@werdermouth Yes, I don't think any of the players deserved a 4 or even 5. We played brilliantly in the first half. And the second Coventry goal was a bit freak. But that is football.
The effort was there, too. I am more worried about the next few matches if we won't get back any of the long, long list of injured players. The bench was weak on Monday. Up the Boro!
Just read the Echo this morning.
However, things should start improving this week, with Hayden Hackney, Matt Crooks and Emmanuel Latte Lath all due to return to training.
Whether the trio are able to start against Villa on Saturday evening remains to be seen, but their return nevertheless represents a timely boost with the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final with Chelsea coming three days after the FA Cup tie.
Up the Boro!
Good news about those three - Crooks and Latte Lath should be relatively match fit but Hackney will need to be eased back in I think.
The Asian Cup is every four years and should have been played in July last year in China but because of Covid they couldn't host so it was moved to Qatar who won the rights to hold it. AFCON is every two years which does seem ridiculous but clubs do know that when they sign African players. There was an amount of surprise here that a player did not want to play for their country.
All I have to say ,before some might say negative, and that is, as fans is this acceptable, defensively it's relegation form,
Maybe it's time some players I won't mention ,who have been around for a number of years , have got to go, or some of the coaching staff,
We're falling behind other clubs ,it's right before our eyes
I keep the faith, but that's what kills ye,
I thought we were excellent first half. We played some very fine football and created a number of opportunities. This time we were not thwarted by poor finishing, as at Rotherham and Huddersfield, but by a combination of ill-luck, last-ditch defending and some good saves from the keeper. Unfortunately, as has been noted many times, and reiterated by Maddo and MC on the radio, the lads were running on empty after the break and simply couldn’t respond to Coventry’s resurgence.
Listening to Tees on the way home was disheartening. The general tenor of comments from callers was that Boro had been rubbish, that we can’t defend, that we can’t attack, and even, in one case, that it’s time for Carrick to go! Basically, most felt the end of the world was nigh. Were these people even at the same game I’d just seen? Do they not understand that the same 12 or 13 players have been manfully carrying the burden now for several weeks and that this is the worst injury crisis most of us have ever known? Some said MC had been reluctant to go to his bench to freshen things up! Good grief! There was one player - ONE - on the bench who could be described as a first-teamer: that was Bangura. There were 5 under-21s on the bench, three of whom, Nkrumah, Bridge and Bilongo, have hardly a substitute appearance between them, while McCabe and Kavanagh have barely any more. This was hardly the game in which to bring them on.
In contrast, I felt the crowd generally did understand the situation. The atmosphere died after Coventry’s second goal, and thereafter there was a kind of resigned acceptance that this wasn’t our day. I don’t recall any booing at the end of the game, thankfully. I’m very much with Len on this - we need to get behind the lads at this difficult time. Most people at the game appeared to do so yesterday.
From C J
Michael Carrick provided a rare positive Middlesbrough injury update after Monday's defeat to Coventry City, with important trio Hayden Hackney, Matt Crooks and Emmanuel Latte Lath all set to return to training this week.
Crooks and Latte Lath both suffered injuries in the Carabao Cup quarter-final victory at Port Vale, though Crooks did stay in the match-day squad for the next two games before dropping out altogether for the last two. Hackney, meanwhile, has been missing since suffering a groin injury late on at Bristol City at the end of November.
The returns are welcomed by Carrick who was without 12 senior players in Monday's 3-1 defeat to Coventry. And having been missing so many first-team players for a number of weeks now, it had visibly taken its toll on Boro at the Riverside in what was their eighth game in 24 days.
READ MORE: Michael Carrick can't be too critical of Middlesbrough as he pinpoints Coventry loss downfall
Offering a positive injury update though, Carrick said after the Coventry loss: “We’re still waiting on scans with Anf [Dijksteel]. With it being New Year’s, it’s not always easy to get things back as quickly as we’d like. We’ll have to wait and see.
"We’re hoping for Hayden to train this week and Crooksy too. We’ll wait and see on that. Manu too, training this week. Some of the boys have been out for a number of weeks though, so it’s a bit of managing that and not expecting too much too soon. But it will be great to have them back and in and around it again to feel that little bit stronger again."
There was another pre-match boost for Boro as well as Coburn started his first game since the Leicester City win in mid-November. He made a difference, adding his fifth goal of the season in a brilliant first-half from Boro. But with so few senior options on the bench, Carrick admits the Teesside striker was forced to play the full 90 minutes when short of the fitness to do so.
“Josh was probably ready to start today in fairness after playing an extended period on Friday night," the Boro boss explained. "But playing the full game was a big ask of him and not ideal. It’s kind of needs-must at the minute though. There are a few boys playing a bit patched up at the minute, and they’ve had to over a period of time as well.
"That’s where we’re at. I’ve no problem with the amount of games we have played because we want to win games and we want to be successful. It’s just more that the fantastic squad that we’ve got, we’ve only been able to pick from about half of it of late, so it does make it harder for the ones that are playing."
@clive-hurren A good post there. We must keep positive even we had more players injured (or on international duty) than fit to play on Monday. Hopefully the situation improves soon. But a top, top opinion, Clive. UTB!
@werdermouth - I won't summarise the game against Coventry as your comment yesterday at 6.45pm covers what I would have said. Nice header by Coburn for his goal but the feeling coming away from the ground was that we were overpowered by Coventry in the 2nd half and they deserved the three points.
EDIT - I read the posts above up to and including the one at 10.28pm by Philip of Huddersfield last night, and when I pressed "send" on the short post above, a new 3rd page of posts suddenly appeared. I will have to go back and read them now. Hopefully I have not repeated what someone else has said...
There’s a guy called Lawrence Shankland who is scoring goals for fun at Hearts. He must be worth a punt, Boro?!
@malcolm - Thanks for that, Malcom. I think it is EXTREMELY unlikely BORO could find loan deals this year on players of such quality as Archer and Ramsey, much less buy such quality. Of course BORO also had Ryan Giles on a season-long loan and he was the division's "assist king". They, and Akpom in his annus mirabilis, made Boro into a team which, from a disatrous start to the season ALMOST caught up the top teams but at least qualified for the Play-Offs.
Even if the injured and sick were all fit and ready for the starting XI when the League resumes, the team is starting from a lower base than this time last year: on 14.01.23** BORO stood 4th in the league table with 42 points from 27 games, 12 points behind SheffU in 2nd and 1 point behind Watford in 3rd place. To be fair Luton Town were in a lowly 9th place and 3 points behind Boro, but they came through like a train and won the Play-Offs.
This season on 03.01.24 BORO finds itself in 12th place with 36 points from 26 games, 19 points behind Ipswich in the 2nd automatic promotion place and 4 points behind Sunderland in the last Play-Off spot. It is tight between the various teams above BORO and points CAN be made up, but in order to be promoted or even to get into the Play-Off places, BORO will have to perform better than so many other teams, not just one or two. It seems unlikely ALL of those teams above will collapse. Some of them will also play well and have good results. And of course if BORO should finish, say, 7th in the league this season (which would require improved form), and players like Hayden Hackney recover fitness and perform well for the 2nd half of the season, those better players are likely to be picked off by PL teams or ambitious and well-funded Championship teams at the end of this season. Quite apart from that, the club will also need to be looking at replacements for players such as Paddy McNair and Jonny Howson. It will be an expensive and difficult job to get back to the position we were in a year ago and, as we know, even a year ago the team ultimately finished short. How much it would cost to have a BETTER team than in 2022-23, goodness only knows.
Maybe our BORO eggs are all in the Carabao (League) Cup basket. It seems unlikely but BORO "only" has to have 2 wins to achieve glory again in the 20th anniversary of that 2004 Cup Win in Cardiff (if we won the home leg and avoided defeat in the away leg of the Semi-Final). Obviously beating Villa over 2 legs and, say Liverpool in the Final, would be odds against, but it seems more likely than entering into a run of form that would be good enough to win our division if we had been able to perform to that level all season.
**BORO's next LEAGUE game is on 13.01.24 against Millwall (A), so almost exactly a year later - that's why I gave the 13.01.23 positions.
Elsewhere, former Middlesbrough manager Lennie Lawrence has been named as the new caretaker manager of Hartlepool United.
Lawrence, who joined Pools as a non-executive director in November 2022, will be assisted by first-team coach and former caretaker Antony Sweeney.
Pools dismissed their former boss, John Askey, at the weekend after a run of one win from the last 11 league matches left them 18th in the National League table.
Lennie - or Robin Michael Lawrence - is aged 76 now. So one year older than Neil Warnock.
Up the Boro!
Maybe our BORO eggs are all in the Carabao (League) Cup basket. It seems unlikely but BORO "only" has to have 2 wins to achieve glory again in the 20th anniversary of that 2004 Cup Win in Cardiff (if we won the home leg and avoided defeat in the away leg of the Semi-Final). Obviously beating Villa over 2 legs and, say Liverpool in the Final, would be odds against, but it seems more likely than entering into a run of form that would be good enough to win our division if we had been able to perform to that level all season.
FD: it's Chelsea in the League Cup & Villa in the FA Cup (coverage on BBC1 on Saturday, starting at 17.25).
There’s a guy called Lawrence Shankland who is scoring goals for fun at Hearts. He must be worth a punt, Boro?!
Clive: that thought crossed my mind when I noticed that he'd scored six goals in six matches (18 for the season) following the match against Livingston yesterday evening.
@stircrazy - Sorry for the confusion. I haven't really come down from Christmas/New Year yet! The calendar on the wall has it correctly but my memory did not!