Championship 2018-19: Weeks 35-36
Sat 30 Mar – 17:30: Boro v Norwich
Tue 2 Apr – 19:45: Boro v Bristol City
Sat 6 Apr – 15:00: Swansea v Boro
While following a football team like Boro has never been a decision widely believed to be conducive to personal well-being, those who have regularly turned up at the Riverside this season are possibly beginning to wonder if they are even feeling the full benefit of all that fresh air – indeed some recent performances have reportedly left many feeling decidedly unwell. Unfortunately, there also appears to be no known cure for the current malaise that has left the players on the pitch appearing listless and disorientated or those in rude health on the terraces becoming increasingly ruder. The situation has become so serious that the club have been forced to take action to deal with the trauma and have now taken the precautionary step of renaming the ground after the local hospital.
Having said that, those admitted to the James Cook this Saturday are unlikely to be treated – in truth they rarely are. Although, it’s possible some may need to be heavily sedated beyond their normal complimentary pint if they show any further signs of delirium. At least the recent outbreak of promotion fever seems to have now been contained to just a few isolated cases but that nasty rash judgement on making the play-offs may require another course of medication to completely clear it up. No doubt the chairman in charge of the local trust will regard failure to go up as more than a bitter pill to swallow – especially after administrating a massive injection of funds into the ailing patient after the previous relapse.
As the supporters await their team to assume the recovery position, it’s the inability to offer a correct diagnosis from the range of symptoms which have continued to afflict the team that is concerning. It’s clear that the problem of scoring goals is not exactly helping the hyper-tension in the stands and many long-suffering supporters are probably in need of a replacement for their rather worn out club-shop stress ball. It’s possible that keeping calm if Tony Pulis is told to carry on will not lead to a rebalancing of the systolic and diastolic scales on Teesside – even if it’s still in his current role as chief anaesthetist. With news over the latest health check on the club’s finances recommending they will need to take it easy next season, then a change of diet from the stodgy offerings currently being served up look likely to be what the doctor ordered.
Following the Riverside’s temporary renaming, Boro followers who now view the world predominantly through the distorted lens of social media may be relieved to discover Captain Cook is indeed on Twitter – though rather confusingly it is the primary school and not the erstwhile explorer. It’s left some of the puzzled Teesside Twitterati pondering over their belief that they thought it was actually Captain Birdseye who had a crew of under elevens. Still, it may be worth noting that battered cod pieces have now become the main evidence for the display of government displeasure at Geoffrey Cox since he gave his unhelpful Backstop clarification as Attorney General. Nevertheless, a quick pre-match Google on a smart phone while standing at the bar of The Navigation would reveal Cook was once in fact a sailor of quite some note. Although, some may still be unclear of how that immediately qualifies him to be now be branded with Middlesbrough Football Club – even if they are at seemingly in danger of missing the promotion boat.
Anyway, as the chances of making the play-offs risk disappearing, others have expressed the thought (sometimes out loud) that another local man of the seas, John Darwin, would have been a more appropriate choice. For those not familiar with this particular nautical hero, the origin of his specious disappearance evolved when his broken canoe was found in the North Sea off the Seaton Carew coast in 2002. After being declared missing presumed dead, his grieving widow, Anne, cashed in his life insurance policy and tried to comfort their sons. However, her ‘deceased’ husband was actually now living next door under the assumed name John Williams, where he was presumably busy practising his guitar.
They almost got away with their little ruse but four years later a photo emerged on the internet showing the supposedly dead man viewing a property in Panama, which was then subsequently published in the Daily Mirror. After problems over needing to comply with the country’s investor laws by having their identities verified by UK police, John came up with the cunning plan of returning to England under his real name and faking amnesia instead. Sadly for them, the Police were already on their case and the couple were subsequently arrested before making another disappearing act as they were sentenced to over six years in prison for defrauding over £500,000 in insurance and pension claims – though they ended up serving less than three years.
OK, there’s possibly far too much planning and creativity witnessed in that cautionary tale for the Riverside to be legitimately rebranded as the John Darwin Stadium, even if the public ever sought to demand it. Whether references of going missing, selective amnesia or unfortunate metaphors of finding canoes without a paddle is something Boro would want to be associated with it is another matter. So clearly on reflection, the Marton mariner, Captain James Cook, was probably the wiser choice of the two candidates to opt for. Nevertheless, with Tony Pulis remaining steady at the helm, if somewhat all at sea, he will still be hoping to get the good ship Boro back on course and hopefully emulate Cook by making some kind of discovery in the coming weeks. However, it will need to be quite an extraordinary one if he is expecting to be given any kind of monument after he’s gone – though it’s possible he may still be credited with presiding over something monumental if Boro’s season ends up on the rocks.
So as Boro attempt to get back on an even keel, they will also need to overcome the problem of having to deal with a nine-point deduction handed out to them before the international break after a failure to comply with Championship profligacy and suspect-ability rules. The club have been found guilty of failing to take their chances during their last three games and have been duly penalised. The charge of severely overspending in the transfer market on overvalued players was in clear breach of stringent regulations designed to protect clubs from themselves and they now face the prospect of a self-imposed transfer embargo when it comes to tying to sell these players in the summer.
Although, Boro are not alone in finding they are now short of what they expected to see after glancing at the table. Birmingham were deducted nine points by the Football League after posting a rule-breaking loss of almost £50m between 2015-18. The Blues were taken over in October 2016 by the British Virgin Islands based investment vehicle Trillion Trophy Asia, which is effectively run by Hong Kong businessmen, Paul Suen Cho Hung. Their impatience to get into the Premier League led them to replace Gary Rowett with Gianfranco Zola shortly after taking charge but he only lasted four months after chalking up just two victories. Needing two wins out from the last three games to avoid relegation to League One, they instead turned to Harry Redknapp, who apparently worked for free and kept them up. Redknapp was rewarded with the job on a full-time basis but left after just eight games and was replaced by his assistant Steve Cotterill, who was subsequently dismissed after five months as the club found themselves in yet another relegation battle.
During this period the owners had pumped in millions on transfers and wages to acquire players in helping them achieve their ultimate goal of getting to the top tier. It’s somewhat ironic that the manager now paying the price for the club’s previous spending spree is none other than former Boro manager Garry Monk – who is currently being blamed on Teesside for overspending on players and leaving the club’s coffers somewhat empty. The irony continued this week when Boro were named as leading figures among Championship members in pressing the EFL to impose heavy sanctions on those clubs who are found guilty of overspending. Boro reportedly claimed it “has led to an uneven playing field that hampers clubs who stick to the rules and encourages reckless risk-taking” – although, it could be argued that having the advantage of parachute payments has made them the beneficiaries of the playing field being far from level. It’s quite likely that Boro have spent far more on trying to gain promotion than Birmingham have, but even though that was done legally, it has perhaps equally contributed to the inflationary pressure on clubs in the Championship trying to buy players.
The international break also saw further rumours about the managerial position on Teesside with some tabloids indicating Jonathan Woodgate could be installed by Steve Gibson in the summer. Boro followers, who had previously been threatened with a new contract for Tony Pulis, are now conditioned to respond in the now traditionally expected manner of no deal was better than a bad deal. Others have already resigned themselves to the only prospect of fun next season would be running through a field of wheat, possibly hand-in-hand with Theresa May, in the hope that the grim reaper in the form of an on-coming combined harvester will put them both out of their misery – though the debate will no doubt rage on as to whether it was the hope or the threshing machinery that ultimately killed them.
Nevertheless, as despondent supporters look to bale out, it seems the reason that Woodgate has been identified was because of his impeccable credentials for the Riverside hot seat – in that he’s both cheap and from Middlesbrough. What other attributes would an ambitious chairman be looking for in a prospective manager? It’s hard to imagine what could possibly go wrong if Teesside indulges itself in playing football in its own particular league of gentlemen – local jobs for local people, it’s clearly the sensible way to go in a post-Brexit world. OK, it may well be that Woodgate could potentially be a very good manager – the point is we have know way of knowing given his lack of track record. Steve Gibson will be once again taking a gamble but history has shown us that his tenure at Boro is a mix of mainly appointing novices or old school managers like Pulis or Strachan – with the latter category seemingly just as much a risk.
Some could even start to feel a little regret at the prospect of Tony Pulis possibly being set to move on to bigger and better things – though he’d probably settle for anything that is in some form just generally bigger. Whether he’ll get the usually post-Riverside option of taking over the England job is hard to say – as surely the Ingerlund mob are getting bored of watching that post-waistcoat trendy hipster Southgate, churn out more of that unpredictable scintillating Guardiola-style one-touch dynamic interplay rubbish. They must be longing for someone like Pulis to take over the reigns so that they can unite behind a more traditionally acceptable English one-dimensional approach where a goal has more meaning if it eventually arrives. He’ll also hopefully send those young players back to their Premier League benches so that they can man-up, bulk-out and learn the art of first wearing out defenders with their dead-weight John Smith’s ‘Ave it’ no-nonsense physicality.
At least Boro have had time to regroup over the international break and prepare themselves for the visit of table-toppers Norwich City in the televised early-evening kick-off at the Riverside. In truth, it’s hard to imagine how Tony Pulis will react to the recent run of three-successive defeats, which has left the club clinging on to a play-off place just one point ahead of Preston in seventh. Indeed, if results go against Boro they could start the game against the Canaries as low as ninth place and out of the top six for the first time this season as we arrive at the business end. It’s now inertia rather than momentum that is shaping our promotion bid and that is perhaps best illustrated with the underwhelming fact that Tony Pulis’s team have picked up just 32 points from their previous 23 games. It’s been barely mid-table form during the last half-season and if you were to include the previous game (a goalless draw against Rotherham) it would give the simple symmetry of scored 24 and conceded 24 in the last 24 games – with no bonus points on offer for anyone who can work out the averages.
So therein lies the problem, any team that is unable to score more than they concede won’t be finishing in the top six. With just nine games to go, Boro will probably need to win six of them to have a realistic chance of making the play-offs. So Tony Pulis must decide on a plan to out-perform his promotion rivals and ensure it can be successfully executed on the pitch – with many suspecting he will likely decide on a team that can shut out the opposition rather than out-score them. However, it perhaps goes against the logic of knowing that most of the top six have conceded far more goals than Boro but we have instead scored 25-30 goals fewer. Pulis seems stuck in a circular argument of thinking the battle will be won by first stopping the opposition and then trying to beat them. That was the basis of his team selection at Aston Villa, where the supposedly £10m-rated Hugill was deployed as a lone striker tasked predominantly with physically wearing down their defenders so that he could bring on a goal scorer late in the game.
The issue for Pulis is that his side lack pace but what pace he does have is seldom selected – Tavernier is lucky if he gets three minutes, Downing’s contract impasse means he can’t start and Rajiv van La Parra has been conspicuous by his absence. Incidentally, the Huddersfield loanee made possibly one of the most telling contribution of any Boro player after he was omitted from the Brentford squad when he wrote on Instagram: “Don’t try to understand everything. Sometimes it’s not meant to be understood.” That could easily be the story of the whole season under Tony Pulis.
It’s possible the Boro manager will have conceived a Plan B during the break but with home games against Norwich and then the rescheduled game Bristol City on Tuesday, he will calculate that two more defeats will all but end Boro’s interest in making the play-offs. In contrast, Daniel Farke’s team have won their last six and now look destined for promotion as they sit a massive 20 points ahead of Boro. However, after winning seven games in a row, the Robins have started to flap a little as they have slipped down to ninth and are without a victory in their last five – though three of those games were against Norwich, Leeds and Preston. OK, Lee Johnson’s team are still only three points behind Boro with a game in hand and will arrive in the hope of relaunching their promotion challenge at the Riverside.
So as Tony Pulis would say, it’s going to be three games in a week or a busy eight days for the rest of us – with the third match being that long trip to Swansea the following Saturday. Graham Potter’s side have lost their last five on the road but are unbeaten at home since Boxing Day. However, Boro supporters will be hoping another visit to South Wales is in no way reminiscent of the last one and that unacceptable no-show at Newport in the Cup. If so, could it be a swansong for Tony’s tenure? It wouldn’t be a totally unexpected outcome if his team continue to add to the recent run of three defeats. Although, given MFC’s expertise in public relations, a few wouldn’t put it past the club to choose such a moment to announce his much rumoured contract extension – if so it would possibly be the biggest hospital pass of all time to those in charge of season card renewals!
Thanks Werder. A terrific opener as usual. I particularly enjoyed the medical section.
It would be great to think that Pulis will go for broke in light of recent results but I think the first fixture being the league leaders will put an end to any thoughts of that ilk, even if he had countenanced them. I think it’s more likely that we’ll see Clayton alongside Mikel than we’ll see Tavernier but you never know.
Sadly, even though our destiny remains in our own hands, it feels like the real action will be in the summer as this season fizzles out.
Thanks Andy, plus I’d agree that I’m expecting Pulis to have a game-plan that involves stopping Norwich – though I’d be surprised to see Clayton. Although, if we he starts with Hugill as a lone striker like he did at Villa, then I wouldn’t expect anything but a similar outcome.
Werder,
As always an excellent and entertaining leader, The paragraph about the combine made me laugh out loud. I don’t understand any of the stadium re-naming business, quite weird really.
Tactics for Saturday ?
Boro must win the toss, because that is all they’ll win all game, then when the whistle blows having decided to kick-off they can cup a hand to the collective ears and wander around like Monty Python’s ‘Philosophers Eleven’ musing about was that a whistle I heard. That’ll confuse Narrch because they’ll think they’re at the wrong stadium.
As for Plan B, have we got a Plan A? I think that RVP’s Instagram sums the whole situation up really. Very philosophical.
Time to take my midfield for a walk.
UTB,
John
Thanks John, maybe Boro should rename their stadium every week to that of the opposition home ground and then play in their away kit – we would probably have run that one past RVP though…
Werder,
Brilliant, now that’s real tactical nous.
We can pen the few remaining Boro supporters in the away supporters end and say how poorly supported the ‘home team’ are.
Fantastic idea!
UTB,
John
Werder
Thank you for the post
Boro 3 Norwich 0
Now that’s surprising isn’t it ! Even I can’t balieve that’s what I’ve gome for …
I must find a dark room to lie down in!
OFB
OFB,
I am now severely disorientated. 3 – 0. Must check the goose entrails, the tea leaves and the heavens for a sign. It’s not April 1st is it?
UTB,
John
John
I think I’ve been putting a hex on the team with all these negative waves so its positivity from now on until Wembley and then promotion!
OFB
I cannot understand why we are all in a tizzy about what will happen in these next few matches, and, indeed in the rest of the programme.
We will lose to the league leaders(why should we beat them?)
We will under no circumstances make the playoffs, because he has got this team playing to it’s form, that is the form he has created by stupid and ignorant team selection, stupid and ignorant tactics, misuse of talent (Wing Tav Fry ) utter refusal to attack, misuse of funds on players with the wrong profile (that would be age, cost, ability, saleability,) it used to be called a full house.
It is not a shock, we spotted him pretty early, (it wasn’t difficult) the idea that he will get another season to complete his wrecking ball impersonation is frankly not doable, the club will take some time to recover from this episode.
As ever, the time to swing the axe is now, today, don’t think about it, just do it.
OFB,
Darkened room where are you? I think we’re all slowly going mad with tis man in charge, not surprisingly I don’t think it’s you that have put the hex on the team.
UTB,
John
Thanks OFB and be careful with all that positive thinking voodoo – you don’t know what you’re dealing with…
Loved the graphics !
You never know – perhaps its me on the operating table and I’ve been lobotomised to see Pulis and the Boro in a positive light!
OFB
Thanks and it would be somewhat scary to see Dr Pulis leaning over you as they prepare to put you under – I suspect he would probably favour a blunt instrument rather than more traditional anaesthetic.
You can be sure any leaks would be plugged but don’t expect too much incision.
A great article from Werdermouth with medical and agricultural references. The latter reminded me of the late Tony Hancock’s radio skit at ‘The Archers’ called ‘The Bowmans’ in which the main character (can’t remember his name) was the personification of Walter Gabriel, who thought he wasn’t getting enough lines in the radio serial so took over the scriptwriting himself and eliminated all of the other characters by having them killed caught in a threshing machine – a megalomaniac tale of country folk. Now I’m not saying that Theresa May is a megalomaniac, but she does remind me of Margaret Thatcher, hence the agricultural similaritity of thatcher to Bowmans/Archers.
Anyway, back to football and the Boro. The only way I can see that Boro have any chance of promotion now is the momentum of an unbeaten run to the last league of the season. There have been numerous occasions in the past where Boro have gone 9 games unbeaten, usually 6 wins and 3 draws, but it might be a bit far fetched to expect that to happen this season. There is even the possibility of Boro completely imploding with perhaps only a win at Bolton to bring some relief. Indeed at the moment the final match at Rotherham looks like a home banker with the Millers needing to win to avoid relegation. However I tend to think that in reality Boro will just scrape into the playoffs and then be humiliatied by either Leeds or Sheffield United as I can only see Tony Pulis reverting to type as he did against Villa last season.
To be honest I just wish the season was now over so that I can enjoy some Cricket, Golf and Rugby League. The whole season seems to have been a waste of time unfulfilling of much excitement.
Thanks Ken, Hannock was a little before my time but I’ve seen a couple of re-runs and I can see him running with that one. As for Boro, I suspect come 10pm on Tuesday evening it may be looking like we need snookers.
Ken
Joshua Merriweather was his name in the Bowmans
OFB
Thanks again Werder for another great article. I love them.
As for the thought of Woodgate as manager, that is scary and I hope it will never happen.
Cheers Braveheart – I can’t really say much about Woodgate as manager as he could be a genius or just another experiment that ends badly. Doesn’t seem like a time to take a big risk if the money is going to run out in about 12 months.
Woody may be a lot of things but “Genius” wasn’t in the first 5,000 words I had thought of. OK admittedly probably the first 25 or so but if I had the time and the desire I doubt it would have come up in a month of Sundays.
All I will say is that genius can sometimes manifest itself in many guises – much in the same way as madness…
An absolute stormer, Werder. You have obviously come back completely refreshed and with batteries fully recharged after the international break.
What is great about your writing is that it is more than just very funny, with some terrific word-play (worthy of Punch in its heyday), but that the judgments behind it are so sound and perceptive, and that it’s perfectly suited to its specific audience.
Top marks all round, and many congratulations. A real pleasure to read.
Many thanks Len, always appreciated – though I’m probably going to need more than batteries looking at my to do list 🙂
Another belter of an article thank you Werder. Len has summarised your consummate abilities far better than I can.
As for Saturday, I have us down for an optimistic draw in the Exmil Challenge, but more in hope than expectation as I expect TP will revert to default and play for 0-0 and hope we can nick it.
If we are out of the top six by kick off then I would not be surprised if we imploded and produced another Villa display!
As for the summer, TP or JW just does not bear thinking about, it’s about as appealing as some of the Brexit options! 😎☹️
Thanks KP, maybe the supporters should take back control and hold a series of non-binding indicative votes on who the next manager should be – perhaps Charlton Plus or Southgate 2.0 are in with a chance or it could just end up with many wanting to revoke their season card…
I thought I had clicked on a link and come to a column in a broadsheet publication.
Bravo Werder!
Thanks GHW, I just hope that I can keep finding another angle!
I’m sure your quick reflexes will stop any negative or obtuse thoughts and continue your acute views on all things MFC.
That’s very complementary…
Another great article Weder, a great pick me up and shot in the arm for the patients currently residing in the Recovery ward aka the Riverside!
I fear that we may soon be moved into intensive care as Boro fail to mend the malaise that has taken over of late. A large prescription of hope combined with a dose of medicinal alcohol may be called for by Tuesday night.
My medication can’t be working as I am travelling up on Tuesday for the match and may need to be put on anti depressants afterwards. Either that or the painkillers to numb the frustration.
I don’t hold out much hope for Saturday to be honest, I fear TP will setbout for a draw, we will then implode and another Villa occur. I will know better when the team is announced.
Tuesday will see a victory to give us some false hope but the truth is that major surgery is required in summer whatever division we are in!
UTB
Thanks BBD and NICE punning – hopefully you’ll be discharged from the James Cook on Saturday evening without the need to have you head examined 😉
A great read thanks.
Think we will all he heading for the hospital next to James Cook if we have to watch another serving of TP dross.
I’m in town Saturday being the dutiful son but am choosing not to go – vote with your feet.
Give Woody a chance until summer perhaps?
In Gibbo we trust!
Thanks Clem and while it wouldn’t be a bad idea to see if Woody was up to the task first, it’s likely nothing will change on the managerial front unless promotion is mathematically ruled out.
Werder
Really, we should avoid experiments like the plague, if there is one team that should never conduct experiments it is the Boro.
As noted on here before, when in charge of a football team which plays in a pretty strong and semi important league (which is part of a very important league structure) then it is wise to spend a lot of your time thinking about where you are going? how are you going to get there? Are you on the right track?
All this thinking should be done away from the Manager, who has enough on his plate actually winning the matches to keep him in job, and of course will need to be fired as and when.
It is fatal to hire a Manager to do the lot. What if he is rubbish (at actually winning matches). Why would you let him carry on, when each week he buries you under a fresh load of worry and failure, with no sign of relief for you, the team, or the supporters, we will forget about you bank manager.
The very idea of hiring someone who, for whatever reason, rather fancies being the Boss of a Championship team, is , at best flawed, at worst delusional.
So, no beginners please, and no old soldiers either.
Rather fancy a continental myself.
EXMIL CHALLENGE 2019
A reminder that entries for Part 2 close on Friday 29 March at 2000 hrs, I have now recorded 13 of the 21 participants with the following added to the list:
Redcar Red
exmil2017
Boro Beckys Dad
deleriad
selwynoz
Good luck to everyone especially the Boro.
Come on BORO.
I think with deep pain of the appointment of TP for another season of crazy management of our club, no, I have no intention of repeating and detailing his crime sheet. Sufficient to say he is at least consistent, I.e, he gets every part of running a football team wrong. It is remarkable how he misses no trick which might conceivably lessen our chances of winning a match (I very nearly put that in the plural).
We are still left, like the Bisto Kid, looking longingly at other teams youngsters running amok, whilst ours (superior, of course ) are poached by the greats, or of course sit on the bench.
There is no denying his ability at selling anyone with talent.
A bit of speed, anyone?, thought so, he certainly nailed that one, no bother.
Oh for a chairman who really wanted to have a say in the team and tactics on the pitch. It is practically a given at the top of the leagues across Europe that you blunder at your peril, make a hash of things and it’s coco pops! Over and out.
Which talented players has he personally sold?
BTW Here’s that John Smith’s No Nonsense ‘Ave it’ advert with Peter Kay that I referenced in the article – makes me laugh every time 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29e8loYd37A&rel=0
Werder if you were an Olympic High Jump contender, you would be certain to win GOLD as you just keep raising the bar. Another brilliant piece, especially as others have stated, with the graphics and Health slant.
As for Saturday, I am seriously considering not going and just watching on TV, that way I can just turn it off when we are getting overran and heading for defeat.
Tuesday will be my last “live” match of the season, assuming the surgeon M Pulis cannot resuscitate the patient Mr Boro, and he sadly decends into a more serious relapse.
Possibly they only answer maybe a change of surgeon??
Thanks Pedro – though I see myself more as an inflexible hustling limbo dancer rather than an Olympic high jumper 🙂
Something for Steve Gibson to take a look at if he’s passing through!
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.fourfourtwo.com/features/10-best-managers-europe-youve-probably-not-heard-yet%3f_format=amp
That Florian Kohfeldt may be worth a look – though not sure I’d agree with the point in the article that: “he has suddenly become Werder’s messiah” 🙂
Thanks Werder for the match preview which I again expect to be more enjoyable than the Norwich match. I will be there and am not looking forward to it. I will not be going to the Bristol City game as I did not want to pay over £70 for b & b. (Presumably the City fans realised last month that it would be their easiest away game and booked the hotel rooms.)
I don’t think James Cook Hospital has a cure for Pulisitis as it seems it will only leave when it chooses to.
I expect to only have to survive the last 3 home games in April (no playoff) before I have about 3 months to recover and prepare for next season – the last year of my season ticket. However (sad person that I am) I intend to renew my 3 year ticket (subject to any mental/physical health consideration.) I like having my name on my seat instead of being just a number!
Thanks David and hope you pass the stringent medical to obtain a season ticket – thankfully I understand Pulisitis is not in anyway contagious but it can nevertheless be quite debilitating.
It’s a while since I last continued the history of Middlesbrough FC, but what with hospital appointments, a short holiday, and now the trauma of a urine infection through an ill-fitting catheter tube, I’m now on a month long course of anti-biotics which will hopefully alleviate the problem and just as important re-energise me.
As was mentioned recently it’s 29 years since Boro made their first Wembley appearance and following the surprise departure of Colin Todd Boro were now looking for a new manager. Eventually Chairman Colin Henderson and director Steve Gibson plumped for Lennie Lawrence who had eight eventful years as Manager of Charlton Athletic experiencing both triumph and trauma as they nearly went out of business, lost their ground at The Valley, and after promotion were then relegated from Division One.
On his first day at Boro he interviewed every player individually to ascertain whether they wanted to stay or wanted out. He got a mixed reception as half the playing staff wanted away, so he had a rebuilding job on his hands. As Charlton boss he had wanted to sign Alan Kernaghan, but now as Boro boss he obviously wanted to keep him. No fewer than ten players made their debut for Boro in his first season, two of them recent signings from Watford making their debuts in the first home match of the season against Millwall which Boro won 1-0 with a goal from Bobby Mustoe just before halftime. Two away defeats at Derby and Ipswich didn’t bode well even though Wilkinson scored against the latter.
Then came a welcoming transformation as Boro beat Newcastle, Portsmouth, Oxford, Watford, Leicester and Tranmere in their next 6 matches to go top of the table. Boro scored 13 goal in those 6 matches with Wilkinson, Falconer and Bernie Slaven each scoring 4 goals. What’s more only two goals were conceded in the 2 away matches at Oxford and Watford. Another Wilkinson goal earned a point at Plymouth before a goal in 17 seconds and another Wilkinson goal ensured a 2-1 home victory over Sunderland who became the first opponents to score against Stephen Pears in over 500 minutes. Boro then lost 1-2 at Bristol Rovers despite leading at halftime, and then failed to score at home for the first time with a goalless draw against Wolves. A 0-1 defeat at Grimsby, 1-2 at Barnsley and a 1-1 draw at Brighton saw Boro relinquish their top position as they moved into November.
Meanwhile they started their League Cup journey disposing of 3rd Division Bournemouth albeit in extra time in the second leg, and then Barnsley. Furthermore they beat Derby County in the Zenith Data Systems Cup 4-2 at home having been 0-2 down at halftime and needing extra time to complete the win, but typically lost at home to Tranmere in the next round before the month was out. Back in the League Boro won successive home games against Charlton 2-0 and Bristol City 3-1, lost at Blackburn, but then welcomed 1st Division Manchester City at home in the League Cup and won 2-1. Boro also regained top spot in the league on Boxing Day with a 1-0 win at Newcastle although the Magpies were just outside a relegation spot at the time. Strangely though Boro never again reached pole position in the league, possibly because of good runs both in the League Cup and the FA Cup.
Boro started their FA Cup journey by once again beating Manchester City 2-1 having trailed 0-1 until the last ten matches, whereupon goals from Alan Kernaghan and Paul Wilkinson completed a cup double over City. Boro then won at Hillsborough to defeat another 1st Division side in the FA Cup and drew at Peterborough in the League Cup, but because of bad weather the replay didn’t take place until 5 weeks later to set up a two leg encounter with Manchester United in the Semifinals. But first Boro had to endure a long journey to Fratton Park in the FA Cup where a late Kernaghan goal earned a replay.
By now Boro’s League form had suffered a little, and although still unbeaten at home, they had dropped outside of the playoff positions towards the end of February. Nevertheless it came as a shock that Boro should lose their unbeaten home record (apart from the Tranmere defeat in the ZDS Cup) to Pompey in the FA Cup replay albeit after extra time.
Boro started March with the enticing prospect of a visit from Manchester United in the first leg of the League Cup Semifinal where Boro put up a sterling performance in a goalless draw before the largest crowd of the season 25,572. The second leg took place a week later and Boro were just as impressive as a Bernie Slaven goal soon after halftime made the scores level only for Ryan Giggs to snatch the winner for United. It’s an old cliche, but Boro could now concentrate on the League, and a 4-0 home win against Brighton seemed to put Boro back on track.
By now of all of Boro’s new signings only Andy Peake and Jon Gittens had made any significant impact in the first team. In fact Andy Payton was injured in his first match, and when fit was mainly used as a substitute. Also Willie Falconer was injured after only 10 matches and didn’t return till mid March, so that and elongated Cup runs impacted on Boro’s League form. Following the Brighton win Both won only once more (at Tranmere), and what’s more lost two successive home wins which again shoved them out of the playoff positions with only 6 matches remaining although 4 of them were at home. They duly won the 4 home matches against Oxford, Plymouth, Bristol Rovers and Grimsby, but in between lost at Sunderland. Boro’s home form had generally been good, but the away form a bit mercurial, so the prospect of beating Wolves on the last day of the season was not the best scenario.
Cometh the day and I was oblivious to the shenanigans at Molineux as I was at Wembley for the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final where Castleford were playing Wigan. Martin Offiah had effectively won the match for the Piemen at halftime, and as I trundled back to the coach to take me back tonCastleford I managed to listen to Sports Report on my transistor radio to find that not only had Boro won, but had gained promotion against all the odds. Apparently someone had dug a large hole on the centre spot if I remember correctly. Suffice to say the game was heading for a goalless draw into the second half when Nicky Mohan was sent off after a second bookable offence, and later Andy Mutch put Wolves ahead. Then Jon Gittens equalised and 6 minutes later Paul Wilkinson scored the winner. But there was still 12 minutes remaining and it was a case of hanging on I guess. How easy that was I can’t recall because as I say I was at Wembley. But nevertheless it was quite a welcome surprise for me. Bernie Slaven was leading scorer with 16 League goals taking him to 114 in total, whilst Paul Wilkinson scored 15.
The following season was the inaugural Premier League that saw Boro sign Chris Morris (a straight swap for Andy Payton), Derek Whyte (for £900,000 from Celtic) and Tommy Wright with also debut appearances from Gary Parkinson, Graham Kavanagh, Alan Moore, Craig Hignett (a £500,000 signing from Crewe Alexandra) and Chris Kamara but having to sell Stuart Ripley to Blackburn for £1,300,000 to finance some of those signings, but only the first 3 named played in the first match, a 1-2 defeat at Coventry. But the following two matches were home wins over Manchester City 2-0 and Leeds United 4-1. Boro had made a commendable start and after 8 matches had accumulated 14 points and were in 6th position. The League Cup started with a goalless draw at Newcastle, but Boro lost the return match 1-3, and the league form also seemed to suffer with only 4 points gained in the next 7 matches. By mid January Boro had slipped to 17th with only two more wins, both at home, to Wimbledon 2-0 and Blackburn 3-2 when John Hendrie scored a 🎩.
In the FA Cup Boro started with the notable scalp of Chelsea 2-1 and seemed well placed to advance further when a Willie Falconer goal put Boro ahead just before halftime at Nottingham Forest, but Forest equalised to earn a replay at Ayresome Park which they duly won 3-0. Once again Boro could now concentrate on the League which they did with a 2-1 home win over Southampton, but 5 successive defeats shot them into a relegation battle from which they never recovered. They managed to achieve only their second away win at Ipswich, but a surprising 2-3 home defeat to Oldham seemed to seal their demise. Only 3 wins had been recorded in 18 matches as Boro entered their final 6 fixtures. Boro showed only a token resistance by beating both Arsenal and Spurs at home, and even won a third away game at Hillsborough, but the season ended with a 3-3 home draw against Norwich as Boro finished 21st five points behind Crystal Palace in 20th place who were also relegated due to a lower goals aggregate than Oldham.
A power struggle had developed halfway through the season at boardroom level culminating in Colin Henderson resigning after suggestions that he was exceeding his authority in making decisions without Board approval, and the club actually struggled without a Chairman for several months. Steve Gibson opened discussions with ICI’s George Cooke as to how the club could progress and to explore the possibility of finding a way to incorporate Henry Moskowicz into the boardroom, but whether that had any bearing on Boro’s relegation is hard to tell. Nevertheless on the field Boro had not performed as well as the fans had a right to expect.
Bernie Slaven was in and out of the first team with several disputes over Lennie Lawrence’s managership and only scored 4 goals in his 13 plus 4 substitute appearances. Paul Wilkinson however did score 14 goals and John Hendrie 9 of Boro’s 54 League goals which was probably not too bad a return from 42 matches, but the away form had been abysmal with only 3 wins.
The question now was whether Lennie Lawrence could get Boro back into the Premier League in the following season. He had been put under pressure to raise £750,000 from sales, and with Bernie Slaven moving on he sold Willie Falconer to Sheffield for £450,000 and Jimmy Phillips to Bolton for £250,000. He also pulled off what was considered a master stroke in September by selling Alan Kernaghan to Manchester City for £1,600,000 and replacing him with Steve Vickers for just over half that amount from Tranmere Rovers. With Alan Moore now established as a first team regular the omens seemed good.
Boro started the season by winning their opening 4 matches to quickly establish themselves as League leaders. However a surprising defeat at Southend, together with losing at home to Stoke and only drawing with Luton had them dropping to 4th. They then drew at West Brom and beat Leicester 2-0 at home to temporarily regain pole position going into October, but that’s as good as it got. Meanwhile they won a mini sub-group to enter the ill-fated Anglo-Italian Cup where they had only a draw against Ancona to show for their troubles and defeats against Pisa, Ascoli and Brescia. The League Cup wasn’t much better, for despite overcoming Brighton 8-1 on aggregate in the 2nd Round, the Premier League team of Sheffield Wednesday beat Boro after a replay.
October saw a welcome 4-1 home win over Sunderland where Paul Wilkinson scored a brace and Craig Hignett and John Hendrie scoring the others, but it was a prelude to a winless run of 7 matches that saw Boro as low as 15th by mid December. The FA Cup brought no respite either with Boro having earned a replay at Cardiff, they somehow managed to lose the replay in extra time to a team a division below them. The season seemed to meander along despite Boro winning 6 of their next 9 matches although they did score 4 against Millwall and 3 against West Brom to reach 7th position by late March, but no real conviction that they could make the playoffs as two points from the next 4 matches suggested, one of which was a 0-4 walloping at Tranmere. Boro did however finish with a flourish beating Barnsley 5-0 at home, then after losing at home to eventual Champions Crystal Palace, Lawrence was dismissed. John Pickering took over the reins for the final match of the season at Charlton which Boro won 5-2 with a 🎩 from John Hendrie.
Paul Wilkinson finished top scorer with 15 goals, John Hendrie scored 13, Alan Moore 10 from the wing, and Jamie Pollock a creditable 9 from midfield, but many supporters were calling for Lawrence’s head well before the season had reached the half way point. However Lawrence had no qualms about his eventual dismissal and as a close friend of Alex Ferguson, he recommended that Boro should approach Fergie about the possibility of Bryan Robson taking over the reins at Boro. Wolves had made a strong bid to have Robson as their next manager, but the friendship between Lawrence and Ferguson swayed the odds in Boro’s favour. With a new all seater stadium at Middlehaven being a prospect, that was also seen as a great incentive to lure Bryan Robson. The rest is history as they say, for it took only one season for Boro to regain their status as a Premier League club and start what was then termed, the Riverside Revolution.
Great stuff Ken and thanks for re-jogging my memory on what was a pivotal period for Boro. I seem to remember at the time some clubs were claiming Boro were beginning to exert their financial muscle and buying players they didn’t really need. Though signing Craig Hignet for just £500,000 was a great piece of business. Anyway, hope the antibiotics do the trick and you’re feeling better soon.
Well I have shuffled my diary around next week to accommodate the Bristol game and fly out to Europe (if my EU passport still permits) on Wednesday afternoon instead of Tuesday morning even though something tells me I might wish that I hadn’t bothered. Werder’s article is probably going to be the high point as TP faces fifteen games in ten minutes (insert whatever excuse he will trot out) as he tries to defend his way to sterility.
At times like this I just wish I could have the option of taking my season card to a Football Vet and be put out of my misery. Still the positive is that its only nine more games to go and after next Saturday only six games are left and it will soon be the summer.
Thanks but hopefully there is a higher point to life as a Boro supporter this season. It’s probably the uncertainty that is most difficult to deal with and I suspect Boro will fail to put us out of our misery until the very end. In terms of excuses offered by Tony Pulis, I’d simply refer you back to the outstanding Instagram post by VLP!
Sad story here:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/brasileirao-serie-a/chapecoense-mourn-death-of-reporter-who-survived-plane-crash/ar-BBVhQaG?ocid=spartandhp
Colin Henderson was the man who sacked Bruce Rioch. At the time he asked Harry Glasper who was Boro’s Statistician (I worked with Harry at ICI) for facts about the later results under Bruce. He provided the data and to this day I say to Harry you are the man who got Brucie sacked !
The more astute and observant amongst you will be aware that I have recently become a viewer of the BBC Parliament Channel.
Tonight we were treated to the latest instalment of B.G.T. ( Brexit’s Got Talent)
We had a very entertaining Tory Troupe, The Flying ERG’s performing some superlative Back Somersaults.
A fine Ventriloquist act Michel Barnier and his dummy Lord Bercow.
An Elizabethan Monologue by that well know thespian Rees Mogg.
The Golden Buzzer went to an hilarious slapstick act where a Vicars Daughter was repeatedly smacked on the head by a Frying Pan!
Sadly, we all used to laugh on the Yankees with Mr. Trump in control. Unfortunately, it is the UK parliament now.
I hate my wife asks every day now, if they have decided on anything in the UK yet. What can I say?
Up the Bopro!
The Boro vs. Norwich match is live on TV over here on Saturday. Most probably as all want to see Teemu Pukki. Or just possibly Mr Pulis and his team?
Teemu made two goals for our National Team as we lost away to Italy but won at Azerbaijan this week. So he is still in fire. I was thinking to make a joke about Teemu’s last name – it means a ram like Derby’s nickname.
In urban Finnish, Teemu’s last name can mean also Father Christmas, who actually lives in Finland, too. He has definitely meant that for the Norwich supporters this season. Money well spent.
We have not got the results lately but as we are Boro, I will go for a surprise 3-0 home win. In OFB we trust.
And finally, many thanks for the article, Werder. I hope the Boro wakes up from the amnesia soon!
Up the Boro!
EXMIL CHALLENGE Part 2
FINAL WARNING
As my good lady is taking me onboard a ferry to Amsterdam today to celebrate my Birthday (29th – none Brexit day) this is the final warning I will post, I will point out that she is getting me back in time to attend the Norwich match. We are short of the entries from the 8 people listed below which must be posted before 2000 hrs tomorrow night:
Pedro de Espana
Ian Gill (Surprise surprise)
borobrie
jarkko
jarsue
vanteis
werdermouth
Simon
Good luck to everyone especially the Boro.
Come on BORO.
PS
I may not post recorded until Sunday but only on those entries posted before 2000 hrs Friday 29 Mar 19, no extensions.
I have been away but posted earlier today, I hadn’t even realised there was a ne article to read.
Sorry, Emil but have just been discharged from hospital after a cardiac arrest and broken foot from the fall so not feeling so good at the moment. Will give the challenge a miss and rely on RR/Werder and rest of the best bloggers on the football media.
UTB
Bri
Well Borobrie that’s certainly one hell of an excuse for missing the deadline! But seriously, hope you’re feeling better soon and are quickly back on the mend – take it easy and hopefully Boro will give you something to take you mind of the pain.
Thanks, Werder
Take care
Thanks, OFB
Sorry to hear that borobrie, I hope you recover quickly and stronger.
Come on BORO.
Thanks, Exmil and will do.
This is the first International Break that hasn’t irked me, in fact probably the opposite. A welcome relief from the negative, punitive drudgery that Pulis serves up contrasted with Gareth’s kids made a refreshing change. Considering that International football is normally of little interest to me that is really saying something.
Normally I’d be hopeful for a spirited performance and even nicking the win on Saturday but knowing that I will be subjected to a Safety First, Safety Second and Safety Third debacle just leaves me flatter than a Lowcocks Lemonade with the top left off the bottle for a month. It would be nice to hope for a “Typical Boro” performance where we surprise the opposition and take all three points but in my heart of hearts I just now it will be “Typical Pulis” I will be enduring Saturday Evening. Going out with our undergarments around our ankles as per the Villa surrender will be the norm rather than a do or die, death or glory dying with our boots on performance.
The only positive hope will be the response of the Home fans if everything predictably goes according to type. If I’m being honest deep down I think I’m hoping for a good tanking to finally bring this sorry saga to a premature end. Its impossible to support something that brings zero pleasure and zero optimism. How the Players themselves feel heaven only knows (although MB and VLP has perhaps hinted at that safe in having nothing to lose), it must be even more dispiriting for them than for those paying to watch through their fingers. I thought that by now the Villa hangover would have eased off but as we get closer to Saturday all I’m getting is nauseating flashbacks to that disgraceful tactical surrender.
Angry? Surprisingly not. I’m actually well past that point. My other half has even remarked that I’m no longer quiet, moody and agitated when we get beat and she now finds it hard to figure out if we have won, lost or drawn when I walk through the door. Sad times but at least it will soon be Summer and I can roll my eyes at the latest overpriced Donkeys being bought and the whole dysfunctional nature of our recruitment putting yet another nail in our coffin. Thank god for Brexit it at least makes for an entertaining distraction.
RR
I thought did I write this post?
It perfectly sums up my feelings except Mrs OFB has had to endure it with me.
We’ve stopped watching all football in our house including England Premier League et al.
I’ve just been going to watch my grandson play for his Sunday junior team and he made the district side and I’ve watched him play against Boro juniors last week.
I’m looking forward to seeing friends on Saturday but I doubt if many will be there next season
OFB
TP has nothing to do with contracts.
RR
Sums it up, really, nothing could put it better.
He cannot be kept on, the cost is astronomical right now, never mind letting him continue.
The cost to our home bred players must also be considered, setting aside the fact that he has lost a very good (and valuable) young player (or will in due course) by not paying attention to contracts etc.
If a football club travels on it’s finances, then the contrast with AK is starting, a steady flow of income from trading players, huge influx from promotion, and parachute payments, what could he have done with that money?
This person was a kid in a candy store, with approximately the same result, I.E. Lots of sweets left unused, lots of sweets that made you sick, and all your pocket money gone for a long time.
What’s this Brexit thing then?
Brexit? I think it’s when you’re having a quick breakfast as you’re going out the door to work !
Don’t ask me what work is though !
OFB
Brexit was undoubtedly a plan by Putin (so very fashionably these days) to destabilise and destroy the British Political system by creating an almighty implosion in the main Political Parties and watching them tear themselves apart while he annexed Crimea in the meantime stuffing himself with Popcorn and Soda.
“Have a Referendum David, go on you know you want to, show the world how democratic you are, I mean its not as if you could lose now is it” sniggering to himself. “Oh dear, never mind, why don’t you put Theresa in charge” wetting himself rolling on the floor of the Kremlin.
“Just declare article 50, don’t worry about the small detail Theresa, just do it, I’m sure Donald and Jean Claude will be very accommodating as you make it up as you go along” at this point poor Vlad has had to be prescribed Barbiturates to avoid a seizure as a consequence of the excess hilarity plus a shortage of those Men Type Pants in Russia.
“I’m sorry to hear that Theresa, why don’t you talk to those nice modern thinking people in the Dinosaur Unionist Party? No not Tony Pulis Arlene Foster”
“Why don’t you just try another vote Theresa, go on, again, again, again. I’m sure if you make it the best of three or perhaps better make it best of ten” Tears now uncontrollably rolling down his face despite the Prescribed Meds kicking in.
I take you back to the actual Brexit vote. I was on a cruise ship on the Danube with Titan who had their club room at the rear of the ship. I with many others had been watching the Euro Nations match between England and Russia, and afterwards there had been some suggestion that Russia might be expelled from the competition due to their tactics in what was a very rough game. The following morning the Tour Manager shouted over to me “We’re out of Europe, Ken”. I sounded surprised, replying “I thought it was only the Russians that might be expelled, not England as well”. He replied “Get a grip, I’m referring to the Brexit vote” I was genuinely oblivious to the fact that the Brexit vote was taking place that week”.
Sometimes I live in a World of my own.
On the same trip, even after introductions I used to forget the names of the other passengers, but everyone knew Ken. Because I now live alone, I’ve become very garrulous in company, and one afternoon I happened to find a spare seat outside at the front of the ship next to the left of the Tour Manager who was in conversation with another passenger to his right. Not wishing to interrupt their conversation I just sat there quietly. When their conversation had ended, the Tour Manager turned to me and said “You’re quiet today Ken” and I just retorted “Amazing, isn’t it” and everyone laughed.
I used to be a fairly quiet sort of guy whilst my wife was alive. She was the opposite, and if talking had been an Olympic Sport she would have been a gold medalist. Friends used to say that I wasn’t able to get a word in edgeways, but that’s not really true. In fact I was generally rather shy with strangers. But one thing I’ve learned since she died is that if you’re single you have to make the effort to converse with strangers, they’re not likely to approach you first. Is it possible to inherit one’s wife’s genes? Probably not, but it might be the reason why my blogs on this forum tend to be on the long side. But for people who like alone like me, this forum is a Godsend.
There is certainly a lot more occupying the Peters’ household at the moment with GP and Hospital visits coupled with the the worry of waiting for scan results.
Puts the whole sorry Boro saga into perspective and brings home how much most of it is not really that important.
That being said, I shall be watching the game on Sky on Saturday but whether it is the whole game or only part remains to be seen. Recent weeks have shown me there are much more important things in life to get upset about.
CoB, for once give us all a lift and put a smile on our faces. 😎
KP
Health Family And General Well Being put the Boro way down the list of priorities !
Take care
OFB
Hope all goes well KP!
Waiting with you KP. Hope the results will be good for Mrs KP. As for Saturday, well really it is insignificant whatever the result when weighed against family.
Absolutely
Wishing Mrs KP an early positive scan result.
KP, Hope it is better news for you and Mrs Peters and sometimes it’s partly not knowing that is quite stressful.
Best wishes to you and family KP.
KP
Only just read your post, best wishes from derby.
The Hartlepool Mail have produced the recent final points predictions for Championship clubs as follows:-
1. Norwich 88pts (10pts from 8 matches)
2. Sheffield Utd 87pts (13pts from 8)
3. Leeds 86pts (13pts from 8)
4. West Brom 77pts (10pts from 8)
5. Boro 75pts (17pts from 9)
6. Villa 72pts (15pts from 8)
7. Bristol 70pts (15pts from 10)
8. Preston 69pts (12pts from 8)
9. Derby 68pts (12pts from 9)
10. Wed 68pts (13pts from 8)
In effect they’re saying that Boro have the easiest run-in and therefore greatest momentum, yet West Brom have the hardest run-in and worst momentum but still likely to gain promotion. I find that hard to swallow. First of all, Boro have 3 difficult away matches in Swansea, Forest and Rotherham who may well need to win their final match to avoid relegation. Also I assume that they have winning Boro at least 4 of their 5 home games; I think draw specialists Stoke could be one that Boro might not win. Furthermore in West Brom’s case, a poor return might not put them in the best form for the playoffs. I would also envisage that the one of the current top three who finish 3rd might be the most disappointed, especially if it’s Norwich or Leeds and might find recovery more difficult, where as Villa might have timed their run the best. Personally, the teams I’d want Boro to avoid in the playoffs would be Villa or Sheffield United, the latter probably having had no great expectations of automatic promotion before the season started.
They also predict the aggregate playoff scores as:-
Leeds 4 Villa 0
West Brom 3 Boro 3 (West Brom to win on penalties)
Final
Leeds 1 West Brom 2.
I would expect a Boro v Villa final to go to penalties.
I would question if Boro will score three goals from now until the end of the Season under Pulis let alone in two games of the Play Offs!
We have only won three Championship games at Home since the middle of September from when we beat Bolton. We had won four games at Home from the start of the season in August up until that point on Sept 19th. I repeat, that is three pitiful Home wins in over six months, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb and March.
If SG wonders why numbers for his Early Bird Season Cards are diminishing rapidly the answer is staring at him right there. A complete and total lack of attempt to win a game of football on Home soil. If TP pulls off a miraculous run from now until the end of the Season then fair play to him but the atmosphere on Saturday is more likely to be turning toxic than see his side put on a winning display.
Redcar Red, I just can’t comprehend a Boro fan wanted the team to be “Tonked” on Saturday, no matter what the reason.
Come on BORO.
I think I know where RR is coming from Exmil. More of an exasperated wish for us all to be put out of our misery than a heartfelt desire to witness our team getting walloped. That said, I have The Canaries to be on song on Saturday in my phase 2 predictions, with a still off-key Boro losing out (again) on national TV.
I would much rather be hammered 5-0 and end this farce swiftly than death by a thousand cuts. If we are “Tonked” then we just might be able to cling on to a Play Off postilion with someone in charge (even Woody temporarily if needs must) who might actually attempt to win a match rather than not lose one.
Even if we make the Play Offs do you really want to watch a Pulis side against for example Villa all over again, what on earth would be the point? Its just prolonging the agony, he should have walked after that disgrace (not for the first time) against Villa. If getting “Tonked” is a means to an end then so be it. I won’t like it but at least could take some comfort in moving out an anti football Manager who managed to make a Karanka side look entertaining and exciting.
Werder
Another top read, I bravely predicted a draw against Norwich in the Exmil challenge. I must be mad.
I can see where RR is coming from and whilst I never want Boro to lose, let alone lose heavily, there does come a point where we deserve to be put out of our misery.
Same goes for that other fiasco called Brexit where I have almost lost the will to live with all the goings on. Just make it stop! But I hate seeing the U.K. destroyed by our politicians.
Back to Boro, we are still in the play offs although I am not sure that i could put up with another play off performance that was served up last year. I still feel that TP did not want to go up as that is the only rational reason for the dire team selection;, tactics and performance.
I want us to do well and win but that isn’t happening at the moment and it is only due to the incompetence of the other teams that we are where we are in stil in with a shout.
It says something that I have almost got the point of not caring what happens but having supported the Boro for 50 years it is a hard habit to break.
So with a kinda meh, it is Come on Boro!
It’s been a long day in the garden for me today trying to remove a tree stump, which has at least helped me in my attempt to get into the mindset of Tony Pulis by mainly standing in a hole and digging. It’s been almost an impossible job and in the end getting to the root of the problem has been difficult – to make matters worse my tools were somewhat blunt and like the tree I remain stumped. Nevertheless, I will do exactly the same thing tomorrow in the hope of a different outcome.
A Boro and Brexit analogy in one, brilliant!
Ken
What on earth were Cas playing at with their last play of normal time? A drop goal from inside the 25 under the posts turned down. That will live with McShane for a long, mong time. He will keep waking up thinking what on earth I have I done?
It could affect him for some time, he will probably sat by himself in the changing room.
I know, absolutely ridiculous. However, until the last 20 minutes I thought Cas were really poor and Leeds deserved to win, but both teams kept on making mistakes. Poor match in my opinion, even though exciting later on.
I cannot find it in my heart to want Boro to lose never mind get “tonked” but it brought to my mind, what will all these people post if Boro made the playoffs and won at Wembley to get promotion to the Premiership. Also how many of these posters will be looking for tickets for the final or staying at home and hoping Boro get beat so they can say “I told you so”.
This is not an attack at any individual but a generalisation.
Come on BORO.
Exmil, see my entry.
I was optimistic again and had Boro just two points off automatic spot…
But play-offs are there for the taking. Up the Boro
In response to Exmil (and I take his view appreciatively, respect it and totally understand it) I simply want what is best for Boro. At this point in time there is a slow decline made worse by a Manager whose tactics is strangling the life and soul out of the Club. Burton and Newport could and probably would have been sackable at most other Clubs. The limp Play Off performances last season could have been a thank you and move on moment for the dispiriting way in which we never attempted to win in either leg. Both Villa performances this season have been stomach churning with no desire to right wrongs and win back some self respect and credibility.
Sometimes in life we have to do what is kindest and that may mean putting down something we love in its best interests. Right now I wouldn’t hesitate to take Boro to the nearest vets as an act of mercy. That is not to say that if a new line of treatment or drug meant there was a miraculous recovery I wouldn’t be overjoyed of course I and others would. Truth is I though don’t see any signs of recovery, I see nothing to be euphoric about and in truth haven’t since last August. Sadly the reverse is true, I just see a slow terminal decline that is frustrating because of half a job being done (away from home).
To answer the question directly and if however Boro made the Play Off’s and won at Wembley to get promotion to the Premiership I would be overjoyed, in fact no ecstatic and I would have to take my cap off to TP for masterminding the greatest recovery since Lazarus. One game at Wembley away from promotion would financially stabilise the club so of course I would want them to win even if Rudy Gestede scored a hat trick in the final with all the other questionable signings sealing the victory.
Reality is that TP isn’t for changing and the performances at home have been so dire, so negative, so ineffective that they have strangled all hope of promotion. That an experienced Manager can’t see that what works away from Home isn’t the same as what works at Home is evidence enough that he is out of his depth and leading the club off a precipice. That is the reason why there is no way TP will get promoted via the Play Offs unless he does a complete U turn on everything he has failed with so far. Is it impossible? No, is it likely however? No again unfortunately.
I want sustainability for the sake Boro and MFC and that means that there has to be a radical assessment of what works and what doesn’t. Our recruitment and contract negotiation is amateurish and incompetent at best and has been for some time. yet ignored. Our direction and leadership of the club has been questionable for the last decade and our current Manager is strangling what little optimism is left. Clearly there are none so blind as those who cannot or refuse to see (aimed at MFC not anyone on this board) and therefore sometimes it takes a huge slap across the face to bring someone or something to its senses. It shouldn’t have to be that way but it is what is is or in this case isn’t.
Sadly and I take zero pleasure from it but it is going to take a massive 30% plus drop in early bird renewals and simultaneously the crowd becoming volatile and turning vociferously to effect change. That could ironically make things even worse I accept that but for the Status Quo to remain “as is” just means more of the same. I don’t want to watch something I love so much suffer in that much pain and misery, I literally can’t bear to watch it any more.
A very very well stated, logical and heartfelt position RR and difficult not to agree with.
I’m with you Exmill. Boro is an affliction and I’ve long given up trying to shake it off. I always want them to win and I always shrug off defeats, bad decisions, bad management with the hope that it will get better in the future. This doesn’t mean that I don’t see the faults but I have conditioned myself to move on past them.
This might be easier for me because I have spent the last 30 years or so living outside of the UK and, until recently, that meant that any live games were rare and even televised games didn’t come along that often. I wonder if the ability to see most games live, albeit often it at some godawful hour of the morning, will start to sap my resistance.
Anyway, as luck would have it ….good or bad, you can make your choice….I will be in the UK with Mrs Selwynoz for all the month of May attendant on the arrival of another grandchild. This does open up the possibility – growing less distinct as each game passes – of attending playoff games in person for the first time. Alternatively, it might be the fact of my trip that has occasioned these losses. Maybe I am the albatross around MFC’s neck.
Anyway, I’ll be up at 4.30 am tomorrow and hoping for a stunning win. OFB’s 3-0 would do very nicely.
UTB
Just realised that getting up at 4.30 tomorrow will be a waste of time. That should read Sunday morning.
My work collegue and an ardent Leeds fan – now living near Newcastle – predicted that it will be Leeds vs. Boro at Wembley in the play-off final. I agreed with him. Luckily we have played better vs. the top teams this season (except Villa recently).
Our squad is good enough to be in the play-offs. As Bruce Rioch said, let’s get behing the team. I know our home record is terrible, but we can still make it.
As said, I will go with the score OFB predicted. Typical Boro. UTB!
No progress in the parliament. No news then.
What is so difficult? If May’s agreement is costing “just” 32 billion euros a year and hard Brexit about 57 billion euros anually for the UK, the choice is clear.
But of course the UK would “save” the 32 billion by staying in the EU annually. So it is easy to see where the problem is …
At least we all have the match “to look forward to” tomorrow. Up the Boro!
I took the amounts from Bertelsmann Stiftung think tank and it is their estimation of the costs of Brexit to the UK economy. I hope Boro can function a result tomorrow. UTB!
Werder
Have I been spammed again is it because I’m using different devices?
The problem with generalisations is that for those being generalised it sounds very personal and the very need to call out that it is a generalisation serves to underline the impression that it really is personal. Such a post is in itself not really a general post, but a personal response to many others’ individual postings.
Another problem with generalisations is that they tend to suppose that the gereralisees conform to the generaliser’s idea of how the generalisees’ minds must work, which supposition is informed by the way in which the supposer’s own mind works.
There is no reason to believe that anyone will react with a self satisfying “I told you so” given the scenario painted. Until proved otherwise, I personally prefer to imagine that everyone acts and thinks and opines with a genuine and positive motive. That is all the more when a collective of individuals clearly share a common passion that the motivation behind any one of those individuals is unquestionably for the good of that passion.
I applaud those who can predict positive results for the Boro in any and all circumstances. There is a joy to behold in that and a joy to be remembered because once upon a time the innocence of that joy was probably shared by each and every member of this community. It certainly was for me.
For me there is also a sadness that it hurts when faced with making an objective decision about what result to predict, that sometimes I have to be honest about what I think will happen and predict a defeat.
I can also see and understand that there is no pleasure in watching the object of the passion slowly and surely destroy itself as repeatedly dull and non adventurous tactics drive away the lifeblood that is it’s paying support. Equally no pleasure in coming to have an opinion that recognises something very bad might be necessary to happen to force the change that many people firmly believe must happen to arrest that slow decay. Not because of any need to say “I told you so” but to be able to keep on saying “Come on Boro” for years and generations to come.
None of us is better or worse than the next when it comes to wanting the best for the Boro, but equally none of us is the same as the next when it comes to thinking about how to achieve that best. To boil down the motivation of many to be so immature that snide “I told you sos” are what they will want to say does little to progress the discussion.
A sensible appraisal Powmill. I did think that ExMil’s first post on the subject of ‘not wanting to win’ was directed at Redcar Red, but I’m now willing to accept that it wasn’t personal. Have I ever wanted Boro to lose a match? No, but I can well understand RR’s frustration as to what is happening on the field and behind the scenes. However as I’ve grown older, l’m often indifferent to whether Boro win or not. I suppose to some folk that doesn’t make me a true supporter, so beit I’m too old to be that bothered one way or the other, because in the unlikely event of Boro gaining promotion the outlook looks bleak for Boro in the Premier League under Pulis. Just ask most West Brom fans what they think. He might have had them in the top ten for a couple of seasons, but the football was dire. If that’s what most Boro fans want, fair enough. But it’s not how I like football to be played. Just going back as recently as the late 1950s and early 1960s Boro rarely threatened to gain promotion but at least the football was more entertaining and often exciting.
I’ve never been a fan of playoffs in any sport, it’s just a gimmick to keep interest going. In some sports teams as low as 8th position have been crowned Champions. I’m thinking Rugby League here in 1973 when Dewsbury were crowned Champions from 8th position by storming through the playoffs. More recently last year St Helens won the league by 6 points and didn’t even reach the Grand Final, and the year before Castleford won the league by 10 points yet weren’t crowned Champions. That can’t be fair. If it happened in the Premier League Manchester City might have lost to Manchester United in a playoff despite finishing 19 points above them in the League. Anything can happen in playoff matches, they’re a lottery so therefore unfair in my opinion, so I’d scrap them. Norwich, Sheffield United and Leeds would then probably be promoted and we wouldn’t be having all this talk of Boro reaching the playoffs. Does anyone seriously believe that Boro deserve promotion this season, cos I don’t.
I bet I’m easily in the minority with those thoughts on this forum, but at least top three past the post would be fair. The present system makes some League matches and League tables irrelevant and that can’t be right in my opinion.
Powmill, another of your profound writings, excellent.
Me, I would be ecstatic at the miracle that had just passed.I also would, for all the poor football served up, be happy for Mr Pulis to lead us in EPL. He would have deserved it.
Luckily I would not have to beg for a ticket as I have my own ST.
Pedro
The trouble with getting yourself into a really bad situation, is the usual one, that is.
You usually end up with a lose lose position.
So if this person fluked a promotion, we would have to watch him trying to negotiate the Premiership with broken tools and a demoralised squad.
Any suggestion that he be in charge of buying and selling, is a flight of fantasy, quite frankly no idea.
I see that the idea is being floated on this blog that Pulis has nothing to do with trading in players.
It is strange that with AK we were suddenly making money out of buying and selling, plus playing in big matches on the box.
When he left, that changed and we swiftly reverted to a very poor club with no idea of value, talent, resale value, add on value, young players (their handling, and their contracts) old players on big contracts, all, all, a mystery wrapped in an enigma. If a football club is big business, then the penalty for incompetence is brutal, a fact of which we are about to have first hand experience.
Just to cheer you up, I hear the there is trouble in the dressing room, no surprise there I would have thought.
So, to sum up, he is being given an extension to the wrecking ball, nice, or what?
Gracias Pedro, that’s kind to say and I would be sharing your ecstasy (as long as it is legal to do so !!)
So the only selection worry vs. Norwich is Lewis Wing.
“Injury-wise, we’re a little bit concerned about Lewis Wing,” Pulis said.
“He’s been carrying a groin injury for the last few weeks. It’s still hanging around so we’ve got to be a bit careful.”
I think we have seen that all is not well for Lewis. And we need him badly but I think Pulis knows that better than the rest of us.
If John Obi Mikel plays in the nr. 10 position for his country and in the World Cup, he is one option. And also Saville, Howson or Bešić. The latter played all two matches for Bosnia during the break and might need a rest.
Up the Boro!
Maybe it’s a dirty word these days, but here goes…..
My name is GHw, and I’m a PoPulist.
Staggering to read elsewhere today that if Martin Braithwaite was at an unnamed Premiership club he would be amongst the top five earners.
That is staggering if true and beggars belief beyond all beliefs. It’s been hinted at/alluded to that the reason Gestede can’t be moved on is because of his salary and the Downing situation is also remuneration related but Braithwaite was unproven and at best looked a decent player but certainly nothing magical or special. That his agent has somehow managed to get the level of income for his client that he has is staggering but nowhere near as staggering as the individual/s who sanctioned it at MFC.
There was a very sound reason why Arsene Wenger operated under a strict pay ceiling. Many can argue that its the reason they were overtaken by Chelsea and Man City and its probably correct but the club has been managed in a sound if unspectacular way. As soon as a Billionaire Playboy gets bored (or even arrested in the case of some based on “alleged” rumours) the entire Club is seriously at risk unless another benefactor with more money than sense steps in. That is no way to run any organisation let alone a Football Club although FFP seems to have very accommodating boundaries depending on the club in question and which division they are operating in and if its the FA or the FL they are answerable to.
Putting that aspect aside and getting back to MFC in particular it would be churlish to ignore MB’s comments nonetheless, he was playing well in August until shunted out left and then when the new signings arrived our young lads and MB were messed around for want of a better descriptive term and with it coincided the end of our best spell of the Season thus far. Personally I think at this point in time neither TP or MB are healthy for the club. If SG thinks he needed an experienced old footballing head to go through MFC then he was sadly mistaken. You don’t need any football experience to identify wages that are unsustainable and you don’t have to be an ex pro or thirty years a manager to spot Donkeys from Thoroughbreds for a supposed recruitment team. Mind you it doesn’t help when the Manager makes what few Thorughbreds he does have look like Donkeys.
Reading between the lines it’s possible that SG brought in TP to stop this kind of thing happening.
Fully agree with that regarding SG bringing TP in to stop that but it didn’t stop (Saville, Flint, McNair) and as for what is happening out on the pitch heaven help us I’d rather Strachan came back!
The logic and rationale all made sense at the time but the reality with the benefit of hindsight is that nothing has changed and if anything has perhaps been made even worse. By now I would expect to be able to see some clear changes and perhaps not dynamic but at least some improvements or advances. VLP and then the supposed £2M loan fee for Hugill just doesn’t stack up at all.
Surely you don’t need to bring in a manager to stop the excessive pay awards. The manager is there to coach and run the football side of things, but remuneration should be down to the suits in the background …. the accountants, the recruiters, the board, the chairman…..
RR,
You wouldn’t rather Strachan came back, I assure you!
Failing to win promotion and poor football is far better than threatened with relegation and poor football.
Ultimately, everyone on here wants Boro to be successful. The debate is only ever about the best way for that success to come about.
Quite the spat developing between Pulis and Brathwaite. Regardless of MB’s comments on Pulis’ tactics, Pulis is right that Braithwaite has shown a complete lack of respect. He did that long before his recent comments though – he decided he couldn’t be bothered as soon as the summer transfer window closed.
Braithwaite and Fletcher were the real odd-ones-out in Monk’s summer splurge. Fletcher because it was a lot of money to pay for an unproven player in a position for which we’d just recruited Assombalonga and Braithwaite and six months earlier had brought in Bamford and Gestede – there was no room for another. Braithwaite because he was the only signing that summer who didn’t have experience of English football. Almost all the others had very solid Championship experience, nevermind English football. Now it appears that not only did we pay around £9m for Braithwaite but also offered him a huge salary. A very poor decision and not just with hindsight I’m afraid.
Bad news that Wing is struggling with injury but in some ways a relief as his performances have been below par of late and the results seem to have gone with it. It would be good for Tav to be given the opportunity to replace him but I think that’s unlikely.
Difficult to see us beating Norwich. There’s only the hope that we turn it on against a top team as we’ve done in the past.
I think season ticket renewals are a bit of a red herring. Come the start of each season fans who want to go to the match will turn up.
The red card system was a way to get a seat when the stadium was sold out. Those days are long gone, and I doubt they’ll ever return.
In the Championship Season Cards do make a difference. In the sold out Premiership years they were indeed almost irrelevant but the cash up front and the resultant spend on merchandise all contributes. It also has an affect on the atmosphere in the Stadium and a direct influence on the Players. A full bouncing Riverside is a site to behold especially on a midweek night game. 10,000 (allegedly) turning up on a cold, damp, wet and windy Tuesday is a part of the reason why points are dropped.
Early Birds are the hard core support, the ones who already have Season Cards and want to renew, plead their allegiance and at the same time save a few bob. Just ask the various faiths about lapsed followers and the effect it has on viability, football for many is a Religion and if followers fall away then there is a consequence. The Stadium up the A19 has closed off areas due to the downturn in support, its not a healthy sign. All clubs need as many derriere’s on seats as possible.
A big indicator tomorrow against Norwich will be the attitude of the players. Do they really want to achieve promotion?
Tomorrow will be a massive game. A victory will be a fantastic boost to confidence levels and a draw perhaps not considered too disastrous. A narrow defeat won’t help especially with it being four in a row but a lacklustre negative showing and a footballing lesson will mean pitchforks and burning torches.
No surprise to me that the Gazette poll suggests 62% of voters believe that no Boro defenders should feature in the team of the season. Dael Fry was top of the Boro pile with 17%. Anthony Vickers invited us to guess how many points Boro needed to grab a playoff place. I made that 71, but that would mean winning at Rotherham and I had Boro down as a draw, so Boro to miss out with 69 points, but then what do I know?
GHW, sorry but I have to disagree with two of your posts.
1) Mr Gibson did not need to bring in Mr Pulis to stop this type of thing. Mr Gibson signs the cheques, he is ultimately to blame for the current financial predicament, even with the best intentions meant.
2) Season tiickets are important as it is a comittment, money in the bank. If the Boro are not playing well, and it’s raining on a Tuesday night, plenty will not come because the walk up price is high.
That’s fine, but would TP have said Braithwaite was worth the outlay?
Season tickets are indeed money in the bank, but I would imagine in today’s economic climate they are continually moving down individuals pecking order for expenditure.
Mr Pulis Ibelieve would defiantly said he is not worth the money. You andI would have agreed. However, what was Mr Gibson thinking when the contracts where placed on the table in front of him.
Of course he had nailed his colours to the mast, in as much as we were going to try and “smash the league” Logic and common sense had gone out of the window by then.
Suffering Succotash 2
Tweety Pie’s 1
Two nil to Norwich. If we’re lucky.
We are at my sons for Mothers Day weekend, I suspect I will be suggesting ‘lets go out darling’. Either my son or myself will keep an eye but not for long…
A Norwich win for me based on our the way Boro play at Fortress Riverside.
Boro 1 – 3 Norwich.
UTB,
John
Don’t know what happened there but it should read… ‘based on our form and the way we play’… Fingers again.
UTB,
John
Added to which we have lost the last four games against them! 😎☹️
KP,
Thanks for reminding me! I must be a Boro supporter to conveniently forget that stat.
UTB,
John
Well yesterday was another unsuccessful day standing in the hole digging and have now come to the conclusion that I need something more incisive – that will come in the shape of my father-in-law with a chainsaw.
Whether Tony Pulis can call on someone with added power and sharpness is possibly going to be difficult but he’ll hopefully find something to get the Riverside buzzing. I wonder if Steve Gibson has noted that West Brom have now won three in a row since appointing a caretaker – though knowing Boro, our caretaker would probably prove to be less than handy and end up locking himself in the basement.
Pulis will possibly have to sit down today as he’ll probably be feeling quite dizzy after all he spinning yesterday. It seems his plan is still on course after he declared “At the beginning of the season, you’re hoping and praying that you’ll be in the mix, and we’re in the mix. We’re well in the mix.”
Sadly for many, that mix appears to be in danger of setting if nothing concrete has happened during the international break. Although, Tony is remaining philosophical as he added: “You’re always going to ebb and flow over the course of a season, especially in a league as competitive as this. There has been few signs of Boro’s football flowing in the last six months and for many supporters their enthusiasm has certainly been ebbing.
Then in what seemed like a less than subtle dig at the Boro recruitment team he then spoke of Norwich in an envious tone: “They’ve done fantastic, recruitment wise, they’ve brought players in I’d never really heard of, and that’s most probably the beauty of having a manager from another country, where they will know the players in Europe who can come in and play and do those roles. They’ve bought well and recruited well, and they’re a very well-organised and well-balanced team.”
So there you have it, Pulis has seemingly indicated that Boro will need to find a foreign manager if they want to progress in the Championship – someone who won’t target the usual suspects and will show a bit of imagination.
Pulis kind of intimated at what kind of players Boro need and some of the more astute readers may notice what that means: “They’ve got fantastic ball carriers. I think out of all the teams in the league, they’ve probably got the best ball carriers. They’ve got three or four real top ball carriers in their team.”
I suspect when it comes to carrying balls you probably need to show them first and if the Boro manager wants to see players in his team doing that then he needs to encourage them to do that and not set up to just keep it tight.
Anyway, I’m not expecting today to be anything but a tight encounter but unless Boro try to take the game to Norwich, there will probably be only one outcome as I can’t see our defence shutting out the Canaries attack. Though I expect that will be the plan and it’s probably the hope to be ‘still in the game’ for the last 20 minutes or so before Pulis brings on a second striker.
Prediction: 2-0 to Norwich.
BTW As a little Brexit postscript – I was amused yesterday during my morning break when I saw a newspaper review ahead of yet another meaningless vote on the matter. The Sun front page actually went with a joke I made about Brexit on the 21 November in my article (Boro return to negotiating a successful Championship exit) with the Brexit’s Midnight Runners and Come on Arlene. 🙂
Werder try drilling very long holes into the trunk of the Bole of the tree filling with petrol soaked rags and setting fire to it
It should weaken it sufficiently to enable chunks to come off
Repeat as necessary slow but sure methodology
OFB
OFB,
Our farmer neighbour did ours, a wire rope and a huge Massey Ferguson tractor. I know that doesn’t help Werder.
UTB,
John
TNT works wonders !
Thanks for the tips but the previous owners in their infinite wisdom planted the tree around 30 years ago right next to the main waste-water manhole drain. The roots have grown around the concrete rings into a 30cm thick tangle of heavy duty roots. They also have grown vertically downwards and we suspect there is another drainage pipe that runs deeper under the stump.
Unfortunately, no company would touch the job in case they risked breaking the sewer pipes, which would then mean a rather expensive repair job. So it’s a case of carefully removing roots to avoid damage – I’ve probably now cut around 50 with a hand saw but my body is aching now and not willing to tackle the the heavy-duty roots by hand. Anyway, Mrs Werder’s father is coming with his chainsaw on Monday – he’s a 67-year old quite burly ex-handball player who likes to get stuck in but is the kind of man who asks questions later rather than starting with a plan. 🙂
Unlike the Boro today it sounds like a plan!
You could threaten it with a Boro season card, that should convince it to throw the towel in and go gracefully with zero resistance!
Just watching the news as I have my break and saw an item on the UK’s oldest man, Bob Weighton, who celebrates his 111 birthday today. He seemed still very sharp and while he has no idea what the secret to a long life was, his advice to others who have asked was “Just avoid dying.”
With all the pre match entertainment and flags arranged for todays homage to the mythical Valley of Teesside I can’t see what could possibly go wrong with Hernandez and Buendia running rings round our deep sitting static defence feeding goal machine Pukki.
I just hope TP realises he has nothing to lose and at least tries to win this game and comes out and gives it a go. Any repeat of his Villa mentality will result in rumblings and discontent gathering momentum plus those ill advised flags can make a very useful improvised projectile should fans become disgruntled. Hopefully we will see a long overdue Boro performance and lets hope the flags are confined to the West Stand Upper just in case. A points deduction is the last excuse we need.
Such are the vagaries of football management these days, I doubt that OGS will see out his new three year contract at Man Utd.
The Dirties win a penalty (courtesy of Alioski) at home to Millwall at 0-1. Paddy takes it – & misses!
The Lions, on the other hand, win onw & convert it (Ben Marshall).
Derby running riot: 4-1 at the moment (two for Waghorn…).
Unfortunately, the Rams’ 1-0 lead at home to the Millers puts them above us in the table as things stand at the moment, with Villa also in on the act, leading 1-0 at home to Blackburn (Villa 5th, Derby 6th & Boro 7th). 🙁
So looks like Pulis is going 5-3-2 with Clayton surprisingly returning to midfield to join Mikel and Howson. Fletcher and Britt start up top but not sure where their supply is going to come from unless Friend and Shotton are going to provide it from the wing-back positions.
Starting XI: Randolph, Shotton, Ayala, Flint, Fry, Friend, Mikel, Clayton, Howson, Fletcher, Assombalonga.
Subs: Dimi, McNair, Besic, Tavernier, Saville, Downing, Hugill
Absolutely ne creativity in that line up.
If Shotton or Friend get nothing in from the wide positions, which to date that haven’t, then only one outcome.
Mmm, looks a bit more defensively minded with Clayton and Howson. As Weder says, not much going forward really.
Tp playing for a draw and I am going out so will miss the game.
And nowt less than a win will do to take us back up to fifth… *shakes head* 🙁
It’s all looking pretty tight now after this afternoon’s games and Boro will fall to 8th if they lose – Just one point ahead of Preston in 10th going into the game. We could certainly do with a win but looks like a team selection to try and avoid defeat. Let’s hope Clayton has spent the International break practising shooting and passing…
Any streams Werder ?
I have found on Front row sports !
So looking at the lineup it seems TP is aiming to give Norwich a 0-0 thrashing. Very negative selection for a game we have to win. The problem with that strategy as we’ve seen so many times before is that it goes out of the window when the opposition scores. If you keep on doing the same thing don’t be surprised if you get the same result. Boro 0 Norwich 3.
Decent game although Norwich should have made more of their chances, nothing from Shotton or Friend.
They have now!😎
Carthorses 0 Thoroughbreds 1
What? Nil and a defeat at home? There’s a surprise…….!! Pulis out now please.
Well, that was not as bad as I thought it might be, after the other games that went before. But I guess we will get no better in the other upcoming games.
UTB.
stuck in the gulf air lounge at terminal 4. looks like I missed a predictable match.
shame for those who were there and paid good hard earned cash.
at least will save mine as playoffs seem miles away now
The only nice thing that happened yesterday was I had a long chat with David Hodgson whom I hadn’t seen since our Interview.
He said he dips in and out of the blog to see what’s being posted and reads the In2Views as many are of his friends and compatriots
Many thanks to Werder and RR for keeping up the good work in a dour season
OFB
After being at the match this evening,let me just say we did not disgrace ourselves, in fact a draw would not have unfair to Norwich. For all the negativity about Clayton, let me just say he put in a shift, mainly in the attacking third. The goal came about because Howson and Fletcher both had chances to clear the ball and didn’t take them, just the same as our strikers had opportunity to score but didn’t take them.
What was embarrassing was a section of the crowd booing the players during the match, which IMHO was not justified. I would rather these people did not renew season tickets and Boro play in front of a crowd of 10,000 who want to support the team.
Come on BORO.
There is one thing for sure after today, there has to be a massive clear out of most of the players. Hugill surely must have played his last game for Boro. Besic/ Downing/Assombalonga/Shotton/Friend/Howson/Gestede/Saville/Mcnair…all need to be replaced. Nearly forgot and the manager.
Disappointing because we didn’t play that badly but we just weren’t quite good enough to unsettle Norwich. Fletcher looked good in the first half but faded. If Wing had been taking the shots instead of Howson we’d have probably scored but hopefully he’ll be back soon from injury. Is it stating the obvious to say that when we attached in force for the last fifteen minutes we looked like scoring. The cautious approach isnt working. Why not just go for it with a more attacking lineup. Something has to be done to change things.
UTB
selwynoz,
The thing that needs to change is the manager. The manager’s philosophy and tactics will only change with a new man in charge of the team.
His home caution patently doesn’t and isn’t working. We can see it, in fact any fool can see it, as can every body else so the problem is that the rest of the world is, apparently, out of step with him. Boro are stuck in a self-punishing cul-de-sac so much so that it has almost become a form of self-flagellation.
Season ticket sales should be interesting because I can’t see Boro winning again any time soon with this man in charge. Rationalise that club management. If you can.
Mr Pulis will probably see only losing 0 – 1 as a good result against the Champions in waiting.
Meanwhile,
UTB,
John
All the headlines are saying today that Woodgate is going to be made head coach
If and I mean if that happens it may be that Pulis moves not out of the club but up to Director of Football
OFB
Selwynoz
The interesting thing about the attacking (when the game was lost), was, it consisted of fast ground passes(lots of them) which immediately sent out the alarm signals for Norwich, which led to an immediate outbreak of players throwing themselves to the ground and rolling around until consoled by the referee(approx. Three minutes on average).
The stupidity of the Pulis methods are there to be seen at any and every home match, as an example we spent an awful lot of time clearing the ball from our area with quite good and athletic headed clearances (lots of them) they all, without exception, crossed the halfway line where the entire Norwich team was waiting to collect the ball unchallenged and start another attack. Fact, sorry about that but you cannot accept a failure of tactics on that scale without acting on the evidence of your eyes, which means of course goodbye and don’t ring us we’ll ring you.
We can decorate it any way we want and put the blame on poor finishing, bad Refereeing or just pure bad luck but the below is clear and unequivocal:
https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/middlesbrough/form-guide/home/ten
Redcar Red,
Damn right, we’re rubbish. And a pushover.
UTB,
\John
RR, yes that says it all completely. 23 out of 24 Championship Chairman would have sacked their Mananger.
May be, just may be, OFB is right, Our Owner possibly has not been turning up to see the continual incompetence served up by Mr Pulis.
The best I can say about tonight’s game – which I watched from thirty minutes on – is that we gave a fair account of ourselves without seriously threatening to win the day. The distinct lack of urgency, alas, reminded me of a fear AV once discussed – beiging into the second tier wallpaper like our midfielders beige into a dour conformoblock*. Becoming “the likes of Middlesbrough”. Goodbye initiative, hello conformity.
Ever since the commanding collective lost its belief and momentum following Sean Dyche’s wind up and a subsequent defeat to Burnley, things just haven’t been the same. And that was three years ago.
*By that, I mean, it doesn’t matter who you pick to play – Clayton, Saville, Besic, even (worryingly) Mikel – they all feel pretty much interchangeable.
Simon
There is another story, when you have been turned over by bottom teams at home, frequently, and your fans are openly saying you will concede six. You will find that even the biggest quitters and layabouts will do enough to save face(unfortunately, not actually win, but save their sorry faces) and that is what happened.
As Exmill said, we had two chances to clear the ball away before they scored. And the ball nutmegged two (2) two Boro players on the way to goal. A fluke!
We were no worse than Norwich yesterday. This time I would say we played well and should have deserved more.
But I am worried about the results. Really worried now. Four matches lost in a row. We all blame Pulis but the players have to respond, too.
Friend, Shotton and sometimes Assombalonga look hopeless. I like Britt and Flecther up front but sometimes Britt lose the ball too easily. The wing backs are our worst players, unfortunately.
Let’s finish the season with Pulis, but then we must reconsider. Up the Boro!
Jarrko, we have no real pace in the team, play a system with wing backs that do not deliver, attacking or defending.
Britt may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but using Exmil’s phrase, he put a shift in.
The service he received was once more abysmal .
We have played top money for average players made to look worse by Mr Pulis. Even Mikel has started to look no different,
Sadly have to agree that even Mikel looks like he been Pulised to death over the last few games. If the rumoured extra year for TP is true then I think we need to hunker down for another Strachan era.
Clearly the timing of any such “extension” announcement would be best during a ten game unbeaten run coinciding with Season Card renewals but the lack of both isn’t healthy at all. Blind faith in supporting Boro is fine for some but it won’t fill the Stadium if this continues.
Putting an alternative slant on it. Supposing TP does stay, has a summer clear out and somehow keeps us up at the top next season with his sheer drudgery style of football, I still don’t think its going to get the fans back. All relationships run their course and this one is in need of severe counselling if there is to be any come back for TP and increasing dare I say it even SG himself.
The club as Simon has alluded to is looking very directionless with a serious shade of Magnolia. I see no fight, no spirit or belief and that has to come from the leader be it TP or preferably SG at this moment in time. Maybe SG is as fed up as many of us are and psychologically is not renewing his commitment (rather than his Season Card). Can’t say I blame him after the past decade but if that is the case then something needs to be addressed for the sake of the Club and soon. I guess with only eight games remaining it may as well wait until May but like Theresa, keeping on doing the same thing but expecting different results isn’t the best of plans.
RR
“may as well wait until May” please, no, that cannot be, he came here from a losing run of 16?
It was no fluke, he has proved that that he is an eccentric, strange selections, strange substitutes, strange statements to the press, a strange aversion to sitting down during press conferences, all of this reflects on us, the world listens to his meanderings and thinks that we agree with this rubbish.
His overall plan for this club consists of selling anyone of value, and throwing the money away on dross.
His actual coaching skills are nil, witness his team trying to score a goal (from inside the six yard box), do not under any circumstances shoot, and if you must then have the decency to put it over the bar. Always pass to feet, that way you know your man will be standing still, it stops him running too fast. When defending, never employ the block, it’s much easier to disposess him with a clean tackle, pick out a team mate and pass to him, the fact that all the big teams use the block is just a fad and will pass.
When taking corners always use your best attacker to do the simple task of kicking the ball into the goalmouth, that way he will not be there to put the ball in the net, saves a lot of embarrassment, oh, and never take a short corner, its a bit unfair on the opposition, after all they have every right to some heading practice it’s their living as well as yours.
When defending be very careful not to chip the ball over the heads of the opposition, this will cause them to turn and run towards their own goal, a bit unsporting, don’t you think.
On the subject of unsporting behaviour, I noticed that Norwich used only the inswinging corner (coming in right under the bar) at speed, a bit unsporting I thought, because they must have seen that we could not handle it, but there you are, standards are slipping everywhere
I hope Werder hasn’t come to any harm with the Father-in-Laws Chainsaw, no match report posted up yet is very “Untypical” of him. I’m not sure Boro supporters should be permitted access to chainsaws at this moment in time!
Well the clocks may have gone forward but Boro’s promotion prospects appear to have gone backwards after their fourth successive defeat and are now down in eighth. There are just three points separating Preston in 10th from Villa in 5th – so in truth it will be the teams that can games who will ultimately finish above the rest. Playing the leaders was never going to be easy but did Boro show signs that they have what it takes? Or was it a case of taking what we have got used to having – Here’s Redcar Red’s match report for your Sunday morning reading…
https://diasboro.club/2019/03/31/boro-0-1-norwich/
Phew!
I was expecting to read “Deprimierte Teessider läuft Amok mit Kettensäge” in das Bild.
The chainsaw massacre is planned for Monday – hopefully we won’t need a tree surgeon!
Great report, RR, thank you.
I wonder if your desire for a creative playmaker buys too much into the idea of a magic bullet, of a single ‘cure all’ medicine, one shot of which will solve all our problems.
Yes a creative player would be welcome and positive, but it wouldn’t address the team’s structural problems such as a lack of pace, defensive tactics, unbalanced squad and agricultural football.
We’re out of the play offs and I can’t see us gettting back into them.
Chris we don’t just need a singular creative playmaker, we need to have a few players with zeal, pace, endeavour, skill and energy around the creative playmaker. VLP and Tav may be able to add some of it but its questionable as to whether it would be to the required standard as neither have had the opportunity under Pulis.
What is clear is that Shotton is a well intentioned lumbering CB played as a RB because of his throw ins (which lead to absolutely nothing). Friend has passion but lacks ability and waits for the ball rather than anticipates the next phase but he isn’t alone in that. Those two are the only creative aspect of Pulis’s Boro when Wing isn’t available. Howson runs about a lot and gets into some good areas as does/did Downing but their shooting is unacceptably poor for supposed Professionals.
There are now far too many flaws in TP’s management which is the source of all the structural problems you have highlighted. As a few above have already mentioned there needs to be a massive clear out in the Summer starting with the Manager.
Chris
The talk of a playmaker is just shorthand for players who will play, (that is, move, run, shoot, try to score(and no, I do not include the balloon over the bar).
It is not picking on Pulis, he had made himself an open target, there is simply no sensible reason for any manager to introduce a serious sub with three minutes to go, we will not even discuss doing it twice, yesterday was the third time.
why should we be the only club to tolerate this level of incompetence, it is a dream job, but the penalty for incompetence is instant and brutal, at least it is with any normal club, we are apparently different.
The Pulis era is over, every one knows that, so why would we give him any more chances to humiliate us and our team. Do the deed now, today. We posses the players who could and should collect enough points to make the playoffs, with of course a manager, and that would be a continental. Let’s try to make some money, just for a change.
Thanks RR for another great report.
Not much else to say. I have more pressing matters to exercise my thoughts than expounding on another typical Boro performance from both management and the majority of players! 😎
Thanks to RR for his excellent match report and getting into the Tees Valley/Captain Cook spirit – though he didn’t mention if the team had ran out to ‘Into the Valley’, which would have been appropriate given our promotion prospects are on the skids.
My laptop took the liberty of doing an impromptu Windows update shortly before kick-off as I went to the fridge to fetch a precautionary beer – which subsequently caused problems trying to get a live feed of the game and ended up missing thefirst 20 minutes.
From what I saw Boro put in a lot of effort before the interval and had Norwich on the back foot for most of the first half. However, what has become clear over the recent weeks is that the team look short on ideas and there’s no real sense of the players linking up or anticipating either runs or passes from team-mates.
This is the problem for me under Pulis is that the players execute a game plan rather than play together as a team. Once Norwich had started to get into gear, you could see that they played like a team who knew what each other were going to do.
Boro in contrast usually ended up making a few short passes to each other around the halfway line as they pondered what to do next. George Friend remains the default outlet and his overall ability is never going to create that killer ball into the box – he essentially has one trick of dummying to cross and running past the defender and after it’s been used once the defender is wise to it.
Of course the other form of attack is the Shotton long throw from the other side – it always appears to slow the game down and the opposition are in nearly all cases waiting to clear the ball. Also, despite playing with two forwards, Fletcher and Britt were seldom close to each other with Fletcher often out on the right.
OK, the players worked hard and a 1-0 defeat was probably better than what most had expected. Although, once Norwich had scored we all knew that Boro have never won a game this season at the Riverside when the opposition score. In fact the commentator also made the point that Boro have also never won a game in the 13 times (now 14) the opposition scored first. Something I’m sure the players are well aware of.
With the news that Bristol City had won at Sheffield United to end their recent winless run, it makes Tuesday even harder. Will Pulis make another formation change and change of personnel? I expect the players will need to execute a new plan and George may be handed another sheet of A4 to read so he can pass on the revised plan to his team-mates.
These passing of notes during games is perhaps indicative of what the dynamic is between manager and players – they play under his instructions until he decides they need new instructions. That’s why Boro look less fluid than other teams and the players don’t really have much in the way of a relationship on the pitch. Pulis is the General who orchestrates his foot soldiers from the touchline – unfortunately he appears not to be a lucky General.
Could the alleged “wage slip” being touted at the end of the Newport game have actually been one of Pulis’s papers” which would put a very different slant on what the interpretation?
My view of that social media nonsense has been well documented and I’m not sure under what circumstances a player would enter the field of play with their wage slip – unless of course some use it as a form of motivation to ensure they earn their corn. Although, it’s possible players like Braithwaite may prefer instead opt to use their hefty wage slips as shin pads. What was amusing is that whatever the instructions, George seemed to need several looks at it to work out what it said – so doesn’t seem like it was something they’d worked on.
On Tuesday Bristol arrive here after a great victory by scoring three goals at Sheffield United yesterday. They will no doubt be buoyed by that win and now sitting above us by virtue of having scored eight more goals this season.
What is really interesting however is that the two sides have had very similar seasons to date. Like Boro, Bristol’s Home form has been poor all season but like Boro their Away form has been very good. A Championship team on the slide with poor Home form against a Championship team with a very good Away form doesn’t bode well. Realistically it could it be five defeats in a row.
Webermouth if our play was any less fluid it would have rigor mortis. 19 goals at home sums it up for me not good enough, as you say we are playing to a system individuality and creativity are not allowed, it’s very disheartening. I still haven’t renewed my season tickets at the moment I would be better off saving my money and going to watch paint dry. It would just as exciting.
All the Players with a bit of zip have been cleared out, Christie, Fabio, Bamford etc. all discarded because they didn’t fit the template. Problem for Pulis is that now he has the players to fit his Template it hasn’t dawned on him that his Template is the wrong shape.
Redcar Red,
Many thanks for the report although the usual shortcomings seem to be more than evident yet again, a consoling fact is that it is a form of consistency but it’s the wrong sort as everyone contributing to this blog knows.
I console myself with the thought that the squad have bought out of Pulis’ tactics and are hoping and praying, just as we are, that somebody with true leadership and motivational qualities comes as a new manager. Had Boro started the season like this we’d already be relegated.
Surely this man cannot be given another year to prove how rubbish his, well, anything to do with the beautiful game is.
People call him a dinosaur, and I paraphrase General Erich Ludendorff from the First World War here when he reportedly said the British soldiers were lions led by donkeys. Sadly in this case Boro have become donkeys led by a dinosaur.
Will Boro win a game in the rest of the season? I get the feeling that they’d lose to themselves.
Please can we have a new manager who is recruited through a viable selection process? Or is that too difficult?
UTB,
John
Right now it reminds me of relegation form. A team plays well in patches but nothing seems to go for you. Then the other team scores and whatever brittle self-belief you had drains away. It’s like watching the post-Christmas slump in Robbo’s first premier league season when we didn’t win for something like 13-14 games. You felt that once a few games in a row had gone by that the team just had no clue about what to do next or belief that they could get out of it. Robbo sent them out the same way each week and each week they got the same result.
Same here. Taking a step back, there is absolutely no way that this team should lose 4 in a row. That is so far below expectation as to be a sacking offence. I have less belief in most about the influence of managers but this kind of run of form for a team that has one of the best squads in the Championship is a symptom of a massive failure. At this point there is an argument for bringing in a new manager to get ready for next season early.
Ever since Charlton, it’s felt as though there is something broken at MFC. Occasionally papered over but always ready to break again.
Good post Deleriad. 😎
Not my choice! 😎
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8757184/middlesbrough-woodgate-tony-pulis/amp/
Not mine either. It would end in tears,
In his post-match comments, it at least sounds like Tony Pulis has identified the problem of why Boro are not scoring goals…
“They [the players] have got to man up and be strong enough to understand that they have to take their chance. Goals change games, you saw a different side to Norwich when they scored, that really gave then a lift and knocked us and that’s the big thing.”
So that should now be sorted for Tuesday!
RR
Great post RR shame about the result
Two small comments as from my vantage in the West stand I could see from a different angle
Ayala was booked for a handball as you thought it may have been he used the inside of his forearm to sweep the ball away
JOM was booked for moving the ball forward after the ref had placed it for the free kick
Regarding the notes Pulis hands out
The players are reading the notes but not necessarily playing them in the right order!
Well done RR a great report as usual
OFB
The simple fact is, we have middling Championship players. The goalkeeper aside none of the squad are being coveted by teams higher than us.
A change of manager would still involve having to pick from the same squad of players.
Well, the youngsters are being coveted … Maybe that’s why he doesn’t use them to try and keep them out of sight of would be suitors…
GHW
I am reluctant to blame the players, because our manager has been pretty consistent in fielding his own personal team regardless of form or suitability for the task in hand, his identifying of any new talent coming to the fore in the club is abysmal, and if he is advising the club which young players should be secured on longer contracts he is not having much luck, because we seem to be at the mercy of any club that fancies our young internationals, they just tell us that they are going to take them (I don’t think they say thank you).
He decides the tactics, not much luck there either.
He decides the words he speaks to the press, not much sense there.
So I think it is goodbye , like now would be highly satisfactory to every Boro fan. A quick poll of the west stand upper (all die hards) would bring a certain pallor to the face of SG, and their complaint is simple and deadly, manager and tactics, tied together with an umbilical cord, and sinking like a stone.
Not being coveted could also be because they have been priced out of everybody else’s wage range. McNair, Saville, Besic, Flint, Hugill and even VLP were all coveted during his watch. Traore, Gibson, Bamford, Fabio, Christie et al were coveted.
Thanks to RR for the usual great report and I love your reference to the Discovery!
I had a quick look at the form table and indeed for the last 5 games we are in a relegation position and even the last 10 only mid table.
The fact that we have dropped out of the top 6 should set off all the alarm bells for the whole club from SG downwards. Unless, as I have said before, that the plan is not to get promoted. The way we are going at the moment almost proves my theory!
My son in law who is not a Boro supported and only goes along very occasionally with my daughter was there yesterday and unfortunately his good luck charm (never seen us lose) didn’t work.
Tuesday’s game now becomes yet another must win game and like May unless TP changes something fundamental, then I am not holding up much hope. I will be there, despite a long drive, the consolation being that I am using the SC of a relative who has, quite rightly, decided that rushing back from a work event, is not worth any points on his driving licence!
If TP sticks with the same team and tactics, then I cannot see anything positive coming from it but who knows, he may have been motivated by the reference to James Cook and decides to start his own journey of discovery into uncharted waters.
UTB
Change the boots our team are using, they are obviously made of glass judging by the way we strike the ball.
That note Pulis sent on was downright embarrassing, combined with his bawling the whole game, he obviously has no confidence in the team to ” man up ”
Makes me wonder what they do at training all week definately not set pieces, passing to your own team or shooting practice.
Maybe they have walking practice and everyone being in our goal area.
Tactics your having a laugh !!
Farke spent £4m in the summer & has created a Norwich side that are a pleasure to watch and manage to get results. One dimensional hoof ball merchant Pulis spent £20m & created a Boro side that stink out every ground they play at. Yet some will still tell us that if you want good results, which we aren’t even getting, you have to play the Pulis way. Also telling that Norwich also lost 2 key players in the summer in Maddison & Murphy, and spent a fraction of what Pulis has squandered on replacments.
Pulis was a rnnk bad managerial appointment by Steve Gibson. I only hope OFBs reports of a contract extension being a done deal are false. If the club are waiting for the right time to announce that they’ll be waiting a long time!
Mrmis…..I have been wondering actually how much Norwich have spent this season. I know Pukki was a free, so may be a signing on fee of type. But I believe they have brought in a good number. Not sure about loans.
Did see that they have a Director of Football (or similar) We tried with Orta and failed somewhat, yet he has done OK at Leeds.
I guess it just must be Mr Gibson and those at MFC that have failed.
Norwich spent around £4m despite raking in over £20m in selling 2 of their best players.
The Orta experience may have ended acrimoniously but to abandon that model due to the behaviour of that individual seems churlish. For all his faults Boro did make money on some Orta signings – De Roon, Bamford, Traore etc. Can’t see the same happening with any of Pulis’s buys.
PuBall. Stinking out every PL worthy ground since 2008.
I can only quote West Brom, they were kind enough to inform us that they had just emerged from a nightmare, eleven straight defeats, godawful football, narrow escape from going down, awful person, god complex, no talking to him, and that included the chairman. Oh, they threw a party when he left, that was good. I believe they are above us in the league, probably get promoted, so there is hope.
The odd thing is… it’s not that we’re not capable of better, even with this supposedly below par set of players.
The boss we used to mock as a “Lego Head” took a group of Championship players into the PL. Down they went but they were all the better for the experience. He took the core of that team up again, kept them up, sold two of the best players for a £37 million profit and took the rest of them into Europe.
Their 2-0 win over Wolves, which I caught yesterday on MOTD, was educational. The boys in gold had all the flair (Adama included). They had all the “intricate movements”, “fancy passing”, etc, etc… 65% of the ball, to be precise. Yet they almost never really hurt Burnley.
Does that make Burnley lucky to win? No. It makes them resilient and capable of taking the chances that come their way – the hallmark of a well-built side who can keep their heads at the right time. That’s why I think they’ll survive again. Even if Wolves had more chances, and Hart had been called into action more… goalkeepers are paid to save shots, and Burnley have a good goalkeeper. Again, not “lucky”.
Boro, by contrast… in my time, we’ve always been a “confidence” team. Always. The greater the fear of failure, the more spooked we’re likely to be. If we get a 2-0, or under AK, 1-0, head start, we tend to be good or commanding enough to beat anyone. Go, say, 2-0 down (or under AK, nearly all the time, 1-0 down) and we’re frozen by a “that wasn’t supposed to happen” feeling.
I was once very proud of our team when we played very well at Arsenal in October 2016. That pride becomes somewhat misplaced, however, when you consider that any team can perform when the pressure’s off.
Taking a while to look at our squad…
Randolph – Ireland’s No. 1, one year’s experience as a PL No. 1 with West Ham.
Mikel – Ten years as a PL starter with Chelsea.
Friend – One year’s PL experience, 2016-17.
Ayala – 26 appearances in the PL, 14 with Boro.
Shotton – Two consecutive seasons as a regular for Stoke in the PL.
Clayton – See Friend.
McQueen – 19 PL appearances for Southampton.
Howson – Three seasons as a PL regular with Norwich.
McNair – 24 starts for Man Utd over two seasons.
Fletcher – 16 appearances for West Ham in the top flight.
Downing – more than ten years as a PL regular overall.
Van La Parra – one season with Huddersfield in the PL.
Besic – 35 appearances for Everton over two seasons.
Gestede – One season as a PL regular with Villa.
Contrast with the “best squad in the league” in 2015-16, and note that only Leadbitter, Nugent and Downing were previously PL regulars.
The achievement of 2015-16 suddenly looks a whole lot better. 89 points, still our highest tally of the decade.
Trawling through Social Media, I am surprised that a lot of supporters wouldn’t mind Woodgate as manager. If that did happen and I pray it won’t, it will be the end of Boro for a long time.
Time to shift Woodgate and his mate Downing out of the club forever.
We need a lots of new blood team wise and in the backroom set up plus the so called recruitment team needs to disbanded and a fresh start there. There are too many jobs for the boys and that needs to be eradicated. Ref manager vacancy at the end of the season we need a tough one. Alex Neil / Neil Warnock or a magician !
Too late for Boro lad magician Paul Daniels, he’s Brown Bread.
If Woodgate wants to be a Manager then he needs to start at a much lower level, prove his worth and work his way up. I suspect that there is an age split on those who don’t see him as a problem and those of us with a much longer memory and with a few more worldly wise miles on the clock.
There has been little in his playing career to indicate that he has Coaching or Management traits and even less so off the field of play. We all grow up and mature at different rates so he may one day be a successful Manager but there is a time and a place and this is neither the time or place.
Text for a video currently doing the rounds on Twitter (over 2,000 likes!)
T.O.N.Y.P.U.L.I.S.
A Sitcom
STARRING
LONG BALLS
LONG THROWS…
WHICH RARELY BEAT THE FIRST MAN
SCORING FEWER GOALS THAN ROTHERHAM
GETTING KNOCKED OUT OF THE LEAGUE CUP BY A LEAGUE ONE TEAM
…AND THE FA CUP BY A LEAGUE TWO TEAM
MAKING THIS SUBSTITUTION (Friend for Britt – Si) AT 1-0…
…AND LOSING 1-2
PLAYING 5-4-1 AT HOME TO IPSWICH
AND BRIEFLY STARRING…
RAJIV VAN LA PARRA
(“I think, for the fans, I’m a really exciting player, a player you want to have the ball…”)
Soundtrack, of course… The Rembrandts.
(Source: Dan Forrest.)
SCORING FEWER GOALS THAN ROTHERHAM
Only Stoke, Ipswich and Bolton have actually scored fewer goals than us in the Championship. Regardless of tactics that are based on defensive solidity no side is ever going to achieve Promotion if you don’t score goals. Put simply goals win games and TP has proven repeatedly this season that he isn’t capable of winning games on too many occassions.
Thanks again for another accurate report, RR. I don’t know how you have the patience each week, given the dross served up on the pitch by Boro, especially at home.
On Saturday, I said to the guy who sits next to me that I hope we don’t go with Woody. No offence to him. I have genuinely no idea how he would be as the manager. He knows the club inside out and he’s managed the youth team, so they might be advantages, but equally, they might not be. The opposite could apply. Familiarity breeds contempt, and all that.
But my main reasons for not wanting Woody are, firstly, that we have been bitten several times previously with the rookie manager syndrome. Although McLaren, Robson, Karanka and even Gareth all came good to an extent, it took most of them an age to do so while they learned the ropes, and all bar Schteve ultimately failed. Agnew was another one. Less said the better. Secondly, I think we need a clean break from Pulis and his retrograde playing style. Has Woody been too close to this over the last couple of years, as part of the management team? Can he break free of the Pulis influence and shackles? We need someone, assuming we don’t go up, who can build a successful side from potentially very limited finances and get them playing on the front foot and scoring goals. Someone, too, who can get the fans back on side. It’s a tall order. I think we need someone who has already done all that successfully elsewhere and can hit the ground running.
And just as I think we could and should unearth some hidden gems of players in the lower leagues, I think the same goes for managers. I’d like to suggest those two brothers at Lincoln City who seem to me to have done a tremendous job over a couple of seasons. Their names always escape me. Any other suggestions, lads and lasses?
Clive,
I said on a previous post, because I follow Lincoln City too, that their manager has what I would call a proper CV that shows an apprenticeship through non-league with various teams to achieving promotions with Lincoln. He’s served his time in the school of hard knocks and they play good football. Please not another parochial appointment from within. We aren’t the Liverpool of old with the boot room’.
Let’s have an appointment with imagination and a manager with imagination.
Anyway check him out on Wikipedia.
UTB,
John
It would be a serious test for Danny Cowley to step up to Boro for example. He has earned the right but his management and coaching experience is with players with a totally different psyche and make up. Players at the level of Braintree and Lincoln are focussed on paying the mortgage this month and playing for a new contract to enable them to keep a roof over their heads.
At Boro we have millionaires happier to sit their contracts out than play football. Millionaires higher up the food chain get upset because their preferred Maserati or Aston Martin shade has a six month waiting list. Motivation, incentivising and mentoring is a completely different approach for a Player who earns as much in a month than the entire Lincoln starting eleven. What works at Sincil Bank won’t cut the mustard with a wage blocker at the Riverside.
That said I’d much rather see a genuine manager like Cowley than a local Boro lad with zero experience.
There’s a certain Brian Clough who started his managerial career at Hartlepool. I seem to recall he didn’t do too badly.
Ken
Swapping Higgy for Woody would be fine with me plus it gives Woody the chance to prove himself on Teesside. If he comes back here having won the League One play off final with Pools then fair play to him.
Clive, you know me. It’s Mogga. Give him a bit (!) more money than last time around. He has done wonders at Blackburn since.
An he likes good football.
Up the Boro!
Boro Breaking News – Just heard that Steven Gerrard being lined up from Rangers to take over as Manager at the Boro #mfcwinner
OFB
Fraught with huge risk that one. Apart from managing the second horse in a two horse race there is nothing to show as of yet that he has any serious managerial credentials.
Of the two up there I’d rather gamble with Neil Lennon. A bit of a Nigel Pearson type nut job but I’d reckon he would be worth the admission money on his own plus I couldn’t see him “accommodate” certain individuals.
There would undoubtedly be something to clean up afterwards but no doubt a thrill a minute while he was in full flow. On a serious note he was more circumspect than Brendan Rodgers in the Champions League games showing that he actually does have a footballing brain in there despite the emotions. It may also be a good move for him and his family to get away from the constant microscopic examination of his every cough or sneeze.
April 1st….
I’m surprised nobody has announced Karanka is coming back given today’s date 😉
And nobody bit about Gerrard!
Shucks !
OFB
I’m almost as surprised that nobody has mentioned that Downing has resolved his contract situation and starts tomorrow!
Cowley ‘s the main man when you’re talking about Professionals.
Not Mr Pulis, not Mr Woodgate.
Get rid of the majority of the Recruitement Team, including Mr Bevington and definitely Mr Gill.
Then start with a Director of Football, May be the guy at Brentford could be worth looking at. Start with a plan, a system and then look for a reasonably experienced Manager from League 1, that has been successful
I suspect that part of the initial logic behind bringing TP in to the Club was to help create a Plan and not just to be first team Coach. The concern now is that TP was indeed brought in to create a Plan and not just to be first team Coach and that plan is taking shape.
The question for any plan should be if it works or not – if the plan fails then the trend is to say that the plan was merely not well executed. The plan will inevitably continued with in the hope it will eventually be carried out successfully, whether that is either on the pitch or indeed with player recruitment.
Obviously, the belief is that the plan will work and it’s just a case of waiting until all the right elements have been put in place. Just how long the club are prepared to wait for the plan to succeed is another matter – perhaps at some point someone might ask if we need another plan but I imagine by then everyone will have forgotten what the plan was supposed to be.
On the other hand, management is the art of working within the constraints to try and get the best out of your current resources. The Director of Football will be in charge of the long-term plan and the manager should be charged with that short-term management task – i.e. getting results.
At the moment we seem to be working with a plan that doesn’t work with the current resources and the solution appears to be the players will need to change if the plan is to work. What then happens if a new manager is able to get results doing things differently – will he be eventually told to return to the plan by the Director of Football?
RR, I agree. I think we have seen the new model in the past two windows.
We can get a winger from Huddersfield for cheap, but it looks very difficult to get our nr one targets if we don’t pay over the odds.
We can get players like Braithwaite and Assombalonga but the we often need to pay Premier League salaries. And that is not a new norm.
How about Mogga and Woody as a management team?
Up the Boro!
Jarkko
I haven’t seen or heard anything from Woody in his entire career that made me for a millisecond think that he may make a good Manager or Coach. He was a decent CB when fit but he was never that vociferous leader for example like Pearson, Leadbitter, Southgate or indeed Mogga. His off field behaviour smacked of pretentious, spoilt brat rather than conscientious, astute and intelligent. I can’t even say that perhaps he is maybe more of a Roy Keane or Joey Barton character whose style might have short term knee jerk success. If I was forced to choose from the bench it would be Curtis Fleming who has by far the most experience.
To start Monday with a positive we have won one more game at home this season than draws or defeats, won 7, drew 6, lost 6. If we need more reasons to be cheerful we have also scored four more goals at home 19 than conceded 15.
That’s the lowest goals conceded at home in the Championship. The Blades are the next lowest conceders at 16 goals but annoyingly they have also scored 37 goals, almost twice as many as Boro. Clearly Chris Wilder needs a more cautious approach and a few more defensive midfielders in his side.
Redcar Red,
We can help him out a defensive midfielder or two. Problem solved.
UTB,
John
We have already helped him out with Cranie and Johnson, same as we did for Leeds with Forshaw, Harrison, Bamford and even Bailey Peacock-Farrell at a stretch. Now if I was really despondent I could go down the Chris Brunt and James Morrison Baggie link 🙂
I dread to think how low season ticket sales will become for next season, or maybe not if Pulis is shown the door. When one considers that attendance figures include season ticket holders who’ve probably given up attending the Riverside whether it’s on TV or not, I can envisage crowds of less than 18,000 next season. Just contrast that with the upturn in attendances at the City Ground since the sacking of Karanka and the appointment of Martin O’Neill. Even Stoke City are getting larger crowds than Boro, albeit probably counting non-attendee season ticket holders also, yet their team have never looked like making the playoffs with a goalscoring record almost as abysmal as Boro’s.
Maybe OFB can add some insider info but from what I hear the renewals are “disappointingly low so far”.
That isn’t really a great surprise considering the absolute Tosh served up since August and the coincidence of four straight defeats with that predictable Villa surrender in the middle of them plus now slipping out of the Play Offs for the first time since August.
Remind me again what the difference was in August compared to now? Actually that would be a good Question to ask TP at the next presser!
RR
Yes I did ask the commercial manager on Saturday how the sales of season cards were doing ?
“Very slow was the response “
OFB
I keep saying it is part of the cunning plan!
I read Phil Tallentire’s piece today regurgitating the rumour in the Sun about Woody stepping up. Surprised he as a local journalist didn’t have some meat on the bones to add to the story to either decry or support said rumour. The only comfort I take in it was that it was from the Sun which has a less than credible version of footballing events, surprised a Mirror group newspaper giving them the time of day.
RR
If he (woody) does step up to it it will be with Pulis as Director of Football
Pulis has done everything SG has asked him to do
keep us safe from relegation
Don’t buy anyone
Sell your biggest earners
Job done thanks Tony
OFB
QPR sack Steve McClaren after just one win in last 15 league games!
All big North Eastern teams lost during the Weekend (exept Newcastle who will play Arsenal today).
A bit miserable. And the black cats are stll trophy virgins. Poor old Leads.
Up the Boro!
Even Redcar Athletic lost Jarkko, not to mention Cas.
I am hoping that it is an April the 1st joke, but the Gazette are reporting that Mr Downing has agreed to wave his contract extension and will be available to start tomorrow night against Bristol.
Just hope he does better than on Saturday when he brought nothing to the game, for Boro anyway.
Looking at the top 50 players in the Championship with Sky Sports rankings, spot the Boro players:
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11688/11681275/championship-power-rankings-leeds-uniteds-pablo-hernandez-top
Gary O’Neil doesn’t count!
Boro are doing well in that league too…
UTYB,
John
Is It possible that Downing has resolved his contract issue because he’s going to have a new one as player coach under woody next season ?
OFB
The vagaries of football management summed up in less than a season. Steve McClaren was appointed by QPR after they had a disastrous start to the season.
He “ turned them around” and had them on the fringe of the playoffs. Unfortunately for him they reverted to type ( albeit P&S had a major influence on them) and managed to rediscover their early season form.
Don’t be sad for him though, he’s firmly established in the closed shop of football managers and will walk away with a nice payoff in his back pocket, and no doubt will soon find himself installed elsewhere.
Makes you wonder, which Gypsy cursed Alan Curbishley?
So Boro have panicked and agreed a new deal for Downing until the end of the season. Obviously they have given him a pay rise. Not worth another penny. Means he can start games now. It goes from bad to worse this club. I really really despair. What a horrible mess we are in. Can’t wait now till the end of the season.
OFB…..no way please…..are you trying to send me over the edge lol
Braveheart. I can’t recall your view of Stewart Downing. Could you remind me? 😏
What a pity that Grant Leadbitter hadn’t got the legs to play 120 minutes in yesterday’s Checkatrade Cup Final, cos he’d have been a certainty to convert a penalty. Or perhaps Jack Ross gambled on Charlie Wyke being able to snatch the winner. Either way it was good to see a record crowd of 85,021 watching the two past giants of Portsmouth and Sunderland slugging it out in the lowest of low Mickey Mouse Cup competitions. Nevertheless I hope both clubs get promoted this season, maybe to rekindle former glories and possibly enhance the standard of the Championship next season.
As someone stated recently, it seems that following Boro is an addiction (could be an affliction?) so it appears I’m an addict and/or certifiable as I’ve succumbed to the lure of the early bird and renewed.
As RR sees things exactly as I do in respect of this tedious season, I’m wondering if he can really hold his nerve, as he says he’s wavering or will he just accept the inevitable, that is, that we’re all incurable and do the deed then retire to a darkened room?
Sadly nothing to waver about Steely, the football at the Riverside this season is worse than Strachan’s and the very real fear that it will be compounded by becoming more even incestuous next season makes it a very easy decision. At least Barry Robson showed fighting spirit and who can forget Willo Flood’s cracking goal from the right touchline against Swansea in front of our then lowest ever Riverside league attendance. McManus playing with a ligament drilled and tied through an ankle bone towards the end. It might have been poor (damn poor mostly) but at least it wasn’t boring. Ah depressing days but nowhere near as bad as it is now.
I’ve put off a European business trip by 24 hours to make tomorrow nights game and often do similar things throughout the season just to get back in time or shuffling things to make rearranged games. Putting my physical, mental and fiscal well being first means that I would miss three, four maybe even five games like as not so picking and selecting games doesn’t make that much of a cost difference. I accept I wont see as many games for similar or even greater outlay but being honest having to endure less of TP’s purgatory is a blessing and a distinct advantage. Heaven only knows what things would be like with the Teesside Twins in charge.
I don’t even fancy going tomorrow night but I will. The sooner this drudgery of a season is over and done with the better. If there is a rank and file overhaul in the summer I will possibly regret not early birding it but I can’t see that happening just now or before April 12th at least.
I feel sorry for Boro supporters having to put up with the dross served up this season. Many now have a decision to make about renewing their season tickets for next season especially as seems likely that Boro will spend several more seasons in the Championship. However I hope that Redcar Red will still be here to give us his honest appraisals of Boro’s performances, but who could blame him if he decides enough is enough?
Nevertheless Boro have been in much worse situations, and although I sometimes harp on about the good old days of my youth in the late 40s and early 50s, there have been many enjoyable seasons watching Boro in the 60s in the Second Division when goals were aplenty even though Boro never really looked like returning to the top tier. I think the problem is that most fans think Boro have wasted opportunities to push on from the Jack Charlton era, and more recently the Riverside glories of Robson and McLaren. Probably having tasted seasons in the Premier League has whetted fans appetites, but that League is almost a closed shop nowadays with all but 7 or 8 clubs main object being to finish outside the bottom three, even to the extent that the FA Cup has become a distraction.
I’m sure Boro will have more glory years, but probably not in my lifetime, but certainly for those several years younger than me. So once we get rid of Tony Pulis maybe we should embrace the prospect of more excitement as a Championship club by giving youth its chance and forget about the untold riches of the Premier League. Let’s look forward to seeing beautiful football again in the Championship instead of the drudgery of relegation fights in the Premier League. Does that make sense to today’s fans?
Belated thanks RR for your alternative match report……true to type for the Boro.
As for ST sale, it would be very interesting to know the current renewals. Possibly many are leaving it as late as possible to see if we can still make the play offs and the miracle of promotion.
If we have more or less blown our chances before April 12, I think there could be a bigger final drop off.
I can renew online so will wait until the 11th hour to decide.
At least we have two wingers now. The Dutch guy (haven’t seen him or learnt his name yet) and Downing.
I still rate Downing. He is a classy player and a better option than Friend, for example. I am happy to see Downing starting a game or two. At least the results were better when he was available to start.
Up the Boro!
But that is the problem Jarrko, SD is not a winger. He does not have the pace to go past a man, never really has. He therefore tends to hit diagonal balls from beyond the 18 yard box, which are meat and drink to defenders, even in the Championship.
Yes can hit a 30 yard cross field ball with accuracy, but what does it generally achieve? It is just showy sideways passing only over a longer distance.
Goals and especially assists are what counts. Both in very short supply.
Holloway scathing about Schteve
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/ian-holloway-launches-scathing-verbal-16059527
Having been away to my son’s for mothers day we recorded the match. Having had a potter we managed to watch the match pre the mean by fast forwarding through parts of it like the adverts and half time deliberations.
It didn’t make the result any better but what struck me was our shooting, it was a mixture of a top class sniper or someone wearing a blindfold. Appropriate it was renamed James Cook Stadium as I suspect their keeper called at James Cook Hospital for treatment to his ribs following a battering from our shots straight at him.
The rest of the shooting had a few fans ducking in the corners, luckily sparsely populated.
PS Redcar Red
Keep it up, it will be over soon, I think Pedro’s 12th April could prove optimistic but who knows with 8 games left. I suspect we may need at least 16 points to stand a chance.
I see Neil Warnock isn’t going to face any action after the Cardiff/Chelsea game yesterday.
He was rightly a tad irritated after being subjected to the unwritten Premiership rule of one rule for the Top 6 and a different slightly less lenient interpretation that graduates towards the bottom of the table along with a geographical location factor and Tabloid repercussion rating.
So Boro and Downing have reached an agreement to allow him to start games without triggering a contract extension – I presume that means Downing has been financially compensated for him to agree to waiver the extension. We could speculate how much but I suspect it’s likely to be on higher side of guesses if it’s taken 15 games to agree the arrangement.
Knowing Tony Pulis, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to make a point by starting him on the bench tonight – though much will depend on whether having been instructed not to start him, he is now instructed the opposite. As to where he would play is another matter – wing-back? or will we see another formation like 4-3-3?
Indeed, will it actually make much difference to our attacking prowess given his general lack of assists or goals. I’ve went for a win tonight in my Exmil prediction, which was mainly based on Bristol City going five without winning – though they’ve now addressed that last weekend against Sheff Utd, so it may be a tall order.
Since we know that Boro have not won this season at the Riverside if the opposition score, then I can only hope for a 1-0 win – perhaps Ayala is due to get one on target!
SD has got a contract that the two parties agreed – why should he give up the benefits of that contract to play for TP? I wouldn’t and I doubt others on here would either.
Downing didn’t get an extra penny ,he just waived his right to an automatic contract extension ,he will be a free agent in July.
He may have done but the reports in the local media state that the club and Downing have come to an agreement, a word which would seem to imply Downing hasn’t just told the club he’s unilaterally cancelled his contract extension.
Coming to an agreement sounds like he’s been compensated in some way – of course the terms of the agreement reached have not been mentioned but it’s taken three months to reach this agreement and Pulis has mentioned several times that the club and player were in talks to end the “impasse”.
Until we hear definitively, it’s only speculation if it was a deal that either offered money or even an option to sign a contract next season that is dependent on whether the club are promoted or not. I doubt we’ll get to hear any details until the season ends.
I don’t think we will get to hear anything official Werder. My guess like yours is that Mr Downing’s palm will have been crossed with silver, one way or the other.
Anyway MFC are very unlikely to tell the world, why change an entrenched habit.
One thing where I disagree with AV. Tonight’s game isn’t a ‘must not lose game’, it’s a ‘must win game’ not only for any playoff aspirations, but to give the Boro’s long-suffering supporters something to smile about. But will Tony Pulis see it that way?
How do you know GT ? Reading several reports indicates he has got something out of it.
Hmmm tend to think that if Stewy was that amenable then why has it taken months to sort out? Just hope it isn’t an Assistants role with his Brother in Law.
My worst nightmare RR in a football sense. That would be me finished with the club for a while.
After Pulis lambasting of Braithwait and his disrespect for Gibson, I’m told Downing overruled his agent?
Fans chanting at the Riverside tonight at the end of the game from the North and South stands “WE WANT PULIS OUT, WE WANT PULIS OUT …..!
OFB
Teesside VSOP 2
Bristol Cream 1
Continue to like your ditties GHW, this one especially and your continual optimism.
Unfortuanately given your record I think you will get this one wrong also. But, we can but live in hope. Eventually you will get one correct, may be not this season though. 👍
I’ve just watched highlights of the Celtic v Rangers Old Firm Derby. What a cacophony of noise, and what it might have lacked in class it certainly made up for in excitement. Maybe Tony Pulis should take note of how a home side generated so much pace especially in the opening few minutes. I doubt that there’s a greater atmosphere anywhere in the World than in an Old Firm Derby. As we saw at Wembley in the Checkatrade Final a full house of passionate fans can lift the players also, which brings me to the FA Cup and the Semifinals this weekend. In someways I feel that playing the Semifinals at Wembley takes some gloss off Cup Final day, especially with the evening kickoffs.
Looking back my favourite FA Cup Finals in chronological order would be:-
1948 Manchester Utd 4 Blackpool 2 (radio only)
1953 Blackpool 4 Bolton 3
1954 West Brom 3 Preston 2
1966 Everton 3 Sheffield Wednesday 2
1970 Chelsea 2 Leeds 2
1973 Sunderland 1 Leeds 0
1979 Arsenal 3 Manchester Utd 2
1987 Coventry 3 Tottenham 2
1989 Liverpool 3 Everton 2
2006 Liverpool 3 West Ham 3
2013 Wigan 1 Manchester City 0
The rest were fairly dull affairs in my opinion, especially Boro’s one and only appearance in 1997, an anticlimax after having already been relegated.
Having said that it’s probably different visiting Wembley Finals than watching them on television. I know it was for me in the 4 Rugby League Cup Finals I saw when Cas won 3 of them.
Tonights match has all the makings of a draw, as long as Bristol City don’t score first. It would be great if Flint had a blinder, (is he playing?) so a draw it is in front of a meagre crowd. Boro goal from open play too, well we can’t deliver corners and free-kicks.
Boro 1 – 1 Bristol City
Sorry DiasBoro I just can’t get excited about it all, probably me and thousands of others.
UTB,
John
Weder ignore previous post, fat fingers failed to hit the right button!
Well, I will be setting off soon for the drive up the A1 and A19 for the match tonight I probably need certifying but supporting the Boro is a hard habit to break.
I am hoping for a win although will be more certain of the result once the team is announced. Let’s see if TP changes from Saturday or sticks to his failing plan. His mantra of starting with 1 point and being defensive is starting to wear thin as are his excuses. A bit like the lady in Downing Street who cannot see that they may have something to do with the problem at hand.
Ever the optimist I am going to say it will be a 0 0 bore draw with Boro having 2 shots on target, 58 crosses and Randolph keeping us in it when the defence go AWOL.
Crowd on a cold Tuesday will be 18181
UTB
Tonight’s a real Left Brain/Right Brain conundrum for TP. Put out a dour negative team and tactics and it won’t go down well, just asking for a bite from the fans. Get a win however and he will ride the storm. A defeat and things won’t be pleasant, that would be Bristol three points ahead with a game in hand surrendering another Play Off place just as he has done all 2019 watching the places drip away drop by negative drop.
I’m honestly not bothered if we win yeah great but if we do it just prolongs the monotonous agony knowing that if we did make the Play Offs TP would again humiliate the heck out of us with like as not one deflected shot on target over two legs.
To get me back on board I need hope and inspiration and that ship probably sailed when Bamford was sold and then sunk around the end of October when I realised that this was it and that it wasn’t going to get any better under Pulis. He has now seemingly entered his long losing streak which signals the end of his tenure but it does normally take a lot longer than this before he gets the fans to this stage and even then usually after a couple of middling seasons. It appears we got Pulis Concentrate rather than the diluted stuff.
I’m going Bore 0 Robins 2 and a few little sea shanty’s sprinkled with travel tips to the South Coast!
Redcar Red,
Pure uncut Pulis. It certainly wouldn’t be ecstasy that is for sure.
UTB,
John
I see Teresa May has ditched the Muhammad Ali “ Rope A Dope” and is now going with the full on “Les Kellett “
( Ask your grandad)
Does anyone know if tonight’s game is on the Red Button?
Apparently not because its a rearranged game rather than a standard midweek fixture. Figure that one out!
There are a few links being shown that its on but I doubt they will have anything showing on them come 7.45pm.
My wild guess for tonight’s team:
Randolph
Shotton
Fry
Ayala
Flint
Friend
Mikel
Howson
Downing
Assombalonga
Hugill
Come on BORO.
I think Clayts may get the nod over Mikel.
I also think he may look for an outlet so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tav get a start seeing as he has now effectively backed himself into a corner and has to get a win and even for TP that means scoring goals.
The Safety Advisory Group have withdrawn the safety Certificate for Bolton’s Reebok/Macron University/no local explorer Stadium.
As a result they may have to play Boro behind closed doors. A spokesman for SAG was asked if it was to protect the paying public from watching a Tony Pulis side and “no comment” was the response allegedly!
I’m thrilled that we have a point already from tonight’s rearranged fixture with Brizzol and it’s not even kick off yet. I do hope we don’t get ahead of ourselves and foolhardishly gamble with that precious point by trying to score the goal to turn that silver point into a golden three points. No, Brizzol has turned the corner now and we would be sure to regret such a cavalier approach to football. I know Randolph is on top for just now, but to be certain we keep that valuable point and don’t leak any goals I hope we string 5 across the back with three deep midfielders protecting the defence, with a fourth midfielder playing a sort of midfield sweeper role behind the deep midfield three. Then, to make absolutely certain we have the outlet to grab an opportunistic winner I would play our remaining warrior in heroic isolation by the centre spot, 30 yards ahead of his nearest team mates. What could go wrong. I can’t wait for kickoff….
Luckily I’m in Scotland and the match isn’t on the red button 😉
I’ve not traveled over for tonight’s match and after Saturday’s disappointment (and the weeks before) I feel quite relieved. I don’t have any real hope of a win (or even a goal) but will follow Radio Tees and watch Barcelona on TV to see how we compare.
David
You can be Boralona in Cumbria! 🙂
Hope the weather’s better over there, freezing cold and soaked wet through here at the Riverside!
I suspect one will play messy…
Beers in fridge. Tick
Wine in Fridge. Tick
Sharp knives, out for the moment then lo locked away. to be ticked shortly.
Mrs G on alert. Tick
Hope suppressed. Tick
Typical Boro. Mmmm, possibility
Optimists might conclude that as Bristol City broke a winless sequence of matches that Boro might now do the same. Pessimists might recall how Boro imploded under Mowbray in 2013 from 3rd at Christmas to finish 16th. Realists might think we’ll finish about 10th. After supporting Boro for over 70 years, I don’t know what to think. Perhaps Boro might surprise us all with a 3-0 win, there again??? I wonder what Alistair Brownlee would have made of it!
So Downing returns but it could be at left wing-back – but much will depend on the formation – could be 5-3-2 or 4-4-2. Ayala has been dropped but still no Wing who is on the bench – plus Clayton has returned to the bench too.
Starting XI: Randolph, Shotton, Fry, Flint, Friend, Downing, Mikel, Howson, Saville, Fletcher, Assombalonga.
Subs: Dimi, Ayala, Clayton, Wing, Besic, Tavernier, Hugill
Could even be 4-3-3 with Fletcher to the left and Downing right.
I’m going for 7-2-1
It absolutely poured down about twenty minutes ago (as well as sleet, hailstones and snow) and the ball is slowing down in some areas during the wsrm up.
It may drain away by KO but if not there could be some sloppy passes going astray.
Nothing unusual to see a shower on the pitch…
Stewys shooting practice has hit half a dozen seats in the North stand but not the goal yet. Consistent as ever!
It’s probably to do with a clause in his contract! 😎
Five clear chances. Woodwork, clearances off the line, saves. Nothing and then a stupid goal from a corner. I actually feel sorry for Pulis.
Except for our finishing and defending, Boro played well in the first half. We should have scored at least one of the four decent chances but as usual lacked composure in front of goal. Britol weren’t in it for the first 25 minutes but then scored from a corner after Boro’s defenders went missing. After that, Bristol have looked dangerous on the break and have linked up well and could have had a second.
So Boro will have to overcome the killer stats of both never winning when the opposition score first and also not winning if the opposition score a goal at the Riverside!
Priceless Tweet from Vic:
If these Boro players formed a firing squad they would miss.
🙁
2nd glass of Rioja and 1st chocolate eclair! Based on the first 15 minutes of the Barcelona match I think they may be better than BORO.
Finishing the bottle of wine which I haven’t done since AK was in charge. I know that TP isn’t responsible for buying Britt but he did get rid of our best striker – Bamford – because he didn’t fit his way of playing and TP must accept the blame for our overall results. After the first 5 games I thought TP had changed his tactics but once he had brought in his own type of player we have been going downhill. It looks like a mid-table finish which is where we would have been if not for the good start. I wiil be at the last 3 games. I hate hearing the boos. I have never booed the team or a player as I am a boro supporter.
Glad I couldn’t watch it, the commentary wasn’t great, no fault of the commentators.
In the end it was similar to the Norwich game – Boro on top for most of the first half but didn’t take their chances. Bristol scored against the run of play after poor defending. The second half was pretty much a non-event for Boro – with no shots on target and just that effort against the post from the free kick. The subs in the second half didn’t work and made Boro less effective.
5 defeats in a row to add to the 0-0 at Wigan that has given Boro just one point from a possible 18 – plus only 2 goals. We head to Swansea next who just won 3-0 tonight – the fat lady has apparently booked her seat on he coach. We now need to win at Swansea!
Werder,
Boro won’t and we all know it. There’s a malaise the team, squad, club that needs to be sorted out. We can all live with a rebuild if there’s a strategy, plan and a goal (no pun or irony intended) that the fans can see and be a part of. We need a manager with a modern way of thinking who understands the team and his players, what is being served up now is pathetic.
The chairman has to recruit a proper manager, not a rank outsider who might possibly manage something of note, inside the club there is nobody that will bring the fans back all an appointment like that will do is increase the ‘I’m watching a car crash mentality in the Boro fans’.
At the moment Boro are a pushover, they’re brittle and, worst of all they are becoming serial losers and from that serial defeatists.
Whoever the new manager is the fans have to believe in him too, they have to see some kind of winning pedigree or the team will be playing in a mausoleum.
Depressed and utterly down. And that’s just me.
UTB,
John
Jarsue, your posting hits the nail right on the head for me. “Malaise” is a good word for the current situation although I would use a stronger word like stagnation or even maybe decay. The last three years have been a massive failure and a huge waste of money and have taken the club backwards. Your proposed solution is exactly what is needed – radical change and a new plan to fundamentally rebuild the club.
Will it happen? It must or the decline will accelerate with dire consequences. The suggested appointment of Woodgate as manager is in no way the answer and would send a clear message, to the fans that the white flag has been raised and ambition has given way to cost-cutting and resignation.
Radical fundamental change or the death,of ambition and hope. Which is your money on?
So “5 defeats in a row to add to the 0-0 at Wigan that has given Boro just one point from a possible 18 – plus only 2 goals.”
Amen to that, Werder. UTB!
Couldn’t agree more Jarsue.
Unfortunately, I did the deed yesterday and can’t change my mind apparently.
As Boro exile said the last three years have been a massive failure.
So now we have calls for change, from myself included. However the mistakes have emanated from the top, from Mr Gibson. We all make mistakes but SG has just blindly continued making them.
Does anybody really think he will make changes and get them correct. Some hope. And that does not even take into account the fire sales of the high earners, large right offs on transfer fees and being stuck with poor players that nobody else will take.
It is so, so sad to see all of this unfold, with probably worse to come.
Well, another home game, another missed opportunity – and that was just Redcar Red’s chances of having a decent evening! Sadly, he’s once more been witness to yet another crime involving the usual suspects as he tries to give an artist’s impression of those involved at the scene. Though not sure what the Riverside was renamed to last night but it may have involved several asterisks – anyway, here is his match report…
https://diasboro.club/2019/04/03/boro-0-1-bristol-city/
It’s obvious the club is in declined, and don’t blame Pulis for this, he’s been telling us this since he arrived, but his hands are tied, he’s made some mistakes with his signings but the rot had already set in, starting at the top, with Gibson and his backroom buddies, why? Woodgate, Fleming, before them Agnew, all insiders, Downing the worse signing in twenty years, Reffearn on the radio was giving it about him, useless whenever Shotton went down the wing nobody to cross to, Downing hiding outside the box.
Enough is enough, Karanka was the scapegoat, a Spanish international, from a major world class club, got us promotion, but hey Downing and co knew better. Gibson as become a sorry caricature of himself.
I was relying on you lot to get us to the play off final whilst I was in Greece. At least I wont have to fret.
Redcar Red hasn’t too much longer to suffer. His efforts are much appreciated.
Sad times, especially sad to see the fans getting upset with Steve Gibson – I know the last few years have been poor and that the Chairman could have been more open about what he plans to do, but I’m ever reminded from looking at other clubs just how bad the situation could get. Still, the sense of frustration is entirely understandable.
Sadder still that people are not behind the possibility of replacing TP with Woodgate, even as an ‘end of the season’ measure just to see how it works out, particularly as things could hardly be worse on the pitch right now. I have my doubts and see it as a short-sighted, easy move to make, but you never know.
Watching the teams that are beating us and climbing above us in the table right now, I’m just seeing templates for the sort of club I would like Boro to be. Going forward, I’d ask for an MFC that stops saddling itself with the burden of shooting for promotion as a base requirement (we’re obviously trying to go up by the definition of playing the game, but it isn’t the be all and end all), and instead spend time to find a decent manager who can be put in charge of a project that might last for several years, and do some proper scouting for players who’ll fit the new man’s philosophy. For me, there’s not much worse than seeing the string of jobbing top flight players we’re linked with, who view dropping to our level as doing us a favour. Give me a side of hard working, dedicated triers any day, like an XI of the sort of willing graft that George Friend used to bring to the table. We’d never heard of him and he didn’t cost a lot of money, and yet it’s hard to argue that he worked out overall – there has to be others of his ilk out there, right?
That is similar to what we were talking about. There are almost no players in the current team that will be remembered in years to come as legends for the club in the way that, in my era, Hickton, Platt, Murdoch, Platt, TLF, to name a few will be.
George Friend is probably the only one of the last few years
Good post, Mike.
Great report, RR
Thanks to RR for the report which was broadly how I saw the game from the East stand. I can see why there is a reluctance to renew season cards, especially if TP remains in charge.
I have no idea what the training sessions are like but the players are not moving forward and even when we go one down, sit back and let the opposition come at us. For a manager who prides himself on defence, they were poor last night and the midfield created little for the front two.
I am amazed that professional footballers can make the basic mistakes that they do Nd fail to miss the target with such ease. In any other job, they would have been dismissed for gross misconduct!
Towards the end of the game there was a buy with a Pulis out banner that the stewards were trying to get him to remove and the fact that the crowd were turning on TP and to a degree SG was telling. It doesn’t happen often at Boro and SG does need to take heed.
We were talking on the way to the game that in our minds Boro have always been a yo-yo club and the top of the second tier is probably where we sit and that we would rather be a local club for local people rather than have a Chinese owner splashing the cash. Where it is going wrong is that we are not being entertained or seeing wins, neither of which we get at the moment.
I hope that SG can work out what needs to be done in the summer and as long as it doesn’t include TP, then so much the better.
Anyway, I have the loan of a season card for the next game and for once my relative is not bothered about missing the game and like Ian, I am not worried about being away in May.
Still, we have not been relegated, we could be in a worse position like Bolton and as my mate father always said, there is always next season to hope for!
RR
Appreciate your dedication to Diasboro you say what it is on the 🥫 tin! Thank you.
Some Stats
#Middlesbrough woeful HOME league form:
4️⃣ consecutive defeats for 1st time since Jan to March 1996.
1️⃣0️⃣ defeats in 3️⃣5️⃣ under Pulis.
1️⃣0️⃣ defeats in previous 7️⃣1️⃣ @SkyBetChamp games before his arrival.
1️⃣7️⃣th best home record in division this season.
OFB
Redcar Red,
I’ve just ‘manned up’ and read your report. Good and truthful as it is it sounded like a night of misery and torture. I don’t think that the manager has clue based on what I have just read. However, you did make me laugh with the Forrest Gump run and the ‘desperately desperate’ interlude.
After reading OFB’s cripplingly painful stats above I think Boro must be crap. It’s official. Trouble is does Mr PUlis know, or care. I hope and pray that the south coast calls.
Where do we go from here, apart from steadily downwards? A suggestion from the chairman is needed because at this rate mid-table mediocrity is looking like an impossibility. Wellthe mid-table bit is but the mediocrity isn’t.
A desperately desperate fan says,
UTB,
John
I missed the commentary of last night’s match, so was grateful for Redcar Red’s appraisal. I hope that he continues to give us such amusing reports in the future but not under such trying circumstances. From what I can gather, Boro have started the last 4 home games on the front foot, but seem to run out of steam if circumstances go against them as happened in the two recent matches against Brentford and Preston where Boro scored first. It was generally written in the scripts that when Boro score first they go on to win especially at home, but if they concede first they rarely do. I wonder why this is.
The number of times that Norwich and especially Leeds concede the first goal at home, but you know that it’s only a blip and that they’ll recover to win is significant of a character that this Boro side sadly lack. Also the number of times that Boro fail to score in the first half of matches seems indicative of a lack of confidence, and I can’t help but think that Tony Pulis barking out instructions is counterproductive. Surely that erodes any confidence the players might have. Why not just let the players get on with it; surely the tactics for each match will have been practiced on the training pitch, or one would hope so. Despite Karanka’s tantrums, the players were reported as saying that they enjoyed his training techniques. I don’t recall any Boro player saying that Tony Pulis’s training sessions were enjoyable, but might have missed such comments so am willing to be corrected.
In my opinion the much vaunted super defence is a myth, because several times they have been seen wanting by opposing teams such as Forest, Derby, Villa, Brentford and now Bristol City who all have had the pace to unlock them. Not surprising really when often the same players are selected as defenders but In varying formations sometimes in the same match. Before last night’s match even reporters were speculating on what the formation might be. One thing about Karanka, he usually stuck with a defensive formation. The problem then was how to break teams down who came to the Riverside ‘parking the bus’, a tactic that Boro often use on their travels rather successfully, but teams who pass with speed always seem to cause Boro problems. Could this be because of Pulis’s preference to height instead of skill? Or possibly the spartan Austrian pre-season trip is now catching up on them?
There also seems an anxious trait amongst Boro’s forwards and midfielders in snatching at scoring opportunities, instead of showing more selfcontrol. That anxiety seems to manifest itself the longer the match goes on without scoring. Confidence drops, the crowd also become anxious putting more pressure on the players. Under Karanka, certainly in the Championship, Boro never gave up, coming from behind to score late goals at Bolton and at home to Reading, or even scoring a late goal to beat Hull. This team has rarely done that since the first few matches of the season, the win at West Brom being a notable exception when it looked as if Boro’s season was back on track and automatic promotion a possibility. Now you just know that Boro aren’t going to score late in the game to turn things around.
I referred to the fact that Norwich and Leeds had that bounce back ability. Perhaps seeing those two teams regularly winning from losing positions preys on the mind of the Boro players, or maybe Boro’s players aren’t as good as we thought they were. In fact since the sale of Traore, Gibson and Bamford we aren’t as good as we were.
Funnily, I have kind of enjoyed watching the last two matches.We have had two strikers and the team selection was spot-on on paper against Bristol City. I think Downing played well and we created chances in the first half.
The Gazette says 23 shots were had yesterday and Boro had another 18 efforts in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Norwich. When was the last time we had so 41 shots in two matches?
Also, there were many moments in the game yesterday, that Boro had even five players in the opposite box. And we did not drop too down for defending.
So we did not play that bad as a team. We just did not score. We should have been 3-0 up when Bristol had their first chance. But no, we should have converted at least every 10th shot and two goals MINIMUM last night.
Difficult to say what is wrong in the team. The results are terrible now but the performance has been only bad versus Villa. Puzzled.
A massive match at Swansea on Saturday next. Up the Boro!
Please look at our form at:
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/championship/table
We are the reds! All in red (with an L). The only other team with a similar form is Garry Monk’s Birmingham 🙂
On the positive note, we can only improve our form. It cannot get any worse.
We’ve got more red L-plates than entire top six put together! Though despite all those L’s it seems we’re not learning…
Thanks RR for another report on a failing team/club. You should be given an award for your dedication to the cause.
Well it is what it is and it is not getting better. It gives me no pleasure what so ever to repeat the comments I made shortly after we were last elegated, that we could well be a Championship club for many seasons to come and it looks as if that is how it is going to be.
I was dismayed with TP’s after match interview when he stated that it was all down to us not having any luck and that we needed a break. He could not criticise the team because they were giving everything! To then learn that RVLP has returned to Huddersfield as he has an ongoing back problem which the medics knew about before he came to us, beggar’s belief.
We have now wasted the parachute payments and are likely to have to unload, probably at a loss, many of the bigger earners and look to re-build yet again.
As much as SG has put his heart and soul and considerable wealth into the club that is not much consolation at the end of the day if you keep going from boom to bust and could possibly result in a scenario which the likes of Bolton are now facing.
Yet again we will be faced with a summer of upheaval with major change required to turn the club around even if it is merely into a team that can play Championship football which entertains. In my view that cannot happen with any of the current regime being involved. 😎😠
I heard that apparently VLP’s injury was due to spending too much time bending over backwards in order to persuade his manager to select him for the squad…
Tony Pulis is merely the symptom of much that is wrong at the club and, fingers crossed, will be gone next month. I assume he has tried his best during his stay and good luck to him when he goes. He has not questioned his employers or support and should not attract lasting lasting vitriol.
The problem is the running of the club, and mostly accordingly, Steve Gibson.
No one has done more for Middlesbrough, the club, town or area, than Mr Gibson and he has given us some truly wonderful times most impossible to conceive in the darkest days.
But right now, it would not be hard to mistake him for Charlie Amer, King Lear even if we want to push it to extremes. Aloof, missing, complacent and apparently unwilling to listen to his support base. He has become what so many of us despised in the Amer regime.
His unwilling to communicate directly with the fans, through the club or media, is untenable. As chairman right now, he is a waste of space and he has not been on his game for some time.
That said, imagine being Steve Gibson, with the responsibility and pressures that brings. None of us will truly know what that takes out of him but it must be impossibly difficult. Business, illness or personal worries may take their toll but of course we don’t know such detail and it is not incumbent on him to tell us.
Of all the lessons since he took the reins, the biggest by far is that while we want the very best, it is invariably the mega rich big city clubs that get there first. Gibbo restored out identity and brought us forward in leaps and bounds, with pride and belonging the upshot. Yes, we should have won a few more cups that we did but the togetherness trumped that every time.
Gibson now though, is on the cusp of inviting scorn and disdain will soon follow.
Yet it would take very little indeed to change the picture wholesale. Tell us broadly what the plan is, that there is a plan and where we stand. If it means no signings for five years and a team of existing players and youngsters only with a manager (young or old) committed to the long term, then Steve you’d have the crowd backing you 100 per cent again in a flash. That’s all it takes. You own the club and there my not be shareholders but there are many stakeholders, the fans to the fore.
Bruce Rioch was revered because he was a brilliant boss who made the very best of the hand he was dealt. He took us up, and down, but it was a fantastic time, 86, 87, 88, 89. I’ve no idea now who was our boss in 2011, 13, 16 ,18 etc, the dross all mingles in and that is down to you Mr Gibson.
This is a pivotal time for Middlesbrough FC and not that far removed from 1986. And once again Steve Gibson needs to stand up and be counted. Or sadly this time, ship out.
Good post Richard.
Thanks to RR for another classic match report and I’d agree with his sadly funny but true point about Boro coming out for the second half “all fired down.” Why are the players seemingly throwing in the towel as soon as the opposition score – plus even Besic literally threw in the towel before he even got on the pitch!
Boro are playing like a relegation threatened side in that they look up for the fight until they face a setback and then confidence crumbles. Perhaps they just don’t expect to score any more and feel the pressure in front of goal. Maybe fragile players should be replaced by some of the youngsters who may at least still have self belief.
I’d also agree with RR that the substitutions just didn’t work and upset the flow of the team – having three centre forwards on the pitch with little in the way of service was an odd choice – Boro looked ponderous when apparently chasing the game and looked more like they were trying to see out the game – which was in contrast to Bristol, who broke out of defence as a coherent unit.
Boro desperately need to score a goal and win a game – as bad as it is, if this run continues it could get a lot worse. Strangely, Boro have started well in most of the games that they have lost but have finished them looking out of ideas and fight. Whilst we can’t blame the manager for the misses he must take some responsibility for their lack of confidence going forward – basically the players don’t play together very well or know what their team-mates are wanting to do or expect of them.
Werder
That is precisely who is to blame for the ‘striker’ missing sitters. No well managed team willingly field a player who is an expert at missing sitters.
The habit is demoralising to the team and the club, and normally is removed from the premises a.s,a,p.
All the forgivness, good sportsmanship and reasonableness shown by this club to this player has landed us in this ungodly mess, by my count he is at this moment on eight close in sitters during this run of five defeats. It goes without saying that we would have been better advised to play young Tav throughout, he would have not missed from six yards.
I would have liked to have seen Tavernier playing behind a striker, possibly Fletcher, as he’s sharp around the box, times his runs and can score – though probably deemed not physical enough by Pulis but most top clubs like the mix of having a smaller more nimble player up front to worry big central defenders.
It surprises me the number of managers who respect Tony Pulis’s achievements but few are willing to adopt his tactics. The game has moved on from the Pulis/Allardyce era, even Neil Warnock has introduced a more attacking outlook. There are plenty of young successful managers with modern ideas in the lower leagues. The trouble is that Boro thought that they had found one in Gary Monk, but Steve Gibson gave him far too much money to spend and probably put him under too much pressure in stating that he wanted to smash the league.
Also SG has already gone down that young foreign manager route and probably doesn’t want to repeat that experience. I certainly wouldn’t want him to appoint past Boro players who haven’t proved themselves. Jobs for the boys didn’t work with Southgate and is unlikely to work with Woodgate. I go along with Jarkko here. Tony Mowbray has the experience, but was the right appointment at the wrong time. He has since had a similar experience at Coventry and initially at Blackburn with no money to spend. He did very well to get Blackburn back after relegation, and to make them competitive this season playing good football especially at home where they went a year unbeaten. That sort of form at Boro would have given us every chance of automatic promotion this season, but could he be persuaded to return to Boro having to get rid of even more overpaid players than he had last time? I wonder, and of course at the moment he is unavailable.
Ken
I would be very pleased to be welcoming a young foreign manager this very week. My experience of AK was very positive, he moved in players without telling the press a month in advance, when they proved not up to scratch he swiftly unloaded them at a profit (unusual for us). Year one he missed out, year two he scored, year three he was fired because we thought we would go down. We promptly collapsed in a smoking heap of rubble (went down by five points, I think he might have collected the two wins that would have saved us. But the club knew best)
He left us a twenty million gift in Traore(which our present inglorious manager promptly cashed in) spent it on rubbish(which we cannot get rid of)
These people are the problem not the answer, we are presently going to get two of the people who got rid of AK trying to be managers, ha! ha! Should be a laugh
Plato
AK was the most divisive manager we have ever had
Autocratic Imperious and set up his own club within a club where his group of players trained and ate as a separate group and had no time for the British players and coaches
Not liked by any of the staff !
OFB
Which part of TP didn’t sell Traore don’t you understand?
Interesting to read in the EG that SG and NB were present last night together with Peter Kenyon who I believe was instrumental in bringing AK to the club.
Could it be that the search for a successor to TP is underway? 😎
Sorry I was so hacked off last night I forgot to mention that !
Or he could have been looking for a buyer for the club !
OFB
Interestingly, I noticed there were quite a few comments in the Gazette who were advocating a preference to have Karanka back 🙁
Not sure what they were looking at KP, may be a list of new potential interviewees.
Many thanks to RR for another entertaining and accurate match report.
His contributions will be greatly missed if he follows through with his plan to pick and choose when he attends in future.
Some brilliant posts which sum up the general feeling of a wasted couple of years with no promise of better things to come.
What was it that drove me to renew my SC? Answers can be addressed to me at Roseberry Manor!
Quite simple. Supporters follow their club as a way of life and sometimes just by way of an accident of birth. Dads take their kids and they then repeat the cycle.
In their lifetime they will go through many periods of mediocrity, paucity of value, rubbish players and the inevitable relegations. But, occasionally they will be treated to highs that only a football supporter can truly appreciate.
I hasten to add that Mams also take their kids.
And when the highs come I suggest we embrace and respect them because they certainly won’t be there forever.
AK was and will always be divisive.
For a long time I felt and thought he was genuinely sorry about the Charlton farce. Which enhanced my support for him, as did our best results in years and online fan wailing over a series of games that looked to be a mere one chance taken, one late concession or one refereeing mistake from being very different results.
One. One. One. The margins were so fine.
Yet many sources since, including a passage from TSF which implies what happens when a footballer spits his dummy out, have convinced me that when he walked out he knew exactly what he was doing.
It’s quite probable that he only apologised when he had nowhere left to turn.
There’s a term for this that I’ve just read about, it’s called Vetinari Job Security. Named after a Discworld Lord who made himself so indispensable to the running of a city that when he was removed, his opponents were reminded about how disastrous the alternative was. Once he was restored to his post, normality was restored too.
No doubt the It’s All About Me stance (which AK’s mentor nails to a tee) rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The catch is… it rubs a lot of people the right way too. And why is this so?
Because lots of fans and journalists believe in the Cult Of The Manager. Gives them a nice, fuzzy, excitable feeling of belonging to a seemingly progressive cause when all goes well. I know it, I’ve experienced it myself when the streets of Dublin were packed in 1990 and Jack Charlton was God, with everyone (well, almost everyone) hanging on his every word. Never mind the consequences of what might follow – this was a big moment, and anyone who spoiled it would be alienated. As Mr E. M. Dunphy found out to his cost when he took a boat to France to avoid Irish people that summer.*
How does it affect the players? Well, as Kevin Moran implied, when Big Jack took charge there were players who weren’t attuned to his ways. But they listened, they complied, Ireland began to move in the right direction and their belief in his ways increased. Those who didn’t comply – the O’Learys, Stapletons, Whelans and Bradys – were essentially cast aside, but why derail a winning formula? Especially considering it would work for years.
It’s the “so what, it works” mentality which I’ve repeatedly fought the temptation to embrace. But when it *does* work, that temptation is so tough to ignore. Especially in Ireland, when we know those moments and heroes won’t come so often and hence grasp them and enjoy them when and while we can.
The one constant in football is the fans. Managers and players come and go. Ask the Irish fans who were around in the Charlton era if they would have had it any other way?
Pundits like Dunphy are just seeking some of the limelight to advance their own opinions. Sometimes when that opinion goes against the grain it can garner a lot more attention. Hmmm.
I’m with you in that Dunphy wants the limelight, no question, but there are valid points beneath the sensationalism. I certainly wouldn’t have had it any other way re: Charlton… but I also feel it’s important to understand why the dissenters towards Charlton’s methods (also: John Giles) thought the way they did.
Simon
Why this constant discussion about some dreadful ‘writer’ who thought Charlton was awful. He was never of any importance, and as far as i know certainly never had the guts to manage a team and show how easy it is.
The fans told him in no uncertain terms to pipe down, and that should have been enough.
Plato
That smacks of playing the man rather than commenting on the post !
OFB
It’s just popped up on Teesside Live that John Hickton is battling skin cancer…
https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/legendary-boro-striker-john-hickton-16072944
Best wishes to him and his family.
I wont leave a like because it seems unfair, Someone asked did he miss a penalty? the one I can remember was against Hull in the FA Cup. Possibly that was he started from his run the half way line rather than Albert Park.
Lets hope all goes well for him. The same goes for all the people we know who suffer dread diseases.
Simon
Just the name John Hickton, brings a smile to my face, wonderful man, wonderful player, but (and it is a big but) his presence on the field and during play was both a joy and a comfort to us fans.
At it’s most important in the many great games we played against a team like Man Utd.in that period.
Away at old Trafford in the cup, when he was warming up before the match, you could see that he was up for it, and so it proved in a great match.
He has my wishes for a swift recovery. A well loved warrior.
I echo those sentiments Simon.
A true Boro legend. A gentle giant and he could teach our current strikers a thing or two about goalscoring.
He’s got a great sense of humour as well really funny !
OFB
OFB,
A real Boro Lion as far as I am concerned. I really do wish him well.
UTB,
John
I never saw Hicton play but have read a lot about him since I started supporting Boro.
But I have met him once at a former players’ dinner five years ago. I true gentleman. Perhaps a lion but I think more like a strong bear with a big lap. A bear but a nice one.
All the best wishes to John. Up the Boro!
Ditto from me. I always liked his style of taking a penalty! I wonder if he ever missed one……….
Thanks first to Redcar Red for his unstinting devotion to putting in print the unabridged version of the match just gone.
I just do not know where go from here as obviously TP is going to be in charge until May. He has tried different permutations and they have failed and it is hard to defend the players even given the tactics and system.
I was listening to Radio Tees tonight and was surprised a little that the invited journalists ( Colin Young of the Sunday Mirror and Scott Wilson, NE) did not defend Mr Pulis overly hard. Phil Talentine toed the party line somewhat, but in the end the blame lays with TP.
The Gazette gave to highest marks to Mikel and Downing which I found surprising and not Howson who was the most positive player until TP decided to put at RB. Why oh why.
Looking to the future I think Richards post of 12.56 is quite thought provoking. Mr Gibson has lost the belief and respect of a large number of fans, especially the younger ones who do not remember or know of 1986 and the following years.
This is certainly what we need now. Togetherness, and this can only be brought about by the Chairman.
Are we safe from relegation yet?
I can’t ever remember us losing four home games in a row. I’m sure Ken will tell us otherwise?
I don’t unduly blame TP for last night’s defeat. It’s not his fault that several players missed sitters or very presentable chances. At least we played on the front foot (well, for the first half), we had lots of shots and we did create the chances. The more attacking formation of late is much easier on the eye.
However, I’m afraid he has to go. The fans have been remarkably patient, but as AV has said, last night was a turning point. Once the fans turn on you, there’s very rarely any going back, as poor old Mogga found to his cost at Barnsley. Hopefully, Sir Steve will understand that, and hopefully, once this tedious season ends, will say thank you and goodbye to TP. Very slow season ticket sales may force his hand.
Some of you have been agonising about renewing your season cards, understandably. I have renewed, but right now, this doesn’t look a good investment. And increasingly, as the home form wears on, I find myself less and less excited by the prospect of yet another 260 mile round trip. It’s a very long way back after yet another demoralising defeat.
Clive, I know you have been doing this for years.
How many miles have you done to support Boro since you moved away from the area?
I do remember seeing you at Hull and some home matches. A lot of respect from me, mate.
Up the Boro!
PS. We are safe from relagation. But just by one point! So Nottm Forest and Preston still need a point to be safe (or of course seeing Rotherham drawing one of their remaining seven matches). We even might have a derby match next season if Sunderland get promoted (or we went up via play-offs). So still something to play for 🙂
Up the Boro!
Thanks Jarkko! You have quite a distance to travel, yourself!!
Not recently Clive. But people of my generation will remember the horrendous start to the 1954/55 season following relegation in the previous season. This is how the season started:-
Aug 21 Away Plymouth 2-2, then
Aug 25 Home Ipswich 0-1
Aug 28 Home Stoke 1-2
Sep 1 Away Ipswich 1-6
Sep 4 Away Rotherham 0-3
Sep 8 Home Forest 1-4
Sep 11 Home Luton 0-2
Sep 15 Away Forest 2-4
Sep 18 Away Hull 0-1, before
Sep 25 Home Lincoln 2-1
Boro’s next 26 games produced 17 wins, 3 draws and 6 defeats and Boro finished 12th.
Clive Hurren, I am in admiration of your dedication in supporting Boro, a 260 mile round trip for home matches is no mean feat. Don’t worry too much by the talk of not renewing as some only say it for sensationalism, knowing they will renew before the 12th and besides as I have posted before, I would rather have 10,000 who will get behind the team than 20,000 with half of them looking for a reason to complain and boo the team.
Come on BORO.
Sorry Exmil, but we will have to disagree on that. I sit next to three mature long time ST holders, are not vocal in their disbelief of the home form and just shake their heads. They are definitely not renewing, as are a number of acquaintances. No bluffing by them.
You may be happy with 10000 turning up Exmil, because if Mr Gibson does not pull a rabbit out of the hat, then I think the crowds may be nearer to 10 than 20K.
Not fair Exmil.
I do not think that any supporter looks for a reason to complain. Many as Pedro says suffer and decide on silence and of those that are vocal I’m quite sure they would rather not feel the need to express their dissatisfaction in such a way, but some, maybe many, will. However, it doesn’t mean they have actively sought out something to be able to boo.
Being able to understand such a reaction doesn’t mean that you condone it. There is a danger that if you dismiss such an understandable feeling you make yourself blind to the root cause. If everyone is blind to the root cause then no one will ever know there is some issue that needs to be addressed and nothing will ever be done to make things better.
I never boo or barrack my own team, but I respect the right of those who just quite possibly are feeling the same things as me to do so and would never be so dismissive of them that all they came along for was to find a reason to be able to boo.
Exmil,
Given the time & cash that they invest in Boro supporters are entitled to express their dissatisfaction with what is being served up by the club at present. In just about any other consumer situation similar to this they would likely be asking for a refund let alone contemplating paying up for more of the same next season, particularly given the noises coming out of the Gazette that Steve Gibson is standing by his man.
Football, be it playing or spectating, involves expression, be that positive or negative. I’ve never been able to understand why some believe that following your team requires you to cultishly cheer absolutely everything regardless of the reality of what we are seeing. Even if Boro got to the playoffs, even if we miraculously got promoted, I’m not going to part with anymore of my cash. If we think what is being served up now is bad imagine what would happen if Pulis had the excuse of ensuring PL survival to justify his tactics.
The Boro fans are reasonable folk &, other than a small minority that will never be happy, would love to get behind the team & it wouldn’t take much to do that.
Be careful what you wish for because regardless of the out look of the 10,000 the Riverside will be like a morgue if that is the sum total that brave it next season.
When Mogga was bood by Boro fans at Blackburn Gibson admitted the loudest boo had come from him !
OFB
That’s a “like” from me too Powmill.
I have never booed the team or any individual player but it’s difficult to express dissatisfaction silently. Staying away is the only weapon in those circumstances and, although I have renewed, I’m sure there are many who will wait for some sign of underlying change before doing so.
I would hope that the hierarchy would be very worried at the thought of attendances falling back to the 10-12k level and will take action to try and avoid that.
Time will tell.
My post has “disappeared” but the gist was I agree with Pedro and Powmill.
I never boo but I understand the frustration of those who do and I don’t look for something to complain about. The evidence is there for all (including players, staff and hierarchy) to see why fans are disillusioned.
Sorry for the duplication. Technology Boo!!
It seems the VLP saga has been subject to the revisionism we’re are getting used to after Tony Pulis updated the media on the situation.
“Raj joined us with back problem, which was documented by both clubs, and attempts to get him fit proved unsuccessful. “He has had a scan, and we don’t think he will play this season, so there is a problem there.
“I managed against him last year and he played 45 games, but he has only played four games and struggled to get to that level and obviously we know the reason why. It is medical, don’t ask me more.”
I’ve never heard his back problem mentioned before he returned to Huddersfield this week and we were told when he was signed that the reason he hadn’t featured for the Terriers was that Wagner had changed his system to wing-backs and he didn’t fit the shape.
It was said that since he hadn’t had much pitch time, he would need to get match-fit before he would start for Boro – with match-fit usually meaning not injured. After he only featured on the bench, Pulis claimed he wasn’t being selected because he’d decided to play a different system that VLP didn’t fit into. Plus when he disappeared from the bench it was greeted by VLP’s famous Instagram message of “Some things are not meant to be understood.”
As far as I’m aware, at no point has anyone stated or reported that VLP had been struggling with an injury until he returned to Huddersfield. So perhaps the reason lies somewhere between the vague statements of “Some things are not meant to be understood” and “It is medical, don’t ask me more.”
However, VLP has once more posted on Instagram yesterday in regard to his departure from Boro with another cryptic message “Sometimes the most powerful words are the ones left unspoken” – so make of that what you will but I suspect there is more to this story than a simple back problem.
Interesting post Werder, as you say this long term back problem appears to have come out of nowhere. I wonder if RVLP will feature for Huddersfield during what remains of this season?
Classic Pulis being ‘economical’ with the truth I suspect Werder. I wouldn’t be suprised if there was some kind of gag clause in the loan contract that stops RVLP revealing more as this has become common place in football.
I’m continually amazed at how so many Boro fans on the admittedly mad house that is social media claim that Pulis is an honest man. This appears to be just because he stands up during press conferences & slates players that he doesn’t like. All one has to do is take a look at the circumstances in which he left Palace to tell you how ‘honest’ the man is…
We should just be thankful we are no longer paying a non-player. The reasons are immaterial. The secrecy that surrounds football clubs is endemic and will never change.
Given that RVLP had pace & creativity, skill sets that aren’t abundant in the squad, it is a pity that we couldn’t have utilised him better.
It’s also questionable as to why it’s taken 3 months of wage paying before the bad back became apparent? A further example of how shambolically the club is run.
MrM – Not sure what is worse, signing a player (who we were told at the time had passed a medical) that had a medical condition that prevented him getting fit or signing a player that wasn’t deemed up to the job he was signed for – especially given Pulis was desperate for pacey wide men.
Of course the other ironic point is that how much Boro were paying to have a PL player warming the bench for three months while another player, Stewart Downing, was also sat on the bench for three months because the club couldn’t seemingly afford to reach an agreement over his contract extension.
Maybe Downing even pointed out this little anomaly as the club pleaded poverty and suggested where they may find some spare cash. Although, still no news on the Gestede ‘injury’ that has made him completely disappear since Newport – perhaps his particular back problem means he’s still in contraction until he gains a few inches or agrees to leave on a transfer.
He probably stands up to make a quick getaway if awkward questions are asked.
To be fair to TP, bad backs have been a recurrent problem this season. The forwards haven’t been too hot either.
Like it Len, like it a lot.
OFB,
Here is the corrected head line:
Robin goes bob bob bobbin’ along
Up the Boro!
GHW….one hopes that we are still not paying for VLP.
But why did we sign him if he already had the back problem. Did we insert a clause no play, no pay. Knowing MFC, one would doubt it. Then of course there will be the loan fee, I hope that is refundable?
You just could not make it up could you. This just adds oil to the already blazing fire that is MFC at this time.
As usual the only winners are the agents.
I’m sure we would have to honour the terms of the Loan contract.
It’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.
— Abraham Lincoln
Re. The statements of the great god TP.
I loved the following four statements in the order they were delivered.
First. Away match. “unfortunately Wing is injured and will not play” defeat!
Second. Away match “Wing is injured and will not play” defeat !
Third. Home match “Wing is injured and will not play” defeat!
Fourth. home match ” Wing is fit” did not start, came on when we were losing defeat” is this manager for real, and even more important, is he leaving the building right now, because we have had enough.
Whilst I was neutral about TP coming, I was prepared to give him time to sort us out. After all he has vast experience and a degree of success in promotion and keeping teams up.
I thought that his style of football wouldn’t be pretty but we would get results and points and promotion would be secured this season. The start of the season and some of the performances led me to think that maybe a leopard can change his spots and all would be good.
Now, I don’t go to every match although from the comments of those that do, including my relatives who are SC holders, what we have seen is dire. Not winning at home combined with the way we have played is poor to say the least and to drop out of the the play off positions now is unforgivable.
I am not sure that there would be much point in getting rid at this stage in the season, we might as well see the season out although if I were SG, then I would have a successor line lined up so that we can progress with new signings ASAP.
I would be looking to appoint an up and coming young manager from the lower leagues who can build on what we have got and be in it for the long haul not just a quick fix.
Should TP stay, then as they say on Dads Army, we are doomed!
Just to be contrary, what would be the point in keeping Pulis at this stage? He is unlikely to turn around results. We could give it to someone until the end of the season & see if they can fluke their way through the playoffs.
What point are you trying to make here Plato?
I suppose booking Wing in for surgery just shows the lengths Pulis will go to to avoid playing Lewis?
I am not, never have been and probably never will be a fan of TP, but as Ian would say, there is enough on the charge sheet without having to spin every team selection as evidence of malign intent. It detracts from any good point you might make and is almost as ridiculous as your repeated assertions that he in some way forced Traore out of the club.
Wiggy
I listen to the words, if he says a player is injured then he is nit going to play.
When he says the player is fit, then I expect him to play. You may be happy to see the same team carry on a losing run, but I expect changes, and Wing should certainly have started, he might have converted one of the early sitters we missed.
He has never made any sense when he speaks, and never will.
Whilst I may agree mrmis, i think that the inevitable is laid out before us. Mr Pulis has sated he is going nowhere and Mr Gibson will make the decision.
If he going to walk of be relieved of his position, it would have happened on Wednesday. As it is, the players will be training as normal, TP preparing for Swansea and if we do not win, then even the mathematicians amongst us will finally write off the season.
After that, even Mr Gibson must be thinking of next season with a new Manager. It is disruptive, costs lots of money, comes with no gaurantees. This is why we require the Chairmen to be a little more open with the fans, tell us how it is.
Do we have a longer term, more sustainable plan that we will stick with, ups and downs. We have had the booms and busts and now I would assume very little room for spending.
Where we go from here on is of course down to Mr Gibson. Even is he prepared to put some more good money after the bad that has gone before. A hard call indeed.
Pedro
I do not understand the talk of ‘ a lot of money’ in regard to dispatching a Manager who is away with the fairies.
The money is saved by applying the axe. Forget his wages, think of the damage he has done and is doing on a daily basis to this club. Think of the further damage he will do if left to decide who will stay and who will go. Think of the damage being done on a weekly basis amongst our young players.
Just a few points to think about.
What about the young man who is being sought by Man City, over 19 he could and should have been introduced to the championship by now, and of course secured on a longer contract (that’s what you do with young players).
Is there a single fan who does not think young Tav could and should by now be on thirty appearances, he started with a bang, and was buried by the current genius occupying the managerial seat, and is still buried.
Wing could and should be an ever present, should not be even thinking about defensive duties, should be up front with a free role and Tav alongside him.
One player has missed at least eight sitters in the present run, Wing and Tav. Would have scored four or five of them, and created a few more.
We are playing in the championship, not the super league, our very good academy products should be blooded in the last twenty when we are winning a match, if it can be done in the prem. Then it can be done in our league.
This is a very important factor in the finances of this club, there is money and entertainment in these young players, but apparently not for us.
The note above ‘when we are winning a match’ was an aberration, I apologise for that, we do not win matches, sorry.
Plato, I was referring to a new manager for next season. The upheaval it brings, new contacts for the incoming staff and changing over of the players whom the new managers prefers or wants.
That is always costly. I am not saying Mr Pulis should stay, far from it. Only has Mr Gibson the will and are his pockets deep enough.
Sorry about the typos…..problem of using a phone to write, especially at my age.
If managers were judged on results, and results alone, AK wouldn’t have got criticised to the extent that he is. As I’ll keep implying, 85 and 89 points were our highest tallies of the 2010s… and our second and third highest of the last three decades.
One more win, which he was repeatedly so close to obtaining (that would frustrate anyone), and 2016 would have been our outright highest. If you look at it from that point of view, it was no wonder he wore that “Dude, where’s my respect!” expression. He won over a series of supporters (back then, me included) who thought “maybe, just maybe, he needs more time to figure it all out.”
Unfortunately, (a) that time is a luxury managers don’t have anymore, and (b) it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it. And we are all too aware of his man management skills, or lack of them.
Contrast with Pulis. It gets out that Clayton, Besic and Gestede essentially told the fans where to go after the Newport game – whether they did or not, that’s what was swarming the Twitterwaves. It’s the social media equivalent of Dunphy’s “ashamed to be Irish” faux pas after Ireland 0-0 Egypt – whether that was what he actually said (it wasn’t) or not, it was irrelevant… that was what the fans heard, and the mob were marching in his direction.
Since then… Gestede hasn’t kicked a ball for the club, Clayton didn’t start a game until Norwich H, and Besic’s not enjoyed a full ninety minutes.
To his credit Pulis understands that publicly criticising the fans is ill-advised, or worse, a no-no, and thus he’s taken a hard line with those who do. The cynics may argue that it’s one of the few ways he can appease the fans, with the way the football is going at the moment.
The bottom line is.
Imagine being told publicly, as a fan, that you’re not supporting the club “the right way”…
Imagine being told publicly, as a player, that you’re not good enough…
Imagine being told publicly, as a chairman, that you haven’t signed the right players or provided the right funds…
…and then to be expected to cheer / sweat / commit to the cause again.
Even if the critic is honest and/or justified, how can we admire him?
Simon
Please!, everything you say is very reasonable, and lovely, but so is the position of chairman or manager of a football club.
If your club is being run brilliantly, that is, you are very good at discipline, picking up young players who are ready to play at a higher level, very ambitious, and looking to move even higher. If further you are ever ready to blood your young players as soon as they tell you it is time by their attitude and behaviour, if you are very keen on motivation (that would mean never freezing in the blocks) if further you were deadly in your treatment of any manager who disappointed you or your fans, and I do mean sacking him, then you would never have the open outrage at the same chairman chatting gaily about an extension to his contract, as though what he has done all this season is good, or normal, or decent, it is not, let us be clear, no one loses six in a row, no one! His defensive rubbish is no good, his attacking rubbish is no good. His team is no good. His use and treatment of our young players is appalling, and that, my friends is a financial crime of the highest order. It is about to bite us where it hurts, and will continue under this fellow.
It now is apparent that Wing has had a slight problem which could and should have been fixed a couple of months ago, but our hero thought it would go away, maybe the fairies would clear it up. Now we lose him for the end of the season.
All this is indicative of chaos behind the scenes, no idea, not a clue, watch out that welk stall when he is finally given the boot.
Mr Misanthrope asks a question I am sort of asking at heart – what is the point of keeping Pulis? My head says two things: (a) stability and (b) contracts might have something to do with it.
There was a belief going around re: the Charlton farce that AK never really walked out on the club and was always welcome back. A source on the FMTTM message board – although admittedly, I don’t know how reliable it is – immediately debunked it, saying that AK wasn’t going to be allowed back at all at one point, and he really did walk out.
It was said that while Gibson was furious, he took his time and didn’t make a rash decision. He talked with the players and thought about the fans’ response to the performance at the Valley, while also considering finances and stabilisation.
The cost of dismissing a manager and his backroom staff runs into many millions, which would have been especially heavy at a time when the club’s annual turnover was relatively low.
Seems to make sense. The question isn’t necessarily whether Pulis stays or goes, but whether or not Boro can afford to have him go.
Hopefully all the back room staff are on the same contract end date as TP so that come the end of the season, they can all go off to other things.
It is an funny old game where a failed manager is quickly recruited into a new job and then we all wonder why he fails again.
I have come to the conclusion that TP is indeed a dinosaur and needs to retire.
Didn’t Karanka walk out at N. Forrest? I seem to recall he asked to be released from his contract.
As for FMTTM, if you take anything as concrete that’s posted on there, you need to find alternative sources for your information.
Yes, AK did ask to leave at NFFC.
As for the FMTTM source, I never explicitly said I took it as concrete. All I’m saying is, it seems logical. Several (at least) said “he walked out” and that Gibson was angry, and they weren’t on that message board either.
Pulis is not likely to do the honourable thing that Strachan did & leave for nothing. I know that we’re stuck with him really but I do wonder why? Gibson was there last night to see it for himself.
Sorry about this digression, but it is kind of topical.
On an off over the years I have struggled with a bit of back pain. No doubt many on here have similarly. It was it this last month when my wife also succumbed to the dreaded back pain that we decided to do a little bit of research.
Initially Mrs Powmill took herself along to see a retired back specialist. His short treatment was painless and nothing short of miraculous, dissolving Mrs Powmill’s discomfort in a matter of minutes. However, more interesting was the copy of the medical journal he lent to us with a well thumbed page directing us to a startling piece of research. Back pain has been shown to be related to the little talked of past time that is leg beating.
Habitual leg beaters invariably develop chronic back conditions. These can be controlled by carefully monitored and measured physical activity, ensuring that optimum leg beating can take place at the same time minimising dorsal discomfort.
The thing that caught my eye from this research is that, if a subject presents with excessive leg beating tendencies, even though these have been adequately managed in the past, but is denied future leg beating opportunities, then the back pain will return with an intensity that is inversely proportional to the length of time since any leg was last beaten by the subject.
I bring this up because since attending that retired back specialist my wife had lost all urges to go about beating any leg and my twin lower limbs have never felt so well in years.
How grateful we are that the back specialist was happy for that medical journal to go out on loan to us and it just goes to show how a small loan period like that can be a huge incentive to giving up leg beating.
Very good! Hope that the back pain eases for both of you. The reference was certainly not lost on me for sure.
I heard that if the said legs were massaged with a three year contract that some movement would be returned, but it may only be a short term fix.
My junior school teacher at Green Lane used to frequently beat my legs, upper legs that is. Thank you Powmill-Naemore, all has become clear. Please pass on the information to VLP, it may help resurrect his career.
UTB,
John
The more discerning and selective amongst you will be well aware of my defection from mainstream telly to the BBC Parliament Channel.
I have to say there was a highly unusual event today when the match was abandoned due to a waterlogged pitch, or for you Cricket lovers, rain stopped play, and due to the absence of any suitable covers no further play could take place.
Imagine my horror, like a crack addict suddenly cut off from my supply , I was left wondering how could I get my fix? Fortunately after some quick rescheduling we were whisked of to the House of Lords.
Now, I’m not sure how many readers ( if in fact anyone has got this far) have ever seen this before. So let me put you in the picture. Imagine the patrons in the West Stand Upper debating whether or not if the club shop should carry tartan vacuum flasks with matching tartan blankets complete with the MFC logo.
The rustling of Werthers Original packets was deafening. I only feel slightly satiated and hope that the HOC roof can be repaired in time for tomorrow’s broadcast.
I too was watching the House of Lords and my immediate thought was how they managed to get up and get back to their correct seats so often in a short space of time!
Also that as the day went on, the attendance seemed to fall so maybe they were either lost or their careful came to take them home!!
I am not sure that the HOC will be back in action tomorrow as it is Friday and I suspect there may be some dark arts at work with the plumbing! We need a Polish plumber quick……. oh hang on………….
Being reported in a couple of papers that SG has confirmed TP is here till the end of the season.
As long as it is only to the end of the season and no more, that’s ok.
Mind you, SG talking to the press does seem a bit odd…..
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/770046/Middlesbrough-news-Tony-Pulis-Steve-Gibson
The County Cricket Championship starts today at Trent Bridge for Yorkshire and they’re certainly giving youth a chance. Obviously with youngsters there will be inconsistencies, but the future looks bright especially in the bowling department. I hope Boro go down the same route next season, but for the moment I’m looking forward to an exciting summer. Bring it on!
Prediction for tomorrow’s Match.
Swans Vesta 0
Safety 1
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ifufk2ycc1j456/IMG-20190403-WA0000.jpg?dl=0
Says it all really.
Come on BORO.
I took my son along for his first ever live match, to the Boro v Rotherham game.
Pray tell, what was it about that game that I have missed that could have enthused him so much to ever want to go and see Boro play again? In fact, there was nothing about that match that would make any newcomer want to go and watch any live football match ever again. Funnily enough, as it is he is not at all bothered to want to go and watch the Boro again and cannot understand what it is that makes me and so many others want to do so.
Says it all really.
Come on Boro.
Well all can say Exmil, …plenty of Loyalty shown by the fans, especially at home. Not many wins to be proud of.
Sure. But as Tony Pulis said, most Championship teams would swap places with us. And we are miles away from a mess like at Bolton. I hope they survive as we did in 1986.
I will go for a surprice 1-2 win for Boro tomorrow . An Assombalonga brace. Up the Boro!
And it’s a suprise
⚽️⚽️
From me !
OFB
“Bryan Robson’s team may not win their first title, but their… artistry has made a ticket to the Riverside something to be valued, and that is a rarity.”
— The Sunday Times after we beat Coventry 4-0 in 1996. They were also quick to acknowledge that while our attack was “full of virtuosi”, the defence was manned by “pub piano players”.
One Phil Whelan included. It was disclosed that he hated his time at the Riverside.
Reminiscing about that newspaper extract has reminded me that the Si of the mid 2010s completely forgot what attracted him to Boro in the first place. The results-obsessed, tactics-mad influence of the Mourinho-Benitez collectives whose managers repeatedly apply the “look at the stats, we get it right” mentality forgets that it’s more the journey than the destination that we remember.
I have fonder memories of Hoddle and Sven’s qualifying campaigns for England, in 1997 and 2001 respectively, than Fabio Capello’s in 2009, even though Fabio’s was more successful and more recent.
Two Mourinho zingers for you. The first, after he walks out of a press conference following United 0-3 Spurs.
“I won more Premierships alone than the other 19 managers together. Three for me and two for them. Respect, respect, respect…”
“Sometimes I feel (people think) that to be good defensively is a crime. But it is not a crime.” Truthful on its own terms, but that statement can’t exist in isolation. Not with the price of United players and tickets being what they are.
I think AV once talked about this following the 0-0 home draw against Leeds in 2014. If you thought about the game on its own terms, in isolation, you could argue we were as solid as a rock and were learning how to do the *ordinary* things most top teams do well – have a concrete game plan, maintain shape and hold on to the ball to create a pattern of control. But how much of a consolation was that to people who barely remembered a goal?
I had us down to lose this one in the Exmil Challenge and given recent results I can’t see that changing. 2-0 to the Swans 😎🙁
OK, time for a Friday night ramble and Exmil’s post of the ‘Proud and Loyal’ image has provoked a few thoughts – though I should add they are not intended to be directed at him or those who buy into the message.
Personally, in linguistic terms I’m not a fan of the loyal tag as it tends to denote some form of subservience – as in servants, subjects or even dogs. Also, being loyal to the cause is sometimes used as a method by those who wish to place themselves on the ‘right’ side of any argument and can be used as means to silence dissent of those who have a view that is seemingly off-message.
I would instead prefer to advocate dignity in defeat (at least after the prerequisite few minutes of swearing to cool off) and perhaps maintaining the idea that being objective and being open to make your own judgements based on observing things as they appear rather than be stuck with the notion of blind faith.
No doubt the emotional attachment to your club was simply made at some point as part of a distant right of passage at probably an innocent impressionable age (under 50 for Diasboro) – it was perhaps a decision rarely made out of choice but possibly fulfils some innate need to belong to something.
Although, in the end, is a local football club these days really a club in the true sense of the word? The fans are not actually de facto members in what is simply in most cases just a locally branded privately-owned business, which usually demands loyalty without offering any democratised input from those who now strongly associate themselves with it – other than the proverbial voting with their feet.
So I’d argue this notion of being encouraged to feel proud and loyal are just not appropriate unless they are actually your true emotions towards something. The idea of actually trying to instigate those feelings is I’m afraid nothing more than thinly-veiled propaganda. It quite simply belongs to another era where being proud of things like the British empire sought to create a some kind of false identity for the masses. From my perspective, it’s the basic sentiments behind Brexit and the comfort blanket that has been sold by some as a return to the past for a destination and not instead a reference point to measure progress.
Anyway, football is mostly an innocent pastime and should be a bit of an escape where everyone is free to take it as they find it. There is no right or wrong way to be a supporter as long as people don’t cross the basic rules of law. Tribal it no doubt still is – however, we should try to view the world with open eyes and hopefully avoid the skewed ideas of conformity that can ultimately end up driving populism. Especially, with the unfortunate trend in the media that has decided that those who are deemed not loyal can often find themselves being labelled as traitors to cause.
Therefore, we shouldn’t forget that dissent is the basis of democracy but only if you can make an argument by not trying to create a narrative that closes down the discussion.
So very well put Werder, much more eloquently and a lot less petulently than me.
I would not say that Powmill. Just from the heart.
Nicely put Werder, however, I am in ongoing negotiations to extend the two minute swearing backstop so that as the winless run with no visible end continues all Boro supporters can add two minutes extra swearing time per game.
I have spoken at length to my Newcastle supporting wife and she is immovable, ironically she has a red line here, on the fact that if I continue with these fruitless negotiations there is only one backstop. I must go to my shed. Maybe I’ll see GHW in there?
UTB,
John
Only if you forsake mainstream telly do BBCPEEBIES
Such a well written and cogent piece could only have been produced by a limited few on this blog. It comes as no surprise that its author was Werdermouth.
In saying that, in no way am I intending to denigrate the postings of fellow Diasboro contributors but to acknowledge that we are blessed to have the likes of Werdermouth, Simon, RR, OFB and Ken.
They all help to make this blog such a compulsive part of our daily lives and at times are able to deflect us from the more troubling aspects of life.
Thank you to all of you, including the wider Diasboro. 😎
Can’t remember what my Exmil prediction was but here goes.
Swan Vestas 2 – 0 Damp Red Lucifers
Another match lost.
UTB,
John
I can’t believe the run of bad luck, poor finishing, dodgy refereeing, suspect selections, defeats will continue. I can’t recall what I thought when I posted my set of predictions either, but in any case we are making any prediction of today’s result now from a very different perspective. I’m going to bold and predict we will nick a late winner, even if that is just typical to keep all our hopes tenuously alive ….2-1 Boro.
Fed up yesterday spending 8 hours waiting unsuccessfully for a routine operation at James Cook to have a troublesome boil removed. No food for 24 home. Back again on Monday for the whole process to start again. Next time I’ll take my iPad with me or perhaps start reading War and Peace. Even more fed up watching Cas 0-20 down to Wigan, then alleluia staging a remarkable recovery to win 38-28. I wonder if Boro can effect such a turnaround by winning today. Hope so, as I await another marathon on Monday.
Sorry to hear that Ken, hope that Boro keep your hopes up and Monday goes better.
Meant to read ‘No food for 24 hours’,
Yes sorry to hear that Ken. I appreciate it is no consolation to you but we are waiting weeks for scan results. It appears the medical services the world over are struggling to cope with the increasing demand. It doesn’t help the stress and worry! 😎
BEst wishes to you and Ken your Diasboro family is with you all the way
OFB
We’re away in Wiltshire at the moment, Ken and we only caught up with the Cas/Wigan game at 0-20 on my iPad.
Suffice to say, I wished I’d not seen the rest. Our defence was atrocious. Well done Cas for that comeback.
Well, I have many jobs to do today In what should be a decent day weather wise so will get in earlyish before I head out to the garden!
Getting out beats constantly looking at the fiasco that is going on in Westminster and anyway it is Saturday so maybe some rest bite before yet another crucial week.
Back to more important issues, Boro. I also can’t remember what I predicted but having seen the performance on Tuesday, then the best I can hope for is a draw of some sort.
Our strikers are high,y experienced in missing, they must practice very hard to be that good, our defence is suspect at present and the midfield run about like headless chickens, usually sideways and backwards!
And as for our manager, well, the less said the better perhaps.
I wish I could be confident but I have kinda lost the will as the season has progressed and a draw would be a good result to be fair. That said, I will still be hoping for an Easter miracle!
KP
I know it’s a slow grind. What I have learned is that being classed as a patient in the NHS, means precisely that – being patient.
I find it a little ironic that this losing run seems to have coincided with TP selecting two up front ( as a lot of fans have been calling for) as for bemoaning missed chances, who on the bench is available to replace the current two?
GHW, I shouldn’t really justify this with a response but I will indulge you with a few points:
1. We started with 1 up top today. The number of strikers on the pitch really isn’t what the fans are taking issue with.
2. It is the awful, negative football, negative comments and generally the fact that Pulis is getting less from Boro than the sum of their parts that’s the problem (see also point 1).
3. Let’s pretend this is true. If Pulis has changed formation to suit the fans then why hasn’t he also changed the style of football & personnel i.e. given young Tavernier the opportunity that the majority of fans think he deserves.
4. The bad run started well before the Blackburn game. The change in formation is more likely the last desperate attempts of a clueless manager trying to arrest a decline whilst remaining blind to what the actual issue is (likely because that issue is the manager himself).
Your increasingly desperate attempts to absolve Pulis of any sort of responsibilty are ironic, particulalry when you didn’t buy it when Karanka made exactly the same point after losing to Blackburn when starting Rhodes & Nugent.
Will today be our Swan song?
Swans Lose Out to Ugly Ducklings.
I’ve thought that myself as well GHW. I suspect that at least part of the reason for that is the absence of that quick thinking quality in the selection not only to make the chances but also to capitalise on loose ball in and around the box.
That and what had to be a growing lack of belief.
Anyway, I’m sticking with my Abertawe 1 Boro 2 prediction. It has to come right sooner than later.
Any tv channel overseas showing the game today ?
OFB
Having just watched ‘The Premier League Show’ on the BBC I was interested about its mentioning of Football Magazines and how some are still going strong despite the internet. Some old magazines are now collectors’ items but of course take up so much storage room if one has collected them for several years. I only keep programmes and magazines of sports events that have some significance to me personally, but have kept copies of the ‘Nationwide Football Annual’ for each season in its various guises as ‘The News of the World Football Annual’ and ‘The Empire News Football Annual’ since 1956 when I was a National Serviceman.
This of course is a pocket guide currently of 544 pages and though its record section is repetitive although updated each year, what I particularly like is that the Championship, First and Second Divisions are given the same publicity and history as the Premier League with a review of each clubs’ previous season plus appearances, goalscorers, and current playing staffs. It also gives the fixtures of those 4 leagues plus those of the National League, and all 4 Scottish Leagues. It also produces the previous years results and League tables of all those 9 leagues, plus League tables of the 5 major non-league tables and the 7 major European Leagues. FA Cup and League Cup winners plus League positions of the top English and Scottish Leagues from time immemorial.
International records of the 4 Home Countries plus the Republic of Ireland are also brought up to date, but what I like most is that the Premier League is not treated as the be and all end of English Football, but that all 92 clubs are given due respect on an equal footing. That’s what Football is all about, from Accrington Stanley to Yeovil Town. In my opinion too much publicity is given to the Champions League and Premier League; there is football being played outside those two competitions and this handbook reflects that.
I see that Pukki has knocked in two more for the Canaries against QPR this afternoon. Would that Boro could unearth such a diamond. That said, if they did, he’d promptly mislay his shooting boots… 🙁
Sorry, there shoud have been a “no doubt” between “he’d” & “promptly.
I’m bitterly disappointed in the team selection this afternoon. We could have squeezed at least one more defensive midfielder in there. Gung-ho Tony playing to the galleries again! 😏
smoggy
And Shotton as well.
Well with 25 minutes gone it seems Pulis has found a solution to Boro missing chances – though not creating any chances is not necessarily the solution I would have gone for…
Shocking only on for one minute and first tackle concedes a penalty! 😎😒
Shotton coming on as an impact sub to replace Friend and immediately creates a goal – sadly by giving away a penalty…
Well the live stream from Swansea has been perfect and without any glitches. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the Boro’s performance! 😎☹️
Well that was a first half that showed us everything why Tony Pulis as a manager is never winning promotion with Boro. Set up for a 0-0 in a game we need to win and no intent or sign that the players were going to trouble the opposition. It reminded me of Villa away and Swansea were by far the better side and 4-0 wouldn’t have been unfair. I seriously don’t know what to say any more.
That was really awful. We made Swansea look like Barcelona but, even worse, th3 team seemed to expect to giv3 gialscaway. With both Mikel and Clayton playing I don’t understand how Swanseaccan have so much room to play simple passes through our lines.
This could get quite nasty in the second half unless TP can change something fundamental. We may as well br8ng on Tavernier for Clayton and go for it.
The world renown Boro chant has just been sung by the travelling supporters “we’ve had a shot” we’ve had a shot” as SD sends one just wide! 😎
Assombalonga and Fletcher on for Hugill and Clayton. All a bit late me thinks! 😎
KP
Now why would Britt be on the pitch, to miss another knock in?
Surely after this defeat Mr Pulis’s position is untenable.
He appears to be dignified and if he has any dignity he would walk.
Pedro
There’s not much dignity in someone who, after ignoring a player for over half the season, finally makes a statement to the press which reads “I spotted him before the season began and thought ‘ now there’s a classy player’, I think I’ll select him about Xmas”
0-3 after 71 minutes (Connor Roberts). Has he walked yet?
Apologies if this is a duplicate post, but the first seemed to disappear into the ether.
0-3 after 71 minutes (Connor Roberts). I give up. Has he had the decency to walk yet?
Is that the Conner Roberts we sent back?
At least if he went now he would have a shorter journey back to the south coast! 😎
Consolation goal scored by George Saville in the 81st minute. Too little, too late. *shakes head*
Well that display seems to have put any lingering idea of promotion well and truly to bed even without the usual story to make us fall asleep. Several Boro players were left sitting on the ground after the full-time whistle and they themselves must now know with six games to go and having lost the last six it’s looking bleak.
Boro are now four points behind Bristol City (who have played a game less) in sixth and in reality made Swansea look like promotion contenders even though they’re a bottom-half team. Rather bizarrely, Pulis was insisting before today that Boro are playing well – can’t see any way to spin this one though but I’m sure he’ll try.
in case anyone was wondering if Tony Pulis would spin the defeat then you won’t be disappointed…
“In the first half our tempo and decision-making were awful. We should have had a penalty in the second half for a clear handball. Swansea were a Premier League side last season and this was the game I was more worried about than all the others. Five games to go and it is all to play for.”
I should add it’s actually six games to go unless his contract runs out early!
The man is delusional. He has wrecked the club’s prospects this season and by doing so most likely ensured that we linger in the Championship or below for many seasons to come. Nobody believes any of his ridiculous spin and everyone knows that he is the major problem.
He needs to be sacked now and if SG doesn’t take action it will be yet another poor decision by him on top of several over the last three years.
This is now officially silly, for this incompetent person to stand there in front of a group of people who watch football all the time for a living, and utter the foolish and frankly ludicrous waffle which, by the way, has now become his habit, has gone far enough, this is beyond ‘the club’ and out into the wide world, and it is the people who employed him in the first place who have a duty to tell him to go home and not to approach the club again, they do not have to fire him, just his absence will break this dreadful pit of despond that we are in.
He is never going to tear up his blueprint of ‘ how to be a football manager’ or, for that matter, his self taught philosophy of. ” boot it up to the big lad up front” and while you are on, do not, under any circs. play youngsters, no good will come of it.
This is only the 3rd time in Boro’s 143-year history they’ve lost 6 successive league games outside the top division.
The previous times were 1954 (8 straight defeats) and 1925 (6).
OFB
OFB
See my post at 7.51pm on the 4th April. I actually saw all those home matches. Ipswich had just been promoted to the Second Division for the first time, whilst Boro had just been relegated from the First Division. When I got home my father asked how the Boro had played in their first home match of the season. When I told him that more performances like that and we wouldn’t be in the Second Division too long he seemed pleased until I added that the Third Division North beckoned and that Boro had lost 0-1. I was like Jarkko though for I thought it was only a blip. Seven days later Boro played the return match at Portman Road, and when I heard that Boro were leading 1-0 at halftime, I thought that maybe I’d been a bit harsh until hearing that the final score was 1-6. I was Boro daft though and never missed a home match even after having taken only the one point from the first 9 matches.
Of course there was no transfer window in those days, so Boro were able to buy three forwards – Charlie Wayman, Joe Scott and a little later, Bert Mitchell. Boro won their next two matches and a few matches later beat West Ham 6-0 only to lose 0-9 to Blackburn a week later. However Boro stormed up the table and either blind optimism or the naivety of youth I actually thought that come Easter and if we won the two games against League leaders Birmingham there was even a chance of finishing second. Of course Birmingham won both matches and Boro finished 12th. Ah, but we’ll go up next year!!! Or the next! No, it took another 20 years.
I’m older and wiser now, but in those immediate years after the War all I’d known was First Division football. So I can sympathise with today’s young fans who had only witnessed Premier League football and find life in the Championship hard to bear, but most of us have borne the peaks and troughs of being a Boro supporter. But it took me many years to realise the meaning of ‘typical Boro’ and that it can bring hurt and joy in being Boro supporter. Things have been worse, a lot worse, but we’ll eventually ride the storm. It may take a few years, but once a Boro fan, always a Boro fan, it’s in our DNA.
I’m not going to comment on team selection at all but last week I had a long chat with Jim Platt our former NI Goalkeeper who was a guest of NI for their recent international games
He said McNair was mom twice for them and Jim sees every Boro home game and couldn’t understand why McNair couldnt get a game in midfield for Boro!
Don’t forget Jim is a qualified FA coach and is well respected in the game so he does know a thing or two!
OFB
I respect Jim a lot and even call him a friend. The highlight of my football history is scoring a goal past him some five years ago. A top man.
Yes, McNair is an attacking midfielder and would be nice to see him starting. For Boro.
Up the Boro!
First of all I didn’t say The manager had changed the formation to suit the fans.
With regard to negative football, he can only pick the players available to him. I very much doubt if Tavernier would suddenly transform the team, but I would be the first to acknowledge it if he did.
It’s well documented that a lot of the squad are happily sitting with very lucrative contracts so perhaps complacency has set in, and they don’t have quite the same incentive as players in teams around them who are playing to secure the same kind of salaries that promotion would bring
Incidentally, I’m indifferent as to wether or not you indulge me, but feel free to justify your opinion.
Tavernier has pace, creativity & can score goals. He may not transform us but he certainly has a skill set that we’re missing
Pulis is a big part of the reason that we have the squad that we do. He spent £20m in the summer, he brought Hughill Besic in on loan & signed Mikel on a free. He either didn’t want attacking players and/or attacking players won’t sign for him. I suspect a bit of both, who’d sign for Pulis given that your assists & goals scored stats would take a nose dive.
As for wages, most if not all of the squad will have an automatic promotion bonus and/or wage increase in their contract. WBA & Villa seem to be doing ok with the big salaries that they are playing.
Pulis is doing exactly what he did at his previous club. Slow decline and alienating the fan base.
All I would say GHW, is that generally you have been pro Mr Pulis and by default his appointment.
I appreciate that he does not kick the ball, make the shot, or make the defensive tackle. However like Mr Gibson, you take the position and it’s remuneration, or not in Mr Gibson’s role at the moment, only the Power and status.
So like all in elevated positions you have to accept the criticism.
I’m more than ready to accept any criticism that comes my way. However it’s just my opinion, and everyone is entitled to theirs. I don’t think another manager would be able to get anymore out of this squad.
Basic skills like, accurate passing to a teammate, converting goal scoring opportunities and not being outmuscled all over the park is down to the players. They are incapable of even doing the simple things like, throw ins, corner kicks etc. I’ve never seen a more pedestrian set of players.
They are models of inertia and half a yard behind the opposition. A run of six defeats should bring about some sort of defiance, yet as soon as they go a goal behind the white flag comes up. This kind of capitulation in the face of defeat signals a lack of mental toughness and dare I say it, a lack of guts.
I’m not an apologist for the manager, he has my sympathy. In the normal scheme of football these days his position would now be untenable. That he is still in the job signals to me there is something drastically wrong within the club. An opinion I have voiced for two years now.
Such is the secrecy endemic in football clubs these days, the fans won’t know what it is until the autobiographies come out in future years.
I apologise if posters don’t like my views, but it’s what I believe and as I’ve said only my opinion.
Similar to Pedro’s post below, how can you absolve the manager of responsibility for this?
The bulk of the squad have already gained promotion from this league and looked like much better players than they do currently.
Howson & Saville have both got double figures from midfield for their previous clubs, something that looks like it will never be repeated for their current manager. Besic started well & has got progressively worse the longer he has spent under the influence of Pulis.
Flint was supposed to be one of the best centre backs in the division. McNair had PL interest.
Britt & Hughill, despite their flaws (any striker at this level will have some), have scored goals & performed well for their previous clubs at this level.
Fry & Tavernier are both England youth internationals.
At the start of the season just about every manager in the division would have been envious or our squad. Pulis has simply failed to get the best from them. In short he has failed in his job.
As with my response earlier, this is not condescension, these are the facts in response to someone who appears to be willing to overlook any of Pulis’s failings due to some kind of personal bias.
Just to clarify, there’s a difference between, criticism and condescension.
I can assure you I have no personal bias to the manager, in fact I had the same sympathies with Southgate and Monk. It’s all too easy to lump all of the blame on to the manager whilst exonerating the players.
I have been in managerial positions and have observed lots of others in similar situations. You’re only as good as the people you have working for you. Admittedly some are better than others at motivation and handling, but ultimately if you have repeated underperformers there’s little you can do about it.
AK was sacked and his replacement did even worse than him.
After 6 defeats on the bounce and a feeling of negativity and frustration about the season as a whole, i intended to write quite a lot about our current set up and our options in making progress now that our outsiders possibility of getting in and then through the play offs has all but gone. Because ultimately that is what i want to see as a fan, a style of football and progress made for those brought through the club or into the club. But reading through the comments there have been and the excellent contributions from so many, what is there left to say? I am crippled by total apathy at this mess and how the obvious is laid out in front of us but still it continues.
Having said that, i cant help saying this 😀 I can accept an academy player making mistakes or his form dropping off as much as i can for any other player because that is part of making progress. What i cant accept is a man who loves his stats so much to bemoan a lack of pace and/or skill and ignore the one person who has both and has delivered on stats when it matters. And have 3 transfer windows to do something about it but still set out an agenda like hes been left to make do and mend.
To lose this many games in a row and still not have the strength of character to share that blame or learn lessons is something else. At the very least, i had TP down as a straight talker but he is anything but. The closest we got to the acceptance of responsibility was “if ive made a mistake”. IF?? We have run out of fingers and toes counting those mistakes and still he reverts to type when given the options to be bold and brave and the situation where those qualities cant wait.
The end of season lap of honour will be interesting if he stays. I will wager he will bark orders from the touchline about the direction and pace they should complete it in, chuck his cap in the air and scoot down the tunnel pronto hoping SG will have his contractual service bonus waiting for him.
Lap of honour, really! Not sure on present form they deserve that.
I have never booed the players or a manager but would not bother to stay for a lap of honour this season.
GHW……absolutely no criticism intended. Or did I mean to be condescending if that is what you thought.
I appreciate your views, may not always agree, but enjoy them.
Not at all Pedro. I was referring to a previous post, where I was told a response wasn’t justified but I was being indulged with one.
I saw the team sheet and gave a shrug of resignation while wondering where the Boro goals were expected to come from.
Now I’m wondering where the next point might come from.
I expect the atmosphere at the next home game to be grimly apathetic moving quickly to loudly vitriolic.
I think GHW’s comments about how TP isn’t responsible for the players being so pedestrian actually hits on the likely truth; he is responsible and they have simply stopped playing for him to get him sacked.
If you owned a business and your Manager and staff were running it into the ground would you just allow it to continue or would you take action to fix the problem before your business was ruined.
For whatever reason the club seems to be spiralling out of control. The onus is now on the chairman to step in and read the riot act.
He should assemble everyone first thing Monday morning and find out what the heck is going on.
The fans deserve some answers.
The club have failed at all levels to get their act together since (and probably before) relegation – from board-level to management and recruitment to the performances on the pitch with players seemingly struggling with some of the basics. Even the club’s communications have been poor and let’s not forget the fiasco with the Gazette and the poorly executed delivery of the live-streaming platform. The club appear to lack overall leadership and maybe we should have expected that those with responsibility should have performed far better in their particular areas. It seems the club have taken their eye off the ball and have allowed mistakes to be repeated and have been driven by events rather than shaping them – we’re now looking at finding our 5th manager in three years and few will expect the club to get it right!
Couldn’t agree more GHW. Something I have been for sometime, in that ultimately the responsibility lays with Mr Gibson.
He has to make sure in no uncertain terms, that something is done to stop the rot.
GHW
The riot act will not achieve anything, and who would you read it to, the manager, or the players who are coached by him.
As noted by you, the players are playing static football, every ball played to feet, which in turn means the receiver is standing still, which in turn means that the opposition have got their number after ten minutes, and control the game very easily.
If the above were really true we would be beaten like a drum home and away.
Which is exactly what is happening, even more frightening, if it were true we will continue to be slaughtered on a regular basis.
Hands up those who believe that will not happen under this man.
Just a final point, all clubs, without exception, dispense with the manager when the entire edifice starts to wobble, you know, the players do not try, the fans are beside themselves with anger, the manager talks nonsense, all the players lose any semblance of form, and heart, and confidence, the fans tell the chairman to apply the toe of his boot to the cause of it all. And the word gets round that he is getting an extension to his contract.
This is where we are, point non plus.
Currently we are a
Crap club in a
Crap league with a
Crap manager and
Crap players
what’s worse is
We don’t even have a Crap plan going forward .
However its that Crap ,we could end up in the play offs,
Easter is coming.
GT
So sorry to spoil a good blog, but, really, we are beyond the usual wild fluctuations in form with which football is curst. Think Blackpool, who got into such a state that they sank without trace through all the leagues. Nothing could stop it, and nothing did. They had one blip, when a certain team went there with the players in charge of things, they won 2-0, but sadly there was only one boro in the league, and yes, they did sing ” Can we play you every week”
There will be no happy outcome for us, and I dread to think of the start of next season.
So , we will certainly not get back to the top six, never mind win the playoffs.
With an old-school manager like Tony Pulis in charge some may have expected to get six of the best – however, Boro still got a good beating but a sixth-successive defeat at Swansea made it six of the worst instead as any promotion prospects now appear little more than academic.
So did Boro play with freedom at the Liberty Stadium? or has the charge sheet for Tony Pulis become too great for him to avoid a stiff sentence from his chairman? Anyway, it’s not clear if the jury are still out on the Boro manager’s tenure but nevertheless here’s Redcar Red’s judgement on Saturday’s proceedings…
https://diasboro.club/2019/04/07/swansea-3-1-boro/
I did not see the match as I choose to go and see my brother in hospital. And then I had an appoitment with Bonny Tyler in a concert. The lady was singing better than Boro play.
Next I will read the summary of Redcar Red and see if I missed something. I saw the Gazette gave every player a 3 for performance (except Randoph, Fletcher and Assombalonga at 4).
So not big expectations. But I am sure the writing of RR will be as good as ever.
Up the Boro!
Did Bonnie Tyler sing about the Boro performance
“LOST IN TRANCE”
OFB
OFB : Bonnie Tyler also sang : ‘It’s A Heartache’.
This song was played (maybe quite poiniently) at half time during a dire home game (1976 ?) during the reign of John Neal.
It was the last game I ever attended. Enough was enough for me, after witnessing the ppromotion Stan Anderson era followed by the highs with Jack Charlton.
I hope this seasons results + the Swansea fiasco is enough for other Boro fans to follow suit & vote with their feet.
Pulis couldn’t manage a Subbuteo team. Whether Gibson cares for Boro or not, all blame ultmately lies with him.
Jarkko
I’ve been thinking about who our next Manager should be and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re right only one man can be the choice
“Mogga “
He knows the club he often watches the games he still lives in Middlesbrough his children go to school locally and I’m sure he would come back
He has some unfinished business here
Mrs OFB said something about Pulis which made me think
He is always saying “ I’m only the caretaker here to look after it it for the time being “
No commitment no intention of living here no empathy of the club just taking the money
I’m sure the fans would welcome him back as well
I know two who would don’t we Jarkko?
OFB
Yes, I would take Mogga or even Gareth Southgate back. Any time but Mogga is more likely. He has a nose for cheap players and loves the club.
But he signed a new contract at Blackburn last season and we have never bought a manager before with a contract elsewhere. Perhaps not after John Neal from Wrexham or Lennie L.
And the football Mogga plays…. he is still highly rated at West Brom unlike a former Welch manager they had lately.
Gibson should take Mogga to the moon. Up the Boro!
If Mogga was to return I wouldn’t want him as Manager but upstairs overseeing the wider functions of the Club that have been woeful such as recruitment. At least SG and the fans could trust him.
Director of Football is the popular term I believe. Similar in a way to the Watford model where the Club has systems and procedures in place and a Coach slots into a well oiled machine avoiding disruption.
It would be an interesting pitch for Steve Gibson to call Mogga and ask him if was interested in managing Boro now we’ve run out of money again – he might hear more than it it was it is on the other end of the line!
To be honest I didnt even want to open the blog this morning having watched the match – finished off all my tonic, and went to bed very depressed.
It is what it is and at least all hope has been abandoned. So summer holidays can now be planned without fear of disruption.
I haven’t read RRs report yet, I’m saving that pleasure until after breakfast and walking the two terriers.
Now we all have an admiration for loyalty but when does it become stupidity? Everything has gone so hideously wrong even before yesterday that the fact Mr Pulis is still at the helm beggars belief. Or is he being paid so much that it’s cheaper to keep him rather than pay him off? Can he be sent gardening leave? Whatever the answer not solution, is please get him up and away. I cannot believe that the chairman would put up with these levels of performance from any of his Bulkhaul employees and here there seems a fairly straightforward way of measuring performance, I think they are called results.
Is it too much to ask the club to do something? They’re killing the fans off, it’s reaching a stage where a run of mediocre performances would make Boro seem attractive, instead they are just, well, absolute rubbish.
Two coffees before reading RR’s report or maybe I’ll wait until lunchtime and have a beer with the read instead. In my dark mood I can now see risible tweets from the players in their sunny and exotic holiday locations rolling in after seasons end. Now that would go down well.
Let’s hope for some honesty in the club. Is that too much to ask?
UTB,
John
Thanks for your sad report Redcar Red. If I had traveled to all the rubbish matches you have I think I would have lost the will to live.
On Saturday morning I booked my hotel room for 27 April! Will I be the only one at the match or will there be a crowd for a lap of dishonour?
Before the team was announced it crossed my mind that TP might return to playing with Hugill as a lone striker but I soon dismissed that as ridiculous as we needed to win. TP has been saying for several weeks that each game is a cup final but he obviously hasn’t looked at our record in cup finals!
I expect Bolton to scrape a 1 – 0 victory on Tuesday or the game may be called off for safety reasons and 3 points deducted from Boro.
Ha ha, just what I had been thinking to re the 3 points!
Well as Si would say that was PU, renewed my season tickets with black adders queen Elizabeth’s words ringing in my ears “last time ever”. All the life and enthusiasm has been sucked out of the club no goals, no chances, no hope.
Things for next season doesn’t auger well, I assume there will be a fire sale anybody we can get money for will be gone, Tav, Wing, Randolph etc and we will take a hit on the high earners.
If we have a new manager not woody and his cronies but who? The Lincoln manager? Someone like Jack Ross at Sunderland.
If PU is still around on Saturday the atmosphere could be ferbrile.
Unless there is some vision from the club I fear I will be one of the few rattling around in the stadium next season, given how many people who have had a season ticket for years and are now saying no more.
They say the hope kills you but we just appear to be hopeless now.
A quick thank you to RR for his continued dedication to the cause and for the entertaining read. Shame that the team can’t perform to the same levels.
The defeat was predictable although the manner of it, perhaps not. TP clearly does not learn anything at all and his post-match comments are bizarre. He mentions motivation but who is the manager responsible? Tactics are his domain as well and playing Hugill is a sure fire way not to win especially combined with a geriatric midfield who have lost their walkers!
We need a Miracle of Biblical proportions if we are to get into the playoffs and in the unlikely event that we do, I do not hold up much hope given last seasons performance.
As someone else has said, if SG saw this at Bulkhaul, surely he would take action so why not at Boro? Has he lost his interest in the club and like many of us here, just accepting it is what it is?
I have no real problem with us being a yo yo club providing that we get entertainment and the odd thing to cheer about but right now, it is neither one or the other.
Anyway, I will be there next week and then decide whether my attendance at the end of season wake is required. I am not sure the team deserve £30 plus petrol money and 8 hours of my time for a season that promised so much and delivered so little.
Boro and Brexit together failing to deliver, who’d have thought it!
Thanks RR for your continued dedication and another report on a team which is in abject disarray and looks more like relegation candidates than play off hopers.
It was clear from yesterday’s game that we are a team without identity, lack fight and have given up on the manager and his philosophy.
In any other profession TP’s services would have been dispensed with by now. I just wonder if there is any truth in the rumour that he is entitled to a £1M bonus if he is sacked whilst the play offs are still mathematically possible? 😎
I believe the early bird deadline is this Friday. If TP is not going to be here next season, see how the match with Bolton goes and make a decision whether to stick or twist.
Time for a prediction, right now this man is getting his marching orders, no discussion, no apologies, just go, you have stayed too long in this place for any good you have done.
This club is in very great danger, when the players hold the manager in contempt, when the players know that to win a match might possibly allow this farce to go on, then it is game over.
The West Brom supporters warned us when we employed him, that he was, in the words of the song,”Baby baby baby you’re out of time”
And he is antediluvian, at least ten years behind current ideas of tactics, frighteningly determined to exclude anyone with the slightest attacking instincts, stupidly determined to convert any attacker into a defensive clone (wing anyone)
On that subject, does he tell the centre back to concentrate on his attacking duties? It might explain our leaky defence.
I still think todays the day, goodbye and good riddance.
Once again many thanks to Redcar Red for supplying the entertainment side of Boro’s game – lot’s of great movement between his lines and imagination and unerring accuracy. I particularly like the point about Hugill managing to stay on his feet long enough to exit the pitch when he was subbed.
While Pulis has said that it’s still game-on with five games to go (albeit six), the truth is that Boro would need to win at least five of those to have any chance of making the top six – Bristol City only really need to win 4 of their remaining 7 games to finish above Boro even if they turned into world beaters.
Indeed, Boro are now only one point ahead of Saturday’s opponents Hull, who were languishing in mid-table obscurity the last time we won against QPR. The Hoops incidentally arrived at the Riverside on the back of six successive defeats and it seems by beating them we inherited the curse from Schteve.
At this point I will have to admit to a bad judgement call as feeling concerned about the ramifications of Brexit we decided to change our plans to visit England from Easter but instead opted for a week earlier rather than the summer as plans for a three-month extension by Theresa May were brought to the EU. As it turns out we now arrive on the 12 April and possibly no-deal Brexit day.
This also means that NeverGiveUpOnBoro has just informed me that my Hull ticket has arrived in the post – so it should be an interesting experience and who knows a even more interesting atmosphere. Although, my track record of my twice-yearly Riverside visits are seldom fruitful – the last was that 2-0 defeat against Karanka’s Forest, before that was a hapless defeat to nine-man Wolves and before that was one of the worst first halves I’d witnessed by Boro against 5th bottom Brentford – Boro at least rallied to make it 2-2 with a late Fabio strike.
In fact, I can’t actually remember the last time I saw Boro win a game as my recollections prior to those were a variety of 0-0’s under Karanka. I think it was probably a game under Mogga when Carayol scored – possibly when some of us met Steve Gibson for that meeting organised by AV.
So I’ve not got great hopes for the Hull game…
I suspect that the Pulis situation is a complex contractual one regarding his employment. If he has a bonus (very likely a very lucrative one) on gaining promotion then to remove him would in effect make it impossible to earn that bonus and therefore TP may be so inclined to seek financial compensation through his legal representatives. That there are now only a few games left and no guarantees either way (e.g. Agnew) what’s the point unless it was a nailed on certainty to not only qualify but to actually win the Play Off final. It is much more likely that it will be far cheaper to let his contract run out in June and start again.
Worst case scenario is that SG has got himself into an almighty monster of an employment mess and had already previously extended TP’s contract and hasn’t a clue how to now extricate MFC from that situation. There is of course the disconcerting view that SG has decided that TP is here for the long term, warts and all. Believing that chopping and changing hasn’t worked before and committing to a long term relationship will eventually bring success. In a normal business that has some merit but Football is anything but normal in that success or failure is measured over the context of a nine month season and not over a five year business plan.
A resounding victory at Bolton and an opening Tornado of attacking Football quickly tearing Hull apart next Saturday may stall protests but in the likely event that neither will happen then things inevitably will be very toxic. How SG, MFC and TP deal with that if the plan really is for a long term tenure is up to them but the result will be a disconnect (even if only temporary until we storm the league next season) far greater than SG has experienced with the fan base previously. With Season Card renewals spluttering and things getting worse rather than better on the field next Friday evening when the early bird offer ends could leave some seriously disheartening numbers for SG and his entourage to get heads around.
The current anger being directed towards TP is understandable but whatever decision SG makes in regards to him it is only a part of a bigger problem within the club. The Academy/Youth set up seems to be functioning quite well but everything else within the Club seems to be incredibly underwhelming if not completely under performing. Changing the Manager in isolation won’t fix equally poor returns from those in comfy executive jobs who from a fans perspective are failing just as badly and probably far worse than TP. This is something that has been building for a while where anyone whose CV had a TS postcode in it was awarded a position which with hindsight now seems to be well beyond their collective and individual competencies.
As bad as Keith Lamb was his worst was probably 300% better than those who seem to have multiplied in numbers since his departure. Completely dismantling an entire senior management structure in a Football Club as well as the Manager himself is not very stabilising and could have disastrous consequences. To retain all their services however is likely to mean more of the same. I don’t envy the position SG now finds himself in, damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.
RR
What should also be worrying the club is that a lot of the corporate members are not looking to renew their business with the club for next season
OFB
Its not exactly somewhere you would want to bring guests for Corporate entertainment!
It’s not and there are a lot of empty seats
Maybe Theresa May could even bring the EU27 leaders to the Riverside for a corporate hospitality event on the basis that while there may be a special place in hell for Brexiteers, it’s nothing compared to what the good folk of Teesside have had to endure on a weekly basis. No manager is better than a bad manager!
RR
Thank you for taking the time and effort to write your excellent report which I’ve read this Sunday morning
I listened to the first half on Radio Tees when it was still 00 and then turned it off much to the amazement of Mrs OFB
She asked at half time do you want to know what the score is I said 0 2 she said “how do you know” I said I just know !
Many Thanks 🙏
It’s really appreciated
OFB
Just read Redcar Red’s entertaining match report with his humorous take on a very sad afternoon. I have not read any other reports or seen any of the match video, such is my apathy to the current situation. The defeat did not even spoil my Saturday night, having accepted the ongoing inevitability.
For all the calls for Mr Pulis to be sacked, I can agree with RR that the contract that TP has with MFC will not be straight forward. He will be receiving I am sure a high (Championship) Salary, especially as Mr Gibson chased him and twisted his arm to come to Middlesbrough.
His top up money would probably be in a lucrative play off / promotion bonus and new EPL contract. As RR has said, sacking him now whilst it is still mathematically possible would trigger that bonus. Mr Pulis (and his agent?) will have learnt from the Crystal Palace episode.
The really serious issue now is what will Mr Gibson do. Again as RR said, has SG painted himself into a corner with an already agreed further contract extension. Now that would be a major problem with the fans I believe and I could see the crowds initially, at least, falling to around ST sales.
Whether I am being naive I am not sure, but I still believe we have a squad that could / should of obtained better results.
Putting the transfer fees to one side, as we all agree we have had our eyes taken out, are they really that bad?
Randolf arguably the best goalie in the Championship. Whilst Flint only looks a reasonable CB, he has scored goals for a number of season. Ayala also, but why has he become somewhat more erratic.? Fry is more than capable? May be Shotton and Friend should of been replaced.
Howson as we have continually said, there is a good player in there with a history of goals. Saville was good in a poor side, and scored goals. Besic we know can play a bit..
OK, Britt is certainly going to cause debate, but I still believe given the right service he would match other forwards in this division. Fletcher, I am not sure about but has progressed. Hugill sadly a wasted loan fee and wages.
In August Wing and Tav were successful, and the former has proven his worth this season. May be Tav would of given a chance.
So are the players as bad as the results are now saying or is it something else?
Mr Gibson is the Owner and has the final say in all things MFC. I only hope that somebody close to him has read some of the recent and excellent posts on here. Understands the Fans concerns and says to him……Steve you really have to read these comments. I think they could have something really worth talking to them about.
Try again with right details!
Good post Pedro and also from RR earlier on the contract speculation.
I think that there may be some truth in the bonus payments although I really hope that haven’t agreed another year unless we get promotion. Surely SG would not be that naive……….
I may (and it’s a big may) be prepared to put up with TP in the Premier League although it wouldn’t be pretty but there is no way in the Championship. I would be very selective in my attendance and whilst I am loyal to my club in that I would never change alliance, paying good money to see bad football is not ideal.
Any new manager will have his work cut out to sort the squad into a fully functioning team who can score goals although one would have thought that there are players in the academy who could step,up. That said a bit of motivation would work wonders as I am not convinced that TP has what it takes any more.
A good post, Pedro. No, we have a good squad that is massively under performing and also been unlucky in front of the goal. But need space and wide men or wing back.
And it is a mental thing, where an experienced manager like Mogga could help. Up the Boro!
RR’s posts – the match report and today at 10.45 – speak volumes.
Also in the first half Radio Tees reported that JOM and Flint were having a real verbal battle in the first half so is there some discontent in the club?
OFB
I’m not going to like that Bob because it’s not something to like.
Players who fight each other is not something to be encouraged.
Redcar Red,
I finally sat down at five o’clock with a beer in hand to read your report. That report sounded as embarrassing, grim, tactically naive, clueless and feckless as I expected it to be. Somebody, sometime has to do something to stop this slide into the arse end of ineptitude and mediocrity.
I admire you for putting up with it and writing the reports. We need Aster in the stands reaming Mr Pulis out and I don’t think that I have been so depressed and uninspired about Boro ever, even in 1986 I thought a miracle would happen, but I’m afraid that the dark side has taken over now.
I put two bets on them to be promoted this season, I’m going to try and get the odds on them not winning a match before the end of the season, probably evens.
UTB,
John
Gutted.
Thanks RR for your report which I have just read. So truthful as usual.
I have been this w/end on a National Holiday trip which took us to Skipton, found a butchers and bought some pork pies that are the best I have ever tasted.Also, visited Otley and then to Bradford for a one night stay in a very good hotel.
On Sunday was a trip to Emmerdale village (which was absolutely fascinating) then an afternoon in Harrogate (a recent poll suggested that the town is the happiest in the UK) not in my opinion. There are lots of beggars on the streets and I found the place a bit weird.
On the way down on Saturday I read the team news for Boro, I thought what !!!
So no surprise on the scoreline.
To me now, the situation is unacceptable. Time for SG to stand up and be a man and get rid of this manager
If Pulis was a real genuine football man then immediately after the game he should have offered his resignation. I don’t care at this point, who should be the caretaker manager until the end of the season. Anyone including me ha ha would do a better job than this man who has absolutely destroyed MFC and the majority of supporters.
He has made us a laughingstock. Believe me that is no joke.
Great work Redcar your best yet. 👏
Supporters wait patiently for vital signs of a Boro recovery …
There is hoping we see another goal and a point coming tomorrow. We have an “easy” run in now as the pundits say..
And we wait. And wait. Up the Boro!
Thanks RR. I have oy just brought myself to read your excellent entertaining report on what was clearly anything excellent entertainment. Always appreciate and trust your eyes on the proceedings.
So, not content with holding the record for the number of Boro’s successive defeats in the 21st century, there are two games to go for our TP to go and make himself a bit of a Boro legend by equalling the 65 year old club record 8 defeats on the spin. Who knows, he may have his sight on becoming the only man in history to lead us to 9 successive defeats! Now that would be an achievement.
It’s last chance saloon for Bolton this week and Boro’s current form is vastly inferior to The Tractor Boys, so an upset is much less likely, leaving TP with only a home game against Hull to get that record equalling eighth.
Depressed here in Scotland, with a Mackem to have to go and sit beside in the office now 🙁
Powmill, I cannot remember if the pussycats won a trophy at Wembley earlier this year? Please remind me. UBT!
And once again about Mogga.
According to the BBC, Blackburn Rovers manager Tony Mowbray signed a new three-and-a-half-year deal with the Championship club in November 2018, keeping him at Ewood Park until 2022.
The 55-year-old led Rovers to League One promotion last season.
So Mogga returning to Boro is not that likely – unfortunately. Up the Boro!
Jarkko
Mogga should keep away, he did a good job for us but by he end he had lost the fans. I wouldn’t want to see him in that situation again.
RR’s match reports: the only reason I can think of to continue to support the Boro.
Two great performances this week. Full of energy, commitment, talent and creativity. Automatic promotion displays. Thanks RR
Excellent further analyses from Pedro and RR, and all- round good discussions.
No trolling or abuse on here. Just intelligent comment and analysis, an admirable recognition of the complexities facing Steve Gibson, and an overwhelming feeling of disappointment.
Pulis and Brexit. I wrote about both on here in some detail before those events.
In both cases I feared the worst.
In both cases the worst turned out to be worse than I’d feared.
Agreed Len.
Thing is with Pulis he will leave, hopefully, and Boro can move on.
Brexit, I am not so sure but don’t get me started, I want to keep my sanity which with Boro and Brexit is a bit hard at present.
There is Yorkshire cricket to look forward to…….. looks like we will lose the first match there as well
Nurse, nurse, where are my tablets?!
Heaven help us if the rumoured TP contract extension has already been signed, that would drain funds at a time that we need them more than ever.
I hope, nay pray, that the club and TP have acknowledged that he will leave at the end of the season and the listless displays of late are the realisation from the players that they will have a new gaffer next year and it will be a clean slate. For some of them, it is probably the realisation that their curious value under TP will dissipate quicker than your tight mate when it’s his round, i.e. any new manager would see that their value to the team is limited and ergo the jig is up.
Before we start to think of new personnel though, I think the club needs to have a good hard look at itself and decides what it wants to be. How does it want to run and how do they want to play. Then find a manager that embodies that philosophy, and try to be creative, like Swansea when they went for Potter or Huddersfield when they went for Wagner. Indeed, arguably, like Boro when we went for Karanka. Someone with something to prove suits the Teesside pysche better than someone who thinks they know it and have seen it all. We’ll never warm to TP because he has a “I know better than you” air about him. I’d far rather have a younger manager who has a will to win and to improve himself.
Oi!!!
I keep telling you its not my round !
OFB
This club is a lesson in ignoring the bleedin obvious.
Across the world, the rules are iron clad.
You hire a manager in the hope that he will take you to football glory, knowing that if he fails you will fire him, that is you the club chairman.
If he crashes and burns, even you, the club chairman, no less. Has an absolute duty to remove the poison from the club, at once, like now, because the damage is not limited, it sets in to the framework of the club, affecting the young players, affecting the fans, affecting the signing of players, even unknown players will hesitate to come here after reading some of the interviews by our Manager.
It is the outside of enough for him to say ” Playing well and winning is not up to me, it’s up to the players”
The players know exactly what needs to be done to end this nightmare, that would be his dismissal, a.s.a.p.
You did, Len, you did. And you wrote brilliantly.
A lot of it was, I think, I’m your response to my Eurocrat piece which I read again and again. A heck of of a piece of writing. Your response, that is.
What happened to Mogga was wrenching. The lines on his face after Sheffield Wed 2-0 Boro and a run of W3 D3 L15? With an online war between those behind Mogga and those behind McDonald, Bailey etc?
Devastating.
In Management we are routinely presented with situations that are unpleasant and difficult. If things ran smoothly and like clockwork we could dispense with the role of a Manager. It’s how we manage them that ultimately will result in how the club or section/department or even the entire business unit performs.
The most difficult bit is in handling and managing both people and situations professionally and without personal opinion or malice clouding judgement (same should apply to Politicians). In doing so you often have to massage ego’s and motivate those who deep down you would really love to take a wooden club to. There is a time and a place however and you manage those little issues and problems out of the business eventually but all the time never taking your eye off the target, ensuring that you achieve the goal regardless of the hand dealt.
Managers rarely get played a perfect hand and some inevitably become distracted by what they haven’t got plus the irritating little niggles brewing from those they would rather have “clubbed”. Shipping those out who you don’t want/like/despise is fine but not if it leaves you in a far weaker position. Alienating has the same effect unless you are one of the clever and astute managers that can make your point by proving that synergistic value achieves far more than you can with irritants being accommodated. Most fail at this juncture and the water then becomes very cloudy with objectives faltering and breaking down. The department/team/unit are then characterised by scratching their heads, looking lost, confused, demotivated with all belief and confidence gone.
The definition of insanity is often then replayed by said Manager repeating more of the same Basil Fawlty style by bashing the bonnet of the broken down car with a huge branch exasperated by why it isn’t working. When Managers are past the point of draining the swamp there is little that can be done except remove them from their nightmare. Some learn from the experience (e.g. Southgate) but most others just go on to repeat the same failings (usually enjoying the new broom bounce initially) or in a few cases give it up as a bad job.
Clever organisations know that even their mentors and leaders need mentoring and managing. Those that assume they are getting the finished management product so can therefore just leave them to get on with it never growing, improving or honing skills are nurturing long term problems. You would never countenance not developing the skills of your workforce or players yet for many businesses their managers (and especially senior executives) plateau and then the organisation wonders why progress has halted or indeed even reversed. Inevitably they sack the manager who indeed will be at fault for many of the above reasons but rarely if ever step back and look in the mirror.
RR – as usual you hit the nail firmly on the head!
Some of us who have been in management positions have had the opportunity of seeing it in action and having to behave as you say.
The logic fails when related to football clubs which appear to operate in a different universe where failure is rewarded and chairmen appoint a failed manager who they believe can save them!
The irony is that in their business world, the chairmen would never counterance the same actions and if one of their senior managers recruited an employee who had failed, then heads would roll!
Bizarre doesn’t go far enough and I do wonder what SG is thinking and what TP has to do to get the push. Maybe SG has taken a pragmatic view of leaving him in situ until June rather than face any legal actions from the honourable Mr Pulis who has form!
Excellently put, RR. I never forgot the tale of the manager who wanted to be buddy buddy with his players, yet deeply resented how much they earned and launched a half time tirade about how the opposition cared so much more despite making a heck of a lot less. He couldn’t accept that (a) he was working with a poor team and (b) his tactics hadn’t exactly helped them to found a voice.
One player spoke up, quite calmly. Cue a fight.
Here I am again at James Cook Hospital waiting once more for the removal of a boil. Having spent 8 abortive hours on Friday waiting I’ve come more prepared this time with my iPad and a Crossword book. Been here 3 hours up to now and just read Redcar Red’s accurate and amusing report. However the photo heading his article has caused me some trepidation with surgeons peering over a patient in a quandary of what to do. Apparently having a general anaesthetic at my age might have a slight risk, so the surgeon is contemplating a local anaesthetic. Either way if I don’t have the operation by 6pm it’s likely that I’ll be kept in overnight.
As a humorous aside the possibilities of expiring under a general anaesthetic has its advantages of not having to read about any more woeful displays under Tony Pulis. Mind I’ll miss the US Masters Golf this week! What a decision to have to make!
Ken, it might help if you name the boil. I’m not suggesting any names, just simply putting it out there as our American Cousins would say. Then you may actually find that being awake under a local anaesthetic can be a cathartic experience.
Hope the offending lump is removed and I hope your boil is painlessly removed also!
Ken
Hope things go ok for you
If you’ll excuse the analogy there is a boil at the Boro that needs removed!
OFB
Best of luck Ke. Hope all goes well and is complete today.
Good luck to you Ken.
Best wishes Ken from me and Mrs P. We have a 5.15pm appointment with the GP to find out what the CAT scans have revealed. Fingers crossed for some good news and hope all goes well with your op. 😎🤞
Hope the 5.15pm appointment is more inspiring and uplifting than a TP team talk!
Seriously though hope its all positive KP.
KP, hope all is positive for you and Mrs KP and that Alfred can get put into his place after your 5:15 today.
Fingers crossed for you Ken
Ken,
I hope you don’t go to sleep with view Werder’s masthead picture, Tony Pulis staring down at you like Nelson’s surgeon. Get well soon.
UTB,
John
Good Luck Ken, hope it all goes well. You never know Redcar Red might give us a match report talking about the flowing football and hatful of goals at Bolton.
Maybe not, at least not from the boys in red.
Ken, hope all goes well with the boil removal this time and I like the idea of naming it. I May like to suggest a few!
It would be good if you came round and the last season has all been a dream/nightmare and Boro are at the top of the league, already promoted, Mrs May has resigned and we are staying in the EU!
Mrs P decided to name her tumour Alfred. We did discuss the name Brexit but decided not to in cases it wanted an extension or didn’t want to leave. 😎😂
I called the boil Rupert because I always got a Rupert Bear Annual for Christmas, and in later life still followed his adventures in the Daily Express. How sad is that? It was relaxing listening to some light Bach and Mozart whilst under the knife, and I’m hoping they’ll let me drive home after a few hours rest.
Happy to see that Joe Root and Gary Ballance look like saving the day for Yorkshire, 209 for 2 at the moment.
Hope it’s good news for your wife KP, we could all welcome some.
Centuries for both Root and Ballance as Yorkshire easily earn a draw, though it’s a pity they couldn’t perform like that in the first innings and earn an extra 2 or 3 points.
Best of luck to Mrs P, Ken and BoroBrie.
Naming and lancing the boil on both your own body and the Boro’s sounds like a way of transforming an unpleasant experience into a therapeutic one to me.
Best wishes to all
Simon, Many thanks. Too generous, as ever, but greatly appreciated.
Right, everyone.
While we’re talking about managers, let me take time out to tell you a little story of a manager who only ever managed one club. A former central defender from Cork by the name of Charlie Hurley.
This is another promotion story with a very unhappy ending.
Hurley was actually voted Sunderland’s Player Of The Century by their fans in 1979. Ahead of Cloughie and Len Shackleton. Irish football fans, the media and the FAI loved him. He was imposing, he had a touch of Hollywood about him. He never bought anyone a drink, but there were no bad words said about Charlie Hurley.
When Hurley signed (yes, I’m about to reference him again) Eamon Dunphy for Reading, they hadn’t been promoted for fifty years. But Hurley and his No. 2, Maurice Evans, had put together a good squad. The star man was Robin Friday, who scored scored and created goals on the pitch, and looked and lived like a rock star off it. But beneath all the birds, booze and bravado, he was shy. (He’s also no longer with us – he died of a heart attack in 1990, at the age of 38.)
It looks like Hurley hoped that Dunphy would keep Friday on “the straight and narrow” – a “rebel” as a sort of counterpoint to a “madman”. And throughout 1975-76, Dunphy and Friday’s dressing room at Reading seemed a happy place to be. Robin was “the outlaw”. Captain Gordon Cumming was “a winger with brains” (a little condescending, maybe? – Si), as “solid as a rock”. And there was an especially good bond between Friday, Dunphy, goalkeeper Steve Death and Friday’s partner up front, John Murray.
Hurley had been in charge of this fourth division team for three years. And they really were going nowhere. They needed that “one good season”, one win, to feel that their lives were worth living again.
1976 was that year. Reading were promoted on the last day, in third place, thanks to a 3-1 win over Crewe, in which Dunphy and Friday both scored. The season also featured what was apparently the greatest goal ever seen at Elm Park, scored by Friday in a 5-0 win over Tranmere. “Hurley’s Heroes” was the headline in the Reading Evening Post.
What could possibly go wrong?
The seeds for discord were sown when the players had been promised a dinner of fillet steak, sirloin, roast beef and the works if they won promotion. A promise that had gone back years.
The plan, ten days after the champagne, lap of honour and the rest, was to come back to Elm Park, pick up the meat and go for a celebration in the local pub.
What the players would find back at Elm Park were “suspiciously small” bags – at least one of which contained “a small portion of mince and an even smaller chunk of stewing beef.”
It didn’t take long for the realisation to hit them – scraps for the players, the best for the board.
Hurley, surely careful not to tread on the toes of his bosses, acted dismissive. “It’s only a bag of beef. What’s all the fuss about?”. He “smirked” as he said he didn’t know where the prime cuts really were. None of the players believed him, and had a celebration lunch themselves – without the scraps that were in their little bags.
“Behind the smart suits and movie star looks”, Dunphy wrote, “we thought (Hurley) was a bluffer. Living proof that you could look like a manager, talk like a manager, walk like John Wayne – and still know **** all about the game.” The implication was that No. 2 Maurice Evans (who would take charge after Hurley) did all the work – the chef to Hurley’s maitre d’ as Dunphy put it.
The second big problem began with contract negotiations. Hurley, and those in the boardroom he was on good terms with, were not about to give the team a fair break. A fiver more for Friday, Dunphy and captain Cumming, but nothing for almost everyone else.
The team vowed to stick together. The atmosphere turned poisonous. The local paper got wind of it and reported a players’ revolt.
Suddenly Hurley wasn’t so friendly anymore. He made it clear the club was not for turning, and that the players ought to take it or leave it.
A few players gave up, but Friday, Murray, Dunphy, Death and Geoff Barker stood firm. It got clearer with time that keeping Friday in their good books was what Hurley and the board wanted above all else. Despite this, Friday told Dunphy that they were sticking together.
Ultimately Dunphy was summoned to Hurley’s office. They’d always “got on well”. Hurley had no idea about the player’s dislike of him – “a promotion season can disguise a multitude of misgivings”. (As we’ve found out – Si.)
Hurley’s proposal was this – a handsome rise for Dunphy, Friday and Murray, and the others would gradually learn to deal with it.
Naturally Dunphy spoke up for Barker and Death, but Hurley wasn’t having it… “What do you think you are, a ****ing shop steward?”
“No, but… we’re sticking together. We got promotion and the new contract should reward the lads who did it for you. Instead you’re fighting us when you should be fighting *for* us in the boardroom.”
Dunphy was (judge for yourselves how reliable this account is) grabbed by the throat and flung to the wall, and told he was being given a free transfer immediately.
This was only a sticking plaster for Hurley, though. Friday effectively went on strike, Geoff Barker was naughty stepped, and resentment infested the ground. By half-time at home to Preston, when Hurley had caved in and recalled Dunphy, the team were being battered. 2-0 down at half-time. Hurley exploded, called the team “useless” and a “disgrace”, and walked out.
He never managed again.
(Sources: The Rocky Road by Eamon Dunphy, RoyalsRecord.co.uk.)
That story reminds me of something I often quote on here and elsewhere as the best piece of management advice I ever heard as a young rookie directed at a senior colleague from a Director “You don’t get yourself into those situations”.
Anyway onto more Boro centric matters and the small detail of a trip to Bolton Wanderers tomorrow night. For once an opposition Manager can Top Trump Teflon Tony before even a ball is kicked in the excuse department. My hope is that with Friend out we go to a back three of Ayala, Flint and Fry with Howson and Downing as marauding wing backs.
Centrally in midfield Clayton in front of the back three (sorry JOM looks jaded of late) and then Besic and Saville in front scrapping and battling and hopefully creating something for Britt and Fletcher (or even Tav in place of Fletcher).
We need to win but surely there are enough defenders and midfielders in that lot even for TP. Being honest I doubt that even a win will make much difference unless others (plural) implode between now and the end of the season. With Derby and Bristol both having a game in hand and not strangled by a relic of a Manager I can’t see our approach picking up more points than them in any case.
Bolton have literally nothing to lose, lets face it they have little enough both on and off the pitch already so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a plucky approach from them as TP has us sitting back deep clinging for the draw from the kick off.
Maybe clutching at straws here but Bristol City’s game in hand is away to Millwall, and Derby’s is away to Swansea. Also Bristol City’s other 3 away games are at Villa, Sheffield Wed and Hull, whilst Derby’s are at Blackburn, Birmingham and Bristol City. In view of the form of Millwall, Swansea, Villa, Hull and Birmingham at the weekend perhaps all is not yet lost for Boro.
Just need TP to try and win a few games then Ken, fingers crossed he breaks the habit of a lifetime! 🙂
Just read the (Unofficial) statement put out by the club that it will not help matters if we fire the Manager now.
Will someone tell that to the manager who got fired by West Brom after drawing a home match which would have put real pressure on the top two teams, and he was gone before the interviews were completed. West Brom are, I need hardly say, jammed right in there for automatic promo.
When are this bunch of incompetents going to realise that the manager is all important, if he is no good, then your club is no good.
Our manager is no good, period. This is observable on a match by match basis, no cohesion, no positivity in the club or the team, even worse, there is despair in the team, and the fans, is it justified? I’ll say it is.
His quotes are pure gold, and will go down in Boro history, each one a gem.
On selling the only speed in the team, ” I’ve just lost my best buddy”
On the young player who had won a cup tie against a prem side with a wonder goal, and been promptly dropped, “he has a lot of hard work to do before he gets into my side”
On being asked why his team keep getting beaten like a drum, don’t ask me ask them?
On being asked when he is quitting,” it’s not up to me, me and steve are best buddies, it’s up to steve, he’s a wonderful man.
On his 6th straight defeat, “we are having a lot of bad luck, we could have been three up after ten minutes, and we should have had a penalty” yea, right!
Five days to go to Season Card decline, sorry deadline!
Had another email plea from MFC today. Would you please part with your hard earned money. We will try better to entertain next season……promise!!!!!!
Thanks for replying, RR.
“King Charlie”, as he was known, seemed to be another cultist. Wraps everyone around his magnetism for a good length of time (long enough to get promoted), but football is full of characters who are bound to get resentful or angry when the management and the hierarchy are taking most of the attention or credit.
MFC are not unique amongst football clubs. Whenever a team goes through a prolonged bad spell the immediate reaction from the fans is to call for the managers head, and then to apportion blame to the club hierarchy in the shape of the Chairman and his senior executives.
SG has a history of appointing young inexperienced managers with varying forms of success. Bryan Robson transformed player recruitment and Steve McClaren managed to bring long awaited success in the form of a trophy and high finishes in the Premiership.
Gareth Southgate unfortunately paid the penalty when the club ( due to matters beyond his control) were relegated and failed to look as though they would storm the Championship. Despite the trend of young coaches being the way forward Steve Gibson made the mistake of appointing an “ experienced” old school manager. This proved to be an unmitigated disaster and put to bed the myth that Rangers and Celtic could compete in the Premiership as the supposed top players he recruited weren’t even good enough for the Championship.
He then turned to a Middlesbrough old boy in the hope that someone in tune with the area could turn the club back onto a more solid financial footing after the profligate spending of Strachan.
Ultimately this was the root cause of his downfall, as without financial backing it is impossible to succeed in football. It was inevitable that he would fail and “being one of our own” only prolonged the agony until he was duly relieved of his duties.
Up stepped AK, with SG once again turning to an inexperienced young manager. With financial backing the club once more moved to better times and success was achieved. Unfortunately for AK the Premiership was a step too far and we experienced perhaps one of the most dismal and abject surrender of their top flight status I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness.
The seeds for AK’s departure had been sowed in the infamous debacle around the Charlton fixture and his inevitable sacking probably came a year too late.
Cue the appointment of Gary Monk and the ill advised statements of “ smashing the league”. This was a massive investment for SG and perhaps he lost his nerve and dispensed with Monk a little prematurely. He was then faced with which direction he wanted to take the club. He rightly saw that the old school type of manager being responsible for all aspects of running a club was a thing of the past and his view of a young coach bringing about the best in playing style on the pitch was still the way to go. We have seen recently, particularly in the Championship, that young coaches who concentrate solely on the playing side of things are the likeliest way to bring success. Taking the responsibility of negotiating contracts and the recruitment of players out of their hands is definitely the way forward.
The coaching staff have become the primary route for advancement on the pitch with experienced executives given the task of the overall running of the club. In my opinion TP was brought in with the brief to oversee this transition and highlight and remove the obvious things that were very wrong within the club. It’s well documented that Pulis was astonished at the monetary amounts and length of contracts that some very ordinary players were given.
That this can’t be achieved overnight is a given and there could well be some heartache for the fans and soul searching for the Chairman. The way forward now could well be creating a Director of Football position at the club with the brief to avoid repeating the obvious mistakes that have repeatedly been made.
The Chairman has been conspicuously absent lately and this communication vacuum is being filled with acrimony and dissent from the fans. The medicine has indeed been bitter and without a spoonful of sugar to help it go down, it becomes increasingly difficult for the fans to swallow.
I’m a big fan of SG and he’s a very astute businessman who didn’t get where he is without making some mistakes but his present situation indicates he has got a lot more things right. I’m personally of the opinion he is on the right track, and once he gets the entire club running efficiently, and more importantly on a stable financial footing, he can then go on to appointing an innovative and modern young coach.
Who that may be is the $64,000 question and the future of the club depends on him getting that appointment correct. I’m confident that eventually he’ll get things right and the club will once again be able to compete at the highest levels. The hard part will be communicating this direction to the fans, as without them it will be impossible to achieve. It’s not a matter of “Blind Faith” more an acceptance that there isn’t an easy road to success and the foundations have to be sound. It will be a stormy ride and supporters may well be advised to fasten their seatbelts, but ultimately everyone is in this together and any rewards will be equally shared.
This is not Football Manager and you can’t just keep deleting and starting again. As I’ve often said, football is cyclical and good times generally follow periods of stagnation. Can the Chairman get the fans to buy into his plans? He’ll never know until he speaks out to them but this silence is not helping anyone, least of all the most important thing here…….
Middlesbrough Football Club.
( All of the above only my honest opinion)
My recollections about Mogga are slightly different. Tony done brilliantly with bringing in bargain budget buys and cleaning up after the Trashcan disaster. Ultimately his training and coaching methodology which left players exasperated and confused at Celtic repeated itself at Boro and ultimately implode at Barnsley. That run of games unabated after Christmas in reality finished him and he didn’t have the wherewithal to recover from it despite undeservedly in my opinion being given the opportunity because he was an ex Boro lad.
Financial backing certainly helps as Steve McClaren could testify yet the current top two Championship sides illustrate how unnecessary that is at this level just as Cardiff and Huddersfield did previously. Bristol have sold their stars every Summer yet have maintained and currently surpassed Boro. Preston are a solitary point behind us and North End’s record transfer fee I think was the alleged £1.5M Alex Neil paid to Barnsley for Brad Potts, I’m pretty sure he won’t be on £40K a week.
From the outside looking in the current “Executive” structure at the Boro have failed and failed badly and for some time now. I’m happy however to be proved wrong and shown just with what or where they have actually been of incremental value but building on those Executive foundations will increase the likelihood of any existing or incumbent Boro Manager failing and that is before his tactics are scrutinised. The Gestede’s and the Valdes’s etc. were predicted on “Untypical” to be highly dubious. It wasn’t exactly a shock or surprise that they bombed yet someone somewhere in the Club clearly thought it a good idea. similarly the Downing and Rhodes signings.
SG needs to have a clear out in the Summer both on and off the pitch. He has far too many hangers on and an unhealthy almost incestuous relationship with all things Teessiders for it to be healthy.
Spot on RR
Hi Ghw, Celtic and Rangers could perform in the premiership no doubt. With the money that they would get. At the moment up in Glasgow, there is little money for them.
A top post, grovehillwallah. UTB!
The entire history of football is the history of finding young players and signing them, then playing them,(most important)
We, or our leaders, seem to think that going into the market with a wad of money, and loudly calling out ” anyone got any players they would like to sell” is the way forward.
It is not, football is full of extremely dodgy people who will take you to the cleaners.
Just as you should shop for food when you are full, so you should shop for players with a very thin wallet.
Look, use your eyes in the lower leagues, there are lots and lots of young and hungry players, they do not cost a lot, they do not want enormous contracts.
Above all when your team is playing well and you haven’t a care in the world, still search for players, if you find one, you want him, always, they can be bought and sold, and if you make a turn well done.
GHW
Good post which I enjoyed reading and quite rational in the reasoning.
OFB
GHW
I completely agree with your analysis. I’m guessing like me you have seen it all before, the managerships of Maddren, Murdoch and Allison were pretty low points and at that time many could never envisage the glory years ever being repeated. I think that too much pressure was put on Southgate, Mowbray and especially Gary Monk when Boro were quoted as being amongst the 30 richest clubs in Europe. A Director of Football should have been appointed after promotion, because Gary Monk might well have been the young manager the club needed without the added burden of ‘smashing the league’.
Indeed Ken, my all time low point was standing on the terrace at Shrewsbury. You and I have experienced many low points but of course they soon fade from memory when sat alongside the successes.
I suppose it’s all part of the football supporters experience. I almost severed all my long standing emotional ties after our capitulation in the last Premiership campaign. However being a Boro fan is a bit like being a Catholic, ( or whatever your particular persuasion is). Your faith is often tested and it’s easy to lapse now and again, but ultimately it’s part of your DNA.
As I’ve previously said, the club is the one constant, managers and players come and go.
“This time next year ”Rodders”
Ken, I think Monk missed his sidekick, assistant manager Pep Clotet at Boro, too. He has done well at Birmingham again with him. But that is past. Up the Boro!
Too true Jarkko.
AV in the Gazette having a right rant about Boro.
GHW, a well put together piece and as a supporter of Boro for over 50 years, having moved away at the tender age of 4, I have also seen it all, mostly from a distance.
In the pre internet days, I had to make do with watching games down south with the occasional trip to Ayresome Park when we visited family. As the years went by, we moved closer to Middlesbrough so saw more games.
My late fathers mantra was always, “there’s always next season” and to see the highs of a trophy and 2 runs in Europe culminating in a final is something that he would not have expected. Sadly he didn’t live to see us winning a trophy or Europe. UTB was there in spirit!
Us old timers remember 1986 and before and will always appreciate what Steve Gibson did for the club and has subsequently done with vast investments.
I agree that the club needs a reboot although I am still of the opinion that SG is reluctant to invest further. The amounts required to be competitive are eye watering, even for him, and with the current economic uncertainties, you can understand his position.
However, some communication to the fans would be helpful especially when season tickets are due.
I may be in the minority here but I would prefer to get to the play off final every year and lose in glorious style after a penalty shoot out rather than see us struggle in the Premier League unless SG could guarantee that we would be truly competitive.
Likewise I would prefer for us to be a local club, owned by a local man rather than a Chinese consortium with no ties to the town.
Stewart Downing chalked up his 400th appearance in a Boro shirt. He is often quoted as the best graduate of our famous academy.
He is not the same player as 10 years ago, naturally loosing some speed with age. But he is often the most classiest player on the field. Still one of our best.
I and my family – and my son is a football coach and plays futsal at the highest level – often see him as one of our best players. He is class and for sure a former International.
Just don’t expect him to be as quick as in his younger life. Or to be a Traore type winger.
Älso I don’t see us play the type of crap football a lot of us expected to see from a Pulis team. Sure, Aston Villa and Swansea matches were awful, but with Britt and togerher Fletcher up front, we have been more pleasant to the eye.
But result wise we have been awful. Don’t misunderstand me.
As ever I hope Boro to win tonight. I hope the match is on via Riversidw live. I mean that Bolton technicians are able to do their work as normal after all the problems the club has had this week.
So 1-3 to Boro. Wonder what OFB might think of. But he has been wrong for the past six matches….
Up the Boro!
Sorry for my English. Most classiest sounds awful – even I am not that big fan of Stewie! UTB!
Jarrko, your English is very good, wish my Spanish was at your writing level.
As for Mr Downing, we will have to disagree there. Classy he is not.
Pedro, I know we disagree in there. To some he is still the best passer in the Championship :). UTB!
Thanks Jarkko
That why I’m bottom of the Exmil challenge!
OFB
Although Boro have won their last 7 matches against Bolton, Tony Pulis has never won as a manager in 7 visits to Bolton (5 defeats and 2 draws). That says it all really, so can we expect him to change the habits of a lifetime tonight?
Tony Pulis is now saying that he’s disappointed that Marcus Tavernier hasn’t played more matches for the Boro. Well he’s the manager, so whose fault is that? Another unbelievable comment from this dinosaur. His quotes will soon be as many as the great Oscar Wilde, but not anywhere near as witty.
I think these little sound bites are deliberate, there seems to be a steady succession of them. Nobody could be that stupid surely?
Just finished watching Sunderland ‘Til I Die. The fact that it’s about Sunderland is immaterial, it could be any former Premiership club in turmoil.
Recommended.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/dec/12/sunderland-til-i-die-showcasing-everything-right-wrong-in-english-football-documentary-netflix
Just to flag up that I’ll be posting up a new blog discussion article around mid-afternoon – I wrote most of it yesterday evening and need about an hour to complete it.
I’ve been enjoying some rather summery weather over here during these last three days with blue skies and 23 degrees. Well, I say enjoying but more work in the garden to be precise – I’m currently digging out some bushes in training for this evening’s continued Boro hole digging exercise.
btw read the quote on Tavernier over breakfast and felt compelled to include it in my article – it’s hard to comprehend what goes on inside the head of Tony Pulis sometimes (always?)
Just received an email from MFC, that the match tonight (I believe) is available to UK subscribers aswell as overseas. 10 pounds and chance being robbed. No commentary. You could use BBC Tees, but generally the two are not in sync.
Should I, should I not. Decisions, decisions!!!
Re: Tavernier…
What’s new, Pu? You’re full of it.
Re Tavernier
As a certain Sky pundit from Middlesbrough would say
Unbelievable Jeff!
Breaking news – sorry TP has not left the building – Mrs P’s MRI scan results are in.
The tumour aka “Albert” has taken up residence in the kidney but has not spread anywhere else so far!
We are both feeling less stressed having received this good news. A major operation is still required to get rid of Albert and unfortunately the kidney but if all goes well Mrs P should make a full recovery and be able to lead a normal life.
Thanks from both of us for all the messages of support which have been much appreciated.
CoB let’s have three points to make it two good bits of news to start the week with. 😎😀
KP,
Three points would be good news but trivial compared to yours and Mrs P’s news. Great news altogether.
UTB,
John
That is good news KP. I am sure everything that now follows will be good news also.
A mate of mine went through a very similar operation 10 yrs ago. He’s since run in several marathons.
That’s great news KP and I wish Mrs KP a speedy recovery after surgery! Perhaps Tony may be free to carry out the operation…
Given his management to date, I am not sure he would be able to put the correct theatre team together and would be worried that he would take out the wrong kidney! 😂😎
Great news (if that’s the right term) KP.
All the best.
I’m really pleased for you both KP that at least the news isn’t as bad as first thought and is operable. God bless you and your wife.
Delighted to hear Mrs KP’s news KP. No doubt things will now progress quickly for her and you both continue to have lots of prayers and good wishes going forward.
Sorry about the worry and suffering Mrs K P has and is going through but absolutely delighted that the prognosis will have a happy ever after!
Happened to a pal of mine 10 years ago and removed kidney and he goes for check upevery 6 months but he’s fine
So here’s keeping my fingers crossed 🤞
OFB
Love to hear good news and hope Mrs P gets more of it
Great news for Mrs P and yourself
As for Boro, it may be trotters 2 plodders 0 unless roary roars.
Dear, dear, now I am worried, if that statement from Pulis was for real, and not a spoof , then we are near the end game.
Can we make it clear to any stranger reading this blog, that this fool is the one and only person responsible for the young Tav, not getting on the pitch.
Further he was well aware of the talents of both Tav and Wing and Fry for that matter, that would be after the first five matches of the season (top of the league) yes yes I know, that can’t be true, but it is. He single handedly put a stop to that by removing them from the scene completely for the next couple of months.
There has never been any sign of a apology.
He did say last week that he had spotted Wings talent in the close season, yea, right!
As Tony Pulis stares into the blackest of black holes that he has seemingly created himself, he can be pretty sure that his star is no longer in the ascendency with the Boro support. All is not quite lost if the midweek results go well and Boro can somehow drag themselves away from pull towards mid-table obscurity. So will the losing streak end tonight? or are we doomed to a very thin atmosphere at the Riverside on Saturday? Here is my take on events with this week’s discussion blog article…
https://diasboro.club/2019/04/09/2018-19-week-37-boro-try-to-escape-nothingness/
Werder
I have to disagree, TP is in the black whole with a spade.
http://www.hawking.org.uk/into-a-black-hole.html
Stephen Hawking’s views on black holes did not include a Welshman with a trackie and baseball cap
Just goes to show that as clever as Mr Hawking was he didn’t know everything about Black Holes!
Well, there are certainly not any shooting stars around the team at the moment.
And then Fletcher puts Boro 1-0 with a shot in the 16th minute.
Something must’ve clicked: Fletcher bags his second with another shot in the 28th minute! *shakes head in disbeief*
Well, I am dissapointed. Fletcher should have had a hat trick before half time. It was his easiest chance when Britt put him through. A sitter.
Hope to see a reaction from Boro in the second half. Must score (more). Even Bolton are well above us in the form league, we must score more. Up the Boro!
And Paddy bags two to put The Dirties 2-0 away to PNE.
Match finishes 2-0, Clayts on for Besic in the 86th minute, Tav for Britt in the 90th (three minutes of injury time). *rolls eyes* At least Mogga’s boys did us a favour by beating The Rams by 2-0.