@forever-dormo That may be a position a lot of fans will accept. Going to the game, for the love of football, seeing your team play, irrespective of the result.
As I posted yesterday, the Boro have averaged 27K plus this season. If we accept at this moment in time, the reality of sitting 12th in the table, then one could argue we are having a mediocre season. If we aimed for 9th every season and finished 8th, would the majority of fans be happy with that, assuming we won more home games than we are now.
After a few seasons of the above, what do you think the average gate would be then?
Of course the main rider in all of this debate is Mr Gibson. His club, his decisions and his dream of getting to the EPL, just as Luton have done. And Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest, Brentford and others.
Team News...
McGree on the bench keeping Howson company - O'Brien starts but remains to be seen if it's in midfield or an attacking role with either him or Hackney. Other than that no real surprises.
Just checked the score: 0-2 and we haven’t had a shot on target.
Well that was bad....
From CJ
No sugar-coating it, that was bad. Two sloppy goals to concede and Glover's had to make two other big saves as well with Bristol C running in behind with ease. At the other end, it's been sloppy and turgid. One of those where the passes aren't crisp or accurate enough so even when they do find their man, it's giving them a lot to do. Improvement needed.
Another poor first-half performance by Boro at the Riverside - looks like teams have found Boro out and know if they press high and keep tight to the Boro players then they'll turnover the ball as our one-touch passing is just too inaccurate and we've no pace to recover - Bristol aren't Chelsea but they could've gone in at HT 3 or 4 up.
Boro still playing without the focus of a striker and struggle to find the right pass or shot - changes needed at HT as they're not going to score 3 goals and concede none playing as they are. Surely McGree is better than what's been selected ahead of him - Coburn not even on the bench and Latte Lathe is weeks away so not sure if the season can be salvaged on this viewing.
Barlaser poor
Sandcastle Riverside is alive and well. I only have to hear how out of form the opposition is, how few they've scored and my heart sinks. Please don't delay the subs until the last twenty minutes...
UTB,
John
What is it about this club that when you devote 100% of your heart and soul to the cause, in the full belief that this is the season where we are going to stand proud, then some old gadgie in hob nails gives you a creamer right in the nuts, not just once but every week as the season goes by. You weary but you carry on a bit like Sisyphus, somebody has to get that ball in to the net, or the hill as far as Sisyphus was concerned, but who? I'd like to say I give in but I can't, it's a Boro thing.
Sandcastle Riverside is alive and well. I only have to hear how out of form the opposition is, how few they've scored and my heart sinks. Please don't delay the subs until the last twenty minutes...
UTB,
John
70th minute & no sign of any yet! 😡 The Robins, on the other hand, have thrown on FOUR!
Got the no subs comment a bit wrong: Thomas & McGree apparently replaced Engel & O'Brien in the 68th minute.
Greenwood had the ball in the net in the 77th minute, but the goal was ruled out for offside. 🙁 He was replaced by Silvera in the 80th minute.
Barlaser booked in the 73rd minute.
Greenwood had the ball in the net in the 77th minute, but the goal was ruled out for offside. 🙁 He was replaced by Silvera in the 80th minute.
And Silvera it was who pulled one back in 90+1 (five minutes of injury time), assisted by Azaz, but that's how it finished.
Simply not good enough that first-half performance given Bristol City looked sharper with more energy following 120 minutes against Forest a few days earlier. Boro's midfield was poor with too many misplaced passes and with no striker lacked the guile to create decent chances - Greenwood had little service but at least showed energy as did Forss but a disjointed performance from a makeshift forward line that never really looked dangerous - things improved with McGree on the pitch and Thomas better than Engel who is neither good in defence or a threat going forward - unlike Ayling who proved to be a good outlet down the right and looked to link up with the attack.
Are the play-offs beginning to slip away? two trips on the road at Preston and then Leicester this week may ultimately decide and if the gap to sixth stretches to 9 points or more then we may have to concede it's unlikely Boro will win 11 from the remaining 14 games to give us a chance with 74 points - still can you see Boro winning another 11 games with no fit striker and a struggling midfield? We've only won 12 all season!
From CJ
Middlesbrough's play-off chances slipped further away in defeat to Bristol City as their wait for a league win at the Riverside in 2024 stretched to four games.
Bristol City won 2-1 on Teesside courtesy of two first-half goals in two minutes from Jason Knight and Matty James saw Boro booed off the pitch at half-time. There were huge improvements in the second half, but there age-old problem of putting the ball in the back of the net proved costly.
Sammy Silvera came off the bench to score a late consolation that for the five minutes of stoppage time gave some hope of rescuing a point. It didn't come though, as they moved six points off the top-six in defeat.
Michael Carrick made one change from the side that drew with Sunderland last weekend. Lewis O'Brien came in for his first start since September after a lengthy ankle injury that required surgery. He replaced Jonny Howson in a straight swap in the midfield, which meant Hayden Hackney continued in the three-man forward line behind the striker.
Bristol City manager Liam Manning, meanwhile, made six changes to his side after calling it 'madness' that they had to travel here having played 120 minutes and a penalty shoot-out against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup on Wednesday.
Ask anyone inside the ground after 20 minutes which was the side who'd had that midweek effort though and anybody without the prior knowledge would have been saying Boro. Having already required Tom Glover to make a big save as Harry Cornick beat an offside trap, they quickly found themselves 2-0 down within two minutes.
The first came on 16 minutes and was frighteningly easy for the visitors. A run through the middle from Rob Dickie and a simple pass in between Rav van den Berg and Lukas Engel, with Jason Knight running in off Engel's shoulder. Knight's first touch rounded Glover and his second was to put it into the empty net.
Less than 120 seconds later and Bristol City were extending their lead. Boro guilty, not for the first time, of sloppily giving the ball away in their own half as Hackney dawdled on the ball. Matty James profited and when every defender backed off, he had the space to curl one in off the near post.
A shell-shocked Riverside could hardly believe their eyes. When Dan Barlaser gave one away from the kick-off as he let the ball run under his foot, there was a chorus of boos around the ground. A frustrated Boro fanbase made their displeasure known, as they did again with no change to the scoreline by the time the interval came.
Before that though, recognising Boro's midfield were missing Hackney, he swapped the academy star with O'Brien. He went Azaz moving back to a more central role.
It saw Boro improve and it was Azaz who had there best chance to pull one back when Forss teed him up. The January signing just didn't quite get enough behind it as O'Leary made the diving save. At the other end, Glover had to make another big save when Boro were caught on the counter and Sam Bell ran in behind one-on-one. Glover stood up tall and blocked with his chest in the end.
Huge improvements were needed second half from Carrick's side and they made a bright start. Less than 60 minutes after the restart they attacked through Forss on the right. His cutback didn't look like reaching O'Brien though and so, when it unexpectedly did, the Forest loan man couldn't react quick enough inside the box to fire a meaningful shot away.
Their second-half intent continued in much the same manner, but they just couldn't find the early goal they were after to half the deficit. An impressive O'Leary denied Azaz and Sam Greenwood with two good saves and Marcus Forss flashed on just wide of the far post from the edge of the box before the hour mark.
Boro continued to probe but they just weren't getting that drop. Bristol City, meanwhile, sensing the growing momentum, began to use all the usual tactics to slow the game down as much as possible.
Boro's next meaningful opportunity came on 72 minutes and it was a Rav van den Berg who tested O'Leary with a long-range drive from 25 yards as the visitors cleared the latest Boro cross. That it was the Dutch centre-back in that position to fire on in says a lot about the territorial advantages Boro were enjoying.
They thought they had one back on 77 minutes. About summing up their luck in the second half, Greenwood was played in behind by the returning Riley McGree and fired one into the roof of the net from a tight angle. To his clear displeasure, the flag was up for offside.
They did grab one goal one minute into the five added-on. There was a lot of fortune in that one as Azaz's tame effort cannoned off Silvera's back and went in. It gave late hope that was ultimately not to be.
You make your own luck in football, and as has been so often the case, inconsistency from half-to-half, soft goals conceded and a lack of ruthlessness at the other end ultimately cost Boro another huge three points.
The result saw Boro drop into the bottom half of the Championship as Bristol City leap-frogged them via goal difference, albeit having played a game more. More importantly, the gap to the top-six opened further to six points, again though, with Boro having a game in hand on Sunderland. Nevertheless, based on the evidence of this, another play-off run looks increasingly fanciful.
First half a shambles, second half a little better. If anybody still thinks we will get in playoffs I have some magic beans going cheap. Given a goal a match at home it was in the words of Private Hudson game over man.
Not exactly a performance that will encourage people to renew their season tickets
Also they should been 4 up at half time not good enough, no way we can play with no striker, absolute joke I'm,more angry about that performance than I have been in a long time
Here are the ratings from CJ
Tom Glover - 7
Beaten twice on the day but nothing he could do with either. He also one save either side of the two goals which stopped the first half from being a mauling and gave Boro a chance of recovering something in the second half.
Luke Ayling - 6
Attacked well through and delivered a couple of decent crosses that weren't capitalised on.
Dael Fry - 5
Struggled with Bristol City's attacking pace running in behind and couldn't orchestrate Boro's defence to be tight enough. Poorly executed offside trap almost cost Boro a goal before the actual first. Backed off, allowing James to fire home the second too.
Rav van den Berg - 5
Struggled in this one as Bristol City exploited huge gaps in the Boro defence. In the first half it looked so easy for them to break in behind and van den Berg regularly found himself chasing. One decent effort in the second half required a good Max O'Leary save.
Lukas Engel - 5
Allowed Knight to run off his shoulder too easily for the first goal, though he'd be right to lambast the openness through the middle that allowed Dickie to make the run and pick the pass in the first place. Otherwise attacked well enough without doing anything spectacular.
Dan Barlaser - 5
Boro were far too open in the midfield and their first goal was embarrassingly easy as Barlaser allowed Dickie to run through the middle before picking his pass in behind for Knight. Improved along with Boro in the second half, but Barlaser is the kind of player who fails to take tough games by the scruff of the neck and can be a bit passive.
Lewis O'Brien - 5
Started in the middle alongside Barlaser but struggled to help Boro gain any kind of control in possession or out. Improved as he swapped with Hackney and went into a more advanced role but should have done better with a couple of decent opportunities that fell his way early in the second half.
Marcus Forss - 6
One of Boro's brightest. He continuously caused threats from that right hand side and played some lovely cutbacks for team-mates that were not taken advantage of. Only one major chance was flashed wide from the edge.
Hayden Hackney - 5
Wasted again from the start in that more advanced midfield role and reverted back to the deeper role after 30 minutes with Boro already two down. He improved from there and looked far more comfortable in his more natural position, but was still unusually sloppy in possession at times.
Finn Azaz - 6
His best performance yet in a Boro shirt, albeit still not quite clicking for him as he'd like. He looked far better in the number ten role after the tactical tweak in the first half having once again started from the left. He came to life in the second half and was unlucky with two good chances and played a lovely ball through for Greenwood for another great chance. Again though, sloppy in possession at other times.
Sam Greenwood - 6
Another hard-working performance without that finishing touch. He lacked any kind of service in the first half but received a lovely ball from Azaz in the second to get in behind but was thwarted by O'Leary. Did hammer one home but was adjudged to be offside.
Substitutions
Luke Thomas (For Engel, 68') - 5 - Came on with Boro largely on the attack and probing for a way back into the game. Didn't really manage to influence matters in any way, however.
Riley McGree (For O'Brien, 68') - 6 - Tried to make an impact and thought he'd created one when Greenwood fired his pass into the roof of the net, only for the offside flag to ruin their moment.
Sammy Silvera (For Greenwood, 80') - N/A - Late consolation goal was fortuitous but ultimately Boro lost momentum after he came on and the game looked like petering out before his goal from
Barlaser should have been taken off after 15 minutes !
left 10 minutes before the end haven’t done that for years
OFB
- Can't disagree with any of the comments made. No sugar coating it that was dispiriting. I felt the manager got a lot wrong from the off today. There were 2 or 3 good players left on the bench rather than on the pitch at the start of the match. No left wing outlet again meant Engel had a tough day and no striker again (sorry if you have heard that record before) equals minimal genuine chances. Forss should have been played up front rather than on the wing. Hackney only effective when he reverted to his deeper midfield role in front of the back four, when the damage was already done. You start slowly and sluggish and you rarely recover. Complacent and sloppy play against a side who went 120 mins on wednesday night. No pace in the players or zip in the pass. The back 2 just played sideways in front of all their players. Another bad day at the office. The team is regressing I'm afraid.
Why wasn’t Hoppe on the bench, he is back at the club, or is that an indication of what they think of him
I notice MC very careful about what he says about the team and that poor performance. Wonder what he is really thinking!! 😘
I agree with all that, especially that MC got his tactics wrong; Hackney has looked like a fish out of water in the number 10 role, but Carrick persisted with it yesterday until we were 2-0 down and beyond. Hackney - and thus the team as a whole - improved significantly after the break. Those two Bristol goals were the result of yet more terrible defending and/or sloppy defending. What’s more, we almost gifted them two more.
We absolutely dominated the second half in terms of possession, and we were largely camped in their half, but Bristol had no need to come forward and were comfortable with 11 men behind the ball. It’s absolutely no consolation that Boro were so much better in the second half, because we failed to equalise, and indeed, rarely looked like doing so. I lost count of the number of times either Ayling of Forss put crosses from the right into the box, but virtually every time they were snuffed out by Bristol defenders. In the end, (and stop me if you’ve heard this before) we carved out few clear-cut chances and their keeper had few shots to save. We are really paying the price for not addressing the striker problem in the recent transfer window.
What to do with Barlaser? He is eminently capable of playing inch-perfect, incisive passes through or over the defence. But he’s also guilty of some very sloppy passing and lapses in concentration: he and Hackney were directly to blame for Bristol’s second goal. I like the way he usually looks to play forward when he can, but he’s not an effective tackler, rarely shoots and hasn’t scored this season. Some of his corners are poor. Is he worth his place? Should we play him further forward, if we play him at all?
Disappointed and frustrated. Only 2 points from the last 4 home games.
I see Coventry have won today to go sixth on 47 points and are the most in-form team outside the top 3 - their last 8 have average 2.15 points per game, which if continued to the end of the season will see them on 79 points.
Sunderland on the other hand have in their last 8 games have averaged 1.75 points and that would see them accumulate 73 points
West Brom have average slightly less in 1.6 points per game over the last 8 but have played one game fewer so would finish on 75 points.
As for Boro, well it's just under 1.4 points per game over the last 8 games - which would see a very modest 63 total if that form was to continue. So based on current form of those above us, to finish in the top 6 Boro would need 76 points - which is 35 points from 16 games and you can probably see that is now over 2 points per game at just under 2.2!
Of course West Brom, Coventry and Sunderland could have a dip in form but others in the race could improve - interestingly, our next opponents before Leicester are Preston and currently sit 6th in the 8-game form table, level with West Brom and are currently heading for 69 points.
I should add if Boro fail to win any of the next 2 games then that points per game requirement rises to at least 2.4 so would then be just as much about teams above us losing unless Boro win 4 out of every 5 games. Essentially Boro need to win as many games in the last third of the season as they did in the first two-thirds - not impossible but equally highly unlikely given our current form and continued injury problems.
Sadly it's been a season of dropping too many winnable points - especially at home against limited opponents.
Before we get to the game... BORO has sold Rogers after a very decent bid put forward by Aston Villa. Another player who has shown an ability to score goals and make goals for others whilst also being a very flexible utility player, Matt Crooks, looks likely to leave for the USA. The club hasn't brought anyone else into the squad and the Transfer Window for this season has now closed, but not before Cal Kavanagh was transferred away. How fortunate are we, in those circumstances, that we can fall back on a fully-fit contingent of strikers capable of scoring the goals the team needs to achieve its aims? Championship defences will not sleep well for the rest of this season, will they?
But to bring things back to yesterday's game, that was a very poor performance by the team as a whole. I can't think of anyone in red who played well - probably the keeper was the pick despite conceding two goals. Boro should have gone in 3-0 down at Half-Time but Glover came out quickly to save well at the edge of the penalty area or it WOULD have been 3 to Bristol City.
Hackney hasn't played well for quite a while, in my view. Barlaser might be good if we ever got to a 3-0 lead, when he can feel free to try those forward-looking incisive or cross-field passes we know he has in his locker, but when we are under pressure and things are not going well he is much more likely to give the ball away as his close-up and hurried passes are intercepted (and therefore put the team under even more pressure). Yesterday would not have been the time for Barlaser to have gone out into the town for an after-match evening meal. Some less-than-shy Middlesbrough diners might have been more than forthcoming about the level of his performance. I did have a discussion with my next-seat-neighbour in the stadium about the fact that our 2 centre-backs must have been making an attempt at the Opta Stats' match record for the number of horizontal and short passes to a team-mate but the reality was that NOTHING could be gained by those passes apart from showing that the team had little idea how to progress the game. Criticism could be laid at the door of every player who started the match apart from Glover and, maybe, Forss.
It felt like a wasted afternoon. The match was played in conditions that mirrored the performance on the pitch. It was cool, still, dark grey and the mist (no - it was worse than that: FOG) was pouring down onto the pitch from the roof of the East Stand. Maybe if I'd been on the other side of the stadium I might have seen the fog pouring down over the West Stand roof, too. In the first half there was a period when a flock of gulls started to circle over the pitch. It occurred to me at the time that if it had instead been a flock of vultures circling above, to identify which of the Boro players to pick off, that might have been more apt. Maybe the birds were simply giving a farewell fly-past for any lingering thoughts of getting into the Play-Offs that the optimistic few might have been harbouring. The birds, even in the fog, were more entertaining than the players.
For those who weren't there, the First-Half was about as depressing a performance as I can remember watching. The second 45+ minutes was an improvement but that is such a low bar to cross as to be hardly any recommendation. The flurry at the end, in injury time after the ball was fluked into the net by Silvera (having been deflected by Azaz who didn't seem to have anything to do with it until the ball hit his back) was too little, too late. There were boos at the end, as there had been at HT. Presumably most of those who remained were the hard core who would be less likely to boo in any event, and the booing may have been rather louder had it not been for the late goal and the injury time flurry.
Yet again there was a massive delay before any attention was paid to using any substitutes. I think it was almost 70 minutes. Look, if it going wrong in the first 30 minutes, why wait for another 30+ minutes to do anyhtiong about it? Are we trying, as a club, to double any disadvantage the team is suffering before playing the magical "super-sub routine"? That would be great IF we had some super-subs to call on. Imagine lulling the opposition into a sense of false security by allowing them to streak into a 2 or 3 goal lead, and THEN bringing on Souness, Downing and Ravanelli in their prime! We might as well go the whole hog and put on Maradona and J Cruyff!
Finally, if McGree isn't better than most of the players in our starting XI then I fear for the Australian team. That he isn't starting games is not a recent issue, down to his away trip to the Asian Nations Cup (or whatever it's offically called) because he often didn't start games even when fully fit despite, as Maddo tells on on BBCTees, the fact he should be the first name on the team sheet. McGree might as well carry a plaque around his neck saying "The Manager Doesn't Like Me". If that is unfair on the manager there is a way to disprove it - get McGree into the starting XI as a matter of course. Stop giving the impression he will only get onto the pitch as a last resort. It's not as if the other players who get starts in games are all world-class!
Forss is the best finisher in the club. McGree is the most likely show some magic, to create a chance, and he can also finish. I bet the proportion of games in which they have both started must be small and NOT all down to injury.
Really I could go on but I'd prefer to concentrate on the Six Nations Rugby. I wish I had done the same yesterday as I missed a very tight and controversial Scotland v France and the First-Half of a very tight and also interesting England v Wales, before I got home. Time now for the build-up to Ireland v Italy. I don't expect any surprises in that last game. It would be the international equivalent of a confident and aggressive European Champions Manchester City against a bang-in-the-middle of The Championship and currently distinctively under-performing Middlesbrough. But surprises can still happen in sport. The unpleasant thing is the realisation that BORO 1-2 Bristol City can't really be nominated as a surprise at all.
I’ve got the Preston starter ready to publish but maybe I should let the current match post run its course first so we can get yesterday’s game out of our system.
I think everyone is still shell shocked at the apathy of the Boro players and performance.
I would run with the starter !
Thanks for the Birthday Wishes it’s appreciated!
OFB
@original-fat-bob You’re probably right - I’ll post it very shortly. Hope you’re enjoying your birthday.
I would drop Barlaser and play Paddy McNair in midfield. He’s strong in the tackle and has good passing range of skills.
OFB
@original-fat-bob. Happy birthday, hope your having a good one despite yesterday’s debacle. 🎂😎
@original-fat-bob Whilst not the answer looking forward, I would agree he is the best ball player of the CB’s and in desperation could he do any worse than the others, defence or midfield at the moment.