young. Instead George Graham became manager but the two fell out after Sam refused to ‘grass’ on team-mates who broke Graham’s rules, he was subsequently frozen out and Graham agreed to pay £15k to cancel his contract.
Alladyce then ended up playing briefly in the US for Tampa Bay and it was perhaps a move that would have a lasting impression as his eyes were opened to modern practices in training and tactics that would later be a hallmark of his managerial career.
He returned to England but was a physical but limited footballer more known for his hard tackling than ability with the ball and after one season under Bobby Gould at Coventry was released and spent his subsequent playing career outside the top flight until he stopped playing first-team football.
Allardyce’s first coaching role was at WBA under Brian Talbot and it lasted two years until they were both sacked for losing to non-league Woking in the FA Cup. He then became player-manager at Limerick for one season which ended in promotion to the Irish Premier League and he returned to England to coach at Preston, including a short spell as caretaker manager – he left after two years ironically citing opposition to extreme long ball tactics.
He was appointed Blackpool manager in 1994 and it concluded by him being sacked at the end of his second season by chairman Owen Oysten from his prison cell after losing in the Division Two Play-offs. Big Sam then took on the manager’s job at Notts County but couldn’t stop them being relegated from Division Two – but the following season they won the league by 19 points and were already promoted in March. But Allardyce felt he didn’t get the financial backing required to take the club forward and resigned in October 1999 to join Bolton as manager.
After taking over at Bolton, he narrowly missed out on promotion in his debut season, losing in the 2000 Play-off final, as well as both semi-finals of the Cups incidentally – this was despite having to sell a key player in Andy Todd after he broke the jaw of assistant manager Phil Brown during a team-bonding exercise that went wrong. Bolton won promotion the following season through the Play-offs and Big Sam established them as a Premier League side over the coming seasons.
It was at the Trotters that he gained his reputation as an innovative coach using sports science and technological aids as well being open to alternative therapies like yoga and psychology – preparation and organisation were key elements to his success. After seven years at the club he eventually resigned in April 2007 with the club in 5th place, stating chairman Phil Gartside was unwilling to match his ambition and increase funding to take them to the next level and become a top four team.
Soon after he became Newcastle manager but his style didn’t go down too well with the locals and then following a bad run he was dismissed in January 2008 and replaced by Kevin Keegan. Allardyce then became Blackburn manager in the following December and kept them safely in mid-table for two seasons but when the Venky’s took over he was replaced a few months later by his coach Steve Kean. Big Sam then took over at newly relegated West Ham and achieved promotion through the Play-offs at his first attempt. Despite them finishing regularly in mid-table in the Premier League the fans didn’t warm to his style of football and many were quite vocal in wanting him out, though he remained in charge until his contract expired at the end of the 2014-15 season
Then following a bad start to the season at Sunderland he replaced Dick Advocaat as their new manager and once again successfully steered them out of the relegation zone by the end of the season – he was widely praised for his organised approach, which resulted in him being rewarded by being appointed England manager. Though his dream job didn’t last long as he was dismissed after only one game in charge following being secretly filmed explaining to fake businessmen how to circumnavigate FA rules on third-party player ownership.
Though his relegation rescue services have been called on once more, this time Crystal Palace hired him in December 2016 following the sacking of Alan Pardew.
David Moyes (53) – Sunderland
Appointed: Jul 2016 – Position: 20th – Points: 19 – Form: DLLDWL
Moyes began his senior career at Celtic and won his only major playing honour with them, a 1981-82 Scottish Championship medal. Most of his playing days were spent as a centre-back in the lower English leagues with the likes of Cambridge and Shrewsbury, then after a few years back in Scotland with Dunfermline and Hamilton he spent the last six years of his career at Preston. He combined his playing at Preston with coaching roles, working his way up to assistant manager before being offered the manager’s job in 1998 after the club sacked their manager.
Moyes had been preparing for management since his early 20’s, he was a fully qualified coach at 22 and was known to take notes on the techniques used by his managers. He avoided the drop with Preston and got to the Play-offs the following season before winning the league the year after to gain promotion to the second tier. The following year he almost won promotion to the Premier League but lost in the 2001 Play-off final.
This feat had got him noticed by bigger clubs and was appointed manager of Everton in March 2002. Moyes spent over ten years at Everton and was generally applauded for his achievements with a club who were no longer part of the ‘Big Four’, though his first four seasons were a mixed bag of good followed by bad seasons but after that he usually finished just outside the top four. Only once did he qualify for the Champions League but lost in the qualifying stages and never got beyond the last 16 of the Europa League in four attempts.
Sir Alex Ferguson saw in the disciplinarian Glaswegian a man in his own image and he became his anointed successor in July 2013 – however he had a hard act to follow and never settled quickly into the job, which left United suffering a bad start to the season. After getting knocked out of the Champions League at the quarter-final stage and only sitting in seventh spot in the league, with no chance of making the top four, Moyes was sacked after only ten months in charge.
In November 2014 Moyes returned to football at Real Sociedad in La Liga, a role that lasted almost exactly a year before he was once more sacked for a poor start to the season. Sunderland appointed him to replace the England-departing Sam Allardyce in July 2016 as their seventh manager in a little over three years.
Exmil Challenge
The Exmil Challenge will be starting again next week – It’s the chance to predict how you think the relegation teams will perform until the end of the season. It will be in three parts, with the first part taking us up to the International break and a chance to reflect and compare notes before part 2.
Exmil will be managing it but I will be assisting with the process by creating a form that enables you to easily select your predictions, which then get automatically submitted directly to Exmil’s mailbox – I’ll also add a few stats and tables to help you decide too.
We need to wait until after the FA Cup weekend to see which fixtures will be affected by the Quarter-final games – so it will probably be next Wednesday.
Interesting & informative report, thank you werder👍
There’s a lot to fight for this season
Another fine piece Werder, has Mrs Werder sussed you out yet?
If she knows you are a Boro fan she will just walk around with a sympathetic smile and a shrug.
Werder
Thanks again for another great contribution. Do you ever relax?
This blog is relentless but I love it.
As others have remarked and with due respect to his years of dedication to the cause, this forum seems even more popular than AV’s original. Long may it continue.
STEELY
You are so correct in your praise of our Blogmeister without whom we would have been Gazetteered into oblivion or even worse a subscription based site where we would have to pay real money not this virtual currency!
The quality of the posts has definitely caused a stirring of the little grey cells to keep up with the high standard and maintain what is now a quality site.
I hope all those lurkers and watchers who have not posted take the plunge and give it a go. Once you’ve done it you will find it gets very addictive!
Great piece werder, looking forward to the exmil challenge too.
My foam handed, rose tinted gut instinct is that Boro will survive this season.
Werder the werd smith al lot of research has gone into that post and succinctly provides a potted history of the other R trapdoor managers.
I’m looking forward to the cup match on Saturday against Oxford as a little light relief from the Premiership.
Gestede Bamford Ayala and possibly George given a run out to get his fitness back up to speed.
Great piece Werder,a lot of time and effort has gone into it
Now which of these managers has the credentials and nerve to escape the drop?
I assume our very own AK has the full backing on here?
Football management is a complicated business, most people in those positions don’t have thousands of people watching every move they make.
Looking at the entagables
My assessment of the the three worst ones we’ve had, and it’s not about results ,it’s about the tools they were given and how they were used .
1. Raich Carter
2 Gordon Strachan
3 Brian Robson
There has been a couple of others that could be mentioned but they may have had for one reason or another been obstructed from within.
Great piece, again, Werder!
Of the managers listed, I wonder how a club can hire Allardyce after the silly things he said and did as an England manager. How can you trust the guy? Must be hard for the fans down there. The chairman must have been really in panic at Palace.
Yes, I wouldn’t say Swansea have survived just yet. They must have a few defeats soon and it would be interesting to see how they recover after a few bad results.
I also think (hope?) Boro will get a few results soon. We are through a mare now and could really play only better now. At least the teams we will face are not as good as in the near past.
It will be tense. But that is what we expected. I am just going to enjoy that I can see Boro on TV in HD mode every week. I let AK to worry about the team and I just enjoy (??!) the ride.
Up the Boro! The Boro is staying up.
gt
I would be tempted to put Southgate in there but he was only part of the unholy trinity who allowed the good ship Boro to hit an iceberg.
The folly of that August transfer window was the worst set of transfer dealings I have seen in the modern window system.
I think in Southgates defence GT’s selections were based upon “Tools they were given”. Southgate effectively had his resources removed from him and was then given a right bunch of “Tools” to work with.
Excellent stuff again Werder – and very much looking forward to the Exmil challenge!
As for whether we stay up or not, well, I’ll let the Exmil predictions decide. I must admit in the promotion season to tweaking my forecasts to the point where Boro looked likely to achieve promotion, however this time I will try to be as objectively subjective as possible and see where I predict us to end up.
GD may end up being a factor, which currently puts us in a very good place, however should (by some miracle) GD end up being tied I think the next measure is goals scored, which means that aside from Hull we would be sunk against our direct competition.
I just hope we can put together a 3 game winning run and pull ourselves out of the mire.
Thanks for your comments on the article everyone – it started off by looking into some of the newcomers to the PL and then I decided to expand it to cover Karanka’s relegation rivals, which meant it became quite lengthy as I tried to summarise those who’d been around for quite a while.
I think what was interesting is that you see a pattern emerging with some managers – for instance Ranieri usually makes a good start in jobs but quite often suffers long bad runs in his second season. I wonder if we’re seeing the same at Leicester but it has been magnified because of the amazing feat of winning the league – perhaps many of the players are struggling to be motivated after the high of last season.
Also Allardyce appears to have been motivated by the need to feel he’s been rewarded fully or backed financially to the level he feels is needed. He’s a bit of contradiction as he comes across as a bit old school but seems very open to modern techniques. Though I agree with Jarkko that maybe he’s lost a bit of credibility after the England job, which could mean players don’t fully believe in him anymore.
Then there’s Moyes, what was apparent looking at his managerial career is that he’s never won anything and quite often fallen when expectations and pressure was on to achieve something. I’m not sure if he’s got anything special to turn around a club and he’s probably the type of manager who needs time to get his methods working – perhaps Sunderland was a too higher risk job for him and it’s hard to see them suddenly clicking.
Eddie Howe appears to be Mr Bournemouth and his footballing philosophy of attractive passing football may not be best suited to turning around a struggling team on a bad run – it’s probably going to be a hard test for him and the longer the bad run lasts the harder it will be.
I think Paul Clement may be a bit like Karanka in so much he’s had a long-time mentor in Ancelotti and has seen at close hand how a very good manager trains, selects teams and wins. He’s shown that he has quickly identified the problems at Swansea and has got them playing with confidence – this was a team that conceded three goals a game for several months and didn’t score many.
Marco Silva is the dark horse but has so far impressed in every manager’s job he’s had – Hull look a completely different proposition since he arrived so he definitely knows what he’s doing and can get up and running very quickly – especially if you consider his last four PL games were against Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea, plus Hull sold several of their key players.
Finally, just to reply to Ian about Mrs Werder (as I now call her) she knows about the blog but I suspect sympathy will be in short supply if it interferes with my busy domestic programme 🙂 Though I should add to Steely that this blog is my relaxation – the hard work arrives home from school in the afternoon in the shape of my perpetual motion machine known as my six-year old! (along with his German homework)
Top thought provoking piece Werder, I was about to highlight that which you just have in regards to Moyes not having really achieved anything when the pressure is on and that Allardyce is looking far from his convincing flamboyant self but most interestingly Ranieri has a pattern which seems to be repeating itself.
Clement seems to have identified and corrected the Swans but if Silva saves the Tigers he deserves a medal. Based upon the managers alone I’d have to say that Moyes, Allardyce and Ranieri look the most susceptible. I think with Howe he wins a few, loses a few, draws a few but overall gets enough points because of the wins he picks up along the way.
Karanka is the real unknown, he is back to where he was when he first arrived at Boro, a team struggling at the wrong end of the table and flirting with relegation albeit in a different league. He done it then but its easier fixing and thereby inadvertently blaming other peoples faults than changing and thereby admitting your own failings.
There does seem to be a little more positive emphasis since “Attackgate” if it continues and we start scoring a few we know we can shut up shop. AK’s tactics have taken us so far but it perhaps has fallen slightly short and no longer enough comfortable that it will see the job done. Beat Palace of course and that puts a whole new perspective on things, losing to Palace however doesn’t bear thinking about!
It is not only managers scrabbling about in the relegation battle who are struggling, here are the words of Arsene Wenger after last nights mauling.
“Overall I must say they are a better team than us, they played very well in the second half and we dropped our level. We were a bit unlucky we dropped our level and they were better than us.”
Always tricky in a second language, but you are not unlucky if you drop your level. To be fair, once the tide starts running against you it is difficult to claw your way back.
We all know Arsenal are great if you allow them to play but they haven’t been the same since the defence Wenger inherited started retiring.
Dr Werdermouth,
Another great article on the blog and a feast for thought too. I can almost see a Christmas Annual coming, a compilation of the best articles.
UTB,
John
I noticed that yesterday all the various Boro supporters groups met yesterday to integrate into a collective one voice for the Boro whist still retaining their own individual identity. These included MSS 12th Man and FMTTM.
Is this something that we should register our interest in being a part of? Without pushing myself I would willingly attend the ad hoc meetings on our behalf as I know a lot of our bloggers do not live locally.
What do we think? Do we want to be recognised as a supporters group? Are we better off lurking under the radar?
It’s up to you fellow bloggers and lurkers!!
And Lurchers 🐕
OFB
Yes
It certainly does no harm to find out what it is all about and obviously it may well be of benefit to the fans and club.
As you say OFB we are fairly well spread out on here, We are a group and we are an international voice too. Or are we guerrilla warfare and clandestine operations specialists?
I’d say attend if you are happy to OFB. Not to many beers though if the meetings are in a pub!
UTB,
John
OFB –
I guess like Jarsue my first response would be to be to find out what it’s about before affiliating with something. I’m not sure what is the purpose of integrating into a collective one voice for Boro – as in general I’m all in favour of retaining individual identity and hearing opposing views. Perhaps it’s like a TUC for Boro supporters (or CBI if that analogy doesn’t wash).
Anyway, if we can’t send Ian and Spartak as a collective one voice of the blog then feel free to have a look around Bob 🙂
Finally got passed the myriad of adverts on the rag’s website that really spoilt any chance of enjoying a read, but I’m not certain that the joining together of supporter groups in the aforementioned article is the right thing for us on here. I might be employing an islander mentality here to a certain extent, but I’m more than happy with this new set up (cheers once again Werder and crew) without any outside influences being applied, that’s if they can that is.
I prefer the analogy of this blog being a pub where we can have a pint, share our views and basically put the world to rights, and not just planet Boro at that. We’re not a movement as such as I see in the other groups, but more of a bunch of very widely spread banter merchants with opinions.
Don’t get me wrong, if change is for the better then I’m all for it, but do we really bring any influence to bear?
Just my two pennies worth.
This is a report from the Gazette on the fans forum
http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/middlesbrough-fans-groups-unite-forge-12610853
OFB – My thought would be to pay an initial visit to see what its all about before commiting.
Great piece, Werder. Thanks for all the research.
OFB: I totally agree that the proposed collective forum is something in which we should take an interest and, all being well, seek to be a part of, if the club is agreeable. And I would wholeheartedly support your being the blog’s representative if you feel up to it. It would give the blog an inside track on what is happening within the club, keep us better informed, and stimulate our own thinking if we know that our best ideas have a formalised channel back into the club.
It won’t preclude us from going on doing what we already do, but could provide yet another dimension to the many that this amazing blog already possesses.
Here’s the link to the Gazette article about the ‘collective voice’ if anyone wants to read up about it – not sure whether the opinions of our niche blog will hold too much sway among the masses though.
But what I did find amusing was the photo they used of the chairman of the new group – If that were me I’d be concerned it didn’t give me the full gravitas I’d be searching for – looked a bit like the love child of anti-sleaze MP Martin Bell and Dr Strangelove was suddenly caught unaware while having a sit-in protest on his neighbour’s patio.
http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/middlesbrough-fans-groups-unite-forge-12610853
Werder
Just a point about our group being of interest to the collective masses
When a new post is put on the board I tweet it on twitter post it on Facebook name also copy the post to LinkedIn
The idea of that is to try and get like minded Boro fans who are interested in our opinions to join us and swell our numbers
Judging by the number of people who have been reading the posts and it is retweeted by our friend Jarkko we seem to be attracting some interest
I don’t know if this has helped to swell our numbers but perhaps the stats on our site would show that.
There is no doubt that his blog has a renewed energy and zest about it which makes for interesting reading
I don’t think the intention is to police the various factions and groups but to understand what information is of interest.
It is an attempt to understand what we as fans want and to provide feedback. We have often said that our blog is probably read by Boro management and possibly players and also by journos!!
But it was only a thought and I’m quite happy to be part of the group doing our own thing!
Let’s face it the fantastic job that Werder and the other contributors have done have made this a must read blog every day.
Long may it continue
UTDB
OFB
If I was in your position I would go along, there is nothing to be lost to see what is happening. We do not know how pertinent it is to ourselves until someone goes and finds out.
By it’s very nature Diasboro is a diverse grouping as it pulls together strands from across the globe. many of the groupings on the forum look to be specific interest groups.
It will be interesting to get other groupings perspectives.
As a genuine question, are any of the Diasboro members of the groups mentioned in the article?
I am pretty certain that the views on Untypical Boro were read at a high level, not always well received I’m sure but as has been pointed out on Untypical previously and now Diasboro it is priceless customer feedback. I suspect that the same level of interest and observation is still paid to Diaboro.
There is a marked difference in the quality and depth of debate on here compared to other sites yet it still manages to attract a spectrum of opinions and styles of expressing them.
I’m not sure there is much value to be gleaned from the FMTTM site. It does have some interesting posts and opinions but they are virtually always brought down to the lowest common denominator by personal insults and abuse which are neither humorous or intellectual. If the Club is to take notice of a group whose average i.q. equates to 11 year olds in remedial classes then that’s a worry in itself.
Now of course Rob and many others on the FMTTM site are absolutely passionate about Boro and have exactly the same intentions as all of us on here but there is unfortunately a substantial majority on there whose ability to add something of value is questionable. I often wonder why those who start a sensible post post bother as you know exactly how it is going to end up with childish personal vendettas coming to the fore.
I’m reminded of the Groucho Marx quote “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member”
NGUOB is a member of the Official Supporters Club to get to the away matches.
Other members of various supporters clubs? UTB!
On the subject of football, specifically, the cup tie.
May I say that Oxford are, for a boro fan, the gift that keeps on giving.
Stars of the unforgettable night we got promoted(from the third division?) massive crowd, (way over capacity) great match and result(4-1)
Then they do it again, ( promotion to the prem.?) was it 4-1 again
As the French say, never two without three.
Todays thought.
Boro v Oxford are on of only three ties not live on TV, no argument from me, other games are more attractive. If it was Oxford v Boro that would have changed things.
With five slots for live games available, lunchtime and teatime on Saturday, early afternoon and 4.00pm on Sunday, Monday evening, the winners of our match will certainly be on TV come the sixth round.
Not used it yet but I will checkout this free site on Saturday :
http://www.vipleague.mobi/search/Middlesbrough.html
Plato
A David Armstrong goal gave the team that Jack built a win over Oxford in early spring to confirm promotion.
The next weekend we won 1-0 thanks to David Mills to be confirmed as champions with seven games to go and that was in a 42 game season at two points for a win.
I can only express the thoughts of all the other posters…..great piece down to lots of time and effort. Thank you.
I have been with wife in Fuertaventura this week. Needed some sun and cycling instead of cross-country skiing back home. I know that people did do cross-country skiing on the Moorside in the 1950’s. When the winters were proper ones.
Does anyone know if the Boro vs Oxford is on TV over here in Spain?
BTW, we met a lady from Durham today. Her daughter is married to a Boro season ticket holder from Redcar. The daughter is expecting twins soon, so more Boro fans I hope (the family from Durham does not have interest in football :-D).
Up the Boro!
gt – Strachan wins the “Boro’s worst manager ever” competition hands down. My mates still recall the time we almost crashed the car at the Newport Road roundabout after leaving the match, hearing his post-match interview talking about “drink or drugs” to get over yet another bad result.
That, and buying up almost anyone with a Scottish name or history, at a vast overprice, and at wages they probably thought were a dream come true, even those who’d been “Old Firm” players. And how many of them were any good? It must have seemed to Steve Gibson that someone had been setting light to a pile of his hard-earned money, with only soot and shadows to show for it.
And the debates in the pub before setting off for the Riverside: “Do we really want to go to the match, after all, or should we stay here and just have a few drinks?”. Eventually, no doubt full of fear and trepidation, we set off for those games with a heavy heart and with a sense of duty rather than hope.
Grim times, indeed. It is difficult to imagine how anyone could have done a worse job. He is said to have walked away without seeking a golden handshake, but has anyone asked those in authority whether he had a “golden hello” before taking the job in the first place? In that case, asking for something at the end of that disastrous management spell would have been chancing the arm, to put it mildly!
Just watched Gent 1 Spurs 0, whilst texting my sister, who was watching the match at her house. I texted:
“Did you see the name on the back of Gent’s No 32”
Sis replied “No what was it”
I replied “What Spurs players are thinking tonight FOKET”
Come on BORO.
My major worry being a long time supporter in his late fifties and all the baggage of typical Boro we carry is that this will go right down to wire and when the music stops Aitor can’t find a chair.
OFB,
I think on the subject of theBoro supporters collective I would just twitch the lace curtains and see what goes on. I’ve looked at some of the other forums and the Diasboro is light years ahead in terms of debate, topics, rambling and cross-section. Never mind splashes of local history.
Just have get so we can say we’ve been like.
UTB,
John
PS Geoff in Melbourne, AK may have to simply sit on the Fat Lady’s knee.
PPS Spartak are you out there?
Yes 🙂
Don’t know if anyone heard Jordan Rhodes on 5 Live tonight just before the 6pm news? Talking to a young Boro fan who had got in touch with him, Jordan had written personally to him and with both youngster and mum being so thrilled by Jordan’s response, it ended up being a national news snippet, with all of them being interviewed and chatting together on air.
It brought home what a well-balanced guy Rhodes is and underlined even more the colossal error Boro have made in letting him go. Not just because he is the sort of striker who, I remain convinced, if he had the sort of privileges Negredo enjoys would have scored us more goals and helped gain us quite easily more points than we have, but also because players who can build bridges with fans like that is a big part of what football is about.
Great piece again Werdermouth – I would bet that any of the above managers must have spent a bit of time wondering how on earth Karanka has escaped the sort of scrutiny that Ranieri is enduring, and that got Pardew sacked. AK is incredibly fortunate to still have a job – full credit to SG for loyalty but it will take a miracle for us to avoid the drop this season.
You say that, yet we are not explicitly in the drop zone – yet. More on this later.
Semajemm
We do not know it is a colossal error, we never will because we cannot rewind the clock and play out the alternative scenario.
If Wednesday go up and we get relegated then Rhodes and Reach can have a little chuckle, they would be pleased for themselves but sad for their friends.
OFB
Please do go to the mixed forum meeting and report back. It would be very interesting to hear what is said, by whom, and for what agenda.
Ian Gill, ref Southgate
I still have nightmares about the in’s & outs of the transfer window that preceded our relegation. At the back we sold Englands Luke Young and replaced him with Justin Hoyte, then moved Poggy from the centre (where he was good) to left back (not so good). In the middle we replaced skill, guile, experience and youth (Rochemback, Mendi, Boat and Catt) with projects and bit-parts (Digard, Bates and Shawky). On the right we tried project Emnes or square-pegged Aliadiere, and upfront we we’re still wondering why we sold Viduka & Yak to be replaced by Mido, Alves and Marlon King on loan. To top it all we let Schwarzer go and promoted Ross Turnbull . . a catalogue of quite horrific decisions, looking back I’m amazed we weren’t down with the crimbo decorations.
I watched that team under Southgate and grew more and more anxious as another player went and we replaced with an inferior product
Losing the spine of the team the goalkeeper centre halves and centre forwards would kill any team.
Funnily enough I thought Digard showed promise and if we hadn’t replaced so many he could have grown to become an established player
AV our former Blogmeister called Boro at the time an Arsenal lite creation. It was so, but without the guile and creativity and steel that Arsenal showed to win games.
Hoyte never impressed me and his career after Boro has taken a marked decline and he plys his trade in non league football now.
Aladiere often flattered to deceive and another one I didn’t think was a Boro type of player.
But the Strachan teams were worse !!
From comments to date I am against a forum merger. However new migrants / asylum seekers (no cats please) should always be welcomed. If they fail in the opinion of the hierarchy to uphold the rules, then like anyone else they should be quarantined.
One of Oxford United’s nicknames is ‘The Yellows’. Maybe on Saturday MMP could play ‘Yellow Pearl’ by Phil Lynott ? Our supporters could then sing along to the lyrics :
‘Attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, is what we lack’, but substituting the word ‘like’ for the word ‘lack’.
Just woofing like.
Mr Parker
I don’t think anyone is supporting or recommending a merger of forums. I believe it is a talking shop of interested parties to discuss issues Boro.
FMTTM, Red Faction and the other groups would continue what they were doing and not merging.
The Gazette are moving next to the Riverside, no doubt MFC ‘stewards’ will patrol the corridors suppressing any ‘misinformed’ views. 🙂
A few days ago I posted about the debate on Sunday Supplement about relegation and we were virtually ignored in the discussion. The latest Tripe Supper mentions that discussion, it is an interesting listen.
Semajemm at 8h34.
I was listening to 5-live on the way home yesterday evening and I also came away with the impression that Jordan Rhodes is a seriously nice fellow. Not only that he takes the time out to reply in his own hand to fan mail, but just the empathetic way he spolke with the young fellow. Delighted to hear him talk so well of Boro as well, despite the way in which he was effectively sidelined.
Ian is right, we will never know if it was an error or not. It is simply, what it is and that is the only reality we will know. However, isn’t he only on loan with the Owls? I harbour a hope that he gets them promoted with a sackful of goals and assists, but that he does come back to us without the deal going permanent.
Werder, really enjoyed the read about how the managers all compare .I’ve been thinking about it since yesterday and I really don’t think that our Mr Karanka has anything about his profile/CV that would give me any more confidence over the others.
I think that tomorrow is a welcome distraction for us and a good opportunity to register some goals that might just help on the confidence front back in the league. Tricky away fixtures coming up after that, so lets enjoy tomorrow.
My prediction 3-0 to Boro. 25,432 in attendance.
When it comes to Rhodes, I think of words a certain “Mr Average” once wrote about Mogga in the UntypicalBoro comments section. I would argue that the sentiment in them not just to Rhodes, but to most popular players who have left the club under Aitor – and you have to remember it may well be a club decision, not solely an Aitor decision. (Note: Roy Keane even admits that it was a club decision to let Rhodes go at Ipswich, not solely his decision.)
Anyway. Those words. Paraphrased and tweaked a little.
Right now, it’s far, far too soon to assess the loss of Rhodes properly. We haven’t even given the new guys a proper chance yet, and Negredo? Despite being frequently isolated he has scored roughly a third of our goals and played his part in some of the others.
With Rhodes, it’s clear that some kind of a division exists between those who genuinely believed he wasn’t good enough, and those who are grieving at a much-liked, popular player being handed, like Mogga, a poisoned chalice (the unforgiving role of the AK No. 9) and being badly treated throughout his time at the club.
To quote Mr. Average, “(there are) a lot of bold public statements on both sides that will need to fade first” before fair, proper objectivity can take precedence. Until then it’ll be a case of “bold public statements on both sides”, like, say, “not good enough” or “loyal, nice lad betrayed”.
But I think that with time we’ll be able to assess him properly.
Sorry, I should have rephrased that last sentence! I think what I meant is, with time we’ll be able to assess the impact of his departure properly. After all, I recently did a piece on the player himself. (Gulp.)
I thought, and hoped, we would move on and that would be that, but the letter has only re-inforced the feelings of a missed opportunity that Boro will supposedly pay for.
Even when that is not explicitly, concretely certain… (It’s a marathon, not a sprint.)
Simon
The Iberian culture features prominently in South America, the rain forests are being cut down, this could contribute to global warming, Aitor comes from the Iberian Peninsular.
Ipso facto, Aitor is to blame for global warming.
I will just stick to the charge sheet we know about.
LOL.
Thanks Ian, cheered me up no end.
Just for information
I’ve been in touch with Middlesbrough Supporters Forum and suggested that I come along to see what they are doing.
It is not their intention to amalgamate the different factions into one unified body and each blog, publication, supporters group will continue to operate independently as before.
Personally I see no harm in just visiting and not proffering any suggestions and certainly not agreeing to anything as this would be outside my remit as I am just an old blogger passing through.
Let’s see if they get back to me and I’ll keep everyone informed if anything develops
Simon
I am away over the weekend, you can field the incoming.
🙂
Simon, Powmill, Ian G
Read your comments with interest, thanks. I understand your “we’ll never really know” viewpoints re: Jordan Rhodes. I think we saw enough in the championship, and to have long since seen enough this season already, to know that what has happened in letting him go simply feels wrong. Which is the basis on which I said that the decision to let him go is/was a colossal mistake.
For what it’s worth, I also think the decision to sell Nugent and then pay twice as much for barely half the player in Bamford is also a colossal mistake.
Perhaps dwarfing even those is Steve Gibson’s decision to keep faith with Karanka for this long. Boro have become far too easy to play against which is why all the managers Werdermouth has most readably profiled will be rubbing their hands at the prospect of playing us.
James Emmerson (seem to be logged in under an email account – apologies for not using my name in the earlier post).
Ian, how on earth can AK be responsible for global warming. When that nice Mr. Trump has already assured us that global warming is fake news…
Well it’s time for the distraction of the FA Cup again – Oxford will be rowing up to the Riverside hoping for another result in the North East but Boro will be looking to get within 90 minutes of Wembley.
Anyway, he’s a match preview I’ve just posted up…
https://diasboro.club/2017/02/17/boro-v-oxford-match-preview/
James
This discussion goes round in circles, as Simon has said time and again, there was much wailing on the blog about Rhodes being a waste of money, missing loads of chances, waste of space, never going to make it.
Like many, I would have liked to see him playing, even if he came on for 25 minutes.
But he didn’t. And that is the end of it. There is a chance he could have done well but you cant say he would.