Championship 2018-19: Weeks 33-34
Wed 13 Mar – 19:45: Boro v Preston
Sat 16 Mar – 15:00: Aston Villa v Boro
It seems the less than chirpy birds on Teesside have suffered yet another bout of premature chorus singing as they have once again fallen victim to another false dawn as Boro’s promised revival turned out to be little more than a rusty old Vauxhall Viva with a broken headlight coming over the hill. Even the feathered residents at Kirkleatham Owl Centre are now struggling to give a hoot as they’ve been left none the wiser over whether the new ‘exciting’ formation can actually deliver the much needed goals. Hopes that the manager had inadvertently stumbled upon a new way forward to make his team into a more potent force have been dashed as quickly as they they were raised and the fear is that Tony Pulis has now ‘proved’ to himself that such ideas are strictly for the birds.
Although, as the eyes of Boro followers on the terraces were inevitably rolled towards the heavens after witnessing yet another Riverside disappointment, they could be forgiven for imagining that the seagulls hovering above the ground had morphed into vultures and were getting ready to pick over the bones of a season that has become the carcass of an overly flogged dead horse of lame excuses. The latest cunning plan saw Boro play like an away side at the Riverside against a team who have proved largely ineffective on the road but have generally performed well at home when offered a chance to take the initiative. It didn’t seem like a tactical masterstroke to give a team who are comfortable on the ball nearly two-thirds possession and that became more apparent after the Bees left Boro on their knees with two quick goals.
So instead of looking secure for at least a top six finish and keeping on the tails of the Canaries and the Peacocks, Boro have now been left bobbing along just ahead of the Robins in seventh spot. While it’s not clear what kind of bird would best represent Boro under Tony Pulis, it perhaps would have to be a very big one – possibly an ostrich with its head buried in the sand. Still many will hope the club’s promotion prospects can be revived over the coming weeks but it may depend on whether, like the famous Norwegian Blue parrot, they are simply just resting rather than being deceased. Nevertheless, Boro’s less than nailed-on play-off hopes have now been left precariously perched with more than a few feathers likely to be ruffled should a shot at the top flight get plucked from our grasp.
After back-to-back victories with uplifting displays against the teams of Mogga and McClaren, renewed enthusiasm and expectation had permeated the consciousness of Boro followers as they began to wonder if a new era of total rather than totalitarian football was now upon them – the restructuring of the team under Pulis Perestroika was hoped to bring an end to a carefully controlled planned performances and a return to freedom of expression. Although, whether the dissidents under the current regime were likely to be coming in from the cold was far from certain.
The seemingly Damascene-style conversion of the Pharisee Paulis perhaps came as the no-nonsense disciple of discipline stumbled on his journey to the promised land of the Premier League. As the blindingly obvious flash of light entered his head a loud voice was heard unto him “Tony, Tony, why do you persecute the faithful with your brand of soulless football – now get up, go back to the Riverside and you will be told what you must do.”
Tony then picked himself slowly up off the ground and opened his eyes only to discover that he could see nothing – though seeing nothing was not something he’d ever feared and indeed it was positively encouraged. The story is recalled of how Pulis was then led slowly by his companions back to the Riverside through the old Ayresome Park gates before being seated at a large polished wooden table. A Short time later an unknown man entered the room and spoke “I’ve been sent by the man upstairs so that you may see again.” A confused Pulis asked who it was that was speaking to him but was only answered: “I cannot tell you but you must do as I say.”
It wasn’t quite the blind faith he’d been expecting, but while Tony waited to be told how his attacking vision could be once again restored, the reply came in a somewhat cryptic manner: “To see goals again you must once more start believing in the local messiah.” As Pulis started to argue that he thought Steve Gibson was fully behind him, the man interrupted “No, he is not the one of whom I speak, I instead talk of brother Stewart.” It was at this point that Pulis recognised the voice and exclaimed “Brother Stewart! Though I think you actually mean brother-in-law Stewart?” Woody’s ruse had been blown and he quickly back-tracked “Sorry Boss, I promised my wife that I’d try and sort it – anyway, here’s your glasses.”
Whether any conversion actually took place, or if it was simply an illusion caused by the manager simply being short of natural defenders, is open to speculation. Indeed, that fleeting foray into free-flowing football may have merely been a consequence of not having had enough time on the training pitch to fully coach the defensive rigidity back into the new formation. Some wonder if despite the width and attacking options that were provided by having Howson and Saville as makeshift wing-backs, their manager would always be left unhappy with the defensive cover that they ultimately offered.
With George Friend once again fit, Pulis appeared like a man waiting for a reason to restore his captain back to his rightful position on the left of defence. Although it seems the Boro manager’s impatience with Britt Assombalonga was also a problem and he concluded it was time to redress the perceived imbalance of the new system. In fact it didn’t seem long before Shotton was also back in place as a right-back of sorts when Hugill was subsequently brought off the bench to chase the game after the shoring up of defence ended with two goals being conceded. It’s hard to say how much we should read into the substitutions against Brentford but many will fear a reversion to the tried and tested is where we are heading.
Of course, despite the experiment with the new formation, it still didn’t yield a similar return of goals that is seemingly firing our rivals towards promotion. However, with an automatic promotion place now 12 points away, Boro are no longer credible chasers and instead have become the chased. Will that alter the mindset of the manager as he now focusses on maintaining the gap between Boro and seventh place? Some would suggest that the mindset has always been one of caution and that his team were never likely to fully endorse a permanent shift towards playing on the front foot. The calculation may now be about needing 6 wins from the last 11 games with those against Preston, Villa, Bristol and Forest being seen as mustn’t lose rather than seriously going for a win.
Nevertheless, Boro are a side that have only managed back-to-back victories twice since August and that simply doesn’t shout that they are even a team ready to win promotion – let alone start competing in the tough world of the Premier League. It’s hard to perceive where the club are trying to head in terms of an effective playing style under Tony Pulis, who seems largely incapable of shifting his approach to suit the players he has rather than expecting them to adapt to what they are not. OK, he’s playing the percentages and with the fewest goals in the Football League conceded in just 26 we know the drill by now.
However, that record comes at a price and few will be surprised to hear that only Stoke and Wigan outside the bottom three have scored fewer than Boro’s 39 goals. While it statistically means Boro should have a greater chance of scoring more than the opposition, it becomes less clear cut since August with just 30 scored and 24 conceded. It basically means if the opposition score the odds are against Boro winning and it’s only happened on 4 of the 19 occasions that Boro have conceded this season – all away from home at Wednesday, Brentford, Birmingham and West Brom. Incidentally, in all of those games Boro scored the first, with two being late consolations for the opposition. In fact the victory over the Baggies was the only time this season Boro have come from behind to win a game after the Britt Assombalonga double saw Pulis beat his old club 3-2 – which was also the only time Boro have scored more than two goals in a game since that Riverside opener in August.
Likewise on the 8 occasions that the opposition has scored at the Riverside (out of 17 games) Boro have never won. Games at home have so far only yielded 7 victories and 2 goalless draws – with 4 of those wins being the first four played at the Riverside this season. That essentially mean Tony Pulis has only won 3 of the last 14 home games and it’s a record that won’t leave many feeling confident that fortress Riverside awaits if they somehow achieve promotion – especially if you consider those wins were against bottom club Ipswich, away strugglers Wigan and a QPR team on a record-breaking run of seven successive defeats.
And yet Boro are still fifth! It’s seemingly a paradox of a team that can’t win at home and one that struggles to score and rarely wins back-to-back games. Perhaps it tells us all we need to know about the strength of the Championship this season and the fate that possibly awaits anyone who makes it over the promotion line. Although, what it perhaps does explain is Tony Pulis’s belief that stopping the opposition from scoring is practically the only way in which his teams pick up three points. No wonder he is obsessed with the defensive duties of his team if conceding a goal has only resulted in four wins – perhaps it also explains why the players rarely play with freedom as the consequence of a mistake is presumably evident to all.
At least Boro’s away form has seemingly kept them in the chase this season – though their recent form on the road has looked not much better than average with the last six games providing two wins, two draws and you’ve guessed it two defeats. In contrast, Wednesday’s visitors to the Riverside, Preston, have won their last five on their travels and are in fact currently on a ten-game unbeaten run – only Norwich have bettered that during this period with just a single point more at 23. Alex Neil is currently in his second season at Deepdale and his side now sit just four points outside the play-offs in tenth place. However, with Preston top of the eight-game away form table and Boro just one point ahead of bottom-place Bolton in the respective eight-game home form table, it would appear on most measures to make the Lilywhites favourites to take all three points – especially if they score a goal.
We shouldn’t forget that Preston also finished in seventh place last season and will be looking to go one better this term. Indeed, this could be a crucial encounter for Boro and defeat would certainly add to the pressure as the two-week international break arrives after the weekend – especially as we resume with a game against leaders Norwich. Saturday sees Boro head to Villa to play another team looking to make a late run for the top six. Dean Smith’s side have perhaps surprisingly under-performed this season but they are potentially capable of putting a winning run together. However, Sunday’s narrow win at neighbour’s Birmingham was only their third victory out of their last dozen games. It’s hard to know what you’ll get at Villa Park as their last three games at home, all against top-six contenders, have proved to be a mixed bag with a 4-0 win over Derby, a 2-0 defeat to a now managerless West Brom and a 3-3 draw against automatic hopefuls Sheffield United. This appears to be another game where Boro will need to avoid defeat if they don’t want to risk being swallowed up by the chasing pack.
So after setbacks against Wigan and Brentford, Tony Pulis now faces the choice of whether to continue with developing a potentially more progressive formation or reverting to his seemingly more favoured no-frills solid-looking set-up. It appeared last weekend he was minded to shift back to a lone striker in order to give his defence added protection and only threw on another striker once his team were behind with less than a quarter of the game remaining. There are signs that the Boro manager never intended to be even on the road to Damascus, let alone be subject to any form of serious conversion. It was possibly down to an old faulty club-shop Garmin Sat Nav and he accidentally took a wrong turning and is now keen to get back on track to his preferred destination. Although, just where we’re heading is not clear but Boro supporters are more than aware that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions!
Thanks Werder for a brilliant article. You should be awarded writer of the year.
Werder,
Quite excellent, I hope that it was cathartic for you. Meanwhile I still think we’re on a road to nowhere.
I can’t remember my prediction for for this game but let’s say I’m not even as optimistic as OFB with his eyes in the sky.
I hope your headline illustration is the sun setting on the baseball cap and not a dawn.
UTB,
John
Werder
Thank you for that guidance for which we truly thank you
I’m sick as a parrot and will be going on the road to hell tomorrow evening and it’s my cross to bear because I’m now a non believer.
Please can we find someone to take us to the promised land and I’ll be in heaven and on cloud 9!
Well Done Werder
OFB
A great read, Werder. Stylish, witty and full of good sense.
I share your suspicion that the brief renaissance may have been the result of the manager not having had the time to coach the new formation in his methods.
At Blackburn I thought that we might have been witnessing something much more thrilling than a Damascene-style conversion. Nothing less, that is, than a Damascene style-conversion.
Our gym-fixated manager may lack mental flexibility, but I had hoped that he could have found the strength to lift a tiny hyphen over a single word.
Great comment Len.
I stumbled across another one of your old comments which discussed the old “tricks” Pu used to give his team an advantage, all of which had nothing to do with the football on the pitch – longer grass, very loud and proud fans, towels to dry the ball for the long throws…
It *is* anti-football, but he seemed not to care. The Alex Ferguson win-at-all-costs-and-to-heck-with-everything-and-everyone-else mentality without any pretty football to go with it.
A sublimely crafted article again thank you Werder.
I am sad to say but I have become disillusioned with our season and it appears to be turning into a repeat of last year’s with many false dawns and failures to grasp opportunity when presented.
The Blackburn epiphany has failed to be maintained and I am in agreement with you and many others that automatic promotion is beyond us and we are far from guaranteed a play-off place with the likes of Preston and Villa hard on our heels.
I had forecast a win against both Brentford and Preston and defeat at Villa but now fear that we could see three defeats in a row and our hopes of securing promotion via the play-offs disappearing rapidly.
Boro 0-2 Lilywhites
Villa 3-0 Boro
😎😠
Great read Werder.
Stopping to ask myself about a classic managerial conundrum and wonder if it applies to Pulis.
We *know* he’s not the perfect option for the club. (Does one even exist?) And there are consistent doubts both about the suitability of style of play he’s trying to implement (to put it mildly), and whether or not he really knows how to use the resources available to him. McNair and Van La Parra hardly getting a sniff, let alone any of the “kids” barring Wing and Fry, seems to highlight this.
But, you can argue that this is a case for either keeping the faith or wanting to move on. His supporters will argue that we need to stabilise before we can really go forward and the manager needs more time and backing to figure it all out. Others will say that managers really ought to know much quicker nowadays, and such time isn’t realistic anymore.
Particularly in the North East, where the passion of the crowds demands the ball quickly enters the box. I believe it was Stan Anderson (RIP) who implied that.
For your consideration… Anthony McCarthy’s fantastic words from just over a year ago, following the 3-3 draw at Sunderland.
“Don’t be hypnotised by the ‘up for the fight’ mantra.
“Every team in the League can be up for the fight… but not every team possesses the class that (Patrick) Bamford showed for our first goal (against Sunderland). It was that rarest of beasts, a piece of skill from a Pulis managed team that would be appreciated anywhere in the world. Sublime. A gem amongst the pebbles by an underused and underappreciated maverick.
“…I’m not at all bothered about being promoted. I go to every home game anyway and the standard of the team we’re playing has never been of interest. More and more I find myself looking for moments that lifts you off your seat, something to inspire and enchant. A clever (Lee) Tomlin flick or a Bamford turn is worth a thousand (Ryan) Shotton long throws.
“It’s why, for all his foibles, Adama (Traore) will always be a crowd favourite and why (Albert) Adomah would be welcomed back with open arms by any Boro fan.”
Si
Count me out on Adomah!
I would never have him back he couldn’t wait to leave and tried to hold the club to ransom !
OFB
Re: Bob.
Another source close to Adomah points the finger of blame squarely at the manager. It was said that Albert loved Boro and loved the people, and was apparently “gutted” that he didn’t get to play for Boro under Pulis.
So if he “loved” the club, why did he hand in the transfer request in August 2015?
“He doesn’t want to play for Karanka.”
Sadly, that happens. I’ve known more than one football figure to blame interference from their superiors for their departure. The “we just want to do our stuff, if only you would leave us alone to do it” mentality.
The reality is, it doesn’t work like that.
So why did his brother go hawking around other clubs for another contract and deal before Boro had finished negotiating ?
Sorry it doesn’t wash with me and I would hate to see Adomah back at Boro
He burned his bridges with me
OFB
And his brother had a pop at Bruce whilst he was at Villa, AA will have been complicit in what took place.
Yes, Bob. We know AK did a lot wrong but that does not mean we can entirely exonerate AA from blame.
Again, in an ideal world, there’d be middle ground. Instead we had horrible manager vs player battles, like Karanka vs Downing. This was, unfortunately, a trait that the Basque man carried on from his mentor – “you are either with me or against me, and if I have to make an example of any of you, that is exactly what I’ll do.”
Simon
Very interesting that you say AK had a serious difference of opinion with Downing. He was quite right to do so, for the club to bring back a time expired ‘star’ who left us very willingly at the start of his career, made plenty of money, and caps, and was no longer able to influence games as he could once upon a time, was foolish. Another stupid act by the owner, followed by even more stupidity in backing the player and his mate against the manager, quite what Downing ( and his mate) have done for this club is a puzzle (apart from nearly wrecking our grand promotion by a mutiny). Still I look forward to seeing them as our joint managers, it should be fun, for a while at least.
Here’s another trait I think I’ve noticed in Pulis as well as AK.
There is always a time when a manager will have to stamp his authority on the squad. To show he isn’t a pushover. What often happens is this: a popular or well-liked player is either dropped to the bench, played “out of position”, omitted from the squad entirely or substituted the minute he disagrees with a manager’s instructions from the sideline.
The idea is the same: it’s a clear reminder to everyone about who is *really* in charge. But it’s completely unnecessary and shows a lack of man management skills.
In manager vs player battles there can be only one winner.
Depends on the popularity of the manager and the trajectory of the results. When things are going well much, if not all, will be excused. The downward slide will only really begin if/when the manager continues to pick these fights and the team’s form goes off the rails as a result, leaving him with only sycophants to pick a team from.
With Clough and Leeds, it appeared that Revie’s biggest rival had come in with every intention of breaking up a “family”. Remember… “Why do I get the feeling this is all about you and Don?”
Although research indicates it was less about them than what they represented – ambitious, insecure, iconoclastic Boro men “patronised as small-town nobodies by the suits at the FA”. (Anthony Clavane)
Perhaps Revie’s family simply needed breaking up – they’d grown old together. They just didn’t want to be broken up.
I think – and I am not saying I like to – Mr Pulis is here long term. He has found a Chairman he trusts. He has always compared his relationship with Gibbo to the situation he had in Stoke.
Pulis is over 60 years old and this could be his last job in football. Most probably he has enough money to enjoy life with his family and grand children now. Of course everything depends on Gibbo, too. Just saying like.
Up the Boro!
Ultimately whether the Owner or Chairman likes it the fans usually decide if its time for a Manager to go. Pressure builds to the point where it becomes impossible to continue supporting him even if on a personal level its not what they would want. TP tipped that point on Saturday when there was outright disdain loudly expressed. A few more Home games like that one and SG will have no choice but to let him go when his contract expires backed by the lack of take up on the Early Bird Season Card sales.
A very good read Werder but can’t say I enjoyed it as it is too painful to acknowledge the reality of it all behind the humour. Still if you don’t laugh, you cry as the saying goes.
On AA he like many others seemed to be at odds with a face fitting managerial style. In his shoes I would have had my agent touting me around looking to escape from being naughty stepped. He wasn’t the only player that found it difficult to get onside with Karanka, in fact it all almost ended in a mutiny at Charltongate.
Personally I have had employment where my ways and views have “differed” from someone senior to me and the writing was on the wall. It was a great company but a shady Director knew that I knew what he was up to and unlike the rest didn’t just sit down, shut up and stop asking questions. I know, I know, you are all probably thinking that is so unlike me 🙂
Definition of endeavor: an attempt to achieve a goal.
What a fabulous name for the stadium where Pulis is playing. At least vs. Norwich.
Our team is often just attempting to score.
You can vote here: http://www.mfc.co.uk/news/rename-the-riverside-your-chance-to-vote
Up the Boro!
love it….
Another excellent article by Werdermouth – how does he do it!
Very worrying statistic of only 3 wins out of the last 14 home games and never won 3 consecutive games. It seems to me that the standard of the Championship this year is so poor that any manager who sets his stall out to not concede a goal in the hope of nicking a goal has a good chance of being in the top half of the League.
I expect the Boro formation in the coming games will revert to what it’s been for most of the season.
Would most of us take 2 points now from the next 2 games and / 3 points from the next 3 games ?
Would we be surprised if it was only 1 point from the next 3 games ?
Philip
Interesting statistic that Norwich have 24 more points than this time last year ( Boro have the same points)
I understand that Norwich signed a lot of young unknown players and with a relatively new manager are flying.
Surely this is the way forward for Boro?
Rename stadium
Jack Charlton Park
Although he was only here a short while, Boro were basically unknown anywhere else, until he arrived and gave us the best season ever,sweeping all before away.
I remember ,I was at Butlins in 1965 and telling a Glasgow Rangers fan I was a Boro supporter he replied Who? .
In my opinion the reason that we have not had the desired improvement after forcing the return of Wing, is very simple, this man has dedicated himself to making wing waste his time helping the defence, or exchanging passes with Mikel in midfield. It was noticeable that when he was in a panic after his blunder on Saturday he wanted an equaliser so Wing was right up field, and there were several interpassing movements initiated by Wing, but of course it was all too late in the day. We are desperate for Tavernier in the team, and Wing to be played behind the attackers.
It was interesting to see that Brentford played the ball over and through the defensive line from the off, and ripped us apart, could have been two up in the first ten minutes, three by half time, and were faster than us, didn’t we have a very fast player? What ever happened to him? This man has a very long crime sheet, and it’s getting longer.
Wasn’t attentive didn’t realise you had options ,good name though!
Superb article Werder, but I agree with RR it is hard to relax enough to fully appreciate the humour when the truth it is shielding is so evident.
I must say, I was waiting for the Dodo reference for the man with the tactics of yesteryear.
As for renaming the Cellnet [sic] Stadium, how about High Cross Toll ….
Brownlee Bowl probably would have been a landslide but my personal favourite from the ones I have read and heard elsewhere today was Jurassic Park.
Either way it all seems an embarrassingly stupid and pointless exercise (not unlike Brexit), you can vote but you will get what you are given. As Mark Twain said (and I think GHW did a few weeks back) “If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it”.
We are sadly restricted with the renaming to the following:
• Captain James Cook Stadium
• Endeavour Stadium
• Discovery Stadium
• Resolution Stadium
We could do with James Cook at the Riverside now to add finding the Net to his discoveries of Australia, Hawaii and New Zealand etc. He could maybe also find a few budget gems from the lower leagues as well while he is at it.
At the moment “Resolution” seems the most appropriate depending upon what your resolve actually is!
That’s a shame as I was going to suggest Ground Zero…
I was thinking Parmo Park might go down well especially with some Garlic sauce and chips.
I’d go for ‘The Treadmill Stadium’ or maybe ‘The Theatre of Shattered Dreams’?
UTB
John
Elsewhere our Steph made a mistake on breakfast news. She said TUI (Thomson in old money) had 737 Max 800 airplanes on order but not in service.
Sorry Steph, they have five in service at Manchester and we were due to fly on one on the 12th May! Now they are grounded.
I will be back for the play off final.
Did I hear snorts of derision? I didn’t say we would be in it!!
I’ve been out all day since posting up the article so many thanks for all your comments – they are as always very much appreciated. I hope to reply to some of the points made but I’m just about to start my kitchen duties 🙁
It’s actually Mrs Werder’s birthday tomorrow so I’m as yet not sure if I will catch the Preston game but it’s possibly not the surprise treat she’d be hoping to see…
I’d happily name it the Jack Charlton Stadium. As would everyone in Ireland.
https://youtu.be/tKKEbJNwjO4
Mr Putin has talked about their target in foreign policy today. They have two targets. First to opposite the spreading of NATO to the East. Second, make the EU less powerful.
I wonder what is the target of the UK in their foreign policy. Hopelly not becoming another Russia in the West corner of Europe.
Up the Boro!
More on why the Riverside should be the Jack Charlton stadium.
– In his first season Boro swept all before them and had promotion wrapped up with weeks to spare.
– He built a good side, full of Boro heroes. Hickton, Armstrong, Boam, Maddren, Mills, Foggon, Platt, Souness, Murdoch… That team is still talked about today in a way even the Carling Cup winners aren’t.
– He built a generation of Boro fans.
– He always did it his way… and it worked.
– He made it very, very easy for the team to utilise their strengths and cover their weaknesses by having a system of playing. The team had a good work ethic, good formation and could play.
– He had an aura about him.
– Cruel beyond words though he might have been, he convinced a talented Australian to prove him wrong by spending six or seven hours a day practising everything it took to be a pro.
– He answered Mike McCullagh’s cry for help in the mid ‘80s and kept us up with only nine games left.
Yes, pretty awesome.
Sources – Colin Young, Ray Robertson, Chris Kamara, David Hodgson, David Armstrong, Craig Johnston.
Not forgetting of course that Charlton had the best players in the division, the statistics from that season proves that.
I think it goes without saying that the team with the best players will always prevail. It’s when a manager can achieve success with “ a team” that his true worth is shown. It doesn’t necessarily have to be full of the best players in each position, an achievement regularly made by a certain B. Clough.
I don’t think, Stoke, Villa, West Brom and Swansea fans would see it as the the team with the best Players will always prevail. Bristol sold all their best players in the summer for the second summer running and as I type this could be a solitary point behind us. Sheffield United have two of our rejects in their squad as do Leeds and they seem to have coped reasonably well under the circumstances in spite of that handicap.
Its what a Manager does with what he has at his disposal that counts, creating a synergy and in doing so maximising the returns. Or you can always shoehorn them into what you desire watching them struggle as they stop doing what they are good at in order to try and be mediocre at what you want them to be then blame recruitment, atmosphere, referees etc. oh and Britt Assombalonga!
As I said about Brian Clough as a manager. ( Notts Forest and Derby County).
Stoke, Villa, Swansea and West Brom were all relegated as their players weren’t good enough. As they are proving in the Championship.
Couldn’t agree more
You could argue that we sold our three best players in the summer too.
Of course it’s collective. Yet there’s another thing that’s hard to deny.
The thing with The Cult Of The Football Manager™ is this: not only do fans and newspapers believe in it, once players start winning they believe in it too. Kevin Moran essentially confirmed this when he pointed out how willing Irish players were to follow Big Jack’s lead when the results started coming.
The danger is the manager falling for the illusion and thus not working as hard as he could do to bring in new tactics and new types of players.
Today I think the writing is on the wall for that, with Player Power™ rampant. That sort of colours the game in another bad way – when things go wrong the giant wage packets they “don’t earn” come to the fore. Just ask Mark Viduka – abused after Boro 0-4 Villa, begged to stay after Boro 3-1 Fulham.
How about the New Clairville Stadium
I try *not* to have managerial heroes. I know the dangers of cults. Well, now I do. But the thing is, I *like* having them. Uniting behind a cause, a voice, gives one additional emotional investment in the whole regime. Yeah, it may be damaging or derail spectacularly in the end… but what a journey.
Despite the disgraceful final six months or so Big Jack is still a hero in Ireland.
Boro did have a manager that became a cult figure, and that was Bruce Rioch.
He galvanised a club and a group of players that epitomised everything good about Middlesbrough as a town. Of all our past managers I think he will be the one that will be remembered as possibly our best when you consider his achievements. That he was blessed with some excellent players went a long way to help him, but you used to get the impression that he was there on the pitch with the team in some kind of spiritual way.
GHW
I agree about Brice Rioch
I also think Strachan was a cult
OFB
So there’s a difference between genuine cult figures and those who think they are cult figures?
Si
I think I misspelled Cult when referring to Strachan
OFB
A little naughty OFB and close to the line. He may have failed with us at a football level, but he was always good for an entertaining quote, spoke only what he believed and is the only manager I know that has ever had the good grace and honour to walk away from his position with nothing, admitting that he had failed to achieve what he set out to.
OFB,
Finger trouble?
UTB,
John
In the midst of all these debates…
Thank heavens for Derry Girls. Even better than last week. Ties a clever Usual Suspects analogy to a “inspirational teacher” a la Dead Poets Society who isn’t quite who we and the quartet think she is. Along with several zingers, naturally.
Siobhan McSweeney and Nicola Coughlan are again superb. Once Coughlan’s Clare is told that she is a “craic killer” she hits the bottle instantly…
…come to think of it, wasn’t it Strachan who kind of advised us to do that after a late equaliser at home to Pompey?
Ah apparently it was drink and drugs he said
OFB
Great Lead article again Werder.
Looking at current form I can see a possibility that three teams currently in the p[layoff places may not be there at seasons end, Albion, Us and Bristol. Albion no home wins since Boxing Day, Bristol no wins in 5, drew with Ipswich last night. I see no need to make comment on us.
Coming up on the rails are Wednesday unbeaten in 9, Preston unbeaten in 10, and Villa have won two on the bounce.
Apparently we haven’t lost a league game against Preston since 1972 and Alex Neil has only ever beaten Boro once. No prizes for when that was. So what could go wrong tonight.
MW,
Let me think for a moment… Yet another chance for predictably typical Boro.
UTB,
John
OFB, are you going to the match on Thursday? Middlesbrough will take on Manchester City in the Under-18 Premier League Cup final at the Riverside Stadium on Thursday (7pm). I know it is immediately after the Preston match, so just asking.
Season Card holders can attend the cup final on Thursday free of charge.
Tony Pulis and Steve Gibson will be attending the final. if you ever get a chance to sit down with Sir Gibson for an In2Views chat, you will get free access to Diasboro for ever, me thinks! The greatest ever fan.
Up the Boro!
No we’re not going we have an alternative appointment
I haven’t seen Steve Gibson at the ground for a while he seems to be keeping a very low profile !
The mood at the club seems flat at the moment not much joy and laughter it’s very sombre
OFB
PS. Werder, I loved the intro picture. You are a top professional in there. The article wasn’t bad either! UTB!
Thanks Jarkko, while I think many are still waiting for something to dawn on Tony Pulis, John was hoping it represented more of a sunset on his tenure – although it’s possible we are about to enter the twilight zone…
Happy birthday Mrs Werder, hope you enjoy the live stream treat.
Ditto
Ssh! You’re going to spoil the surprise for Mrs Werder…
I hope Boro will deliver tonight. Happy Birthday, Mrs Werder.
My prediction is 2-0. Ayala and Britt Assombalonga.
Up the Boro!
Jarkko
I don’t think Britt will play tonight but will be stuck on the bench
When he came off on Saturday to cheers from the crowd and boos to Pulis he sat on the bench behind Pulis but as soon as Pulis wasn’t looking he was off down the tunnel
He got changed and left the stadium rapidly before the end of the match !
So not a happy fella……
OFB
Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Frau Werder und feliz cumpleaños desde españa
Frau Werder,
What KP said.
Have a great day.
Enjoy the match.
Stadium should be renamed ‘ The Bruce Rioch Arena’
As for Strachan walking away without taking any money perhaps Stewart Downing should take a hard look at himself and indicate that he is happy to forego the amendment to his contract.
I don’t expect Downing to back down over his contract
Going tonight and to be honest I’m not looking forward to it
It’s been a long time since I thought like that and it was back in the dark old days of Strachan
Yet we are fighting to be in the playoffs and we have some young local players in the squad but !
The football is turgid and predictable and the atmosphere is almost toxic if we make the playoffs I can’t see us getting promoted. If we don’t male the playoffs then it’s another failed seasonamd next season could be worse
Who would be a Boro fan eh ?
There has been no good news or announcements from the top for a while now so what do we need to happen?
Quite simply a new dynamic manager who can revitalise the young players get rid of the dead wood and generate enthusiasm with the crowd
Tonight’s results
⚽️⚽️
OFB
Normally I’m buzzing about now and constantly watching the time looking forward to setting off for the game in a few hours. Have to confess that if it wasn’t for doing the match report I’d probably give tonight a miss. Forget the entertainment factor, that went with Karanka but at least you could appreciate solidity and effectiveness, grinding teams down, binary victories interspersed with all the politics going on in the background and your favourite players being naughty stepped or just dropped.
We are in the play off positions and supporters of the other 20 clubs beneath us would gladly swap places but the entire season feels to me to be one of missed and lost opportunities. My optimism dipped when Bamford was sold but lifted after the youngsters rescued August, dipped again when the Summer window closed and seeing who we got and perhaps more importantly what was left. Since the away defeat at then struggling Norwich its been a bland, dull painful journey with little enjoyment. There have been odd moments but they were fleeting at best and in truth we never hit a rich vein of form or ever looked like a “Team”.
The synergy of a “Team” on and off the pitch and throughout the club seems missing. There still exists the same disdainful disconnect between MFC and the fans with the latest ridiculous “renaming” being another own goal stick to beat the club with. North Stand ticket pricing for 18-21 year olds and then that “White Kit” rip off stunt (where we played like we had white flags), the list goes on and yet it shouldn’t be that difficult to engage with the hearts and minds of Teessiders, we are fairly simple and uncomplicated people. Mind you the local “Trinity Mirror Daytime Live Gazette” has a similar problem so perhaps its just how things are these days with Marketing People gorging themselves on IT and lacking the most basic of face to face social skill interactions.The same trait is embarrassingly prevalent with our self serving Politicians so perhaps it is just a sign of the times rather than MFC specific.
If we win tonight, great we are still in the play offs but I doubt very much if Pulis’s tactics would ever win a two legged affair and if Wembley ever did beckon it would likely come down to Randolph’s penalty saving abilities at best. So in theory we could yet go up but a promotion season should be exciting, a thrilling ride full of highs and lows. The paucity of Riverside entertainment means that Theresa May’s Brexit votes are now far more entertaining than Pulis’s Boro with our strikers finishing on a par with Jeremy Corbyn’s effectiveness.
Win, draw or lose tonight it just eases us in for TP’s traditional trouser dropping contest with Villa on Saturday where we just sit back, hang on in desperation, offering absolutely nothing and just grin and bare it. After all the intensity of the Alpine pre season mountain treks and last weeks Rockliffe fitness booster check we now apparently have some tired and jaded players. I know how they feel only too well because if that’s how they feel then maybe they can understand how we feel having to watch them.
RR
Well put and a great post!
You have echoed how I feel and if two diehard Boro fans are sick of it just imagine what the stay at home fans are like?
Something has to change either the Boro or me!
OFB
RR you put it just as it is. What is football without soul and that is just what we seem to have now.
Still I’m there in spirit but struggling to think it will be worth another trip south to see them play again this season.
Spot on RR, you have posted very eloquently what many of us on here feel and have been saying for some time! 😎😒
I have decided to watch the match tonight via the Sky red button instead of Riverside Live as it is as reliable as the first team!
I should also be grateful if someone could tell Gordon Cox and Bernie Slaven that less is more.😎☹
Well unfortunately KP I will be there, hoping for the best and fearing the worst, not helped by GHW’s continual optimistic prediction. Only hope that eventually he will get one correct. A win and 3 goals at home.
As for the commentary KP, it was a relief not to have any for the Wigan game. Those two could get it done away with. Mr Slaven just likes to here his own voice.
RR
Bland, dull and painful seem like an odd combination but a fair reflection. It is a bit like Lime Pickle with a curry, I dont know anyone who likes but we still eat it.
Mrs G is at a meeting early evening with employers at the Uni, for once I wont be on her case to pick her up early so I can watch the start of the match. Hopefully we will have put a couple away before I get back when normal service will be removed.
I wonder if it will be a case of Preston Park?
The Real Deepdalers 3
Preston Panned 0
Many thanks Werder for a thought provoking Headliner and excellent throughout.
However the article was in parts somewhat sad as the season grinds on devoid of any entertainment and real hope for the future. So many mistakes and lack of communication from the powers that be and in many ways disrespectful of the paying fans.
RR’s post @ 11.18 says it all, although I believe we have the basis of a decent team that could have challenged for one of the two spots and played some reasonable watchable football. Yes we all know at times you have to play ugly football to obtain the desired result at the time, but as against Leeds at Elland Road it can be entertaining in its own way.
But the fare served up to date and especially at home and especially when you look at the stats given over the season by RR and Werder at different times beggars belief, it really does. GHW posted something along the lines of, a lot of our players not being as good as we think. Well that may be true with some, but are some of those playing for the top three really better than than the likes of Britt, Fletcher, Wing, Howson, Fry, Ayala and some of the others?
We could be facing a very uncertain future with more cost cutting at the fore. Do we have at MFC a collective will to embrace that and move to a model similar to that of other clubs that have been relatively successful without spending a fortune and making the sum of the parts greater than the individual.
Or does that mean another change in direction with another Manager wanting to do it his way?
We do indeed have some very good players but unfortunately they are mainly defenders, this is reflected by results and statistics over the season so far, but ( and you knew a but was coming) we lack creative midfielders and strikers able to take the chances that come their way.
I feel that recent performances have shown that Wing, excellent player that he is seems to be suffering from burn out. Let’s not forget that until fairly recently he was plying his trade at a much lower level and the jump in class and sheer physical effort required has increased.
A lot of expectation has been heaped on his shoulders and it’s unfair to expect him to singlehandedley be the sole creative force in midfield. The introduction of JOM has given us some much needed experience, but once again in a defensive capacity.
We continue to have an unbalanced team with players asked to perform in alien positions to their normal game. Our lack of cover at LB has meant stop gap team selections. I sound like a broken record but full backs need to defend first.
Hugill is not good enough for this level and we are left with limited options up front. Fans are perfectly entitled to criticise the managers tactics but he is restricted to the players available to him.
There seems to be a sense of entitlement from fans in this league. Just because a club has a recent history in the Premiership, doesn’t mean they should walk to promotion. Transfer fees don’t necessarily mean a player is worth what is paid, sometimes it’s just the going rate.
Defensive players aside, how many of the current squad would command a lucrative fee, the lack of interest in them during the last transfer window would seem to confirm not.
At the start of the season I would have welcomed a play off finish, and they are still on course for that.
GHW, whilst I can agree with much you say, I do not think we ‘mainly’have some very good defenders. We have at this level a decent forward in Britt and Fletcher could come good, hopefully. Are McGoldrick or Sharp at Sheff U really better than Britt (I am discounting transfer fees). I do not believe so.
We defend first and attack second. You previously commented on Brentford being only mid table. Fine, cannot argue with that, but they have scored sixty goals to our thirty nine playing far more attractive football at a far cheaper price. It is the system that counts and utilising players strengths. Also where does the fault lay for not bringing the creative players required. You cannot say we did not have the money to buy them.
I commend Mr Gibson for his continued support of MFC, however it has been a little like throwing mud a wall and seeing if it sticks. Not the best policy.
Thanks Pedro, though I suppose winning ugly is one thing but losing ugly is never going to please anyone.
The trouble with this prediction malarkey and the Boro at the moment is that you honestly have no idea of which Boro it is that is going to turn up.
If it is the “We’d better not get beat by the Lilywhites” Boro, we are likely to suffer further ignominy going down to a confident Preston who can’t believe their good fortune at the way they are allowed the room to out play us…. 2-0 to Preston.
But, this is typical Boro and having succumbed so easily on Saturday, there will be a positive reaction and the “We’ll show those idiot supporters what we can do” Boro will take to the field and with some indignance proceed to decimate the poor unsuspecting lambs from Deepdale, dominating the first 20 minutes and deservedly registering the first goal of the proceedings , only then to have the team shape reorganised to make sure they preserve that precious lead, only to fall to a late equaliser …. 1-1 at full time.
I really don’t know (and there’s a lot of folk out there would agree with me on that one!). Heart says 2-1 to us, head says 1-1 in an unenthusiastic atmosphere.
May the heart be right. COB
GHW
I agree with all of that.
I am no supporter of TP, far from it, but I dont think him leaving would lead to a butterfly appearing from the ugly bug.
With AK it was partly like a rollercoaster because it felt like he was repeatedly picking or creating little personal battles on his own terms – to prove the fans wrong, to prove players who weren’t picked wrong, to prove the pundits wrong, and worst of all to prove the board wrong.
It’s been a few years, but I’ve lost count of how often I had that “rooting for the ‘good’ guy” feeling against the ‘overpaid’ players, the players who wouldn’t put individual needs aside for the ‘greater good of the team’ and the pundits and fans who whined before a ball was kicked, after which I’d often proclaim to myself, with the benefit of hindsight, “look at the result/s, he got it right” or “he was a solitary defensive slip or chance taken away from getting it right”.
And I never stopped to consider that me thinking that way was more than a little incongruous.
When AK wasn’t “right” he was so close to being right – but that wasn’t the point. The point was, and Irish journalist Ger Gilroy made a similar point about Mick McCarthy during his first tenure as Ireland boss, that him being right seemed more important than the club or country he had managed.
In 2003, Gilroy wrote, “For McCarthy, all criticism was personal, never professional. His World Cup Diary is full of pot-shots at every single journalist who ever slighted him…”
That’s the lesson. Stop and think. I hope – I would have loved it – if Gibson had taken Aitor aside and said, like Manny Cussins, “I hired you to do this job because you looked like a tactically smart young coach from a background of winners at Real Madrid. I hired you assuming you’d want the best for Middlesbrough. So why am I repeatedly getting the idea that this is all about you?”
McCarthy had his own personal battle too… with Roy Keane. The Big Bad Manchester United Captain with an invincible bank account who bullied a poor referee… only for it to be explained as a “will to win”.
“But Roy was wrong…”
“Do you want to win games and trophies, or don’t you?”
You see where this is going.
“Just because a club has a recent history in the Premiership, doesn’t mean they should walk to promotion.”
Correct, and I said the exact same thing in 2016. The supposed “best squad in the division” had a mere three players who had played in the PL before – Leadbitter, Downing and Nugent. And of the three, Leadbitter and Nugent had serious involvement in successful promotion campaigns, for Sunderland and Leicester respectively.*
What exactly, I wonder, made us feel we were *above* Burnley and Hull – neither of whom were disgraced in the Premier League the season before, and both of whom had recruited at considerable cost?
Ups, downs, scraped or not, temperamental coach or not, 85 and 89 points are still Boro’s highest points tallies of the twenty-first century in any division and deserve some measure of respect.
Same is true of Bamford. He has his flaws, of course. But 32 goals in two seasons ought to speak for themselves.
Addendum:
You *could* include a handful of extra players in that PL experience category, like Gaston, De Laet, Stephens, Zuculini, Ayala and Forshaw, but, for the most part, either they didn’t feature for us too often or they didn’t play very much in the PL at all.
The advantage Burnley and Hull had – of keeping most of the squad who went down and played in the PL the season before together – still remains.
Three transfer windows and we still don’t have cover at the back but we are overflowing with an abundance in Midfield and kept signing even more. We brought VLP in early in January yet seemingly consigned him to the scrapheap. Gestede favoured over Bamford and Britt until he was crocked yet the fans knew he couldn’t hit a Barn Door with the proverbial banjo.
Bringing bruiser Hugill in then realising how limited he is unless utilised as a battering ram. Ignoring the youth that saved our August in favour of stupid excessive and unnecessary big money signings and then watching performances and results go down the pan at the same time. Wing had a singular bad game on Saturday, but all the rest were at the same equally poor level against Brentford added to which we all know that the lad has been carrying a groin problem for at least three weeks now.
Of course not everything is the Manager’s fault but at some point you do expect a seasoned and experienced old pro Manager to stand up and do something. What’s the point of paying experienced wages when you can get a lad like SG did with Southgate previously? More so when we are being told how he has this overseeing brief at the Club, I won’t even get started about the Newport debacle.
Anyway onto tonight and I think he will match Neil by reverting to four at the back with Randolph obviously in goal then Shotton, Ayala, Fry and Friend. Mikel protecting in front with Wing linking up the middle and attack with Howson and Saville either side of him. Suspect he will stick with two up front and Fletcher will start but I have a gut feeling that he may go with Hugill instead of Britt rather than risk the wrath of taking him off again.
I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see Friend and Flint restored and a return to a lone striker but I suspect Howson will retain his right wing-back role but Saville may form a four-man midfield diamond with Wing supporting the striker and Mikel at the base. I hope Fletcher gets the nod over Hugill if it’s a lone striker. I’d still like to see Tavernier used just behind the the striker but I suspect that would mean adjusting the pecking order.
Boro are probably second favourites tonight given the respective home and way records and my most optimistic prediction I can muster is probably 1-1. Much of course will depend on the team selected but given Boro have only won 3 of their last 14 at the Riverside a victory could be regarded as a shock result and it would need to be the first time it was achieved if Preston score a goal at the Riverside.
RR
Two disgraceful bits of sportsmanship tonight
Alex Neil back heeled the ball away from George Friend as he went to take a throw in towards the end of the game and was rightly booked for it
Secondly the ball later went into Preston dugout and again started kicking it around delaying our throw in.
Woody went storming in pushed a few of them out of the way and gave the ball to George
Two occasions that was shameful sportsmanship by Preston
OFB
Not the type of thing that the much loved Leo would have done then!
I just hope we make the playoffs and meet PNE and thrash them both home and away !
Fitting justice
OFB
The point of VLP is still not known. So it seems. What I do know is that Pulis is renowned for publicly saying he’d play better football if only he could afford better players – yet not playing those who don’t suit his ways. It happened at Stoke with Tuncay and Gudjohnsen.
#MindGames
You would think that playing with three at the back, the wing backs would become defacto wide players and provide a continual supply of crosses into the box, unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. They have a responsibility to defend in wide areas and this means they are reluctant to get too far forward.
I feel we should play a standard 4-4-2. Centre Backs patrol the centre of defence, and Full Backs stop crosses coming into the penalty area. One midfielder sits as a shield for the defence and the other three combine to link up with the front two.
When I say the front two I mean two players operating as outright strikers. Assombalonga in my opinion is what I would call an instinctive goal scorer , witness his recent headed goal ( that the manager missed) he could just as easily have wiped himself out on the upright as he powered in to score he didn’t stop to think, It’s when he has time to think that he seems to struggle in front of goal. In Fletcher he has a highly mobile young partner who takes a more measured approach to his chances.
We don’t really have many options at the moment and barring injuries and suspensions the team almost picks itself. We definitely don’t need Downing or VP on the bench as they are just taking up space, the same could be said of Hugill.
Only ten? Days ago I blogged on this site, that I looked at the upcoming matches, our position in the league, the fact that we had two easy home matches after an easy away match, and therefore we had a very good chance of automatic promotion.
However, silly me, I now am pretty sure that we have very little chance of the play offs. Why? well, after our third chance to leap up this league with a lot of quick home matches and easy away fixtures, and the third crash and burn I am forced to the conclusion that there are some in the team that have no intention of signing their own death warrant by getting promoted.
Hard, I know, but really you could not invent it, plastered by simple through balls to no one, result disaster, could have, should have, would have, had six but or the grace of god. As for us, we stood about like statues, and not very attractive statues at that, and the biggest statue of them all was Pulis. Clueless doesn’t begin to describe his performance. It is not if but when this charade is ended, and I think it will not last until the end of the season.
Harry
Good post —this getting beat at home is really getting to me.
It’s a good job I’ve got friends on this blog to share my disappointment with!
OFB
So Flint and Friend return and surprisingly Fry (claimed to be the best player on the pitch by Pulis 2 weeks ago) has been dropped. Looks like Howson has possibly retained right wing-back and there’s a midfield three of Mikel, Besic and Wing with Britt and Fletcher keeping their places up front.
Starting XI: Randolph, Howson, Shotton, Ayala, Flint, Friend, Mikel, Besic, Wing, Assombalonga, Fletcher
Subs: Dimi, Fry, Clayton, Saville, Downing, Tavernier, Hugill
Could be four at the back or switch to three during the match. Its a game we must win to keep the pressure of slipping out of the play offs off us now that we have slipped too far for the autos.
Fry will play for the forseeable future as Ayala will be banned for 4 matches as he has already been sent off this season and therefore incurs an additional 1 match ban to the 3
OFB
So did Ayala deserve a red card?
I was with Football League Ref Ross Joyce and Ex Prem Ref Jeff Winter tonight and after looking at the TV replays we reluctantly agreed (we are all Boro fans) that Ayalas tackle was dangerous and in the current letter of the law he deserved a Red.
Ross is the youngest football league ref at the moment and has agreed to do an In2View for us. From Eston he has graduated from Teesside League to being a top candidate for future honours
OFB
Very good point OFB.
This is an argument I often have with football fans who are still stuck in the notion that a tackle of any sort is fine provided that the ball is won. Whether you like it or not, the rules are now about control. If you are not in control of the tackle, it is reckless & asking for a card, regardless of if the tackle is ‘clean’ or not.
Yes interesting to see how we line up. Fry the scapegoat for donkey Flint. Saville unfortunately cannot complain.
Forgot match is on the red button, looks like plenty people missing on the concourse.
Oh dear!
Rarely can I remember a decision changing the game so much. Cruising and should have been out of sight and then all
change. Very disappointed.
Like to see the foul again cos it looked a good last ditch tackle on the tv
Sorry it wasn’t !
OFB
1-2. Tav sent on with only five minutes to go. Why am I not surprised? The Riverside should definitely be renamed Jurassic Park! Grrr…
Yes, we were good for the first 60 min. Until Ayala got his matching order. After a horrible pass from Howson. Then Flint plays himself out and Ayala does the last tackle to prevent a goal.
The free kick after the red card – why was Randolph too much behind his defensive wall? He should have kept the far post and trust his wall for near corner. Gutted.
Howson, Besic and Fletcher were immense. But it was not enough. Two shots hit a post in the first 15 min or so for Boro. Harsh to loose like that.
But we can still reach the play-offs. And we are due some luck, too. Upward and onward now.
Up the Boro!
I really do admire your optimism Jarkko, can you give whatever you are drinking to me and the idiots in our Parliament whilst you are at it
Jarkko, we got the luck with our deflected goal. Not seen the Ayala tackle yet, however poor wall and poor defending for the second. Should of been out of sight by then though.
Mr Pulis is not a lucky Manager. Roll on May and the season end. I for one cannot wait.
Beginning to think that we don’t want promotion somehow!
The PuExit will have to be delayed until the club finds the right Deal.
Disappointing, if not wholly surprising, as tonight’s result is, to focus on Tony Pulis would be wrong and pointless.
Whether viewed as a dinosaur, deluded or whatever, he will be gone in under two months and will not be missed. He has been terrible, nothing less.
The bigger picture is what happens to the club next. There is a huge irony in that as social media grows and facilitates exchanges of views and understanding, and misunderstanding, our club is becoming ever more remote. Steve Gibson still turns up for matches, but that aside, is sadly not dissimilar from Mike Ashley these days. He has spent colossal amounts of money but seemingly feels entitled to shut up shop about his tenure. It is understandable if ultimately belittling for all.
Communications from the Boro around its direction and priorities are non existent while the Gazette just does not ask the questions that matter. Its larger reliance upon Middlesbrough FC has sunk any pretence of objective journalism and it has abandoned the principles of asking why we are where we are, and how matters might improve.
This is not new but that does not help. The club cannot be run as a collective (can it?) but customer (and as fans, we are) service is non existent. What does Gibson want, what does Bausor do, would be very good to know. The appalling defensive stance (standing, cap on) Pulis takes at press conferences aids no-one and is simply contemptuous.
There is an iciness about Middlesbrough FC right now and a complacency, or maybe just defeatism, at the Gazette. Both are very ordinary indeed.
Forums such as Diasboro are excellent, and welcome, but ultimately only stir debate. They might exert a small pressure but right now, that’s it.
I suspect the club needs a new broom throughout – the toll his leadership has taken on Gibson will be mind boggling. is there any other club out there with one man at the helm for longer? Gibson has driven with vision and zip, with a buccaneering trait at times that has long disappeared. But his decision making, or trust in others, has been woeful for a long time.
Because the club does not communicate, we just don’t know how it works. It may, or may not be, time for a change of leader but a wholesale reappraisal of how Middlesbrough operates is way, way overdue.
Good truthful post Richard.
Haven’t seen SG at a game for ages !
OFB
Well if last weekend was Typical Boro then last night gave it a new twist as a game that had looked like it was there for the taking was in the end taken from Boro. Anyway, Redcar Red was there to witness another home defeat and the die was cast when Preston scored as it meant Boro were never going to win unless they broke the mould that has shaped their season at the Riverside – here is his match report…
https://diasboro.club/2019/03/14/boro-1-2-preston/
Great report, RR. I kind of enjoyed the match as we played very well for the first 60 min or so. I like the two up front.
Preston’s second goal looked offside when seen live on TV, but after seeing the replays a few times, I am not so sure anymore. Where were our defenders as there were three PNE players going for the deflected ball and Randoph couldn’t come out as he had too many Preston players to choose from.
As I was still hoping for a top two finnish just a fortnigh ago, I still see that we can finish in top six now. We are better than our last three results show.
We are fifth in the table. As Ian would say, the table does not lie. But we must not lose at Villa next as they are catching us now with three succesive wins.
Up the Boro!
Watching the highlights on the laptop this morning the ball definitely took a deflection and spun up and over our defence. The goalscorer was offside but as it came off a Boro Player technically he wasn’t. Reaction times from our Defence and Keeper were questionable though.
On the Ayala tackle it was reckless from him as is his inclination in these situations. A great player who unfortunately either doesn’t possess the skill or maybe the intelligence to know when and where to lunge in like an idiot. Having seen it again I still don’t think it was a sending off but my learned friend OFB who knows more than I about the rules is convinced it was. Personally for me the game is becoming too sanitised and prescriptive on things when there were far far worse things going on out on the pitch all evening.
For you and OFB see today’s EFL overturn of the red card.
Come on BORO.
RR, thanks for the report, it was a disappointing night.
Whilst the outcome last night couldn’t be laid at TP’s door the disarray and inability to galvanise after the sending off was disappointing. There have been too many games at the Riverside where there has been something seriously lacking. Too many clubs now like Rotherham, Burton, Newport, Brentford, Millwall and now Preston have squads assembled on a tight budget but have all taken something away from the Riverside this season for it to be just a coincidence. Something just isn’t right for whatever reason.
Thanks for the report RR on another disappointing, if not surprising, night at the Riverside.
A promising first half but given that so many chances were again missed left you with a feeling that a typical boro moment was just around the corner and so it proved to be.
Watching live on Sky, and without the benefit of any replays, my immediate reaction was that Ayala’s challenge looked rash and I initially thought it was a foul inside the area and the ref was pointing to the spot. As it turned out it did not make any difference as they scored from the free kick. In my view, Randolph was poorly positioned and not confident in his wall as his initial movement when the kick was taken was to his right which meant he was too far across and unable to reach the shot into his left corner.
I am a fan of Ayala but do recognise that he has a reckless side to his game either grappling or holding opponents at corners and free kicks or at times making lunging and reckless challenges from which he never seems to learn. He made a similar type of challenge last year against Derby which resulted in his dismissal and was also given a second yellow card for a tackle only a matter of weeks ago.
TP has stated that he has seen the tackle from four different angles and does not believe it was a foul and in fact is of the opinion that the ref did not have a clear view of it given he was well behind play and that his view was obstructed by at least three players. He has said that if the ref could not be 100% sure then he should not have given it. It will be interesting to see if TP backs this all up with an appeal against the red card.
As far as the second goal was concerned, in real time I could see that the shot on goal looped up off a boro player and as a consequence played the Preston players onside so it was clearly legal.
As you have mentioned, once things go against us we do not appear to have the spirit or the ability to turn it around and we just seem to disintegrate whereas other less resourced teams battle and scrap their way to results.
A sad indictment on a team who I predicted earlier in the week are likely to lose three games in a row after their visit to Villa who I fear could now put us to the sword and inflict our highest margin defeat of the season; a season which is slowly but surely disintegrating.
I know that others will say that there are still points to be won and we are in the top six but this is not a team on the up, it has been inconsistent all season, displays a lack of composure and ability to execute in the final third and now seems to be devoid of options or grit to fight back when the chips are down. Depressed and rapidly becoming disinterested in Spain! 😎😒
Whilst I have been AWOL for a while, thanks to Weder on his articles and congrats on the passing of the exam! Wish I could do the same and emigrate somewhere else than endure the mess at home.
Thanks to RR for his dedication to duty in the reporting which can’t be enjoyable and you now have a week off!
The only observation that I can make is that it is typical Boro and that we clearly do not want promotion. Maybe SG has told TP that which can be the only explanation for the tactics and performances.
Bonus for the players if we avoid promotion which is the antithesis of football but stranger things are happening right now!
As Richard said, TP will be gone at the end of the season and I also cannot wait for that to happen. I, like others, am slowly losing interest in what passes as football at the Riverside and could not bring myself to make a long journey yesterday to watch.
It is what it is and time will tell and there is always next season!
UTB (maybe!)
Sorry, a week off coming up after this weekend!
BBD
Not so sure he will be off as he was alluding to three year projects a few weeks ago at his pre-match press conference! 😎☹
RR
Thank you for an excellent match report which hopefully was accompanied by a glass or two whilst you were writing it to make reliving it more palatable.
Unfortunately a lot of referees now are drilled into what is or isnt a dangerous tackle. Unfortunately it removes the modicum of common sense from a referee’s decision to what constitutes what in my day was a contact sport played by men who went on hard
I know Andy Campbell who know what it’s like to play the game was incensed by it but after talking to two referees after the game they said under the letter of the law Ayala had to go.
Mark Proctor also thought it was wrong for him to go but that’s football and we will always have controversy with or without VAR
I wonder if the club will appeal as Ayala will now miss 4 games after previously been sent off this season.
At the end of the day Ayala should have been more careful and is becoming a bit of a liability the way he is going around pushing and shoving players in the box and grappling with them. Players get a reputation and referees watch out for them during games.
So after saying all that I don’t think the referee was in a particularly good place to make the decision and as you rightly say the assistant didn’t flag and they didn’t confer.
A game changing episode again things are looking ominous.
With regard to the lack of sportsmanship by PNE bench I thought they should have had a couple of red cards but pleased to see Woody didn’t hold back
OFB
OFB, if the ball takes a (small) deflection off a defender, is a striker always onside? I understand if the defending player passes to the opposition who is in an “offside” position, the striker is onside.
But how about another attacking player passing to a collegue who is offside and the ball just touches a liitle to the defender. Why I am asking this is because there is not much arguaing going on about it. Did it touch a defending player or not before a goal was scored. VAR was not needed for these situations in the PL or World Cup.
Up the Boro!
Jarkko, the law states ….
“A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who
deliberately plays the ball (except from a deliberate save by any opponent) is
not considered to have gained an advantage.”
Any attempt to play the ball that results in a miss-kick, or any other unintended deflection of the ball, is considered to be deliberately playing the ball.
So a defender doing his job and attempting to block the ball, but deflecting it on to the attacker in an off-side position has effectively played that attacker on-side.
Powmill
I was halfway through the same response !
OFB
Woody went up in my estimation after that, wish we could see a bit more of that fight and bottle on the pitch.
Thanks, mates. All clear now. Up the Boro!
Redcar Red,
As always a focussed, emphasis on cussed, report on the game. That was almost written in the runes, Boro really know how to pile disappointment on disappointment, I see Boro struggling for the play-offs now if this form continues.
With Boro’s home record they don’t deserve to go up and a season of performances at home like some of late could well see them going without a win all season in the Premiership. Then there’d be no respite playing Burton or Newport in the cups. Absolutely no disrespect to them either. If this continues I can see the Club breaking the spirit of the supporters and the town of Middlesbrough.
I hate the International break but for the first time ever I’m actually glad there is one coming up.
Roll on TP’s leaving party, anybody contributing or going along for a beer?
In a way the manager leaving will feel like a form of promotion and hopefully SG will get a proper manager not the ‘Wood-Down’ axis.
UTB,
John
Or perhaps Down Wood axis sounds better but would still not be my first choice! However, given that I suspect that SG has decided to stick in the Championship and reduce costs, then it may come to pass.
Operation Downwood was the official name for attacks carried out by the famous Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron usually referred to as the Dambusters!
Dani Ayala. Frustrates and amazes me in equal measure.
Like his old Spanish boss, he looks the part. He has the swagger that everyone in his position ought to have. And as long as the right set-up is around him and everything goes his way, everything’s brilliant.
When it doesn’t, well… he doesn’t take it too well at all. To put it mildly! And that affects his performance beyond words.
Len’s recollection from a while back about how he walked off the pitch at Blackpool without his former boss’s permission still lingers with me. Alas.
If the message is, “I am important to the team, you either let me do things *my* way, or I’m not playing at all”, then what sort of example does that send?
Player Power gone rampant.
Yeah, I do miss the days when Big Jack could let the players know what’s what and the results began to flow. I know, only to a point. But they still flowed.
I haven’t watched the dismissal again, I am in full sulk mode, I haven’t forgiven my wife for getting picked up early so I could watch all of the match.
As a general comment Ayala does give the ref a chance to make a decision.
I had a couple of thoughts about how to play with ten and my mind went back to how ManU approached it under SrAlex. They would go 342 and were very effective.
I suppose it is a little easier with a midfield of Beckham, Keane, Scholes and Giggs with two out of Sheringham, Cole, Yorke and Solksjaer up front.
Sr Alex also had a group of players who, if played “out of position”, would adapt to that position and do as good a job… if not even better.
Solksjaer on the right of midfield (for example)? Worked a treat as United won the title in 2003.
#OpenMindedness
Another big game tonight at the Riverside for the young lads. I was going to go but after the last two games I have had enough of the Riverside and need a break.
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/introducing-latest-crop-middlesbrough-youngsters-15969927
After reading that I just hope we have eleven fit players to take the field!
Hope some people go to support our future players at the Riverside tonight.
The Checkatrade Trophy final is sold out as 40,000 Sunderland fans heading to Wembley soon. Also Boro might make a visit to the famous stadium in May.
Let’s hope all three finals end with a win for a North Eastern club. Up the Boro!
RR – I am not sure that the Downwood should emulate the 617 Squadron or not……..
Boro appeal against Ayala red card
https://www.mfc.co.uk/news/club-to-claim-for-wrongful-dismissal-of-dani-ayala
Bravery, accuracy and success in hitting their targets……………………..mmmmm perhaps not a good comparison!
Very true indeed with those brave men back then.
Will the appeal be dismissed as “frivolous”?
Si
I think the Boro will win however I thought the UK had voted for Brexit so what do I know ?
OFB
How can you say that OFB as early post you and two other, past and present referees , were definite it was the correct decision.
Come on BORO.
One was a current Football League Referee !
Of course it will. First question on the decision tree at all these tribunals is,
“Does the player’s team name end in ‘brough’ and start with ‘Middles’?”.
If yes, proceed with appeal.
If no, dismiss the appeal as patently frivolous.
I got my yes and no this wrong way round 🙁
Not having the luxury of having seen last night’s match I can only agree with OFB that in the current laws of the game that Ayala’s dismal was warranted. Having said that the law is an ass, as is the offside law nowadays. The game has now became a no contact sport. I agree that we don’t want to go back to the days of Chopper Harris or ‘break your legs’ Norman Hunter but surely a genuine attempt to tackle should be tolerated if the transgressor wins the ball. It seems to me that players and managers are not au fait with today’s laws as we often get contradictory opinions on decisions by Match of the Day summarisers. What I will say though is that Ayala has been living dangerously all this season and before.
As for Boro playing well last night, how can that be if so many goalscoring opportunities are wasted. Goals win matches and Boro have proved time and time again that they are incapable in that part of their game. It’s not always bad luck when a player hits the post or bar, or if the opposing goalkeeper makes a good save. In fact a lot of Boro’s goals this season have been fortuitous with deflections or in one case ‘hand of God’, so I don’t think Tony Pulis or indeed fans can complain too much given the turgid performances. Isn’t it about time that Boro employed a goal scoring coach?
Continuing the Ayala research.
The cracks continue to emerge in the facade of a defender I once named our central defensive hero and discovery of the 2010s. More and more people are calling him a liability.
Until the beginning of 2017, and the dissolution of all remaining hope in a falling empire (for want of a better word), Dani hadn’t been sent off in a match since 2012. He got a handful of chances at Liverpool and Norwich, and never made more than sixteen appearances for any club until he joined Boro.
The more I think about it, the more he ties in with Mogga’s eye for potential, potential, potential but too often without the grit, character, physicality, synergy and edge to change inconsistent promise into consistent effectiveness.
We can never have it both ways, can we? If we have exciting individuals, the whole unit suffers and we underachieve. If we have an effective, well-oiled machine, we lament losing the soul we once had.
Well… I suppose we did have it both ways once. When Schwarzer and Festa arrived and Pearson got back up off the treatment table we suddenly had a strong spine to go with a continental attack, and were out of the bottom three with seven games to go.
Sadly five of those last seven games were away. And, including the cups, I think we won just seven out of 27 on the road all season.
I’ve just watched “The Premier League Show” on BBC TV and an interview with Morgan Gibbs-White from Wolves about his musical tastes and the first LP he ever bought. I must admit to not knowing one singer from another nowadays, but in my youth was an avid listener to what was called the “Hit Parade” on Radio Luxembourg on Sunday evenings. In those days LPs were quite expensive so I bought vinyl discs and the first one I ever bought was Jimmy Young singing ‘Unchained Melody’ and ‘The Man from Laramie’ on the reverse. Hands up anyone who even knew he used to be a singer, never mind reaching the top of the Hit Parade.
Ken
I’m sorry to say I did but
Of course I was a student of music so I listened to all genres !
That’s my excuse !
OFB
I did too, bit only cos me mam told me 🤫
It is the managers responsibility to drop players who have a massive flaw in their game, as these flaws cost the team on a regular basis. What is the point of this comment? The continuing selection of Britt. he seems constitutionally unable to convert easy knock in’s (six in the last three matches) and I stress knock in’s not chances.
The effect on the team must be horrendous, to make enough chances to win two matches, and see your striker missing from two yards must destroy your moral.
Wing twice put him through on goal last night, but he chose that moment to change his position and simply wasn’t there when the ball appeared where he had been.
Certainly not good enough, but then, the constant playing of tav (for five minutes) calls into question his grasp of logic. He is going to need him to be a first teamer next season (unless he is going to loan him out)
Sorry, I keep forgetting he’ll be gone before then.
I know we missed chances last night, as ever, but I did think we were unlucky. Very little, apart from the deflection for Fletcher’s goal, went for us. That includes the massive deflection that presented Stockley with his easy chance for their second goal, Boro twice hitting the post and the red card.
In real time, like most other fans, I thought Ayala’s tackle was very good. Like everyone around me, I was flabbergasted when the ref gave him a red. I’ve seen it again on the highlights, and I still don’t think it merited a red, or even a free kick. Sorry OFB! Let’s hope Boro actually win this appeal. Mind you, we won a couple last season, one of which was Traore’s red at Sunland. I’m not sure the FA will take pity on us again.
What was particularly frustrating last night was that for much of the game, until the red card, we were well on top and we had played some of our best football of the season. Someone above called our football turgid. In many games, it has been. Last night, it was anything but. It was scintillating at times last night. And give Pulis his due: he has at last seen some merit in playing two up top and has stuck with the Ashley-Britt partnership. I just hope he doesn’t revert to type at Villa, where we’ll probably be under the cosh, I suspect. Playing one up front against them, when we then haven’t got an out-ball, is likely to put the defence under greater pressure.
Getting a big nervy for the play-offs. We could do with another run of games without defeat.
clive
Nothing to say sorry to me for
I’m only stating what the interpretation of the laws of the game are regarding what is considered to be a reckless challenge
I hope the Boro win their appeal
OFB
Clive, very much like I saw the match, too. Much better performance than vs. Brentford, for example. Hope the results will follow soon. We cannot afford to lose at Villa Park.
Up the Boro!
Freelancing as a writer-photographer is like being a football manager. You make your own luck. But you also need a few breaks and to be fair, last night Pu didn’t get many.
Si
Ayala Well he didn’t keep still and it was over in a flash and our defence was overexposed and a red mist descended over Ayala for the slides and film of him going to a darkened room afterwards showed he was going to be reported so roll on the appeal it will probably be negative result
OFB
I Canon see what you captured there! Good job the swear filter wasn’t on!
Fujica !
Blasted spell check
Eureka !
That will do
OFB
I am a great fan of Dani and I think no way was it a red card. So hopefully it will be overturned. With ref to Jeff Winter saying that he deserved the sending off, I seem to remember Jeff making quite a few mistakes in his career.
We all do !
Let’s hope this doesn’t happen to the next home fixture at The Riverside…….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47576088
Continuing with Dani and his tackle / foul / red card, here are some stats.
Ayala (27-1) Flint (29) Fry (27-1) games-sub. Fouls per game are 1.7 0.6 0.3.
Cards Y/R for each 9/2 5 1. Make what you will of it
Dani and his tackle. Ooh matron!
Sorry.
We need to stop this mini slump in our playoff aspirations. Therefore………
Vanillas 4
Lemon Tops 0
Unlike you GHW, predicting Boro to lose, especially by that much.
Needs must…..
Good news Boro win Ayala appeal!
😎😊
Well that is a surprise. However more ammunition for TP to say, I told you so…..we woz robbed!!
And it probably means that if VAR was in operation, Ayala would have stayed on and Preston wouldn’t have had the free kick from which they scored.
…before Preston went on to win the game thanks to 2 stonewall penalties, courtesy of Shotton, Friend, and VAR, that the ref missed.
Villains 3 – 0 Culprits
UTB,
John
Ayala 1 Ref 0
OFB
It seems to me that we play our defensive stuff without a player on the halfway line. This must be an enormous help to even the most useless opponents, as they have no fear of being caught by a breakaway attack, they can utilise every one of their outfield players round our box, and do.
As we are on the subject of tactics, why are we using our playmaker to take corners, and, of course, never varying them, you know the idea, nicely flighted at head height, for a bit of heading practice for the defence.
If we used our corners to feed Wing about twenty yards from the box he might put someone in for a shot, which would be a novelty.
This has gone on all season, obviously we have no attack coach, and our defensive coach is on a bad run just recently, as seen in our results.
It is difficult to see us getting a point any time soon, under this manager.
I learned some time ago that how we learn from defeat is equally important, if not more, than how we enjoy the moment. No point merely waiting and living for the moments if the consequences of setbacks aren’t addressed, because they’ll come and bite you in the proverbial at a later date.
Pu appeared to get a lucky break, a winning formula, by chance at Blackburn. Similarly our old Basque boss tried a 4-3-3 at Arsenal and was (sort of) vindicated, with only Petr Cech and the thickness of the woodwork denying us an unlikely (but deserved) win. The mistake both made was suddenly thinking that formation was the permanent solution to the problem.
We’ve had lots of momentary fillips that were just that, nothing more. Is it because, as a club, we live for the moment and don’t contemplate the consequences?
Come to think of it, that makes them Typical Boro managers in a way.
Nearly-but-not-quites.
If only Dani hadn’t been sent off. If only those first half chances had gone in. If only Nugent knew how to finish at Rotherham. If only Fry had intercepted that ball…
Says more about our mentality that we haven’t enough margin for error around these setbacks.
It’s never nice to see forwards miss chances that “should have been taken” or have a decision unfairly go against you, but it’s a weakness on the regime’s part if they use them as an excuse.
If only is the mantra of football fans up and down the country every Saturday afternoon. In fact, it’s probably a life mantra for lots of people, in all walks of life.
GHW,
Whenever I used the word ‘if’ as a child or teenager my mother would say, ‘if ifs were pound notes we’d all be millionaires’ used to drive me mad but I suppose there’s a truism in there.
I hope that today Boro make things happen for themselves rather than stop them happening.
UTB,
John
Yeah. My theory is that if a handful of “If onlys” are all you’ve got to go on, though, the foundations for success aren’t as strong as we’d like to believe.
Take Monk’s first game. The 1-0 loss at eventual champions Wolves. I’ll hand you over to our own Mr Misanthrope…
“… The more things change, the more they stay the same.
“Once again we left the game full of if onlys. If only Ayala hadn’t made that mistake. If only Braithwaite could hit the target when a ball is put on his forehead 6 yards from goal. If only the Wolves keeper hadn’t gone and Ruddy well saved from Assombalonga…
“(But) all defenders and goalkeepers can and will make mistakes. The more worrying thing was how often did Boro actually test Ruddy other than the save from Assombalonga.”
And this was after we spent a lot of money on forwards.
IF ONLY. The two words that I’m sure everyone has said during their life. My father was killed in a road accident because a United bus skidded on black ice on a bend coming home from Warrenby Works a week before Christmas in 1969.
IF ONLY the road had been gritted.
IF ONLY my father had been delayed to pick up a colleague as was his normal routine.
IF ONLY the bus hadn’t overtaken a car in Warrenby a few minutes earlier.
I’ve had a belly full of IF ONLYs in my lifetime, as I’m sure most people have had. That’s kismet or fate, but to say IF ONLY regarding happenings on a football field rather trivialises what happens in real life in my opinion. Forget it, and get on with the next match.
So it seems “We was robbed” is now official after Ayala’s red card appeal was successful, which also complies with thrust of Redcar Red’s “Ref Justice” match report too. Whether the game-turning decision by the man not quite in the middle will ultimately prove costly to our promotion prospects remains to be seen – though should Boro miss out on the play-offs by three points it will perhaps be cited along with the three-points deduction that cost us relegation from the PL as another sign of rough justice.
Although, Pulis is claiming that Boro need to be scoring more goals and they’re running out of time to solve the problem. He also seemingly hinted that he could be ready to change the Britt-Fletcher partnership up front – though hopefully that doesn’t mean a return to Hugill, who’s lack of pitch time in recent weeks may have led to his manager forgetting just how little of a goal threat he poses.
Personally, I’m still convinced that playing Tav in a free role behind the striker would offer more options as he’s very lively around the box and has proved he can score – plus it would offer Wing a moving target to aim for too. My preference would be to stick with Fletcher and have Britt coming off the bench as the sight of Hugill arriving on the pitch doesn’t fill me with confidence he’ll do anything but wrestle with defenders for the remaining minutes.
So with Ayala available to play it appears that Fry will once again find himself out of luck but Boro will miss his driving runs out of defence. I suspect Howson will retain the right wing-back role – though he should be reminded to avoid risky back passes to Ayala. Boro probably need to win six games from the last ten, so they likely require something from Villa Park today as if they fail against Norwich after the break they will be facing a tough challenge ahead.
I actually think Boro will win today as they generally played quite well against Preston for the first 60 minutes and Villa have looked like a team who will concede under Dean Smith. Of course, much will depend on the team selection for Boro and if Pulis opted to start with Hugill, then I would not expect to see many goals.
Anyway, I’ll go 2-0 to Boro with goals from Ayala and Howson.
For me it is all about confidence. Was it OFB who mentioned the atmosphere around the club via flat? Not surprising when we have failed to perform with any great consistency all season, either in team setup or in team performance. S, how are we going to do today? I really don’t think there will be any genuine belief in the team that we will win and despite Villa’s fragilities I think our own fragilities more than compensate for those and will actually give Villa the expectation that we are vulnerable and that we won’t score.
Third defeat in the spin for me today…. AV 2 AV’s favourites 0
Just cannot see us getting anything at Villa this afternoon.
TP did say he thought Fletcher was tired towards the end of his time on the pitch, so may be a rest for him. The thought of Hugill starting, no thank you.
Also have we had a result playing in our white strip, which I think we will be using today?
Three nil to Villa and our season slipping away before our eyes.
I dont expect much for this afternoon, lets hope I am wrong.
Using Ayala up front might not be the worst of ideas.
Simon
Are you suggesting that this will stop him man handling or make lunging tackles on opponents or did you have another cunning plan in mind! 😎😂
Not at all. He’s got a great scoring record for a defender (seven last season alone). That’s all it is.
TP may be minded to follow Boeing’s line of ‘an abundance of caution’ and disabling MCAS. It is a new fangled piece of software which the players were not told about – Movement, Shooting And Crossing.
I suspect there is no software currently available that could prevent Boro’s promotion chances from stalling under our attack.
Reading a couple of articles this morning in both the Gazette and Northern Echo, it seems to suggest that Tony Pulis will not be staying beyond this season if Boro fail to gain promotion. His contract apparently runs out in June and he has said he won’t be discussing anything with Steve Gibson until this season is over.
Whether he’d contemplate another season in the Championship is another matter – especially if it sounds like this summer will involve quite a lot of cost-cutting measures on the playing side. Just how much is needed will probably determine how attractive a proposition being Boro manager will be next term. Pulis has already found he can’t persuade his targets to come to Teesside.
In some ways, promotion would not be the best move in the long-term progress of the club. It does sound as if the club have quite a few promising youngsters ready to make the step and that won’t happen in the PL – especially under Pulis. I’d rather see Boro get promoted looking like a decent side and preferably with a nucleus of promising young players who have learned to play together.
I fear if we go up this season Boro will need to spend a lot of money just to try and avoid finishing in the bottom three. We’ve seen with Fulham how difficult a task that is and the likelihood is that promotion with Pulis still in charge will prove a hard slog if scoring in the Championship has shown already too difficult. Plus just how much faith can we place on the Boro recruitment team to deliver the kind of players we’ll need?
Given that, perhaps therefore the answer to whether Pulis’s answer to remaining in charge of Boro next season is going to be a ‘no’ regardless of which league it will be in.
Werder
Rumour at club on Friday was that Pulis has already signed a contract renewal and they are just waiting for a suitable time to announce it ……
Any streams or tv channels showing the game today ?
OFB
Well that’s good news for early bird insomniacs 🙂
No sign of any streams as yet but won’t know until shortly before KO
I wonder what a suitable time for the announcement will be? When we win the play-offs?
UTB,
John
Werder
Just read my last post and I dont want people to think I am insensitive. Delete if you believe so.
Black humour has long tradition in England and I suspect nobody with relatives involved in the incident will be reading Diasboro. Besides the media has now moved on to extracting every ounce of emotion from another terrorist attack in New Zealand by giving the nut job who carried it out and the groups he’s associated with all the publicity they could ever dream of. I wonder if the media ever contemplate why people carry out publicity-seeking acts of barbarism – do we really need to know or want to hear all the horrible details and become terrorised by proxy. This is what terrorism actually sets out to achieve by carrying out the act.
Teresa May probably welcomes the weekend off. This is the problem with 24hr rolling news channels, they pounce on stories like this to justify the massive outlay on resources.
I can never understand why they find it necessary to despatch one of their senior anchor persons to the scene. The only reason Kay Burley isn’t outside the mosque right now is because of the logistics involved in getting to New Zealand.
I feel sorry for the victims – most were clearly in shock or severely traumatised as they were being interviewed by no doubt the media scrum – I’m sure Kay Burley will be there by Monday!
Fry in for Fletcher, Hugill the Donkey for Britt & Saville for Besic…
Team selection is worse than I thought with both Britt and Fletcher dropped in favour of a lone striker Hugill – also looks like Shotton returns as right wing-back with Saville back in midfield – Tavernier not even on the bench!
Starting XI: Randolph, Shotton, Ayala, Flint, Fry, Friend, Mikel, Howson, Wing, Saville, Hugill
Subs: Dimi, Clayton, McNair, Besic, Downing, Fletcher, Assombalonga
I guess we can safely say the new formation is now consigned to history and it’s back to Real Pulis!
Prediction revised to 0-0.
Exactly my feeling, too. Really I would have liked to see Britt and Fletcher Up front! Gutted. But still, Up the Boro!
Before the Wigan game I thought the games against Wigan, Brentford and Preston were our best chances of picking up wins with Villa, Norwich and Bristol City looking more difficult. I was sadly wrong though I did enjoy the way we played in the first 60 minutes against Preston (apart from the inability to score from the chances we created). Now it looks as if we will struggle to keep our playoff place.
Just seen the Boro team against Villa. It looks like TP has reverted to his favoured 9-0-1 formation (or 8-1-1) if JOM plays a couple of yards in front of the defence.
I think I will open a bottle of wine before listening to Radio Tees!
Well as Werder and others have pointed out, Mr Pulis has returned to type. Villa score goals, so even limiting them how are we going to even attempt to get a draw with fall guy Hugill up front isolated from the rest of the team. All this brings tears to my eyes.
As for OFB and his Mr Pulis rumour of signing up for an extension, well in some ways it does not surprise me. Just look at the EPL now. All the old ‘go round and round’ Managers like Pardew, Sam etc have gone, replaced by Jonny Foreigner. What chance Mr Pulis getting another job at the salary MFC are paying him, never mind a job in the EPL.
I am with Werder now. Find a Manager who will develop the likes of Wing, Fry, Tav and others and give him time to do so.
Forgot to say. Watched the early match. Great performance by United, how do they do it?
With Leeds losing it now means if we win today Boro can close the gap to second place to just 13 points…
No signs of any unofficial streams for today’s and even the MFC one has only just returned after dropping out.
So with a quarter of the game gone Boro have had zero shot or corners – they’ve barely left their own half and it’s just long punts and hoping to win the second ball, which I think they did once. Terrible game!
Well Villa scored and no surprise as they were the only team who looked interested in playing football – I wonder what Plan B is now that 0-0 has gone?
Werder,
It’s obvious, we have to concede two to be able to win 2 – 3. It’s another cunning Pulis plan, Villa are playing into our hands.
I’m taking the Terriers for a long walk, then, when I get back I’m going to pour a beer for myself to build up the courage to look at the score.
Please OFB say it was a wind-up.
UTB,
John
I don’t think Boro have ever overturned a 2-goal deficit under Pulis – he may need to ring Steve McClaren at half-time and ask about Steau Bucharest. Anyway, enjoy the walk and that beer – though I’d be more impressed if you could train your terriers to pour the beer 😉
John
I wish it was but it’s what I heard yesterday !
Hope they change their minds !
It’s never too late !
Can’t believe how this season has destroyed my well being !
OFB
Boro throw in leads to a Villa goal. They can’t even manage the basics.
So far, so bad.
Complete lack of bravery award on its way to Pulis.
That’s it! 0-2. No way back. 🙁
That’s it: 0-2. No way back now… 🙁
Looks like a battering now. Very similar goal to the first one.
We have been bad but we did have a couple of chances. First Howson missing, then Hugill passing badly when Wind could have scored. And the Villa score soon after.
UP the Boro!
That’s it: 0-2 at half-time. No way back… 🙁
I wonder what is the score… UTB!
Wonder why Boro did not go in for Hibs John McGinn who has now scored for Villa. They got him for a bargain….grrrr
braveheart, back to the never ending problem of our recruitment department. Mr Gibson brings in one of his own and so nothing changes.
Boro got exactly what they deserved – tactically poor in an almost Newportesque-type performance of nothingness. To be fair since Downing came on he’s looked like the only one who is not on sleeping tablets – although the Boro travelling army won’t need any pills after watching that display – albeit a few may be tempted to take their club-shop cyanide capsule that they’d been saving for the announcement that Pulis has extended his contract.
Sorry about the triple post, but it didn’t look as though the first or the second had gone through!
Outplayed, out fought, out thought! It is very hard to make a game of it when you only have 10 men which is what happens when you play Hugill on his own.
Unfortunately this team is light years behind the rest of the promotion contenders and TP can no longer hide from it. 😎☹️
Can we buy Jarrod Bowen, please? That said even if we could & did, he’d probably turn into a damp squib straightaway! 🙁
That should’ve read “overnight”!
Watched Sheffield United at Leeds earlier. They were determined and showed lots of fight and spirit, qualities that Boro sadly lack.
So it the annual Villa Park no show.
Maybe they all should have had an enema on the bus traveling down.
Pulis included
This is my last overseas holiday, as in reality I’m not really fit to fly despite my consultant reluctantly giving me a ‘fit to fly’ letter to satisfy the Civil Airlport Authority. However I’m humbled and gratified by the kindness shown to me by the Portuguese people, especially my friend Claudio and his parents. I’ve just enjoyed a magnificent lunch of sea bream, red wine, caramel dessert and a cafe duplo which is a double coffee that is normally not included in the prato do dia. Now I don’t normally tip owners of family run restaurants, and have many conversations about Portuguese and English football with the owner Claudio who unfortunately for me was having a day off today, so was a little disappointed that I couldn’t say au revoir. However when I went to pay the bill his father said ‘uno momento’ and went for a bottle which I thought might be a small port. Having consumed enough alcohol with a 10 km car journey to return to my apartment I was about to say thank you but no, but he actually gave me a bottle of a reserve wine to take home and thanked me for my custom over the years. To say I’m flabbergasted would be an understatement. I’ve been spending every winter in the Algarve since 1994, but I shall miss the generosity and warmth of England’s oldest partners, the Portuguese people. All I can say is ‘muito obrigado’ and I’ll miss you all.
Safe journey home Ken and glad to hear your custom over the years has been appreciated and acknowledged. 😎
Beautiful post Ken
Hoping to loose the stream so I can go to bed
Went for a walk in the rain even with a bad back it was preferable !
Now looking at alternatives for Saturdays for next season might take in a few shows
Phantom of the Opera but seen that this year with Pulis !
Les Miserables is favourite
OFB
The points are gone but I would like to see some fight
Well that was one of the most one sided first halves I have seen for some time that included the Boro.
As Werder said, they have offered nothing and deserve to be where they are. Where do we go after this who knows. We certainly look to be leaving the play-offs and probably never to return.
Wing off Assombalongs on that’ll make all the difference! 😎☹️
2nd large glass of wine!
On third very large g&t!
Pulis is turning the fans !
INTO ALCOHOLISM!
OFB
Fletcher on for Donkey Hugill in the 62nd minute. Can HE make a difference? *prays^
Great comment by Maddo, not been second best today, more a case of Villa, daylight then the Boro.
Now Adomah makes it 3-0.
Ireland lose at Wales so England against the old enemy a pointless match.
At least Hamilton is on pole.
Even better, Ken gets a top bottle of wine.
Arrrghhhh! Why mention the Rugby result!
GHW
Sorry.
Stoppage time.
Four more, we only need four more!
Since TP has been in charge our record against Villa is:
P5 W0 D1 L4 F0 A8 and it’s been getting easier for them each time ☹️
Well. Who wax it predicting 3 defeats on the spin for us. How disappointing that is exactly what had happened.
Play not to get beat then it’s more likely you will get gubbed.
Utterly fed up of TP’s absolute lack of ambition. Getting beaten 3-0 when you have played well or with genuine commitment is bearable. Same score when you showed no ambition is simply not acceptable. The buck stops with TP and I am praying that OFB’s insight into already signed contracts is not accurate.
We will not get promoted with TP at the helm, so bite the bullet and get rid now band at least his replacement will have s half a dozen games to work out what is needed to make a real team before next season.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
Oh believe me I am Praying 🙏 too
OFB
Well I’m tempted to say that was a massive wake-up call but it’s going to take really big alarm bell to get that slumbering performance out of many Boro followers nightmares. From start to finish it was poor and team selection and tactics proved to be just as bad. Not sure where Boro go after this but with Villa and Preston now only one point behind us and Derby two – who would fancy us to finish in the top six based on that showing? Can’t say I’m remotely confident!
Remotely confident or remotely interested?
OFB
At least I have a week’s holiday starting now, Adomah scored (still a fan of his) and Ken had a nice time in Portugal. A decent day.
I have already forgot Boro’s result at Villa. Up the Boro!
And ultimately we would get this type of line up if we did reach the play offs. I hoped that TP would see that the previous few line ups redressed the balance between attack and defence but its a repeat of last season, we stumble across a decent formation and team and then abandon for the run in.
How do you work all week on team shape and serve up that?
TP last week saying that he has talked about missed chances since he has arrived like he has absolutely no input in changing that. No strikers or attacking players on the coaching staff would be the hint towards that. If it isnt working, you work on it. If its still not working, youre not the man to improve the team.
I wonder if RR wil make a report. Not really needed this time. UTB!
This match is a direct progression from the two home matches(in which they collapsed as soon as the opposition threatened) it is over. Period. Any idea that this fool can be allowed to see out the season is foolish in the extreme.
His historical methods are gone and are not coming back any time soon.
Just a small comedy moment today, discussing the ongoing car crash with a fellow supporter, I ventured the following, ‘ the best bet on offer to make some easy money?’
0-3 today and exit stage left for Pulis in the next two weeks’. It’s lookin good.
Just a postscript, West Brom, right up behind the top two, home game next up, fail to win it, manager gone before the interviews are done. Now that’s a chairman.
https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/competitions/championship/11667519/aston-villa-3-0-middlesbrough
I learnt a new word today…..
paucity
/ˈpɔːsɪti/Submit
Learn to pronounce
noun
the presence of something in only small or insufficient quantities or amounts.
“a paucity of information”
synonyms: scarcity, sparseness, sparsity, dearth, shortage, rarity, rareness, poverty, insufficiency, deficiency, inadequacy, famine, lack, want, meagreness, limitedness, scantiness, skimpiness, paltriness, restrictedness, deficit, shortfall; rareexiguity
“a paucity of evidence of any football from the away team”
I suppose with Pugill (sic)* in attack we were always going to look a bit constipated. Like a work of fart that hit bottom. Albert getting the turd rubs it in.
Urine trouble now, Pu.
*Realistically it is not fair to single out Jordan H as an attacking weakness but he doesn’t inspire.
Haven’t seen any of today’s game, but I found it interesting that so many contributors on here were fearing the worst, as soon as the team was announced.
And this after last Saturday’s substitution of Britt, almost universally derided at the time, and justifiably so, given subsequent events.
Just two of the most recent examples of what has become a long-term trait, and a consistent theme throughout the season.
How can it be that what is so blindingly obvious to so many supporters appears, time and again, to be beyond the ken of a highly paid, and supposedly experienced manager?
I recall Mr Pulis saying earlier this season that what he sees in matches is beyond the understanding of ordinary supporters.
Seems like the opposite is true.
All my sympathies are with Redcar Red, whose dedication, knowledge, commitment and understanding represent qualities which appear to be far more widely distributed amongst supporters than they are within the club.
I am sticking to my theory that there is a cunning plan not to get promoted, whilst trying to look that we are!
Cue somehow getting to play off final and then not turning up!
It is a dangerous plan mind!
I hope to God that OFB’s comment that contracts to keep Pulis at the club beyond this season are already signed is not true. As long as he is at the club the future is bleak.
Of maybe more concern is the deafening silence of the Chairman of the club in the face of the dismal rubbish served up on the field more often than not and the rapidly diminishing prospect of promotion. I suspect that his interest and enthusiasm for the club may be on the wane and he has delegated a lot of the management activity to Bausor and Pulis who are clearly unsuitable for the job.
It seems clear that the general feeling of disillusionment on the part of the fans and the atmosphere of doom and gloom is getting worse. The problem is that it seems nothing is going to happen to do anything about it. It will be interesting to see how season ticket sales go.
TP’s post-match interview consists of spraying criticisms of individual players around like confetti, whilst taking zero responsibility himself.
If he has yet to understand after so many years in the game that this is a strategy that creates more problems than it solves, is disastrous for dressing -room morale, and is the surest possible sign of managerial insecurity and incompetence, then he never will.
Cloughie’s response was always to deflect criticism of the team upon himself, never to blame the player, but to say ” It’s my fault. I picked him”.
It’s a simple lesson that TP ( like the US President) seems too pathologically insecure to learn. A defect of character that will contaminate the club as long as he has influence within it.
Absolutely agree Len. The quickest way to demotivate the people you manage is to do what Pulis does every week. That’s partly why it often seems the team is not happy playing for him because they most likely aren’t because they don’t have any respect for him.
TP said the players were flat after Wednesday and continued being that going in today’s game. Well Pulis it is your job to motivate them. You have lost their trust and respect. Please leave now before you decimate the club and the supporters. Gordon Strachan knew when the game was up and admitted his mistakes and left the without taking his money. TP should now do the same……..Tomorrow.
Hear hear to that
After the match I looked at Boro’s past performances away to Villa. Now I’ve always subscribed to the notion that past results can have no bearing on the current situation, but Boro have suffered some of their heaviest defeats at Villa Park:-
1-8 in 1930/31
1-7 in 1931/32
0-6 in 1907/08
0-5 on 3 occasions
1-5 twice
2-6 in 1920/21
0-4 in 1949/50
and yet one of Boro’s ever biggest away wins 7-2 in 1935/36.
Do I believe Villa Park has a jinx on Boro? Not really, because of all the teams we have met the most Villa and Manchester United are the only 2 clubs to have won more games on Teesside than they have lost. If Boro have a bogey team it is undoubtedly Villa, so if Boro do reach the playoffs I hope we don’t have to meet them again.
Well this week saw two games against teams in the chasing pack and Boro were seven points ahead of them as they looked to consolidate their play-off position before the international break. Sadly, both Preston and Villa are now only one point behind Boro, who now look like they’re clinging on to the promotion cliff by their bitten fingernails. While Preston may have been something of a travesty, so too was today’s game at Villa – albeit for different reasons.
So if you want to hear how the game looked from the perspective of someone who’s seen quite a few points meekly surrendered this season – then here’s Redcar Red’s match report…
https://diasboro.club/2019/03/16/villa-3-0-boro/
Interesting that the commentator in the Leeds game made the point that both clubs would do well in the premier league with their current squads, certainly a passion and vitality about the teams above us ( and below in some cases ).
Pulis made the statement that there was a flatness about the place since the Preston defeat, he is delusional if he cannot recognise that his personality (or lack of) and his supposed tactics has sucked the life out of our club. A good Manager never blames those below him but motivates and leads by example.
This season has been the most uninspiring ,boring and anti football that I just feel flat and embarresed. If we somehow get in the playoffs then further damage to our great club will unsue.
Time for a whole change of approach, give some of the young players a go, at least they will battle and show a bit of pride in the shirt.
On the previous thread after the PNE defeat, I wrote, ‘I just hope Pulis doesn’t revert to type at Villa, where we’ll probably be under the cosh. Playing one up front against them, when we then haven’t got an out-ball, is likely to put the defence under greater pressure.’
I’d like to think that makes me some sort of prescient football genius, but let’s face it, we could all spot what would transpire as soon as the team was announced. Indeed, many of you have said exactly the same thing. Dom Shaw said Boro’s centre halves just kept on lumping the ball up to an isolated Hugill, so back it came, time and again. If we can see the obvious problem with this approach, why can’t our manager see it? Why change the more attacking formation of recent games that has obviously seen us creating more chances? Why leave Fletcher out after his successful run in the side? Why change the wing-backs? Why no sign of Tav today when it seemed we were crying out for someone to create something? One shot on target all game – and that from our left back – says everything.
One point from 12. With nine games left, I would say that we should still have enough to make the play-offs, but currently we have nil momentum and five of the games are at home, where we have generally been woeful. We’ve also got difficult away games at Swansea and Forest. And then there’s the chasing pack, all closing in fast.
I’m seriously worried. Just how many season card renewals will we see if this current form continues? How many definitely won’t renew if it looks like Pulis is staying on as manager next season?
Clive
Ref your last paragraph
ME
OFB
Brilliant report again RR in what is becoming a demoralising season under TP . I think you should send your report to SG ASAP.
Well done Redcar ! Your season ticket should be paid for by the club, maybe they could employ you for your insight ! because the coaching staff are incapable of seeing the bleeding obvious.
For some reason in my despondent turmoil I referred to El Ghazi as Egyptian when he is of course Dutch, my mind must have been subconsciously thinking of Elmohamady.
Reading elsewhere, social media seems to be presenting a fairly unified point of view from Boro fans on TP or at least in excess of 90% which is about as unanimous as you will get. It was certainty never that clear cut with Monk, Southgate, Mogga, Karanka or even Strachan come to that. Not sure whether it makes much difference either way if he stays or goes now or in the summer other than Season card sales will seriously plummet.
Perhaps you were thinking of our erstwhile Egyptian, Mohamed Shawky.
Your correction could then have been referred to as, The Shawkyshank Redemption….
Just watched m.o t. d. and a young player GRANT score 2 opportunist goals for Huddersfield- he cost a couple of million pounds from Charlton which shows there are bargains if you know what you’re looking for.
Which shows there are bargains if you know what you are looking for.
Philip, our recruitement department headed by Bevington and Gill could not spot a cow pie in a butchers window.
I doubt they could even find the Butcher’s between them!
A brilliant and sad report RR. Many thanks.
Steve Gibson is an intelligent man, and, of course, Boro through and through, This must be hurting him more than anybody else, In spite of all the money he has invested and his lifelong commitment to the club, that it should have come to this must be more deeply disappointing to him than it is even to us, the club’s supporters.
Pulis is his man, and SG has always been rightly admired in the past for his loyalty to his managers. But he has had a front row seat at this season’s many disappointments. I would be very surprised if his view of today’s performance differs greatly from everybody else’s.
For me, the logic of this is that TP’s days are surely numbered. There is certainly little evidence that the players are prepared to put in the kind of effort necessary to dig him out of his present hole.
Len
Good post but unfortunately that front row seat has been largely left empty this season !
OFB
What worries me is that it appears that SG has already given up his Season ticket!
Redcar Red,
An honest report about rubbish, it can’t be easy to do. Another fine report. You should get a free season ticket from the club but then would you want one?
Two thousand supporters travelled all the way to Birmingham to endure that display then had to drive all all the way back to Teesside. The players may have been rubbish but at least they got paid, they ought to stump up for the travelling expenses. I’m sure that it would have been more pleasurable being tortured. What they do not realise is that is torture watching your team play as a shambles.
Season ticket purchase? I suspect many will be waiting to see if Mr P. goes before even thinking about stumping a lot of hard earned, and hard saved cash.
can anybody imagine what would happen to Boro, in the Premiership, with these tactics. If he thinks Villa are dangerous… While I’m having a rant who is the Huddersfield flying winger we loaned? Are we paying his wages while he never plays for Boro. Cost cutting? Money saving?
This is all just sad and desperately depressing. The only thing I’m confident about is that Mr P. won’t think any of it is his fault.
UTB,
John
I wonder if Steve has a cunning plan, announce TP is leaving as the bulk of card renewals are due. Unless season card holders have their renewal forms already or is it done online?
Ian the majority I believe will be done online, certainly those around me.
I received my first rewnewal email about a week ago, then my second plea to renew yesterday. I guess this will continue until April 12 the deadline date for the “Early Bird” discounts.
I am hoping that OFB can glean a little more info regards Mr Pulis. If he is staying, I am not renewing. And if Mr Gibson has been losing interest, then that does not bode well either.
It’s all rumour counter rumour and denial at the moment but I don’t think the renewals are going well!
Let’s put it this way I haven’t renewed and don’t think RR has either and we are two stalwarts of renewing our season card
I don’t know how he keeps churning out these match reports and reliving the anxt !
Fair play to him really
All I heard about TP was he’s signed but they were waiting to get a run on games and a bit better atmosphere before releasing the news
After the last three games I think the situation has radically changed and the players have stopped playing for TP
Interesting he said himself that it’s gone flat the atmosphere which is what I said last week !
I’m sorry but he’s up there with Strachan for me as a very toxic manager and has to go
OFB
Thanks RR for another warts and all report.
It might make your life easier if you have a template for your reports where you just need to tweak the names of the opposition and the score with the remainder of the report reflecting the same dross being served up by TP and the players’ week in and week out.
Typically, the stream supplied via the Riverside Live feed was perfect apart from the feed dropping out just prior to kick off. I was hoping that it might drop out more regularly to reduce the pain.
I was somewhat surprised by OFB’s comment that SG’s seat had been vacant for a number of matches, I was under the mistaken impression that he was present at all games. He clearly can’t stomach it either!
I hope that the rumour TP is staying another season is incorrect but would not be surprised as I have commented previously that TP has talked about three year projects!
At least we only have nine more matches to endure as I don’t see us making the play offs or even the point of making them when we are not setting up to play with an intention of winning a game. 😎☹
Surely during the next few days is the last time to decide before the season ends if TP is to go , so ANO has the remaining few games to finish in the top 6.
But who is there currently out of work?
A pity Venables is retired- remember the job he did alongside Robson.
Big Sam-? Probably not interested
Karanka and Wagner’s- as above
Mowbray?
An unknown foreigner ? Pity Zidane has got fixed up!!!!
I’m struggling to think of many more and so I expect TP will continue to the end of the season .
Philip
Jokanovic would be great but I’m not sure if he’d be interested and suspect if we’re changing managers it will be a cheaper option.
Thanks for the report, RR. Sadly a thoroughly predictable defeat at Villa Park.
Three straight deafets since the players were put through that end of season fitness test. Am I right in thinking that Pulis’ sides often finish the season sluggishly? There might be a learning in there.
Phillip
Have a look through this lot
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/trainer/verfuegbaretrainer/statistik
OFB
First off, thank you RR for your concise and detailed alternative match report. You deserve a DiasBoro medal the size of a dust bin lid for what you have had to endure this season.
Personally I cannot see Mr Pulis or even Mr Gibson terminating TP’s contract before the season end. There are not many alternatives available and those that are, who we would consider, will probably wait until May/June to see what is on offer as clubs get rid of their own Managers.
As KP said, I am somewhat surprised to hear that SG has been missing matches, especially at the Riverside. (his car was there on Wednesday) and if true could be a cause for concern.
Unfortuanately social media does not help with the “my mate knows a mate of one of the groundsmen” and he said!!! We won’t know for certain until it happens or something is said by MFC. And until then of course we will have uncertainty, rumours and if what I have been told by ST friends and on the concourse many will not be renewing, not until they know more about the future direction and who is in charge of team selection.
We still have a chance of the play offs, just, but now we will need a result against Norwich, unlikely, and a win against Bristol. We may even need help from other teams.
It appears we are heading for possibly a rather sad ending to a rather sad season.
Pedro
What is even more disturbing is a lot of corporate companies are not renewing as they are finding it hard to get clients along to games for some “enjoyment!”
OFB
Thanks to RR for his noble attempt at trying to make sense of the performance at Villa. A thankless task but it certainly made more sense than either Tony Pulis’s team selection or any of his post-match excuses that seemingly exonerated himself from blame.
I’d also like to point out a slight error in the match report as RR claimed Boro played the first 30 minutes with a back eleven – I did on several occasions count the back line and only managed to see evidence of a back nine plus Randolph – I think Hugill was mainly on his own somewhere way out of camera shot.
Although, I’d agree with RR’s observation that after the first Villa goal and the decision to hook Shotton for Downing, the players were put in all kinds of weird positions to accommodate the switch. Howson who has been generally excellent in his right wing-back role was now playing left midfield – Saville was playing in the middle with Mikel, which seemed to squeeze out Wing who really only had an isolated Hugill as any kind of target. Fry, who up until the return of Friend had proved effective in the left-sided back three position was now in the right-back role that he’d never looked comfortable in. Clearly it was never going to work and what exactly was the point of such a major reshuffle.
It’s looking bad for any chance of finishing in the top six – we’ve got Norwich up next who are now an incredible 20 points ahead of Boro – any dreams of actually catching them up will obviously sound ridiculous now and they are just a distant blur on the horizon. To make matters worse Boro are now only three points ahead of 10th place Sheffield Wednesday.
I very much doubt Steve Gibson will be contemplate ending Tony Pulis’s tenure before the season ends – the best we can hope for is that he doesn’t decide to extend his contract. Pulis can no doubt point to the Preston game in which they out-played their opponents for the first hour until the referee mistakenly sent Ayala off. Boro also should have punished Brentford before allowing them back into the game and throwing away another three points. Perhaps if we’d played the more progressive formation all season the players would now be full of confidence and performing better.
However, Pulis showed his true colours at Villa Park and picked a team that was supposed to grind out a 0-0. He regards the more adventurous formation and tactics that were forced upon him by a defensive crisis as alien to his methods. He’s not a manager who we’ll see develop the team into a force other than an immovable one – he’s not aiming to win promotion but only to try and avoid falling out of the top six.
As John said earlier, we saw how Villa passed around us so easily and that is pretty much what we’ll get week-in-week-out in the Premier League. If these are the tactics that Pulis is wanting to play should Boro somehow make promotion then expect nothing more than Huddersfield-lite next season and a meek return back to the Championship. Time for a change me thinks.
I think the list of usual Management suspects is the wrong way to go. I mentioned a few weeks ago how some managers seem to be emerging after being picked up from lower league clubs, Alex Neil came down from Hamilton to Norwich, Jack Ross seems to be doing OK with Sunderland and came down from St. Mirren. I also have a liking for Paul Warne at Rotherham who I think is doing a decent job with pennies to spend instead of our millions.
Of equal or perhaps even bigger concern is the back room set up which seems unfit for purpose in too many areas. I think the Club needs a root and branch overhaul in the Summer rather than just a new Manager. If you build on unstable foundations the cracks will soon start appearing. For that to happen SG needs people around him who will tell him what he doesn’t want to hear, warts and all and I don’t get the impression that that is going to happen any time soon.
Sycophants in any business are unhealthy, it may give a thinly veneered impression that everything is sweet but the truth is that unpleasant things need to be faced up to and addressed at source. Businesses that I have worked with in the past with an excess of obsequious Managers and Directors all had problems that failed to be identified (swept under ever burgeoning carpets) as a consequence the business was held back.
Spot on, RR. I agree with what you say and I am now convinced that MFC is today a failing business. There are major deficiencies in management throughout the club, departments within the business that are not fit for purpose and a team that, because of the way it is managed, is neither capable of achieving the objective of promotion nor providing any entertainment for the paying customers.
The whole business needs a comprehensive and radical root and branch overhaul.
As Boro are in danger of snatching mid table mediocrity from the jaws of the playoffs, once again the focus switches to the manager.
I don’t know what his record is for achieving promotion, but he’s obviously adept at keeping clubs up once it’s been achieved. Perhaps we employed him a couple of seasons too late.
Job done, I think its now almost mathematically impossible that we will be relegated this season so perhaps mission accomplished? That we are the same number of points gap from 18th as we are from 2nd is an alternative measure of Pulis’s tactics.
The writing was probably on the wall at Millwall in the first game of the season when Pulis preferred tactics had us 2-0 down and with hindsight nothing has really changed or altered since then in terms of mindset. I’m guessing that spirit, morale and belief within the squad now is probably not the greatest at least it certainly looked that way yesterday.
One or two of them they must be wondering what on earth they have (or haven’t done) to be excommunicated and even a few of those selected clearly seem to be the object of disdain at best. The atmosphere at the Norwich game live on the box is likely to get tasty if Norwich turn up and Pulis defaults to his usual negative “lets draw our way to victory” by which time we could be out of the Play Off spots before a ball is kicked. With the game being shown on telly only the die-hards will turn up ad if they turn then the race is well and truly run.
The reality is that in the 32 games since that amazing August start of 4 wins and a draw, Boro have averaged just 1.4 points per game. So but for that start Boro would already be in mid-table obscurity if that average had instead been over 37 games as we would have one point less than 11th place Forest.
Perhaps the game has just moved on and emphasis is now about imposing yourself and scoring – rather than being cautious and trying to shut out the opposition. There are probably too many teams in the PL now who have players that can score against the opposition and that’s something Mourinho found out with his tactics.
We shouldn’t forget Pulis was sacked by West Brom after a run of ten games without a win and no victories at home since the opening day 1-0 over Bournemouth. His inability to find a way to get his teams to score goals is always going to prove a stumbling block unless they shut out the opposition. We saw the same with Karanka a couple of years ago and I suspect going down that keep-it-tight road is just too one-dimensional these days – not to mention tedious to watch.
RR
All I can say is a huge thanks for your match report and dedication to the cause of Diasboro
OFB
I think that all the talk about this manager going overboard is an exercise in wish fulfilment, we have amongst us one who is deadly when it comes to inside information, and he says it is a done deal for this fool to stay, and that will finish any hope for this season(a given) but for next season as well.
His record is startlingly bad, whenever there has been a choice to make he has made it (disastrously).
Sorry to be a bore but he has made mugs of us all with regard to Tav. ignored until recently, brought on for 3-5 minutes, then left out of the squad. This was during a run of results which would have spelt curtains for Alex Ferguson, never mind a modest fellow with plenty to be modest about.
His crime sheet is very long, as each sale, or buy, has been digested, and he has been given the benefit of the doubt. So the file has lengthened, not one of his buys or sales has proved to be good, he is batting 0 per cent.
Just as a point which no one has commented on, Batth, the defender, came from Wolves on loan with an option to buy, powerfully built, played for Wolves a lot in their promotion last season, settled in very well imbued, with the Wolves spirit and organisation, a very good addition to our strength.
He left without a whimper (3 million) at Christmass. One is forced to the conclusion that he watched Pulis at work and thought ‘ this is not for me’ and watching Wolves at work in the Prem it must have been a culture shock for him, the sheer incompetence, wild selections, wilder tactics (or lack of them) we will not discuss the lack of effort, it is too painfull.
Compared to Flint at 7mil, Batth would have been a snip.
Well done RR, on yet another ‘taking one for the team’ match report, and I’ve enjoyed reading all the rightly acerbic comments.
It’s become clear to me that Pulis is a specialist in survival, finding fame in the Premiership for never being relegated. All right so the football might not have been the best, but there’s yet something creditable about keeping limited teams up by any means possible. What this does not make him is an obvious candidate for guiding Boro to promotion. and so it’s proved, with a largely negative outlook that’s cost us time and time again this season. This isn’t so much a comment on yesterday, the sort of game Pulis’s style should really be made for, but by now I feel the damage has been done.
Sadly I’ve joined the #PulisOut roll call – sad because I hate to see the manager of my team fail as it means the team is failing also, but that’s where I am. I’ve fallen out of love with Boro for the time being – just so flat, week after week, and it seems clear he’s here until the end of the season, though I suppose that will be when we part terms. How we have gone from a side overloaded with attacking players when Monk started to this, to an absolute lack of bite in attack, is beyond belief really.
Time for a cull I feel, time to start again. Keep up the good work Dias-peeps 🙂
The mentality in Mike’s post sums up why I named West Brom 2-0 Boro, April 2010, as the worst time I’ve seen Boro play. Even ahead of Cardiff at home.
Apathy is worse than pain. At least in the aftermath of pain you are either determined to change or put things right.
Just read OFB’s reply to Pedro that made me laugh out loud – albeit nervously…
All I heard about TP was he’s signed but they were waiting to get a run on games and a bit better atmosphere before releasing the news.
I wonder how long they are prepared to wait? Mid-July?
Perhaps the three straight defeats are all part of a cunning plan by the players – makes me wonder if Shotton’s ‘slice’ into his own net was indeed an ‘accident’ or Ayala’s lunge was actually more desperate than we thought – maybe Britt is accurately heading six yards wide to avoid the risk of deflections…
Makes me wonder as well because he’s lost the players !
Stranger things have happened!
OFB
RR
I have been sulking so didn’t thank you for the report, I must admit I didn’t see the bit where we scored four in the last five minutes.
It is now beyond belief, irrespective of OFB’s rumour, that Mr Gibson could contemplate rehiring Mr Pulis for next season.
He would be cutting his nose off to spite his face. I would find it hard to believe the ST renewals are going well. Come April 12 when we could be out of the top six and the renewals have stalled or even crashed, SG could well be thinking is it time to call it a day.
Saturday 30th March and we play Norwich, regardless of any contracts signed, unsigned, dangling or even ink drying nothing but a stunning victory will prevent a massive revolt and fans turning. Its not impossible that we do a Typical Boro and wallop the Canaries 4-0 but under TP it will be a case of sitting back and defending against one of the Championships best sides. If TP wets himself over Villa they had better install a Portaloo in the Riverside home technical area for this one.
Negative tactics and Norwich going into the lead will start rumblings and my guess is that TP will turn up the volume on himself with a ridiculous team selection or failing that substitutions that defy any logic. It will be a brave Chairman that doesn’t act especially with Sky TV camera’s and sound crew preventing any “avoidance of doubt”. TP has one game left to save himself, that is if he is bothered which listening to the nonsense he spouts after games is becoming more doubtful, he seems to be now in some sort of detached default fall back mode of Manager speak.
Well he’s been blaming every player so far I suppose he’ll be blaming the fans next why don’t we start chanting
“Attack Attack Attack “
It got rid of one manager !
BTW
Just Heard players day off tomorrow has been cancelled and they have to report to Rockliffe!
OFB
I think the Fans chanting “Attack, Attack, Attack” will be the very least of SG’s and TP’s. I’d imagine that it will be much more blunt and direct unfortunately.
Tongue 👅 was firmly in cheek !
OFB
Redcar REd,
I think it would have to be a ‘Portapotti’ in the dugout, sorry technical area, oxymoron there. It should perhaps be called the free-flowing area.
UTB,
John
OFB…..big announcement perhaps or just routine rubbish ?
Just training session
With a break due to the Internationals I can’t imagine its for extra training sessions especially after all those running stats.
More likely a riot act from SG, alternatively if its TP calling the meeting to read the riot act prepare for Charltongate MKII. I can imagine a few home truths being exchanged if its the latter!
I thought the midweek tests showed how fit and ready the players were, now Pulis is saying the players were flat and need the break to get their heads sorted.
Time to call in a psychologist because obviously Pulis cannot motivate them.
Plus they can counsel anyone thinking of renewing their season ticket !
Maybe the players have been called in for another booze up, worked last time !
Love to be a fly on the wall.
I see Jonny Howson has been put up by the club to give an honest assessment of Boro’s promotion prospects – see if you can spot the running theme…
“We understand the frustrations [of the supporters], we’re just as frustrated as players and as a team. We’ve got an honest group and we’ll do everything we can to put that right”
“There’s no point feeling sorry for yourself. We’re disappointed and frustrated because we’re an honest group and we all care and want to do well for the football club”
“We’re an honest group, we know where we’ve done wrong, and we’ll give it everything we’ve got to turn it around and give it a really good shot”
Honestly, how are we supposed to spot something?
Ian
It’s the old leopard TP not changing his spots !
OFB
Once indoctrinated into Pulis tactics the players seem to go backwards.
Flint scored freely for Bristol last season.
Likewise McNair at Sunderland when not injured.
Ditto Saville at Millwall. Even our hero Wing, performances tailing off each week. And now Mikel, it hasn’t taken Pulis long to rub the shine off his boots.
One can only wonder what he has done to VLP in training as we are yet to see much of him in action.
In fact, I cannot think of one player that has showed continual improvement this season. So is he stifling the players or have they given up?
Fry ?
OFB
Fry was just as good last season when allowed to play
OFB
I believe Fry has developed through gaining experience by playing more games.
I am not sure that I can see much development input from TP other than he picks the team. I certainly don’t see TP having to nursemaid Fry like he had to with Adama Traore. 😎
KP
Yes but remember TP and Woody were centre halves and Curtis was a full back. their experience have to have rubbed off onto Fry surely?
As I mentioned in the Ron Bone In2View he thinks Fry will go to the very top of his profession
OFB
OFB
I agree entirely that Fry will have benefited from working with Woody & Curtis, I was commenting more in relation toTP’s direct involvement rather than the others.
I beleive he is one we will no doubt in the future have to let go to a top PL side and I hope he makes the full England side. 😎
There was a bit of an insight today into the reasoning of how Tony Pulis decides on his attacking players. It may explain why we shouldn’t expect to see him looking beyond physical attributes any time soon…
“Those two [Assombalonga and Fletcher] have worked really hard in the previous games, their running stats have been really high. Britt against Preston, that was the highest [running] stats he’s done.”
“We were looking to bring them on in the last half hour and still be in the game, like we’ve done at Birmingham, West Brom and the other clubs, where we’re bringing someone fresh on when the game is tight.
“I thought by bringing Jordan in, he could work hard, then we’d wait until the game opens up. You’re hoping to play to your maximum and not give goals away like we did.
That Sounds to me like Hugill was picked to physically wear down the defenders rather than score a goal.
Incidentally, Pulis’s spin on Saturday was that Boro conceded 3 from the 5 shots on target Villa had – he neglects to mention Villa had 18 shots on goal and it’s not uncommon that shots on target can actually go in the net. Boro, you may recall, only had 4 attempts on goal with just that daisy cutter from Friend that was straight at the keeper on target. Though that is not apparently a contributing reason as to why we didn’t come away with any points.
It seems attracting big names to Middlesbrough is not just confined to footballers – self-styled man of the people and the hardy modern-day Jarrow-marcher Nigel Farage disappointed those on Teesside hoping to catch a glimpse of their hero after he pulled out of Day 2 of the two-week 270 mile “March for Leave”.
It was quite a windy day and Co-founder of Leave Means Leave, the property tycoon Richard Tice, told the Guardian: “He [Farage] braved the weather yesterday,” before adding “We showed true grit. You softies in the Guardian would’ve delayed it a day but we pushed on, we had hundreds out, it was amazing.”
About 150 hardy protesters marched 12 miles from Hartlepool to Middlesbrough on Sunday, guided by police escort through empty industrial estates, past water treatment plants and deep-water ports, before arriving five hours later at a pub near the river Tees.
No doubt Nigel will be once more donning his cloth cap again soon to emulate those original Jarrow marchers – though I suspect only if the TV cameras are out in force and the weather picks up as the march heads south.
They seemed not to know that the Transporter isn’t open on Sunday so had to take a 5 mile detour apparently. Not dotting i’s and definitely not crossing the Tees!
What, Nigel and the boys set out with a goal in mind but absolutely no idea how they would get there or what obstacles might crop up along the way?
How out of character.
That made me laugh Martin
Meanwhile as Brexit arrives at le crunch time, Jacob Rees Mogg has tweaked his usual mantra of “No deal is better than a bad deal” and has now added “…but a bad deal is better than remaining in the European Union” – does that even make sense? Sounds like he’s blinked.
Sounds like Jacob Ress-Mogg has just been down to the Commons bar with Michael Gove where, after a few drinks (British ales of course) they have started listing their top tens. Here they have made it to JR-MG’s Brexit preferemces:
1. Good deal
2. No deal
3. Bad deal
4. Remain
Lovely stuff. Thanks Jacob.
Since we’re doing lists that are of interest to no-one, here is mine:
1. Mogga
2. No Mogga
3. Jacob Rees-Mogga
I expect Jacob Rees-Mogga is not far from saying about Brexit “it is what it is”…
You forgot Mini Mega Maxi Milky Mogga
I do tend to think that clubs change manager too quickly and that it is the exception that doing so improves thing rather than the norm. That said, there always comes a point where a manager becomes part of the problem rather than the solution.
I also think there’s a need to be realistic. Teams like Bournemouth, Burnley and Brighton can survive in the Premiership for a while and occasionally flourish for an even shorter period because the television income is so substantial. Twenty years ago, for a few years, we were one of the best resourced teams in England. Now, there are probably 25 or more teams that are generating more income than us. If we end up in the top 6 of the Championship, that’s probably about par for the course.
That said, one thing Pulis often talks about is “identity.” Under AK, we had an identity – you knew what to expect. AK’s failings were personal. Under Garry Monk we didn’t have one and showed no sign of getting one. When TP first took over, you could see the players breathe a sigh of relief because they suddenly seemed to know what they were doing. Largely they were following the AK playbook but with less passing.
Somewhere along the line, though, we lost that identity. We stopped being able to intimidate teams and no formation or mix of players seems to last more than a few games. As with GM, one mistake and you were benched so players have now lost faith in themselves.
Thing is, TP plays austerity football. Think “1-0 to the Arse-unall.” This is ok while you are winning (or even battling the Premiership elite to a 0-0 draw) but there’s no love for it and the second it stops working, the fans turn. He also doesn’t seem to build loyalty among players. Like the fans, the players believe in him while his tactics work but he doesn’t seem to have a bond that gets the players to keep that faith when the tactics stop working. Compare that to someone like Sean Dyche who is probably no more tactically astute than Pulis but who is able to inspire faith in his players. I don’t think TP has “lost” the dressing room, rather that his hold on it was only ever based on results. You get the impression that most of the players pretty much treat it as a 9-5 job. They clock on, do their miles, then go home again. That’s where the TP project falls apart.
I don’t think it makes any sense to sack TP now but I wouldn’t like to see him in charge next season. (Unless of course we have a sudden turn-around and end up in the Premiership – in which case he’s earned his position.)
I’d agree that Boro seem surprisingly not to have an identity under Pulis – which is odd given that he is one manager that most people in football have a clear idea of what a Tony Pulis team is. Perhaps the real problem is that he was brought in after Monk had spent all the money on players that clearly weren’t designed for Tony Pulis and in reality our best players are probably the younger ones who are better suited to a more progressive style.
It seems the club can only blame themselves for the lack of joined up thinking in reacting to relegation under Karanka with an aspiration to storm the Championship with free-flowing football and blowing £50m+ on attacking players and then ditching that plan for austerity football under Pulis only four months later.
So you’re probably right to say clubs change managers too quickly as it’s likely keeping Monk and giving him more time to find his best team may have proved a better bet than expecting Pulis to build a team in his image by targeting players who didn’t want to come to Boro. Perhaps Monk may have got it right after a few more transfer windows or at least Boro should have opted for a manager who favoured a style that would suit the players they’d just spent a fortune on.
I think Boro lost their identity immediately after the Brighton promotion game. The recruitment of players with “potential” mixed with some Spanish/Latin “experience” blended with what was left of the Championship side was poorly thought through and its execution even worse. After relegation it was just as poorly conceived and went from bad to worse like kids with money to burn in a sweet shop, gorged themselves and in the process made themselves sick.
Fast forward to the present situation and its difficult to know where to start. Players who are under performing or worse not at all, Players recruited for ridiculous fees and wages to match that will mean we have no chance of shifting them on and due to said under performance nobody higher up the food chain that could afford them would remotely want them.
The only answer I can see is that the Manager has to make the best of what there is and therein lies the problem because as motley a crew as they are they are not as bad as they appear. They should be more than a match with the likes of Leeds and Norwich neither of whom have had massive amounts of cash to burn or indeed as mentioned repeatedly Sheffield United. The Blades are probably the perfect example of a Manager having to make do and mend and just get on with it, its doubtful that Chris Wilder had the luxury of choosing players in his own image or at least certainly not with the eclectic mix he has.
Thus far all I have witnessed is a Manager trying to shoehorn players into a system that doesn’t suit their core strengths and abilities and the more dysfunctional it has become the more forced and bodged it has looked apart from when injuries and suspensions forced a temporary halt. That isn’t management I’m afraid by any definition I have ever researched or read about, its blinkered bloodymindedness.
I’d agree with the thrust of that as at a strategic level the club don’t appear to have had a clear vision of where they are going and seemed to have lurched from one direction to another – including first paying over the odds and then playing hardball and failing to sign targets.
While Boro may be prepared to cut their losses in terms of transfer fees, such as players like Braithwaite, the problem may well be the level of wages that stops the player from moving on – as we saw with Downing when he was told he could look for another club.
In theory, if players retained the value that was paid (or even increased) and the wages were sustainable then it would mean the £50m+ paid could be recycled to fund another round of purchases. The club have banked some cash from sales but the likes of Braithwaite still have another two years on their lucrative contracts – I suspect Boro have another season of being competitive in the transfer market if as we expect the PL doesn’t happen. Though after that it might be time to find another Chris Wilder who can do promotion on a budget.
In an ideal world the Club need to let their fans/customers know what their longer term intentions are to keep as many as possible onside at the minute. I also appreciate that its a difficult time as despite the poor form we are still in with a shout of promotion. Win at Wembley and all those early Bird non renewals can go and do one because the Club won’t need them and its quite likely that TP will remain.
Should we fail to go up then those empty Season card seats in next years Championship will be painful as a sea of faded red plastic spreads across a half empty Riverside Stadium. If TP has no intention whatsoever of staying beyond the end of this season regardless then it will do no harm to let that be known now. If he is going to move upstairs as mooted in some areas then the concerns will be how much influence he will have on the playing side of things or put bluntly will Woody for example merely be a Pulis Marionette.
There has been no puffs of white smoke from the Rockliffe chimney so far today as a result of the hastily scheduled “training session” nor has there been any Scenes of Crime Officers in white Tyvek suits running around the place.
Deleriad
There is just one point I would make, it is not justified to compare our manager with the Burnley manager.
Dyche is so good at managing at the level he is at, that he can suffer a complete collapse of form (bottom 4-5) be perfectly calm and happy during interviews, refrain from blaming bad luck, end the interview with a joke and a smile, and get his team playing again, and safe in the league.
Now that is class, what wouldn’t we give for that level of control?
Our inglorious Manager, has had three-four chances to blast this league, and I am talking an easy away match followed by two easy home matches, all over ten days.
I saw no sign that the entire club was on its toes, keen to scoop the easy nine points, and hot to trot.
Quite the opposite, wrong team, hang dog approach, much shrugging of shoulders, much talk about our position in the league being much the same (true) but we had still taken an axe to our promotion chances, and we repeated the dose twice more.(which is where we are now)
Imitate the well run clubs, when his time is up, pull the trigger. He can do a lot of damage to our club before the end of this season.
He has sold good players and bought poor players, at inflated prices, and the wrong profile, and age.
One exception , Batth, great background, team was upgrading, very cheap price, probably because they liked him.
He upped and left, without a whimper from the club, very cheap.
Deleriad
An excellent reasoned post. 😎
Deleriad
Brilliantly put.
Managers of the Mouranka mould (see what I did there?), and Jack Charlton with Ireland, build/built their level of support by means of a cult. The thing with The Cult Of The Manager is that once players start winning, they believe in it, and before you know it everyone else believes in it too – thus the manager becomes more than a manager.
Len had a point when he said it is important, for the well being of coaches, that they don’t fall for the saturation media coverage proclaiming them as untouchable. Which also implies that *we*, the fans, and the board, and *also* the players, should not get sucked into a cult.
The catch is… it’s very, very difficult not to be. With every single nuance of a coach’s body language, in his technical areas during the game, scrutinised for tell-tale signs of stress, emotion, jubilation and so on, it’s no wonder whatsoever that they begin to believe in their own importance. In general, we do too… until the wheels come off.
Relativity plays its part too. More than just a handful of voices had issues, to put it mildly, with the football and attitude of Charlton and Mouranka. But with so many years of mediocrity, or not winning things, preceding their arrivals – Mourinho’s initial arrival at Chelsea, at least – most were happy to cling on to anything.
Once a bandwagon of positivity is flowing, no one wants it derailed. No one.
Reflection on 2016-17 further reveals one man doing everything he can to prove he still had everything under control – at the expense of everyone else. The lashings got angrier and the utterings in press conferences got sillier.
And yet. The tactics themselves were little different from what top clubs were using at the time. The framework for success was still in place. That, I suppose, was why I believed in it.
But the temperament, quality and character of the players in hand were different – more stronger minded thinkers, more individualists.
We had given him time and security to build in 2013-14, with lots of games that, dull as they were, could easily have been turned by a solitary goal or mistake. The old “one mistake away from the right result” mantra. And the belief that if you keep at it, with the right foundations in place, things will eventually work out is not entirely unfounded. After all, “it worked before” and “we haven’t played in the PL for years”.
But what did he – and I – overlook? This. After two years of forward momentum, and consistently increasing investment in the team, you can’t just fall back into a “rebuilding” pattern like turning a tap on and off. When the boss turned his attention to “rebuilding” the team for the PL, we had not the same mentality as we did in 2014.
It’s a bit like a genuinely independent director becoming successful then trying to immediately revert to what he used to be before a new cycle of success begins. Or so he hopes. Alas, the results are less than the sum of their parts, or pretensions.
Some very good posts abve from deleriad, RR and Werder.
I’m of the opinion that the Pulis year-and-a-bit have not nearly been as bad as the general consensus would have you believe. Comparisons with Strachan, certainly, don’t stack up for me and I think TP’s side has been far more structured and together than Monk’s were, though they’ve tested us at times this year in particular.
Last year’s side with Adama, Bamford and an in-form Besic was an interesting Championship proposition for a period. Sadly, it was fleeting and none of those three are here this time (not the in-form Besic). I wonder were we’d be if they were.
I said not too long ago that I thought the most sensible approach for next season might be to retain Pulis, given his acceptance and willingness to work within the current constraints and his understanding of the players he has and the various contractual situations within the squad. He would start months ahead of any new manager.
However, I’m coming around to the idea that regardless of what might be sensible, what the club – particularly off the field – really needs is a bit of a boost, a bit of positivity and hope. Pragmatic Pulis isn’t really your man for that. Against a backdrop of cost-cutting, I’m not sure who is.
Finding a progressive younger manager from the lower leagues or abroad sounds good but he will have to hit the ground running very fast indeed to win over players and fans alike, whose patience is increasingly short. Make a poor start and there will be no leeway whatsoever: Agnew all over again.
It’s clear that Pulis has long lost the majority though and it’s extremely tough to reverse that. I don’t think he will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG_G2NMvuWo
Happier times. When we could afford to start Downing too.
Of course, Paddy O’Bamford has his limitations, but he is a good footballer as well as a good goalscorer. He scored and created goals, and made me and a series of fans happy. That’s what matters, isn’t it?
Thanks for some excellent posts this afternoon from deleriad, RR, Werder, Andy, Simon, Martin, Wiggy’s mate, KP, Plato, Old billy, Bob, Pedro, Michael and many others.
You will be searching for a long time in mainstream media – amongst all of the ads, the pop-ups, the PR puffs, the set-up interviews, the cliches, the non-events, and the routine material shovelled in to fill up the spaces between the ads – before you discover anything approaching the intelligence, style, insights, level of argument and humour that contributors of this blog routinely, and somewhat miraculously, manage to produce.
Compare and contrast the Jonny Howson interview on the Gazette website today (not Jonny’s fault) -which is as close to being contentless as you can get – with the great stuff on here which has kept me amused, informed and entertained all afternoon.
Sincere thanks, gentlemen. Much appreciated.
Interesting article from PT in the Gazette:
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/never-mind-flat-talk-middlesbrough-15991652
Goes very much against the norm for our local paper, a bold piece of journalism or one that has been “approved” for release I wonder?
Wow – Philip Tallentire has just read the manager and the players the riot act! Let’s hope they all read it!
My thoughts exactly, RR.
The Gazette at last reflecting their readers’ overwhelming majority view?
Or, the paper having been tipped off that it’s curtains for, and therefore open season on, Pulis ?
Good or safe journalism?
The next 36hrs should provide us with the answer.
RR
PT is the main man at the EG and it’s certainly a breaking of the ranks
I agree it looks like it’s come from the top!
OFB
I’m beginning to think that the future would be better (even in the Championship) if the club had an identity (I’m avoiding saying brand but that’s probably what I mean) that we could get behind.
Briefly, we were a small town in Europe, so maybe we could have a rallying cry from the top, with SG setting out his vision. I’d happily accept a team that tried to play attractive, attacking football, even if that meant staying in the Championship. I know we’re meant to see the PL as the holy grail but when I go to matches it’s to be entertained by the Boro, not the opposition. I’m really not bothered about seeing the superstars of the Top 6 rip us apart week after week. If I want to watch Harry Kane, I can do it on MOTD.
If Steve Gibson told us what his dream is for our style of play and how he hoped to achieve it, I’d be happy. If that means being a training club for future star managers who’d move on to bigger clubs then so be it.
There’s a fine line between expectation and entitlement. Middlesbrough are one of many clubs with a Premiership history who have aspirations of regaining that status.
Due to the ever increasing amounts of money available to Premiership clubs they no longer have to rely on a benefactor, as the financial impact they once had has now been eclipsed.
Parachute payments were devised to keep an elite group of clubs in and around the top tier of English football. Attendances and marketing have long since paled into insignificance ( Bournemouth survive on crowds of 10,000) it’s now Clubs in the lower leagues who rely on Steve Gibson type figures to give them the financial impetus to move up the football leagues.
Burnley are mentioned above as a similar team to MFC. Recently they achieved promotion but spent very little in their premier league season and were subsequently relegated, something that was to be expected, but they kept faith with their manager and weren’t hindered by players bought on long premier league contracts and were able to consolidate and mount a new promotion challenge using the money they had banked plus the bonus of parachute payments. The patience and understanding of the fans was paramount in this scenario as the team and manager were not put under pressure.
I feel we squandered our chance of financial success by poor recruitment, initially for the Premiership season, and then compounded that mistake with the “ try and smash the league” plan.
Four years seems to be the optimum contract term for players these days, so it would follow that a manager should have the same term to turn around a club, both on and off the field. In these days of expectation a manager can find himself out of a job within months, never mind a season, such is the demand of fans for success.
Fans call for a root and branch change to be performed, but I would suggest that TP is actively doing that now, and as with these things it can be painful. To be in with a playoff off chance now, again after last season would suggest he is making, albeit slow, some progress.
Looking at our first team squad, there aren’t that many options and some high earners could be dispensed with overnight, and the bench filled with younger academy players.
The problem the club are faced with is that the fans are quickly becoming disenfranchised with/by the club itself. It’s time for the Chairman to step forward with a “State of the Union” address ( or disunion) to inform the fans on what his intentions for the future are.
One thing is for sure, without the fans a club will achieve nothing. The sooner this is addressed the better. Boro fans are nothing if not passionate about their club, and pride themselves as being able to thumb their noses at the football elite.
SG is rightly seen as the saviour of MFC, he would be well advised to halt the musical chair in the managers office, but to do that he must explain everything to the fans if he harbours any hope of long term sustainable success.
I can agree with all of that GHW, and nicely said.
However not for Mr Pulis to continue.
GHW
I simply cannot compare Pulis with AK. Simple statement, so I had better explain it, in Pulis we signed a manager who was definitely not in the mainstream of managers.
He had finished a long career of just doing enough (stoke)
Followed by trying the same at WBA, unfortunately times had changed, the fans were not having it, goodbye Pulis.
Enter Gibson, who grabbed Pulis to universal horror by the fans, who can add two and two together and make four.
What has followed has been a car crash of unimaginable horror, wrong players at the wrong price, right players sold at the wrong price. Young players ignored, (see todays news)
And his definition of a one trick pony, keep doing what you did, you can guess the rest!
It out of the question that he should stay, he is damaging us on a daily basis, like a patient bleeding to death. And that must be stopped pronto.
You could well be right about about the transfer policy, but I’m not convinced that TP is the instigator of those player dealings.
I know I’m in the minority when it comes to Bamford, but Gibson and Traore haven’t exactly pulled up sticks in the Premiership. How much input he has remains to be seen, such is the cloak of secrecy that emanates around the club these days.
His brief was to evaluate the club from top to bottom but I’m not sure if that included the recruitment department, which seems to be an entity to itself. He’s faced with high earners that he either utilises or tries to accommodate in lieu of having no alternatives.
In times past players would play out their lucrative contracts or be moved on at a loss. The current four year cycle of players will come to an end next season, so the recruitment policy will once more become vitally important. Perhaps this is the aspect of the club that requires the most stringent overhaul.
I wouldn’t be averse to a young manager like Gary Johnson coming in, with TP as a director of football. The danger of employing a young manager is they can be a little bit impetuous when it comes to having sums of money to spend they are not used to. Say what you like about Tony Pulis but he has the commodity of experience that is impossible to buy.
The last thing we need is to employ a young manager and then due to fan pressure, if results aren’t going well have to sack him.
Stability is what we need, and it doesn’t come overnight.
Stability is what we need but please don’t let it be with the Footballing equivalent of Theresa May. I see zero signs of stability with his signings or his post match blame analysis let alone the negative tactical paralysis the club is now strangled with.
But are they his signings…..
I think they are his signings as he keeps saying about his remit in overseeing functions and departments within the club. An experienced erudite Manager such as he is unlikely to have come North bearing in mind his previous signing difficulties at WBA without any input and at that I would guess a controlling input. If not why did he come here and why did SG recruit him? In mitigation the summer recruitment plan may have been to jettison say Clayts, Grant and Downing for example but they couldn’t be shifted. Flint was probably seen as a big lad and an experienced battle scarred Championship defender that would be great from set pieces adding goals while replacing Ben.
I cannot for a second believe that SG thinks that the Scouting and Recruitment department is working. He is a fan at heart and must see the same dross as us but then he presumably signs off on those fees and salaries which alarms me greatly. That is why I say he needs to lose the sycophants and employ someone to tell him how things are like a true Teessider which based on Gazettegate he probably doesn’t like to hear so mutes it by employing those who don’t create waves.
Then there are our set pieces, what are they? Who is responsible for the repetition of the ineffective and poorly thought out throw ins, free kicks and corners? It doesn’t take a Harvard graduate to see that they are so staged as to be almost choreographed to the point where they are entirely predictable and therefore defendable even by vertically challenged back lines.
Nobody at the far side of the box for when they are cleared/punched (or likely over hit), nobody running as decoys (to the near post) leaving another to drift in late unmarked to where the ball will be played (away from the Keeper) and nobody capable of a well worked free kick routine. The simplicity of the Preston free kick after Ayala’s sending off simply by moving the ball a metre and allowing Gallagher to hit it around our wall to equalise wasn’t rocket science and in Saville and Wing we have the perfect players to execute the same.
The above example of running to the near post at corners could be done with Flint and Ayala jostling on the edge of the 18 yard box centrally then running to the near post with defenders chasing convinced they are the target men only for say Friend or Saville as examples to have a clean header or shot with bodies grouped at the opposite corner of the goal mouth. If it is over hit then have someone stood on the far edge of the 18 yard box to whack it back in instead of going out for an opposition throw in.
This is schoolboy level stuff yet on another planet for Boro. The corner routine can even be upped by ensuring Flint or Ayala go down as they are running and like as not causing a few others to trip over them taking opponents out “legally” and also creating a distraction. I see zero evidence of any such thinking or planning.
Downing’s time with Villa, Liverpool, West Ham and England doesn’t seem to have taught him anything about free kicks and Woody’s time with Madrid etc, likewise. Why is it that we have no individual capable of original thought including he who is supposedly overseeing all before him?
It’s highly doubtful in this modern football age that TP is involved in salaries and the amount paid for a player. These are all negotiated via the players agent and the clubs chief executive..
I listened to a radio interview this week when an agent revealed he was negotiating a deal for a player and he didn’t even know what position he played. It was all down to what the club were prepared to pay and whether he accepted it or not. The days of a manager scouting a player and popping in for a cup of tea and not leaving until he’d obtained a signature are long gone.
Ah but TP said he did that with Mikel !
OFB
I doubt he gets into specific salary contract details but he surely must know what the club is spending as he kept saying how much of SG’s money had been wasted and how much he had now saved.
Take poor Saville as an example, had we paid £2 Million for him nobody would have blinked but over three times his “perceived” (or mine anyway) value means that we could have afforded another LB for example or even afforded to pay a few contracts up and ship out some Donkeys. Another more sensible option would have been to walk away from the deal and shop elsewhere (in the Brentford budget department store wherever that is).
Surprised to read PT from the Gazette having a right go. He is right what he says but will this mean another slapdown for the Gazette from the club. Or is the Boro higher ups actually agreeing that we are in a mess. Time for a state of the nation address from SG. But is he worried that he may make another gaffe like his ‘ we will smash the league’. but seriously, as the chairman he has to take responsibility. We as supporters don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes. So a bit of a Churchill speech is needed from SG and that would go a little way to appease the fans at this present time.
I think right now SG would be damned if he did and damned if he didn’t speak up. If he says nothing his silence will be taken as disinterest and if he says something it will be ridiculed. Probably best that he keeps his powder dry which is a pity as right now the fans (and the Club generally I suspect including those on the payroll both on and off the pitch) need something to cling to.
GHW there is a lot of sense in what you are saying and I agree with.
However do you really believe that Mr Pulis, remember his arm twisted by SG to come to MFC, has had no or little say in our signings. It may be he knew very little about them being Championship players, but McNair, Besic, Saville, when we already had Howson and Downing who he favoured.
I believe he will have had sufficient sway to say no. I do think as you said the recruitment policy and it’s set up from top to bottom needs to be looked at very seriously,
Who knows really how recruitment works at MFC. Without directly asking TP what his input with regard to player ins and outs was, we can only speculate.
I would imagine there were signings in the works before he arrived, and outgoings were purely based on financial criteria. But, that is also speculation. I don’t suppose the powers that be will be forthcoming with the hard facts.
I read the said article earlier today and was very surprised to say the least the setting of its tone.
When you think how long it took to heal the previous rift?? pT is usually very careful in what he writes.
The NE are making it any easier either.
When both Phil Tallentire and Scott Wilson are reflecting what the popular social media platforms are espousing then it does hint that something is perhaps afoot or just maybe they are fed up and can’t take any more like the rest of us!
RR
I think that they have an inside source they wouldn’t risk another Gazettegate!
OFB
Just to clarify my position, I realise that 99% of posters on here are ardent true Boro supporters, just as I once was for well over fifty years.
The embarrassment and failure to plan for our last outing in the Premiership was the final straw for me, and sadly decided that was my tipping point. A lot of Boro fans over the years have had similar moments of epiphany and also given up on them.
In the last few seasons I’ve only really had a passing interest and whilst I still look for results, Boro news, and watching when games are televised, my live viewing has been restricted to only a few games.
Actually this has allowed me to be a bit more objective when looking at the club from afar. I totally understand the passion of the fans on both here and other forums, but I keep coming back to this expectation/ entitlement conundrum. When fans are so emotionally involved with a club it sometimes clouds their perspective of what is going on. Every clubs supporters want their team to be successful but it’s just not always possible, and in this climate of, success right now, it’s even more elusive.
Football is cyclical, and success and failures are common place, it would appear that the gaps tend to be roughly the same, which seems to indicate that the slide to mediocrity and ultimate failure is about the same as resurgence. We have been in a relative period of failure and it will take time to come back but eventually we will, history tells us this.
I personally believe that TP will set the club back on the way up, of course he may step aside ( or be stepped aside) and another manager may continue his work.
I have said for quite sometime now that there is something toxic within the club. Maybe it’s this that TP is being charged with eliminating? Perhaps SG wants him to do his dirty work for him and expunge it.
All speculation on my part, hopefully the team will still make it to the playoffs and the rise may continue.
I pretty much concur and relate to all that GHW. My gripe would be what (or perhaps more accurately why) do Bausor and Bevington (and maybe a.n.other lesser known individual/s) do within the organisation? Surely a Manager can’t be expected to manage the team and then sort out the politics and procedures of administrative functions in the business?
I’m OK with giving TP stick (or praise if/when it is due) for what happens out on the pitch but there are others (unidentified) behind the scenes who seem to be cruising whilst collecting no doubt decent salaries. Accountability seems to be in short supply for some time now within MFC and that to me is the biggest problem, even bigger than the tactical paralysis we witness out on the pitch.
GHW, if your last paragraph was true then what we are watching on the pitch would be easier to accept. No gain without pain.
Certainly there seems to me to be something fundamentally wrong within the the cub.
That should be your second last, sorry.
Morning gossip has Boro losing 18 year old Bilal Brahimi. Not tying him down to a new contact has opened the door to him leaving. Liverpool, Newcastle and Rennes supposedly interested.
Could be another own goal by the recruitement department.
Pedro
Yet another shambolic example of ‘club management’ from the chancers who presently hold that title.
He is not 18, far from it, 19, or he’s had his twentieth birthday. He chose us, we failed him and ourselves. A well run club would have played him with the clear intention of enjoying a good player or selling him on for a significant fee. Win win.
It is clear that we have not a clue, the quicker we face that fact the better, we should forbid the signing of any expensive players, because we always get taken to the cleaners.
I’m not sure if there is something toxic at the club, then what that would be. We know that may have perhaps been the case under the last season of Karanka with a power struggle between Victor Orta’s players and the English lads led apparently by Downing. Those factions have now left the club and with Karanka’s main man Grant Leadbitter now also departed, there will be few with any major influence left in the dressing room.
OK, Downing is still at the club but he’ll be presumably gone at the end of the season, probably along with Clayton. We all know where the only real power lies at the club and that is with the owner and chairman, Steve Gibson. I don’t believe any decisions made at the club are without the sanction of Gibson and he has essentially also been acting as the default Director of Football too.
The problems in the last 2-3 years at the club have been down to decisions made at the top, no doubt well intentioned, but ultimately flawed. Allowing Karanka to continue in his position may have been done out of loyalty by his chairman but it created more problems than it solved. Our Premier League season was a car crash and we now know a divided dressing room failed to put their differences aside on the pitch to show the necessary spirit to survive.
The end of season inquiry saw Steve Gibson opt for a change in direction – the failure of Boro to score enough goals to compete at the top level meant the cautious approach of Karanka was binned. The new plan was to make Boro a more progressive team that could brush teams aside rather than hold out and look to nick the odd goal. Garry Monk was identified as the man to achieve that goal and he was backed to the max in the transfer market.
The problem however was that the recruitment department seemed to confuse spending a lot of money on players as the same as buying quality fit for purpose. The squad assembled looked imbalanced and Monk was essentially given a brand new team to mould into that progressive side. We know he struggled to find a way to fit all the new shiny pieces together and both supporters and chairman were unimpressed that Boro weren’t actually smashing the league as advertised.
Just how much time Monk should have realistically have been given is debatable – of course everything was viewed in the time-frame of only having two seasons of parachute payments – as it turned out it was actually just one transfer window of splurge before the club needed to reign in the spending in case promotion failed.
Whether Monk would have survived if Tony Pulis hadn’t have suddenly become available is open to speculation. It seems Gibson was a big admirer of Pulis and couldn’t resist trying to get him as manager – he’s apparently tried to do so in the past and as Tony said, Steve was like a dog with a bone in trying to persuade him.
All this took place presumably before Monk was sacked – he was I imagine only dismissed once the deal for Pulis was sealed. So at what point did Steve Gibson wonder if Tony Pulis was not the progressive manager to mould all those expensive players into the kind of team he had previously decided was the direction needed?
In addition, Steve Gibson appears to have also made Pulis the de facto Director of Football and he is currently putting his stamp on all aspects of the club. Just how much of what he’s doing is substantial organisational change or simply a case of pointing to ways in which he thinks things work better for him as a manager is unclear. Whatever changes made it doesn’t seem to have changed much in the recruitment department and unless someone has been given power and responsibility, then the club may still be subject to the whims of the chairman in what direction the club takes on and off the field.
Ultimately, everything probably hinges on the aspiration and patience of Steve Gibson to get back in the Premier League and he will be more than aware that if his latest manager is looking like he’s not able to execute that goal, then he could well be minded to wield the axe again. Gibson is essentially a Boro fan who has the power and money to decide how the club attempts to move forward. If the supporters as a whole turn against a manager then Gibson may see that as the beginning of the end – indeed if he could dismiss club legend Mogga, then I suspect he’ll not have too many qualms about showing Pulis the door.
The problem as ever is whether Steve Gibson can make the right calls and if indeed joined up thinking is part of the overall culture of the club. Boro probably only have another couple of seasons before the PL cash and parachute payments will have worked there way out of the system – after that then it’s back to square one with an average Championship budget. A decision needs to be made soon – let’s hope the club get it right.
Chuckled this morning when Steph McGovern on BBC news this morning was asked by the presenters in the Studio what the Dinosaur was on her pullover this morning. She politely suggested she couldn’t remember, at least it didn’t have a flat cap on it.
Did I mention it was “this morning” 🙂
RR
Sent a tweet to PT about his article in EG
“was this a coded message from the top”
He’s just replied
“Definitely not mate.”
So there you have it from the man himself its just good objective journalism
OFB
Not a baseball cap?
I think the problem with Monk he left Leeds to come here but lost his offsider. The difference in his management of Birmingham now that his offsider is back is incredible, Maybe we should have pursued the reunion.
I think the average Boro fan would be a bit more tolerent if we showed some positivety on and off the field.
When you watch the pace and power of the Leeds v Sheff. Utd game then you are embarresed by our timid and pedestrian approach. Pulis bawling at the players all game sounds like a kids match and his press conferences remind me of a headmaster talking down to people.
And the headmaster handing notes all the time to the pupils !
OFB
The managers sidekick is important. Peter Taylor for Brian Clough.
SrAlex was unique in that he kept recruiting good sidekicks alongside current staff to maintain the club’s status.
David Moyes may have done better if he went in and used the existing group to support him. Many point to Phelan leaving following SrAlex retirement..
I suspect part of Arsenal’s decline may ne the control Wenger had over the coaching, recruitment and selection with no one to act as a sounding board after David Dein stepped down.
Great post Werder.
As one who has questioned Mr Gibson’s numerous (as they turned out and were fortold by many here) decisions, then he has untimately to take the blame for what we have seen unfold over the last seasons.
Major decision making always has an element of risk attached to it, mitigating that risk is the greater part of the decision.
For all that we are indebted to SG for his unwavering support since 1986, there have been many mistakes along the way where a previous risk assessment cannot of been made. It has certainly, over the last few seasons, been a case of “boom and bust”. Like the National Economy in the past, not the best way to run a Football club.
May be we are pulling up to that crossroad, where if Mr Gibson does not get it correct this time the consequences could be grave.
I did some research on Monk a little while back, and why it never “clicked” for him at Boro. With the help of a fellow Boro fan’s writings, I came to several conclusions.
First. His approach to recruitment was all wrong. When looking for players, he thought about who he wanted, rather than what the club needed. So we ended up with many players the manager *liked* as opposed to a functional team.
Second. He did not have enough conviction or belief in a style and a methodology. As I implied in December 2017, he couldn’t find a Monk “voice” for Boro. Yes, AK was stubborn, but give him credit: he wasn’t for turning. Whereas Monk seemed to rip up his Big Plan every single time he encountered a setback.
Third. His use of the squad was all over the place. One minute, he didn’t want Stewart Downing. The next? He was undroppable. In August 2017, both Clayton and Bamford were vital to the playing style. Two months later both were sitting in the stands.
Fourth. Lewis Baker, a technically gifted player unlike any other we had at the time, couldn’t make the starting squad on the day by December 2017, while Tavernier and Marvin Johnson were both included. We all love Tav, of course, but even so, is the manager thinking about who we need or what he wants?
Fifth. The manager’s sidekick *is* important. It does seem that Monk has his own Peter Taylor in Pep Clotet.
Sixth. It’s said that Monk made no secret that Boro were “just another job” to him. Bad move. While we know Monk’s not a Boro fan, Karanka wasn’t either, and it’s documented (contrary to other beliefs) that the Spaniard was full of praise for the chairman and the area. At least until his managerial BSOD in the final three months.
Seventh. Like Claude Puel at Southampton, Monk failed to give the impression that he was building toward something exciting. He didn’t connect with enough people. He did not endear himself to the fans… we never saw anything of the human side of him. The “MonkBot” thing was a bit of a worn out joke, but it showed that we were seeing someone just “doing a job”. People want to see the manager show passion. They want to see him roar on the touchline. Karanka, for all his faults, *did* roar. Many times.
This would matter less if the results were the right ones. But they weren’t. Not always. We *did* have a bit of bad luck, but in how many matches did we honestly merit the win? In a handful, probably. Curiously, Monk’s final game, the 2-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday, was one of them.
Eighth. It’s been said that he blamed the season’s failings on the effects of the previous season. Anyone who uses the previous regime as an excuse is putting the nail in their own coffin, especially considering that millions went into new players.
The saddest thing of all is: who misses Monk? No one. But what’s worse is that the job he’s doing at Birmingham and did at Leeds showed there was clearly something there that just didn’t surface at Boro.
(Sources: Ian Gill, Paul Doyle, Tom Muldowney.)
Great post Simon and I agree with most of it.
Monk’s few short months were a real missed opportunity given the finances that were available.
I think it must have been Monk’s first managerial role for which he had serious clout in the transfer market (in relative terms). Unfortunately for us, he didn’t have the maturity (if that’s the word) to build a team with it and instead went wild in assembling a collection of talented, but not complementary, individuals.
One of the problems was that the club had financed him to have two players for every position – something he appeared to think required him to continually try out all the options and permutations. He never looked like he had ever decided what his best team was.
Simon
Praise indeed, are you sure there isn’t another Ian Gill?
I finally plucked up courage to watch the highlights, Villa just looked quicker, fitter and more skilled. Apart from that we looked well matched
No, good sir, it is you I referenced.
I especially liked your reflection on why a performance in a 0-0 home draw was better than a performance in a 3-0 home win – but the sight of goals and wins enhances a fan’s perception of a game.
Would you be shocked if I told you that Abramovich summoned Ancelotti to his house and gave him a dressing down about Chelsea’s “poor performance”… in a 6-0 home win over WBA? Unreasonable though RA was being, the reality is that the performance wasn’t really all that.
Monk reminded me a lot of McClaren; he made it very clear that Boro was his stepping stone to the greater things for which he was suited. Personally I think McClaren is a bit of slimeball. He always reminds me of one of those middle managers who sucks up to the boss but lords it over those beneath him. I suspect that Monk is probably just highly ambitious but that his failure at Boro was a bucket of cold water in his face. It also makes the point that the first thing a manager needs is a loyal and effective team around him.
Thing is, you look at the players in Monk’s squad and you think that has to be good enough to win promotion. It lacked a little pace in the middle but when you look at a first team of something like the following playing 3-4-3 this looks like an exciting team.
Randolph
Shotton
Ayala
Gibson
Christie
Howson
Clayton
Fabio
Adama
Britt
Braithwaite
Admittedly it took Pulis to demonstrate how good Shotton is and Traore could be. There was also the option of playing someone like Baker behind a front two in a 3-4-1-2. When you consider that there’s the likes of Downing, Bamford, Leadbitter and Friend to come off the bench then you can see a core of players who might not smash the league but, if properly managed, would expect to be in the top 3 at the end of the year.
if you look at the players recruited for the first team, the only real question is over Fletcher, to a lesser extent Marvin Johnson and a failure to sell Gestede. Monk’s inability to turn these players into a team is, I think, damming.
Deleriad, you are correct McClaren is a slimeball. Never liked him at all.
Monk is just another manager who was fortunate to get on footballs managerial merry go round.
He was inept at Boro and I doubt he’ll survive at Birmingham. He’ll probably drift around different clubs until he’s past his sell by date. This closed shop of managers is a sad reflection on the lack of progress for countless highly qualified people.
Point taken, GHW. I’ve just looked at the most recent form of Birmingham and… ever since we beat them at their place they’ve won three in 11, with just one at home, and have gone four games without a goal or a point.
That said, considering midtable is the best Birmingham have mustered for some time…
Poor Bolton look to be going through the ringer yet again as they now face a winding up petition tomorrow after the proposed takeover deal collapsed. If it goes ahead which is sadly looking ever more likely then they could enter administration and a 12 point deduction. SG may have made some questionable decisions for us to dissect over the years but without him this could have been our fate instead of arguing how much we can afford to spend in the Summer and who will be Manager. That day in Cardiff was a highlight for both clubs but our fate was very different fortunately.
Poignant post RR
I am sorry if Bolton do go under.
I see them as a team just like us, from a place just like us and supported by people just like us
RR, yes SG saved the club from administration but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it couldn’t happen in the future. If SG’s businesses start to struggle, he doesn’t have the cash to keep the club afloat and there is no buyer interested then the same fate as Bolton face could happen. The best way to prevent such a catastrophe is to achieve success on the field which in turn bolsters revenues particularly in the Premier League. Languishing in the Championship (or worse) which looks likely under Pulis is not the way to ensure financial security.
Unfortunately there is no such thing in football as financial security any more in the top two divisions – just an attempt to keep losses to manageable level. In the year Boro were promoted it took something around a £30m loss to go up – incidentally only one club in the Championship didn’t make a loss that season and it was surprisingly Wolves and they’ve certainly made up for that in recent seasons.
Football simply isn’t sustainable in the current climate of ridiculous wages and over-inflated transfer fees – every club needs a owner who is prepared to stump up for those losses if they have any ambition of making it to the top flight. We’ve just heard next season that Boro, once running costs have been deducted, would only have a budget of around £4.5m for wages and transfers fees without parachute payments or income derived from sales of players.
Championship clubs are actually allowed to run up a debt of £39m over three years plus £10m allowance for promotion bonuses – it’s almost encouraging clubs to gamble £50m on getting promoted with those who then suffer relegation obliged to further gamble their parachute payments on having another go. Perhaps we’ll see a few more Boltons in the coming years.
The inexperienced Monk’s hapless 23 games in charge of Boro yielded 35 points, whereas the experienced Tony Pulis has managed just 32 points in his last 23 games of this season – in arguably in a much weaker Championship. Although he did at least manage 38 points in his 22 games in charge last term to clinch a play-off place.
Monk’s Boro managed an average of 1.52 points per game – Pulis’s Boro are currently on 1.56 points per game after 37 games. Hard to see much difference really and makes you wonder what is the criteria for judging success or failure – or deciding on a new contract or dismissal. No obvious sign of the club moving forward or whether they are on the right track for improvement for the future.
When you also consider Burton and Newport over two legs, well a lot of Managers would have been sacked just for that alone.
The circumstances are different though I think Werder. The idea of Pulis being given £15m to spend on a single striker, and another £9m for his partner….etc etc
Monk had the resources to build a team. Pulis is trying to mould one from an ill-fitting group.
Possibly, although Pulis still had those £15m and £9m strikers on the books and decided instead to bring in another big unit in Hugill and move on the more mobile Bamford. You could also argue that he’s made the team top-heavy in central midfielders after bringing in Saville, Mikel, Besic and McNair and also having Wing come through to add to Howson and Clayton.
Although, I’m not sure if moulding is exactly what he’s been trying to do as it seems more a case of square-pegging players into roles they don’t fit rather than finding a shape to play to their strengths. OK, he didn’t get his pacey wide players – except for the so-called “leg beater” from Huddersfield, who he now claims is not playing because he doesn’t suit the formation he has instead chosen now to play.
My earlier point was that Pulis was an odd appointment four months after the club had spent all their money on a shift to players designed for a more progressive style of play – surely Steve Gibson must have thought through the implications of what a Tony Pulis team would need to look like?
Yes I agree with that, Werder. I’m not saying that Pulis has gone about it the right way, just that the opportunity for him to shape the team has been quite different to Monk’s.
In the space of six months we managed to appoint two managers with opposing playing styles and neither had suitable squads!
My early memories of TP at Boro was that he actually played football and not Hoofball, indeed at times we even looked entertaining. Was that a case of the Players simply doing what they done best before they were conditioned to become negative, frightened safety first Pulisatrons?
RR,
I think it was a first XI with a few more technically gifted players (even Downing fits into that who of course doesn’t play now) responding to a manager with a reputation in the game and the comfort of a structure and framework to play in. Thats worn off now and we don’t look like a side enjoying its football lately..
I maintain that Pulis’ reign hasn’t been so bad but that it’s probably time for a change in the summer regardless now.
AndyR
The very idea of appointing a very ordinary middle aged man from a sporting background to do the job of running your football team (Successfully) full stop.
Then telling him that you wish him to select and buy a slack handful of players to start the new season (that would be six weeks time)further, he could go up to 30 million in total, and an average of thirty grand a week in wages, with no ignorant person such as the Chairman(the owner) to tell him what type of team he wished to see each saturday on the pitch. No standard of performance at home which must be achieved(three line whip) dismissal the punishment. Further he could sell whoever he wished, no veto for he is god.
I think that the above has been the modus operandi of our chairman, several attempts at making it work have crashed spectacularly, with quite terrible results.
It is easy to understand why, no player should be bought using this method, it must be apparent that your club must be in the market for good players at all times, which means that even when you are riding high and all is going swimmingly, you are out there spotting and chasing young players, always ready to sign a prospect, and get him on the field to prove your eye is a good one. And if someone wants to give you a good profit, then so be it.
It must never be one man who decides, that way lies madness.
I leave aside the matter of which system to use on the field, this must surely be at the discretion of the Chairman. Otherwise the manager will surely go for defensive rubbish, that way he will be in a job.
The fate of Bolton and Pompey once Big Sam and ‘Arry left is a really sad story.
Simon
Could it also not be argued that they were part of the problems which eventually surfaced. 😎
Yes it could.
Two great stories about Middlesbrough in the BBC news.
1) First a North Ormesby lad who stopped at a road accident on the A19, and then drove the occupants to Cambridge because the ladies mother was dying, and then back again for work the same day.
2) All about MFC Foundation helping refuges in the town.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47540021
Heartwarming to read.
Deleriad
You can also add to Monk’s charge sheet, already mentioned, the fact he blew hot and cold with players and formations.
Many of the players were ‘damaged’ when he left.
Speaking about Bolton’s predicament and also discussions above about Garry Monk his Birmingham club are expecting a twelve point deduction themselves which would put them from Play Off hopefuls to relegation threatened. The game is now becoming a financial mess.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/birmingham-city-points-deduction-hearing-15990056
Forgot to mention that ‘Arry also played a major part in Birmingham’s financial woes!
Another excuse to post this……
http://priceoffootball.com/middlesbrough-2017-18-babylons-burning/
Very good read. Interesting that PNE are near the bottom of everything in terms of income yet are just a point behind us. Just shows that you don’t have to spend big to be in with a shout but it also shows the importance of us getting up this season.
RR
Please don’t take this as criticism in any way shape or form, but your statement ‘ it shows the importance of us getting up this season’ is the saddest thing I have read on the blog for some time.
When intelligent people such as yourself, who know the score, are reduced to hoping against hope that a manager who is clearly out of control, reduced to incoherence when questioned by the national press, doing irrational things that have no place in any manual of football management, driving away any player with any vestige of talent (and that particular cancer will get worse) then we truly are at the end of our rope.
Just to clarify my opinion, I was looking forward to the play offs, which we would not have won, but to my horror, this person has obliterated any anticipation of that happening. There are three/ four teams who know that we at least are no threat to their hopes.
Incidentally it is now called; Profitability & Sustainability
An oxymoron if ever there was one in football…
Even……Recruitment Policy….
Just seen this for Villa’s early bird:
“Adults can get their Season Ticket from just £14 a game, paying 0% interest during the Early Bird period with Zebra Finance across a 9 or 4 month payment plan – available NOW.
There’s great prices for all the family, with our brand new Under 14 Season Ticket for £50, working out at just £2.17 per game.
Under 18s can get their Season Tickets from £69 (£3 a game!), whereas our Family Package for 2 adults and 2 U18s works out as 2 U18 Season Tickets for free”
They don’t get a free pint however!
Youre not thinking of defecting are you RR?!
RR
Could now be VV
Villa Vlogger ?
OFB
Absolutely and unequivocally not!
Just seen Fisherman’s Friends. A charmer of a film, tied up all too hurriedly and neatly but I got sucked in hook, line and sinker for the most part.
I often thought that if they ever made a film about the rise of Boro FC in the nineties and noughties, they could do worse than hire Daniel Mays for Gibbo.
The Gazette has finally grown a pair and climbed out from under the bed ! The drums are starting to get louder and the natives are restless.
If decent clubs are trying to sign our young winger its a shame we didn’t have a Manager who had the sense to try what we already had and not waste money on a player( Rlp) who is reportedly frozen out of the squad. Madness indeed.
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/how-boltons-fate-could-affect-15999184
Come on RR, stop kissing the badge and get off the fence!! Will you turn out to be from a family of Villains after all? All you ever wanted to do was go shopping at ToysAmWe.
As there has been a talk of football finance on here I will remind everyone about the old question.
Q How do you make a small fortune out of football?
A Start of with a large one!
The horrible Glazers at ManU are the only ones to make a go of it but that is down to the sheer financial muscle of the club.
The fortune is made from the brand not the Football unfortunately. That is why in the modern era, identity and recognition is crucial for a commercial enterprise be they a three pointed star, golden arch, four intertwined circles or even a white band (perish the thought)!
Perhaps that makes an attractive playing style more important than ever before, so long as you’re safe in the top flight…
In Derry Girls this week, “Everything Changes (But You)”.
At Boro, Everything Changes But Pu.
Take That, Tony.
Have a little Patience, may be thre reply.
I certainly get the impression that “Back For Good” isn’t the line the people want.
Bolton winding up petition adjourned until April 3rd.
Come on BORO.
Worth a quick scan:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47603536
Interesting read!
Good link Andy. Easy to see where we have been going wrong
Yeah. I’m big on hiring a manager who is the right fit unless you want to start from scratch. It feels like we’ve started again too often in recent years.
Thing is, if you’re starting from scratch it should be with a clear longer term plan in mind and that should mean sticking with it even when it falters.
I don’t get the feeling that we have that longer term plan. Not a coherent one anyway.
That needs to be the starting point, if it isn’t already in place. What kind of club do we want to be? What’s the model that complements that in a sustainable way? Where are we today? What do we need to do to get from A to B?
Andy
Unfortunately a Model A is
Very old now and not very reliable and keeps changing direction on the way ahead.
The bonnet is in good condition but performance is flat and sometimes gets overheated.
The annual test is nearly due and will probably fail.
Most of the passengers are Piston Broke
Hopefully we will get a new model soon
OFB
OFB
New or used?
Sixth hand !
EXMIL CHALLENGE 2019 (Part 1) League Table
1. lenmasterman 8,7,10,10,4,5,10,6,10 = 70
2. exmil2017 10,8,9,9,3,7,10,5,9 = 70
3. Boro Beckys Dad 8,5,9,10,4,9,8,7,10 = 70
4. Suffolk ‘n’ Boro 10,7,9,10,6,7,9,5,7 = 70
5. Pedro de Espana 10,7,9,10,6,7,8,6,7 = 70
6. Martin Bellamy 8,10,8,10,1,8,10,5,9 =69
7. Ian Gill 10,8,9,10,3,7,10,5,7 = 69
8. borobrie 8,10,8,10,1,7,10,5,9 = 68
9. Powmill-Naemore 10,7,9,10,3,7,10,6,5 = 67
10. KP in Spain 10,5,9,10,4,7,8,5,9 = 67
11. jarsue159 10,6,9,9,6,4,6,6,10 = 66
12. Redcar Red 8,6,9,9,3,7,10,5,9 = 66
13. Andy R 6,7,9,9,4,7,8,7,9 = 66
14. deleriad 8,8,8,10,4,5,10,5,7 = 65
15. vanteis 5,5,9,10,3,7,8,6,10 = 63
16. selwynoz 10,4,9,9,1,7,8,5,9 = 62
17. werdermouth 5,5,9,10,3,7,8,5,9 = 61
18. grovehillwallah 6,5,8,10,3,5,8,7,9 = 61
19. jarkko 6,6,7,7,3,7,10,5,8 = 59
20. Simon 8,5,8,8,3,5,8,4,9 = 58
21. originalfatbob 8,5,8,8,3,5,10,5,5 = 57
If anyone spots an error please let me know and I will post Part 2 fixtures in the next couple of days.
Come on BORO.
Yes
I think you’ve shown the table upside down?
OFB
Oh no he hasn’t
Gulp!
So there you have it folks laid bare !
Everything I know about football!
OFB
OFB,
I blame the eyes in the sky. So there.
UTB,
John
I think the 👀 must be crossed or seeing double !
OFB
Amazed that I am third, never win anything me!
Mind you it is right at the top.
I won’t be able to continue my form though that is for sure.
More #TakeThatBoro lines courtesy of Anthony “Paulista Park” McCarthy.
– Beck For Good
– Esmond Million Love Songs
– Take Platt And Party
– Everything Changes But Stew
I’ll add…
– It Only Takes A Midget Gem
– Could It Be Tragic….
Never Forget doesn’t need a pun for Teessiders.
Interesting that everyone was let down by the same club in the Exmil challenge!
One for Ian, as he is a local.
Mel Morris, willing to sell Derby County for a pounds if the buyer takes on the debt.
Figures state an investment of 100mil, but the debt could be as much as 161mil.
I cannot see many takers at those amounts to be covered?
Whilst Mel Morris’s Derby County are not quite the basket case that other clubs have become there are too many Clubs teetering. Blackpool, Charlton, Bolton, Coventry and in the past Leeds and Pompey even Darlo and Pools have all wobbled or are wobbling plus others no doubt than we are presently unaware of. We can of course add ourselves to that list in ’86.
Football does not make money apart from a handful of elite clubs. The recent TV deal with the EFL just exasperated and conformed in equal measure that the authorities in charge of the sport really haven’t a clue. Sky TV along with players fees, salaries and agents greed etc. have altered the game unbelievably over the last twenty or so years and not for the better.
Just go back twenty years to the 1999-2000 Premiership season and the “cannon fodder” make-weight clubs that were in it then compared to now is a stark warning. Villa, Bradford, Coventry, Derby, Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland, Wimbledon plus of course Boro have all fallen from Premiership grace and found getting back up difficult and darn near impossible in some instances.Others like Newcastle, West Ham, Watford and Leicester have dropped out and came back but in essence there are only half a dozen or so clubs that are “established” in terms of survival and one of those, Everton has been mooted to be “available” for a while now.
Interestingly the three promoted sides from the Championship that season were Charlton, Man City and Ipswich. West Brom finished just one place above relegation to League One while Stockport County, Crewe and Grimsby all finished above them in the Championship that season.
Burnley finished 2nd in League One to be promoted as were Play Off winners Gillingham (guess who was the Manager). Wrexham and Wycombe finished mid table above Bournemouth and Cardiff were relegated to League Two. Swansea were promoted from League Two and both Darlo and Pools were in the Play Offs above Brighton in 11th spot.
Fate and fortune has always been part of the excitement and enjoyment of football as the last twenty years above have illustrated but the cost now of failure or even a hiatus is deadly.
nb. The answer to the “mini quiz question” about the Gillingham Manager above was Peter Taylor who had replaced TP after losing out to Man City the previous season in the Play Off final.
People often point to the Sky money as having a detrimental impact on the game but surely the real problem is not the money itself but that fact that it has largely gone to players and their agents?
I have no issue with footballers making good – even very good – money for what is a relatively short career but not at the expense of the clubs, which mean so much to so many.
Is it the clubs themselves that are to blame? The ship has long since sailed now though.
The Sky money created the ““All Clubs are equal, but some Clubs are more equal than others” playing field and as a direct consequence we are unlikely to see another Leicester type season in our lifetime and even then it wasn’t supposed to work out that way. It didn’t take long for the status quo to be restored however.
Redcar Red
I dislike being a part pooper but the ‘new money’ in the premiership has had little effect on the winners..
If we exclude the likes of Villa and Everton who are very big clubs who have underachieved in recent years, then then the clubs who have put out the big boys noses are
77/78 Forest under Cloughie
91./92 Leeds – they were a big club then
94/95 Blackburn when Jack Walker had big money for that era
15/16 Leicester but that was funded in part by TV money
Oops fat fingers.
There were winners before such as Derby County but they are 40-50 years ago.
Loads of titles for big clubs but not even I can stretch back and blame Sky money in the early 70’s.
If you were contrary you could argue it was TV money that allowed Leicester to win the title.
I dislike the money in the premiership but it is not sky’s fault that the historically bigger clubs win titles.
i was looking at who won the 1st division/premier league in the 20 years before it started as the premier league and the 20 years since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_football_champions
In the 20 years before the Premier the winners were
Liverpool 11
Leeds 2
derby 1
Forest 1
villa 1
Everton 2
Arsenal 2
In the 20 years since
Man U 12
Blackburn 1
Arsenal 3
Chelsea 3
Man City 1
Both marked by complete domination of one club. Possibly the influence of money is showing in that the other winners were slightly more varied before then.
On the big club front only 24 clubs have ever won the league and only 8 of them have won it 5 times or more. One of those 8 is Sunderland but they last won the league in 1936. So you can possibly say there are 7 “big” clubs in England if winning the league multiple times in living memory is the criteria.
Manchester United 20
Liverpool 18
Arsenal 13
Everton 9
Aston Villa 7
Sunderland 6
Chelsea 6
Manchester City 5
Note however that Villa’s last win was 80-81 – nearly 40 years ago – so they possibly qualify as a “sleeping giant” rather than big club. More than half of Everton’s wins come from before World War 2 and their last win was 86.
You can add Leicester in to the list of the last 20 years.
You can certainly call Villa and Everton sleeping giants because of their history.
There has always been a club/s who have dominated football in patches for four or five years or even a decade. In the 30’s it was Arsenal in the League and with two FA Cup wins. There were eight other Cup winners in that decade and whilst the Cup isn’t what it was back then (people have become bored by the predictability of it?) it was classed as a major trophy.
The 40’s were decimated by the war but the latter part saw Liverpool, Pompey and Arsenal (twice) win the League with Derby, Charlton Man Utd and Wolves cup winners. The 50’s saw Wolves and Man U dominate League Championships with three each along with Newcastle collecting three FA Cup wins and Blackpool, West Brom, Villa, Bolton, Notts Forest and Man City all one Cup win each.
The 60’s saw Burnley, Spurs, Ipswich, Everton, Liverpool and Man Utd then Liverpool, United, City, Everton and Leeds champions, eight different clubs winning the League. In the Cup Spurs won it three times and Wolves, Man Utd, West Ham, Everton, Liverpool, Man City and West Brom all tasted Wembley glory.
The 70’s started with Everton, Arsenal, Derby, Liverpool, Leeds and Derby again before Liverpool’s domination of the type we are more accustomed to today interspersed with Forest. That great Liverpool side like the great Spurs previously and even Leeds side was down to managers and players abilities rather than just pure financial clout although success does undoubtedly breed success on the pitch and on the balance sheet. The FA Cup had Chelsea, Arsenal, Leeds, Sunderland, Liverpool, West Ham, Southampton, Man Utd and Ipswich all winners.
The 80’s started with Villa as Champions then Liverpool six times, Everton twice and Arsenal. The Cup had West Ham, Spurs, Man Utd, Everton, Liverpool, Coventry and Wimbledon all lift the trophy. The 90’s saw Liverpool Arsenal and Leeds win the old League Division one pre Premiership and then United dominate the remaining decade five times with only Blackburn and Arsenal interrupting. The Cup saw United, Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea win with Everton sandwiched in between.
The Noughties saw six Premiership titles for United, two for Arsenal and two for Chelsea. The FA Cup had three wins each for Chelsea and Arsenal, two for Liverpool, one for United and cheeky Portsmouth give hope to the rest of us. This present decade has had Chelsea and Man City with three titles, Man United two with only the Foxes getting into the Cup Coup. The FA Cup saw three Chelsea wins along with Arsenal, the two Manchester clubs one apiece and Wigan carrying the torch for the unwashed.
There was always dominance in English Football be it a great Spurs or Wolves side or even a decent Burnley team and Arsenal having a few decent runs as did Liverpool and Leeds of course. For me though their success was simply a good side that eventually ended with transfers, injuries, retirement of Players and Managers. Their success brought them some cash as well as the silverware but it didn’t last and it didn’t exclusively preclude the rest of the 92.
The gulf now is a chasm so wide that clubs have no chance unless they have a major benefactor pumping hundreds of millions into them. To make matters worse those same elite ultra rich clubs now get even more from TV rights circa £160 million for the Premiership Champions compared to probably less than £10 Million for the Championship Champions. The Bottom Premiership club will get ten times more than the Championship Champions just for being relegated yet are just one place above them in the 92 placings!
That clubs have purple patches and that clubs with bigger City followings have had an advantage over smaller Town clubs down the years is irrefutable but what we now have is a glass ceiling which is ring-fenced ensuring that that dominance cannot be breached. Even clubs like Arsenal who have been treading water of late are still bulletproof to the likes of Boro. We all remember Man United being Relegated, that will never happen under the current set up.
Meanwhile each year financially the gap becomes ever wider at a rate of knots that was unthinkable just twenty five years ago. Big Clubs just buy up all the raw talent and hold onto them, loan them out, trading them for a profit and without ever having played a game for them. Long term English Football will (if it hasn’t already) just become another replica of Scottish Football where the top Clubs rule everything and the others are just invited to participate to make the numbers up. I remember watching Wrestling on a Saturday afternoon with my Gran on the Telly as a kid just before the Football results would come in and thinking it wasn’t a sport because it was blatantly fixed and heavily biased, even the refereeing. To me now Football is going down the same route, it all smacks a bit of Ancient Rome and Gladiators.
God post and info RR. Sadly he last three paragraphs say it all.
There have always been periods when one club dominated the top league. Preston won the league in the inaugural seasons of 1888/89 and 1889/90 and were then runners-up in the following 3 seasons, Huddersfield won it 3 times in succession from 1923/24 and were then runners-up in the following 2 seasons. In my lifetime Wolves were dominant in the 1950s winning the league 3 times and finished runners-up 3 times, and Leeds in the 1960s and 1970s won the league twice and were runners-up 5 times but would anyone consider them as sleeping giants? Incidentally Chelsea were a music hall joke, never having finished in the top 3 until winning the league in 1955 with the lowest points total of 52 points since the Second World War from 42 matches and it took them another 50 years to win their second title. So in the history of football can they or Manchester City be considered big clubs? Without their financial backing I doubt it. So I’m inclined to agree with Deleriad with his top 5 winners, but not so sure about the rest.
I’ve often wondered just what is it that qualifies the label, “a big club”, historically or otherwise. And then exact what is it that maintains that label through periods of (relative) failure.
I think there must be some sort of highly disputable algorithm that could be produced. Perhaps a points-based system awarded for size of fanbase, recent history (i.e. last 10 years: which division the team has played in, trophies won with points awarded on a sliding scale) and maybe (but only maybe) something for historical trophies won (i.e. more than 10 years ago).
Maybe something to pass the time in the summer!
Can someone propose a formula to eat me from the bottom to the top of the Exmil Challenge?
OFB
The top points earners in the top division are Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton, Manchester United and Aston Villa in that order with Everton having spent the most seasons in the top flight. Make that of one will.
On another subject, it’s good to see photos of “Boro in the Community” and the warmth it gives to youngsters to meet their heroes. There was nothing like that in my schooldays, the only chance to see one’s heroes being on the cricket field when Redcar CC entertained a Boro FC team in pre-season friendlies, and even then players reluctant to sign autographs. Although today’s stars earn much more than in the 1940s, credit to them for intermingling with young fans.
Thought of the importance of staying on the managerial merry-go-round, aka everyone’s radar. Delved into the second big book of R. M. Keane’s (now assistant manager at the club formerly known as AKForest) to get to the bottom of it. Here’s what I came up with.
(After being asked if he would come and meet Ipswich’s owner…)
“The manager is important, but not that important. (See: Sam Longson in The Damned United. — Si) I always knew I’d be gone one day. But, at the same time, I felt I hadn’t finished the job at Sunderland because of the way things had ended. You always want to prove people wrong.
“We’re almost brainwashed into thinking that the longer we’re out of work the harder it is to get back in. I was a bit anxious about it. The list of good ex-managers who’ve been forgotten about is frightening. But I felt I’d done enough at Sunderland to give me a chance… I should have been more patient.
(After being interviewed for the Ipswich job…)
“…Ipswich already had a manager at this time, Jim Magilton. I was being touted for a job that was already occupied. But I didn’t feel too bad about that. It’s not good, but it’s standard practice. I thought it was all right to chat about the job. I hadn’t agreed to take it.
“I didn’t feel too sorry for Jim Magilton. I felt he’d let me down with a player when I was managing Sunderland. He was supposed to take Tommy Miller off me. We’d agreed a deal… But Ipswich pulled out of the deal.
“I rang Jim Magilton.
“I said, ‘What’s happening? I’ve turned down other deals for Tommy because you said he was going to you.’
“He was proper aggressive*; he didn’t give a (censored)… So, part of my thinking was, ‘**** ‘m.’
“It’s the business. I found out later that another manager spoke to (the Ipswich owner) while I was still the Ipswich manager. Today, I don’t think I’d do it. If a club offered me the job while the manager was still in place, I’d probably say, ‘No. But you know where I am.’ But it’s like any other business; the club has to plan ahead.”
*As an aside, I’ve met Jim Magilton; he certainly wasn’t aggressive.
Get not eat !
Freudian slip there started the diet on Monday !!!
Not so fat Bob!
Interesting background, Mr. Magilton has.
Belfast born and bred (which is always good, in my book), he also played for Ipswich while Mogga and Venus were there. (Again, good.) He was part of that team which finally got it right after years of play-off near misses.
As I’ve repeatedly attempted to imply in years gone by, a near-miss can be a learning experience, not a failure. Why can most not simply see it that way? Instead of ranting, roaring and raving? (Were Mr. Dunphy open-minded enough, he could see Ireland 0-0 Egypt as a team who has never, ever played in the World Cup getting to grips with tournament football, against a side who’d just drawn with the European Champions.)
But I digress.
When manager of Ipswich (2006-09) he narrowly missed out on the play-offs in his second season, by a solitary point, thus earning the right for more investment. By 2008 his squad could boast the likes of Jon Walters, Giovani Dos Santos (“What he was doing at Ipswich I do not know” – Keane) and a certain Jordan Rhodes. But I think the owner got wind near the end of the season that the team were set for a non-descript midtable year (they finished 9th), so in came Keane.
Magilton went to QPR but was out before Christmas – rumour had it (though later reports denied it) that he’d headbutted a midfielder after a 3-1 loss at Watford which directly followed his team being ripped apart by Strachan’s Boro on their own patch. (How’s that for embarrarssing?) He was suspended and left by mutual consent half way through December.
That was his last senior footballing position in England to date. He’s currently the elite performance director at the IFA, and managed the U21s for a few years (losing 15 of 18 games… ouch!). When I met him, in Derry during the summer of 2015, he was sitting with some of the Norwich City backroom staff. It was the time of the Milk Cup, after all. I made sure to congratulate them on the play-off final victory – never show your bitterness!
Apologies for the spelling mistakes in there. I’m multi-tasking this morning.
Saw this article and am amazed at where some of the sides are placed.
https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/the-most-route-one-championship-teams-ranked-in-order-1-9661827/amp
I thought Preston were superb in their attacking play at times during both of our games but maybe their long balls are pinged diagonal balls switching from one to the other. Maybe we are not as hoof as we think or maybe we just dont have the ball as much.
I think our perceptions of hoof tactics is perhaps tinted by its effectiveness. Our long throws and big hoofs etc. haven’t worked and are now the stuff of legends. We haven’t got and never had the type of Striker with the attributes to maximise the potential of hoofed balls. From a long throw in our CB’s couldn’t score in the Bongo so its probably no surprise that other clubs use them to equal or better effect (in Preston’s case).
Big Jack was stereotyped as the “hoof and run” sort by the purists.
Paul McGrath, Charlie O’Leary and Mick McCarthy… can you help me out here?
“Jack was mischievous and shrewd. He liked to spin the illusion that he was an old-school football man who just sent his teams out to clatter into the opposition and pour ball after ball over their heads. Actually, Jack was incredibly thorough. Most of the time he could almost tell you how the opposition tied their bootlaces.”
– McGrath
“Jack was very methodical. People always talk about this long ball. I never heard him say that. His thing was to put them under pressure and always make defenders turn. He maintained the European player hated that. That was the main thing we worked on.”
– C. O’Leary
“I’ve played here in a team in Ireland with Big Jack, and I say now he was a visionary… When I hear people talking about Klopp and people having this pressing game, that is exactly what we did.
“We put the ball in their half, we turned them around, we got up behind them, we pressed them, we nicked it off them and we played in their half… It makes me laugh now this gegenpressing, keeping the ball … we’ve always done it.”
– McCarthy
Alas, what McCarthy omits is what happened once the team won the ball, which in Klopp’s case features a greater emphasis on the possession that Xavi, Pep and Barca made hip. You can counter that though by saying that English football was less possession obsessed at the time – the pitches simply weren’t as good. As Souness says, you didn’t play tippy-tappy in the 1970s because you couldn’t.
I often said that was the fault in dissecting the Charlton years from the perspective of the early 2010s, when so many seemed to be genuflecting over the godlike genius of Pep. Continue to win things he does, but he’s more human now. Thank heavens.
As ever it’s what matters when you have the ball. In the recent Leeds-Sheffield Utd game, Leeds had 72% possession, but not one shot on target.
In the modern game it’s apparent that possession doesn’t always match the result.
As Ronnie Allen proclaimed back in the Fifties “its goals that count”!
Well the new Stadium name has been announced, drum roll please…………”The Captain James Cook Stadium”
Its all to do with the great explorer and linking his memory with a celebration of the Tees Valley, with a bit of luck the great man himself might shed some light on where the Tees Valley actually is? To me its somewhere between its source at Cross Fell in Cumbria and well before it gets to Middleton-in-Teesdale (which is actually in Co. Durham).
The Tees Floodplain probably doesn’t sound as grand but like the Airport name itself its not a branding that the locals relate to or were even asked about but clearly someone somewhere had money to burn and still does now that Austerity is officially over (probably not a great idea to announce that at the growing Teesside food bank queues). Waste of time, effort and money and an embarrassing, cringe worthy nonsense only capable of being thought relevant by those with a disconnect with what the Teesside area is all about.
The River which unlike Politicians has given a long and continuous stable name to the area the “Tees” is thought to have come about before Parmo’s and even the Romans arriving on these shores. It meant “warm excitement” (even “boiling” according to some) in the Ancient Briton dialect. Clearly this name also pre-dated “Typical Boro” and there is a very good reason why the Stadium is called “The Riverside” and not “The Valley”.
Clearly Captain James Cook had far better geographic vision and understanding than those now presently charged with the responsibility for the area who appear to be desperately in search of a non existent Valley. There again maybe its a secret lost Valley cut off from the rest of the world and even time itself accessed only via the Billingham anhydrite mines? Wherever it is they must have a money printing machine hidden in there.
Looks like we forgot to lock the back door when it comes to our young players, very poor show, we find them, bring them along, then some rich and greedy club say ‘ come along sonny we would like to sign you,’ hhhm! Not good, is it
There was a game, I think, where Arsenal had something like 76% possession yet both their goals in a 2-1 win came from a set piece and a cross into the box.
EXMIL CHALLENGE 2019 (Part 2)
The pack has closed up so I have included all 11 teams down to Forest for the next four/five fixtures, the eagle eyed will notice that Birmingham have dropped out of the running.
Listed below are the teams and their fixtures, after the team name and in brackets is that teams current points, when you post your entry please post the team name, followed by W/L/D for the four/five fixtures, the = total points in the league table. As an example if you think Shef Utd will win all four matches your entry should read:
Shef Utd WWWW = 86
This way I can be confident that you haven’t made an error in your predictions.
Norwich (78) Boro (A) QPR (H) Reading (A) Wigan (A)
Shef Utd (74) Bristol (H) PNE (A) Birmingham (A) Millwall (H)
Leeds (73) Millwall (H) Birmingham (A) PNE (A) Shef Wed (H)
WBA (67)Birmingham (H) Millwall (A) Bristol (A) PNE (H)
Boro (58) Norwich (H) Bristol (H) Swansea(A) Bolton (A) Hull (H)
Villa (57) Blackburn (H) Shef Wed (A) Rotherham (A) Bristol (H)
PNE (57) Reading (A) Shef Utd (H) Leeds (H) WBA (A)
Derby (56) Rotherham (H) Brentford (A) Blackburn (A) Bolton (H)
Bristol (55) Shef Utd (A) Boro (A) Wigan (H) WBA (H) Villa (A)
Shef Wed (55) Stoke (A) Villa (H) Forest (H) Leeds (A)
Forest (54) Swansea (H) Rotherham (A) Shef Wed (A) Blackburn (H)
If anyone spots a mistake please let me know, good luck to everyone,especially the Boro.
Come on BORO.
Put my entry on the Exmil Challenge page.
I see Scotland lost 3 – 0 in Kazakhstan in their opening European qualifying match, God help them when they play Cyprus who are 5 – 0 up against San Marino.
Come on BORO.
God help them when they play against San Marino…….
EXMIL CHALLENGE 2019 (Part 2)
Could you all post your entries on the Exmil Challenge 2019 page please.
Come on BORO.
Scotland 2-1 Liechtenstein. The winner, a Stephen McManus header from a Barry Robson corner – both players were Boro men then – seven minutes into injury time. My reaction was one of mildly incredulous laughter – never has the narrowest of squeaks past a minnow been celebrated more. But, a win is a win.
Well as a Scot, today was awful. I put the blame on the manager. His team selection was all wrong and tactics led to players not really knowing what to do. Sounds a bit like another manager we know close by .
Mike’s farewell to that boss was most memorable:
Bye bye Gordon. You were crap.
I’m happy. It only took a year and a half but the GAWA have a competitive international win to celebrate again, 2-0 over Estonia.
McNair and Saville played the full 90, the former heading over from four yards (ouch), the latter winning a converted penalty.
EXMIL CHALLENGE 2019 (Part 2)
I forgot to mention all entries are to be posted before the kick off on 29 Mar 19, between WBA and Birmingham at 2000 hrs. I will give reminders for those who suffer from absent mindedness.
Come on BORO.
For excitement in sport it’s hard to beat last night’s performance in Rugby League where Wakefield Trinity came back from 0-18 and 12-34 down to only lose 32-34 to Super League favourites Warrington Wolves and almost draw 34-34 to take the match into golden point if only Danny Brough’s last minute conversion attempt hadn’t drifted slightly to the wrong side of the post. From a Cas fan hard luck to our near neighbours. If only Boro’s matches were only half as exciting!
As we are all aware now money dictates which are the great clubs, not only in England, but in most of the European Leagues. There is now such an imbalance in all these leagues. Leicester City were the exception, never to be repeated under current circumstances. Even Blackburn’s Premier League success was based on one benefactor with money.
In Europe we’re unlikely to see Nantes win the French Championet again, nor Atletico Bilbao in Spain, Boavista in Portugal, Aberdeen in Scotland, or indeed Werder Berlin in Germany. The only answer to make leagues more competitive is a form of salary capping which I’m sure wouldn’t go down too well with the greedy clubs who have only the misnamed Champions League in their sites.
Sorry, ‘sights’not ‘sites’.
Ouch!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47667742
Its probably just me missing something but the article states Birmingham will be deducted 9 points and as they are now on 50 that means 41, so far so good, but it then states that they will be only 5 points above the relegation zone. Reading are the third from bottom club on 37 points with Millwall also on 37 points just above on GD, that to me is 4 points and not 5 surely?
I also notice that the Blues GD has gone from +4 to -14 in that table, has there been a goal penalty as well as a points penalty?
Birmingham have lost their last four games on the trot, if they don’t pull out of the tailspin it could get worse very quickly especially if Bolton fold and wondering then would three or just two go down from the Championship?
I think goal difference is used to as 4 points would still be 4th from bottom.
The table in the article is a little misleading because it only shows it down to 22nd place with Bolton on 29 points in 23rd and bottom club Ipswich on 24 points omitted from the graphic. Looks like they’ve also corrected the goal difference and it’s back to +4 – they had probably forgotten to change it from the goal difference of QPR on -14, who were originally in 17th place.
How much is down to ‘Appy ‘Arry?
I as talking to someone over the weekend and said I was disappointed about the current situation with Brahimi possibly being transferred to Newcastle on a free
The response was that his agent is asking astronomical wage demands and the club are unwilling to pay for a player who is still nowhere near ready for the first team
So impasse….
OFB
Continuing the theme how money now dictates the strength of clubs in Europe as well as in England I’ve dug out statistics for some of the major leagues in Europe.
BELGIUM
Although one of the strongest international sides in the World, the Belgium Juliper League is perhaps not one of the strongest as most of their best players do not play in their major league. Nevertheless the last 24 years have been dominated by Anderlecht with 12 Championships and only twice outside the top 3. Clube Brugge have won 7 Championships and only 3 times outside the top 3. Standard Liege and Racing Clube Genk have each won the Championship twice and the only other club to have won it is Lierse as far back as 1997.
FRANCE
Olympique Lyonnaise dominated the Championat with 7 successive league titles in the early 2000s but have never won it before or since in the last 24 years. Money certainly talks in France because Paris St Germain are set for their 6th Championship out of the last 7 years since they became one of the richest clubs in Europe; before that they had never won it in the last 24 years. In fact the Championat was one of the most competitive in Europe with AS Monaco 3 times, Bordeaux twice, and single successes by Lille, Racing Lens, Nantes and little Auxerre in 1996. Strangely Olympique Marseille have only won it once in that period with a mere 4 runners-up positions.
GERMANY
Bayern Munich have completely dominated the Bundesliga with 15 Championships. Borussia Dortmund have won it 5 times, with single successes from Werder Bremen, Stuttgart, VFL Wolfsburg and Kaiserslautern who have remained outside the Bundesliga now for the last 7 seasons. Surprisingly Bayer Leverkusen have not won it in the last 24 years and one has to back even further to the days of Kevin Keegan since SV Hamburg won it.
HOLLAND
Completely dominated by PSV Eindhoven with 11 Eredevise successes plus 5 as runners-up and Ajax Amsterdam with 9 titles plus 9 as runners-up. Surprisingly Feyenoord Rotterdam have only won it twice in the last 24 years in 1999 and 2017. AZ Alkmaar have one success, as have FC Twente Enschede under Steve MacLaren in 2010.
ITALY
Juventus Turin have won Serie A 14 times. After their 7th success in the 24 year period in 2006 they were relegated because of match-fixing, but were promoted the following season although it took them another 5 years for their next success, but are now on course for their 8th Scudetto. Inter Milan won the league 4 years in succession during Juventus’s decline, but nothing before or since. Their neighbours AC Milan have also won it 4 times the last time in 2011. The only other Scudetto winners were Lazio Roma in 2000 and AS Roma the following season.
PORTUGAL
Probably the most one-sided Superliga in Europe, completely dominated by FC Porto with 15 Championships, 5 runners-up places and 4 3rd places. Benfica have won it 6 times, 4 in succession from 2014. Sporting Lisbon have won it twice in the last 24 years. The only other club to win Superliga was Boavista de Porto in 2001. The highest position achieved by Sporting Braga was second in 2010.
SPAIN
Dominated by FC Barcelona with 11 Superliga titles and Real Madrid with 8. Valencia have 2 titles, the last being in 2004, so have Atletico Madrid in 1996 and 2014. The only other club to have been successful in the last 24 years is the Galician club Deportivo La Coruna in 2000. One has to go back as far as 1943 for Athletic Bilbao’s solitary league success when they also won the Copa d’el Rei.
Finally in Scotland one has to go back as far as 1985 for a winner of the Premier Division/League/Premiership to be won by a club excluding the Old Firm. That was Aberdeen’s 3rd title in 6 years. Since then Rangers have won it 17 times and Celtic 16.
Its how you spend the money not how much you spend, some clubs are air brained when it comes to buying players, I know of one, no plan just open the catalogue and pick some out.
As with every high-profile boss, there are a multitude of perspectives on ‘Appy ‘Arry.
“You can talk with him – he’s always open, and gives his players a lot of confidence… There are no long and boring speeches about tactics” — Rafael van der Vaart, who played for Redknapp at Spurs
“He has that knack… an ability to make you play like the player you think you are in your wildest dreams.”
— Shaka Hislop
And yet.
“Most West Ham fans feel he wasted the money raised by the sale of Rio Ferdinand on a string of mediocre players (Titi Camara and Rigobert Song to name but two).
“Most Portsmouth fans hate him for jumping ship for Southampton, before returning to oversee an era of lavish short-termist spending which ultimately brought the club to its knees.
“Most Southampton fans hate him for failing to keep their team in the Premier League, then toddling off back to Portsmouth when the following season’s promotion push didn’t take shape. Most Tottenham fans hate him for failing to commit to a club that stood by him during his legal difficulties when the England job came up.”
— James Maw
I don’t think he’s on Richard Keys’ Christmas Card list……
https://talksport.com/football/efl/515020/richard-keys-slams-harry-redknapp-birmingham-financial-points-deduction/
Ah but Richard Keys has also upset a lot of people !
OFB
No he ain’t.
I think Rafa Benitez was once called the Spanish Harry Redknapp.
In that they always need more money, more players, or more money to buy players.
Although Rafa has won a great deal more.
The Gazette reports that Steven Gerrard is interested in Stewart Downing. The quicker he leaves the better but I will be writing to Rangers not to touch him with a bargepole
You really don’t like Stewie, do you? Personally, I think he’s done a good job since he came back but could have been even better if given a different role.
Is there something I should know about him Braveheart? I know he’s moved on in his career quite a bit, so is there something in his character that I should know about?
Hi Martin, you are right I don’t like him. I think he has been a total waste of money since he came back. He was a Steve Gibson Gibson signing (jobs for the boys) and yes there are certain things that I can’t say on here but of course he was the culprit who threw a chair at Karanka. Not many people will probably agree with me but his current spat with the club shows what kind of person he is. Greedy.
Would you have the same problem if it was another player expecting MFC to honour their contract or is it only SD?
I see Stuani netted twice for Uruguay today.
Hi Martin, he always says he absolutely loves the club and is very proud to play for his hometown team therefore why does he not accept the clubs finance problems at this present time and just agree to waive the added clause.
Think we will have to agree to disagree on this one Martin. UTB.
Not defending his stance but how many of us in his position would bite the bullet especially when you consider the way the club has wasted money on ill advised purchases or loans.
Whoever is in charge of finances should be the one getting the chop.
If he does go to Rangers then that might put to bed the rumour of him and Woody taking over.
I’d have to agree that the club are to blame as they’ve spent more money than they could seemingly afford knowing that once parachute payments ended and if the club weren’t promoted income would drop substantially.
In Downing’s case, he was offered a one-year extension to his contract with reportedly a pay increase that would be triggered if he played 23 games in the current season. The trigger clause was presumably designed to be both a measure and incentive for the player to be both fit and performing at a level where he was being selected.
In essence, it was an inducement by the club to encourage a player to sign for them in the knowledge he would offset the fall in his salary by dropping down a division with the potential of longer security. Downing seemingly kept his side of the bargain by keeping fit (one of the best trainers according to Eric Paylor in his In2view) and also he was an ever-present in the first half of the season so he was at least impressing his manager.
What I don’t quite understand is why the clause wasn’t managed by the club by informing the manager at the beginning of the season that Downing should only start 23 games. Pulis himself had stated that Downing was at an age where he may not be able to start every game so could have easily spread those starts over the whole season and used him from the bench regularly.
The wider issue of why Downing and the club haven’t been able to come to an agreement may indicate that the player may feel misled about Boro’s intentions over the extension. Of course, anything where a player is being advised or handled by agents or advisors is likely to prove to be a long drawn out process. You may also recall that Downing once reported his former agent, Ian Elliot, to the police for mishandling his affairs and not keeping proper accounts – the agent was eventually barred from working in football and only just escaped a custodial sentence.
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/9810900.stewart-downings-woefully-inept-agent-spared-jail-term/
Whether you think Downing should rip up his contract extension and make himself available to start is open to opinion but he at least has put in 100% effort on the pitch, which is more than could probably be said for some players currently receiving large sums of cash from the club. Boro eventually paid £7m for Downing but I wonder how much of the £9m paid for Braithwaite for example we’ll get back and Boro are likely subsidising his wages again while he’s at another club.
There’s also a wider issue of the club reneging on a contract extension and how that will be perceived by potential signings if such clauses where used to encourage them to sign for Boro. It seems the club had possibly offered Downing a contract that they couldn’t afford and attempts to move him on under Monk had shown that not even Birmingham were prepared to match his package. This is probably the case with quite a few players on the books as we also saw the likes of Gestede turning down loan moves and the inability of other clubs to afford the want-away players like Braithwaite, who knows he has a four-year lucrative contract in his pocket from Boro and doesn’t need to accept less.
Boro are simply paying the price this season for over-reaching on mainly average players who can’t find a better financial deal elsewhere – we may see the club simply cutting their losses next season to keep the wage bill down. That’s why Downing has to leave in a few months and we’ll also see what happens with players like Braithwaite, who still has two years left on his contract.
I don’t want to drag on the SD argument too much, but I do think that contracts have two parties and both are bound by the terms. Why we’d expect Stewie to take a cut in salary to continue playing is beyond me and that’s what is effectively being done by not playing him now.
We’ve paid plenty of players over the odds to not perform for us, so why we wouldn’t pay this one, just because he’s a local lad and says he loves the team is illogical to me. I would have thought we’d back one of our own before the mercenaries.
He’s still a quality player if used correctly and to lose him to Rangers seems a strange option to me. But then, what do I know?
All I would say Martin is it’s clear Boro can’t afford Downing’s salary next season if they don’t get promoted. If the figures reported are close to being true then he’s likely to be paid something approaching £2m in wages. The decision was no doubt taken as part of a cost-cutting strategy as who knows whether other players still on lucrative contracts can be moved on.
If you consider the recent declarations by the club that income and the club’s running costs more less cancel each other out, then Boro could start next season with just the £4.5m of Championship prize money. Therefore, everything else has to be paid for by either sales or Steve Gibson dipping into his pocket.
That is in the context of the wage bills under Karanka being £18m in 2014-15, which rose to £29m in 2015-16 when they were promoted. Boro’s current wage bill is estimated to be over £30m so we should expect a summer of cost cutting. Incidentally, a £29m wage bill gives an average wage for a squad of 22 players at around £25 grand a week – £18m works out as just over £15 grand a week.
So Downing on £40 grand a week wouldn’t be acceptable unless he was scoring 20 goals plus and making plenty of assists. You could say on his current return of goals and assists he’s something of a luxury player – he may be easy on the eye but without an end product it’s not clear if his tidy play is enough to warrant paying him top dollar.
The key next season will be replacing players with good loan signings as we did under the Karanka period. The club seemed to have decided against having loan players as the main starters this season – though that may be mainly down to having too many high-earners on the books.
Other than Besic, Hugill and more recently Mikel, Boro have not got the kind of loanees that have added too much to the party – plus Besic wasn’t intended to be done as a loan and only happened because the transfer terms weren’t met. There’s also VLP but the less said the better on that particular deal.
For what it is worth, I did not want him back, would not of have had him back.
In my opinion his fee and wages have never been covered by his displays, he can look good yes, but produces very little. How many goals, how many assists, how many stand out performances.
However having been offered that contract by Mr Gibson, one of his more poor decisions, then it has to be honoured in its terms. Although I am happy to see him on the bench.
Pedro
Your post says it all for me. Another sorry saga in the life of Boro supporters. 😎
Are St Helens the Manchester City of Rugby League? They were stunning against Castleford last night, almost playing on a different planet. Ok, Cas were poor making mistake after mistake and seemed intimidated by the thought of playing the Saints who apart from 2 seasons ago seem to be Cas’s bogey team. Nevertheless I have to say that no team in RL or RU would have lived with them last night. They were a joy to watch, and haven’t lost an away match in 12 months. Cas aren’t a bad side but seem to have regressed from 2 years ago, but with Leeds Rhinos and Wigan Warriors occupying the bottom 2 places in Super League, the same might also be said of them. However I’ve more faith in Darryl Powerll sorting things out at Cas than I have of Tony Pulis doing with my beloved Boro.
I see that we are now losing a player who chose to join us of his own free will, over 18, starred in our young team, never got into our league team (in spite of our abject failure which we do not talk about) because it upsets us.
He is being stolen by one of the giants. This leads to a couple if questions.
Is the person who got him to sign for us getting a big bonus, after all he beat Man City to a freebee.?
And second. is Pulis getting fired for ignoring young talent, because this is a new level of incompetence, you pick up a good young player who wants to advance his career, you ignore him, but Man City don’t.
As we saw last night with England, it is the age of young players, the field was full of them, we can forget the dinosaurs who think 23 Is soon enough to appear in the first team.
Who are you on about?
I think it’s Brahimi, who I like the look of.
Surprising, how much have you seen of him? Until today I’d never heard of him. Surely if he was any good he would be in the first team squad.
Like everything in football these days, it would appear he’s holding out for a lucrative contract. If the club value him then sign him up with any relevant clauses included. If he can’t get a game at MFC, then it’s highly doubtful a top Premiership club will grant him first team football.
In my opinion the under 23’s are wasted. They would be better served being out on loan and playing professional football at a League 1 or 2 club.
Brahimi
Talking of having clauses in contracts, here’s how the master of ducking and diving added clauses to his player’s contracts as described in an article by Daniel Taylor in the Guardian…
When Slaven Bilic was a player at West Ham he had a buyout clause in his contract that allowed him to leave for £2.5m. Bilic had become disillusioned playing for a struggling team, where there was no money for elite signings, and went to see Redknapp one day to say he had been told Spurs wanted to pay the release fee.
It was true: Spurs did want him and had the money ready. Except that was the point Redknapp told his player to look again at the contract and, in particular, the small print. The clause had been worded carefully so the only way the transfer could happen was if West Ham agreed to it. They didn’t – and that made it entirely worthless.
“Bilic is a fully qualified lawyer and must have thought his contract was watertight,” Redknapp would later recall in ’Arry, his 1999 autobiography. “But I went to the University of the Street in Stepney and I had done him up like a kipper.”
Another reason football is well shot of characters like Redknapp.
Downing has his defenders. Many. If you drop a league, take a wage cut, play out of position and are perceived to be, as one tweeter said, “the scapegoat for the delusional AK Fan Club”, you’ll win support. Because no one should be a scapegoat.
I should add… if you’re that good you’ll adapt accordingly to the position you’re played in, and won’t publicly complain. John Aldridge adapted for Ireland, Solksjaer did for Manchester United.
Their teams got places. The fans were happy. Very, in Ireland’s case. That’s how it can be.
It’s never nice to not be played in your favourite position, not be given your favourite wage or, if you’re a manager, not have the right players to work with, but those we admire most won’t use that as an excuse.
It was in Downing’s own hands to win fans across. Even his most ardent admirers would admit he’s hardly set the place on fire in his second spell at the club. If he was so good his stats would speak for themselves.
You’d be surprised at the excuses that were made for him on the Twitterwaves.
“What could he do with no one to pass the ball to?” was one.
And yet, Fischer, who rarely started, got at least three assists from corners.
Well rumours are just that and OFB thinks it just may happen.
Heard last night from what I think would be a reasonable source…..that TP has already agreed one more season a MFC.
Mr Gibson is a little concerned an early announcement may hit ST sales. True or not, time will tell of course. However today I received my third email, second reminder, not long to renew.
I think we will lose 5K in ST sales.
So if you follow the logic, SG knows that TP for another season will possibly see ST sales drop……..
If that is true then it is unbelievable and as they said in Dads Army “ we’re all doomed”!
Mark Burke
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/middlesbrough-scout-mark-burke-recalls-16012246
That’s a clever idea of the Gazette, interviewing old players, you just wonder how they come up with these ideas.
But less often the current players. I think in the old days the players were more accessible.
Up the Boro!
I suppose the Gazette reporters must justify their salaries, and I must say that I do enjoyed Philip Tallentire’s interviews, no reflection on OFB’s efforts.
The Mark Burke interview with its plethora of former Aston Villa players. Afterwards one could almost build a team of former Villa players including Gareth Southgate and Ugo Ehiogu to represent Boro from former Villa players. Perhaps we’ve always admired them as a club, for as I stated recently if Boro did have a bogey team, it would be Villa. When I worked for Eston UDC we formed a team called Eston NALGO which played in the Cleveland League. We weren’t very good, but today we’d probably be called Eston Unison, the trade union which eventually incorporated NALGO. The team actually played in the same strip of claret shirts and sky blue sleeves as Aston Villa, and jokingly I suggested we should call our team Eston Villa and seek some form of sponsorship from the Brummies.
I also enjoyed Anthony Vickers nostalgic memories of Ayresome Park. It was reputed to have the best playing surface in England outside of Wembley. One thing I disagree with AV though is the fact there have been more golden moments at the Riverside Stadium than at Ayresome Park, but of course my memories go back much further. To have a Boro club having the only two players from one club to represent Great Britain in the Victory International at Hampden Park in a 6-1 thrashing of The Rest of Europe was an honour, and we could watch Wilf Mannion and George Hardwick practically every home game. But it wasn’t only that, every team that visited Ayresome Park seemed to have British internationals who one only saw on cinema newsreels.
Arsenal had Laurie Scott, Wally Barnes and Joe Mercer; Manchester United had Jack Rowley, Stan Pearson, Johnny Carey, Henry Cockburn, Allenby Chilton and Charlie Mitten; Wolves had Billy Wright, Johnny Hancock, Jesse Pyle and Bert Williams; Derby County had Peter Doherty, Raith Carter,Billy Steel and Jackie Stamps; Everton had Ted Sagar and Tommy Eglington; Aston Villa had Trevor Ford and Con Martin; Sunderland had Willie Watson, Len Shackleton and Billy Bingham; Newcastle had Jackie Milburn, Jimmy Scoular and Bert Mitchell; Blackpool had Stanley Matthews, Stan Mortenson, George Shimwell and George Farm; Bolton had Nat Lofthouse and Bobby Langton; Blackburn had Bryan Douglas and Eddie Clayton; Charlton had Sam Bartram; West Brom had Ronnie Allen; Portsmouth had Jimmy Dickinson; Tottenham had Eddie Bailey, Ted Ditchburn and Danny Blanchflower; Sheffield United had Jimmy Hagen; and Leeds had John Charles. Most if not all international players, all recalled from memory so I’m sure to have missed some out.
When packed Ayresome Park was a sight to behold. Spectators perilously perched on the Holgate End roof and in later years part way up the floodlight pylons. Late schoolboys or those that had scrambled over the wall of the Boy’s end being passed shoulder high down to the front of the old Bob End. As AV mentioned the atmosphere of evening floodlight matches. The downside of course were the toilets, but often spectators couldn’t get to them when caught short and relieved themselves in the crowd, although it only happened once to me when someone urinated over my trousers.
Of course things had to change, so Boro moved to a brand new stadium. Nevertheless, my favourite memories were at the ‘grand old lady’ including later the Jack Charlton years. Ah, memories! As the old song goes ‘you can’t take that away from me’.
What a pity Boro’s U 18 side lost to Manchester City in the final of the U 18 competition only to beat the same opponents 4-2 nine days later. If only the fixtures had been reversed! Another ‘if only’ to contemplate.
On the managerial front there appear to be conflicting reports about Tony Pulis’s position if as expected Boro fail to gain promotion this season. One report suggests that he will be given a year’s extension, another that Jonathan Woodgate might take over the reins. Boro are so cash-strapped now that the latter might well be the option. I’m wondering if that wouldn’t be a bad appointment. As a player he could certainly ‘read’ a game, but could he bring that to the managerial table?
Good players do not necessarily make good managers indeed the opposite is more often true. Whenever I have heard Woody interviewed lets just say I haven’t been exactly overly impressed or indeed thought he had the desired traits and characteristics to make a shrewd and sharp minded managerial option.
If it was say George Friend in a few years time I could fathom the logic and ratilonale behind it. Southgate was a great Captain and articulate when interviewed, that he has eventually been a success is hardly surprising despite the appalling “apprenticeship” given at MFC. Repeating that same mistake with someone who has never impressed as a Captain out on the pitch or from the bench thus far is either a master-stroke or the most predictable car crash in the history of MFC and there have been plenty to choose from.
If Woody wants to manage then go and manage at a lower level and prove himself the same way that Martin O’Neill did as an example and Chris Wilder has. Meanwhile MFC have a nine game mini season to navigate and if the 11 points from our last nine games is anything to go by then sixty nine points will likely see us outside of the top six. That may be enough for TP to leave either nudged or by his own accord and for the position to become vacant. The next appointment could see Boro languishing for decades if it goes wrong, even if it goes reasonably well there is still no guarantee that it will deliver the promised land.
Must say I’ve enjoyed this weekend without suffering the pain of watching Pulis football. So much so that the envelope for my SC renewal is still unopened in the drawer with probably even less desire to fork out upwards of £400 to be bored and frustrated watching something I love die a slow and painful death.
Redcar Red,
I know I follow Lincoln City as well as Boro but I’d be looking at Danny Cowley the Lincoln manager. He’s a man who has done an apprenticeship in the lower leagues and he knows his football, he certainly has a winning ethos, check his CV on Wikipedia.
Just like looking for players in the lower leagues it’s where we should go looking for a manager too. Not in the Boro changing room, those ex-players should be encouraged to make their own way and then stake a claim for the Boro manager’s job when they’ve been out to the school of hard knocks.
UTB,
John
I know what you mean about forking out. I am one of those supporters who due to distance and the time involved can’t justify a season card, even allowing for the cost. So I pick and choose when I come up to watch.
The fare that we have been subject to this season has made me think long and hard before deciding to travel up to be frustrated. That said I have seen us win a couple of times and the draw against Leeds so I have done better than most I guess!
My attendance has been less this season and in theory I have more time to travel up but find it hard to justify to myself let alone Mrs Boro Beckys Dad!
Will I be inclined to do the same next season with TP in charge in the championship? Probably not to be be fair and I may have to start watching a local non league side.
Went on holiday after terrible Brentford match and came home today to find we had two even worse results v Preston & villa, no wonder I couldn’t get anybody to use my season tickets for Preston match. Also got home to find we are on our uppers financially and renewals suck. As Redcar red has said there is no motivation to renew mine an I have had two for nearly 30 years. Can I go back on holiday?
Welcome back Paul.
Maybe we need Adama Traore back to excite us… then again, Martin Keown recently described him as a Ferrari with a learner driver behind the wheel. Which, judging by his decision making after coming on for Wolves vs. United, seems apt.
Adama Traore is, in a big way, the opposite of an archetypal goalpoacher – instead of finishing and positional sense it’s almost all about pace, strength, bravery and at times unique skill. Hurting the opposition not necessarily by scoring goals but by distracting them to create space for others to do the more predictable work. But, in another way, he’s similar to a poacher – players of his ilk do not fit in the fashionable systems and formations of today.
We loved Jordan Rhodes, yet he barely gets any time at Norwich – and you’ve seen how well they’re doing.
Indeed. Looking at the players we let go. Rhodes has made 9 starts (plus 23 subs) and scored 6 goals. Bamford has made 7 starts (another 7 subs) and scored 6. Gibson and Traroe can’t get games in the Premier. Lewis Baker was sent back to Chelsea from Leeds. Forshaw has made 16 starts and not scored. Harrison has made 23 starts for Leeds and scored 3 times: decent but not great.
Interestingly, Bamford’s stats for the season are broadly similar to Fletcher’s. The difference being Fletcher seems adept at playing the second striker role while Bamford is pretty much main striker or nothing. (I realise Bamford has spent most of the season injured but it’s not clear he would have got a game while Roofe was scoring for fun.)
Of the players who we have let go in recent years it’s only really Stuani and Reach who have shone.
Just watched the Northern Ireland match and Paddy McNair was outstanding, not just my opinion but the pundits and the manager too. Saville played well too in both games.
Come on BORO.
Exmil,…..he played well in a poor side last season. Unfortuanately we have no idea of his capabilities for the Boro as he has not been given a run in his preferred position, whilst the majority of new incomers have, at one time or the other.
Not sure what it is that Mr Pulis does not like about him, especially given some of the dismal displays from other regular starters.
Simon
Adama reminds me of a comment by Shane Warne about Monty Pannesar.
Warne was talking about how Monty just hadn’t progressed and said something along the lines of ‘he hasn’t played 47 tests, he’s played one test 47 times’
West Ham reportedly wants to sell Hugill to Boro. No thank you.
I wouldn’t have him on a free transfer! 😎
KP, unfortuanately for a Boro boy, a disappointment, and we already have one of those we can not afford either.
I’ve defended Hugill’s usefulness, but he’s not the step forward we need.
And it’s not necessarily a matter of affording it. Mogga’s eye for a player, where art thou?
Mowbray bought his fair share of spuds.
True but Mogga paid Spud money for his Spuds many of whom we still like and were a darn site tastier than the vegetables that we are lumbered with now at Rolls Royce prices.
Admittedly, but they still had fairly lucrative contracts. This is the problem when a player doesn’t live up to expectations. You have to get shot of them at a loss or face paying them every week when you can’t utilise them. Not forgetting of course that when you are on a tight budget they are taking up a squad place.
The lucrative contracts during Mogga’s time were the ones he inherited from Strachan a few of whom he got rid of at Celtic because he didn’t rate them rightly or wrongly. I can’t think of any lucrative contracts given out by Boro at that time, we were skint after Strachan’s excessive indulgence. Mogga signed Friend for £100K, Leadbitter on a free and then there was the likes of Leutwiler and Burgess used to pad the squad out. Carayol was looking a decent acquisition at this level.
Ameobi, Hammill and Nimely were brought in because we were broke along with a host of other disinterested loanees. McEachran should have been a star at this level and was destined to greater things at the time but as other Managers have all since found out he was and still is distinctly average at Championship level. Ledesma seemed to have something as did Zemama but clearly ultimately weren’t good enough but he was working with the confines of the Championship equivalent of Universal Credit. Comparing budget brand Beans on stale Toast with Tesco’s Finest is hardly fair and certainly those budget beans didn’t cost the earth.
Footballers salaries range from lucrative to exorbitant.
Difficult to truly judge Hugill when we’ve barely seen him play except as an isolated no-mates in a side that has generally focused on keeping it tight.
Had we played 3-5-2 all season, had a couple of pacy wingbacks who could cross, a mobile partner for Hugill and Wing playing behind, the picture may look very different.
If he’s available for free and willing to come for low wages akin to what he was presumably on at Preston, then I wouldn’t be dead against it. The key will be the team around him and the financial package.
According to the Echo Andy, West Ham want their money back, which they will not get of course. Championship club, possibly 4/5 mil tops.
I wouldn’t pay anything like even the £4-5m with the way our finances are shaping up.
However, I don’t think we’ve seen the best from our strikers for a very long time given the general tactical setup for the past 4/5 years. Bamford is probably the only one who has really made it work.
Regardless of which position and in which formation Hugill plays, there are a few criteria on which he may be judged.
Winning the ball in the air, bringing the ball under control, passing it to a teammate and scoring when he has the opportunity. Sadly when judged on those things he has been found wanting.
This is where the loan system is best utilised. We’ve seen what he can do and it’s no better than what we already have. Therefore it follows that once his loan period is up he is sent back to West Ham.
And the manager?
UTB,
John
As an example of our standing in the game it’s right on the money. A not very good team in the prem really thinks that we will swallow a dumb offer such as this, ten million as a cut price! Dream on, if we even buy him, never mind the price, I shall regard our management as beyond the pale.
Just a suggestion, but can we play Wing in a free role on Saturday. I noticed that he played that role when he shot the lights out (37 goals and lots of assists) it might be the solution to our problems, because we have no more leeway, it’s get it right or it’s curtains(and that would include Pulis).
There’s a big difference between the Northern League and the Championship.
GHW
I would rather watch Wing playing his own type of football than enduring the stuff being served up at present. Anyone with an ounce of talent is an immediate target for a bit of improvement by our forward looking ‘Manager’ I use the term loosely, as todays volley of abuse from Braithwait shows. As we the fans were thinking ‘ surely we cannot be right in thinking this man is worthless and would, should we still be saddled with him next season, cause us to fall into such a pit of despond that we may never climb out’
Er! We, unfortunately, were only too correct in our assessment of said gentleman, who is at present the holder of one of the great unwanted titles, (and that would be,
‘man most unlikely to achieve promotion to the Prem’ yes, with at least six clubs trying to make the playoffs and us already in the playoffs, and having some good young players, he will undoubtedly snatch disaster from the jaws of success. It is the one thing he has an ology in.
We knew what we were getting. Or should’ve.
Pu’s Baggies managed just one win in their last 11 in 2016-17. The last four home games were a binary feast of attrition, 0-1, 0-1, 0-1, 0-1, although to be fair one was against Kloppspool and another against Conte’s champions.
Straight into next season, the binary fun at the Hawthorns continues, albeit with a win. 1-0, 1-1, 0-0. His luck seemed to be changing at home to Watford when the team quickly went 2-0 up, but a late, late concession denied him a win. After that it was all binary on the road while City (3-2) and Chelsea (4-0) helped themselves to victories in the Midlands.
3 league wins in 23. That was him out the door.
Whilst we all agree it is increasingly frustrating to watch MFC it has nothing on The BBC Parliament channel.
I spent an hour watching it today and the whole Brexit process has just become a political football. MP’s seem to be in a Westminster bubble where Parties, and factions within Parties are just trying to engineer it to suit their own personal agendas.
And we have done so well in avoiding it! I come on here to avoid all the schinagins in Parliament!
Greatest British Comedies of all time:
10 Allo Allo
9 Absolutely Fabulous
8 Blackadder
7 Father Ted
6 Fawlty Towers
5 Last of the Summer Wine
4 Dads Army
3 Are you being served
2 Only fools and horses
and the winner is!
1 Brexit (pure comedy gold, you literally couldn’t write the stuff)
I find it helps to keep it in perspective otherwise you could lock yourself in a darkened room banging your head against a padded wall (a bit like having a Riverside season card at the minute). Mind you its about to get even funnier if Michael Gove usurps Mrs May, plus could end up with JC as PM by default with Diane sat beside him whispering “well that’s another fine mess……”!
Have a listen to this referee…….
https://www.planetfootball.com/videos/watch-championship-bound-ref-wears-mic-for-final-a-league-game/
Very good advert for referees.
I and I know most of my fellow referees always talked to players through a game and were always wiling to explain why decisions were made. The ref is part of the game and unfortunately a lot of respect has been lost over the past few years towards officialdom in general and it is reflected in the modern game.
Of course there are Refs who think that they are the most important person on the pitch and tend to dominate and are too intrusive. The best refs are the ones that don’t stand out and you don’t remember!
OFB
Thanks ghw it was really interesting and entertaining, I would love to see him referee in the championship and show a lot of our so called professional refs how to do the job.
Come on BORO.
Good piece on Mark Viduka……
https://www.planetfootball.com/nostalgia/story-mark-viduka-lazy-enigma-australia-grew-love/
Quote part of an interview to the Gazette from McClaren ‘ I had problems with the fans all the way through the five years’ . Sorry Steve but other way round ‘ the fans had problems with you ‘ What a muppet.
I see where England are going so wrong now. Their problem is clearly that Southgate is picking far too many young, even teenage, players when it is men that are needed on the field of play.
How can the manager make such an obvious mistake and then win? Twice. Shows you what he knows. A risk taker and there’ll be tears before bedtime. What he really needs is a mobile midfield modelled on Stonehenge and Easter Island.
UTB,
John
Is it really 29 years ago that Boro made their first trip to Wembley in the Zenith Data Systems Cup Final? The photos of a young Tony Mowbray leading out the team in a suit as he was injured, and the sacking of Bruce Rioch just days before conjure up great memories. Also the photos of the players prior to the match make me feel so old as they all seemed so fresh faced and young, even Colin Todd. The only person from my generation on the photo was Jimmy Gordon, a stalwart of the Boro side in the 1940s and 1950s, but I doubt many of Diasboro contributors have even heard of the Scot, never mind seen him play.
I remember the day well, I had two tickets and went with a fellow Boro supporter. The result was predictable. I also remember Jimmy Gordon too, but only just!
UTB,
John
I was there as well as Mrs OFB and sons and friends and work colleagues
We drove down and back in a day and were perched high in the stand on some gallery and the players looked tiny
I remember meeting Wilf Mannion in the concourse before the game and he was surrounded by well wishers
A poor game but a memorable day
OFB
Jimmy of course also became part of the coaching staff at Nottingham Forest under the Clough/Taylor regime.
I was at the game too but very sad that Bruce wasn’t there to lead the team out. He deserved to be.
EXMIL CHALLENGE 2019 (Part 2)
Just a gentle reminder that the final deadline for entries into Part 2 of this years challenge is before 2000 hrs Friday 29 March and unlike Brexit it will not be pushed back. So far 8 of the 21 entries recorded as follows:
grovehillwallah
lenmasterman
KP in Spain
Andy R
Martin Bellamy
Suffolk’n’Boro
originalfatbob
Powmill-Naemore
Good luck to everyone especially the Boro.
Come on BORO.
Captain Pugwash
It may be my incompetence but I cant find the upcoming fixtures.
Maybe it is fate telling me to lie down in a darkened room rather than worry about the play offs.
Ian, just for you as I have said before dementia is a terrible thing, also I have posted on the Exmil Challenge site.
EXMIL CHALLENGE 2019 (Part 2)
The pack has closed up so I have included all 11 teams down to Forest for the next four/five fixtures, the eagle eyed will notice that Birmingham have dropped out of the running.
Listed below are the teams and their fixtures, after the team name and in brackets is that teams current points, when you post your entry please post the team name, followed by W/L/D for the four/five fixtures, the = total points in the league table. As an example if you think Shef Utd will win all four matches your entry should read:
Shef Utd WWWW = 86
This way I can be confident that you haven’t made an error in your predictions.
Norwich (78) Boro (A) QPR (H) Reading (A) Wigan (A)
Shef Utd (74) Bristol (H) PNE (A) Birmingham (A) Millwall (H)
Leeds (73) Millwall (H) Birmingham (A) PNE (A) Shef Wed (H)
WBA (67)Birmingham (H) Millwall (A) Bristol (A) PNE (H)
Boro (58) Norwich (H) Bristol (H) Swansea(A) Bolton (A) Hull (H)
Villa (57) Blackburn (H) Shef Wed (A) Rotherham (A) Bristol (H)
PNE (57) Reading (A) Shef Utd (H) Leeds (H) WBA (A)
Derby (56) Rotherham (H) Brentford (A) Blackburn (A) Bolton (H)
Bristol (55) Shef Utd (A) Boro (A) Wigan (H) WBA (H) Villa (A)
Shef Wed (55) Stoke (A) Villa (H) Forest (H) Leeds (A)
Forest (54) Swansea (H) Rotherham (A) Shef Wed (A) Blackburn (H)
If anyone spots a mistake please let me know, good luck to everyone,especially the Boro.
Come on BORO.
Ah, RR.
No room for Yes (Prime) Minister…?
“The Writing On The Wall” essentially foretold the nature of the Brexit process.
“…Now that we’re inside we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing! Set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased… it’s just like old times… We call it diplomacy, Minister.”
Oops, sorry Si, I should have refreshed before I posted. See below.
RR
I’m surprised you couldn’t find room to squeeze Porridge and/or Yes. Minister/Yes, Prime Minister onto your list.
RE: The ZDS cup. I was there along with various family members, friends, and clearly a few of you lot as well. The game was hugely disappointing, on a par with the state of the national stadium.
After Brexit “Yes Minister” now just doesn’t seem anywhere near as funny.
In terms of humour and the ridiculousness of the situations they actually appear quite tame, almost sensible and intelligent compared to the daily performances in the House of Commons.
The Olympic Gallery at the old Wembley. Over £100 for a ticket and don’t ask about the price of refreshments.
After years of watching cup finals on TV actually being there and seeing and experiencing it in real life was a huge disappointment. I have to say however the new Wembley is fabulous.
Yes you’ve got it !
That’s where we were !
OFB
Something I didn’t realise properly until I started going to games was this…
Many stadiums look a heck of a lot better on TV than they do in real life. All the corporate facilities hide uncomfortable truths, and some stands are literally falling apart in places.
Anyway. Something on the old Wembley.
https://youtu.be/WyE55sCTNx8
The (now demolished) Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit, the first in which World Cup games were played indoors, was as telegenic and photogenic as they come. Pretty much all USA ‘94’s grounds were.
Players have since commented how uncomfortable Detroit was to play in, and spectators were burned on the seats in Orlando. You would be – I was there that summer and could barely move.
OK, the international break has given Tony Pulis time to come up with a Plan B or possibly emulate Theresa May and insist the only sensible way is Plan A. Whether he has been inspired by Gareth Southgate’s free-scoring exploits is hard to say but Boro now have three crucial games in just over week to save the promotion patient that is clinging on to life but looking far from stable. So here is my take on matters with the latest discussion blog artticle…
https://diasboro.club/2019/03/27/2018-19-weeks-35-36-supporters-wait-patiently/