@andy-r - But this squad (with some additions) will not start the next season. Instead there will be a number of players going out. It would be a surprise if they were all replaced with better.
A number of people seem to be saying this but I’m not so sure. Hackney has some admirers but there’s been no reports of firm bids and his injury situation muddies the waters.
McGree? I think we rate him perhaps a bit higher than anyone else. I rate him highly but again have seen no rumours of an exit for him.
RvdB? Could be too soon. Again, I’m not aware of transfer rumours for him and our defensive record probably isn’t doing him any favours.
Is there anyone else we’d be loathe to lose?
When will the (earlier) scared Internation break be? Up the Boro!Har OK, Azaz arrived and he may ultimately develop into a decent player but we're now heading into March. Jones is the only player with pace and trickery but he's unlikely to play until after the international break now.
All the supporters around us yesterday were sat in stunned silence until the second goal went in and then the boos started. Never seen that for many a year and very disappointing.
A lot of middle aged fans sat near us follow the Boro home and away and couldn’t understand why he had changed a winning team.
i remember the days of Jack Charlton and you could name the same team and the same two subs for every game.
i know injuries are part and parcel of the game these days but I’ve seen Spike and Souness play with horrific gashes and bruises all down their legs and still play the next game.
i don’t know where we go from here.
MC has had his reputation damaged. Does he walk away and blame Gibson and the recruitment team for selling players under him?
Mmmm interesting 🤨!
OFB
16 March is Boro’s last game before the break and then we resume again on 29 March.
Throughout our working lives we all had problems and we found ways to overcome them and to be successful. Often it took time as we gradually improved - usually making mistakes along the way but learning from them.
I am not seeing Carrick sort out his problems. Take the home form - Boro have lost more games than won and only 2 teams have scored fewer goals - only 17 goals in 19 games. So this has been a problem all season and Carrick is no nearer in scoring more goals at home and crucially winning games.
So , based on their very low number of goals at home it is clear that Boro have a fundamental goal scoring problem.
But do they ? Looking at the goals scored in away games Boro have scored 30 which is the second highest !
Clearly Carrick and the team can find a way in scoring away from home but not at home. Teams have sussed us out and Carrick isn’t astute enough to find different ways of winning home games.
Also , look at the total goals conceded - 49 . There are only 6 teams who have conceded more goals. So, it’s not just the lack of goals and lack of wins at home but there is a major problem of conceding too many goals.
My conclusion is that Boro are a mile off from being a good team.
You could say that Carrick is still a novice coach but how long does he need .It is always easy to find excuses - eg lots of players injured and the better loan players returning to their clubs last season - but this was their own making by having too many loan players.
Now look at eg , Coventry who lost their best 2 players ( both strikers) and struggled longer than Boro in the early part of the season but have since found a way to be successful .
I can’t help looking at Corboran who was a name in the frame for Boro and who is successful at WBA - currently in 5 th position in the League. And look at the small number of goals conceded. Reminds me of Karanka - yes I know he wasn’t everyone’s favourite but he learnt from his mistakes with a team which conceded few goals and was successful.
So what can we realistically hope for with Carrick for the remainder of the season ? I haven’t the foggiest. All we supporters can do is ‘ to keep the faith’
I wonder what Steve Gibson is thinking right now.
Philip from Huddersfield ☹️
@werdermouth. “We resume again on the 16th March”.
I hope we don’t resume doing what we have been doing because it is not working.
I agree that the season is over as far as a top six spot is concerned but if we play like we did last year after the international break then we could end up looking very nervously at the relegation positions; we failed to perform last year toward the end of the season with a much stronger team.
Unless MC does something to tighten things up defensively then we are not going to improve and clearly have declined given last season’s final league position, which we are not going to get anywhere near this season.
We need to set up and play like we did against Leicester for the rest of the season and look to grind out some wins and draws; having tightened up you can then look to see what tweaks can be made when looking to attack the opposition. 😎
@paulinboro - Your son's friend, watching one game at the Riverside against Plymouth Argyle, is saying what many BORO supporters have been saying for some time, after they have seen most of BORO's home games. But maybe we are seeing something that the management team is NOT seeing.
If I'd ever been a decent footballer, I guess one of the last things I'd want would be for the keeper to pass the ball to me when I am standing about 5 yards beyond the D outside the penalty area, when I have opposition players closing in on me from behind (with their colleagues closing in on the only team-mates that I can see in front of me, nearer to my goal). Many if not most of those passes are to players facing the "wrong" way ie. towards the BORO goal rather than a pass forwards onto which the BORO player can run, starting an attacking move. . If the team keeps on playing short passes to team-mates in defensive positions, and those team-mates have to react quickly with few passing options available, there will inevitably be many mistakes. And if those mistakes happen close to or within BORO's penalty area, then the opposition will inevitably have chances, some of which (perhaps a higher percentage than BORO would achieve) they will convert into goals.
BORO's players are very much lower down the skills & ability foodchain than the sort of players who turn out for Manchester City, Liverpool, Real Madrid etc (although even players in those top clubs make mistakes and sometime those mistakes cost goals). However the top players make fewer mistakes but, even when they do, their team-mate receiving the hurried and imperfect pass is a class above BORO's players and able within an instant to bring under control the slightly misdirected pass or the ball hit towards them with too much speed. The team-mate is able to dig his colleague "out of jail". BORO's players, for the most part, don't have the speed or skill to do that, under pressure and in a difficult defensive position. If they are forced to make that instant pressurised pass maybe 20 times a game, and they even get 80% right (I doubt they do), that would still place their colleague in trouble 4 times a game. And if everyone in the defence is doing the same, and with the same percentages, the chances you give to your opponents mount up.
The odds are that if you make your mistakes in or near YOUR penalty area, your team will pay for it. If you play the odds, you'd "try the tricky stuff" upfield. If you lose the ball in the opposition's territory, it's going to give you the opportunity to get the ball back before the position becomes critical. Sometimes its better to clear the ball upfield or out over the touchline, rather than passing the ball into or across the BORO penalty area.
The purpose of the "ticky tacky" football is to retain possession until a clear opening becomes available to attack. The problem is that this doesn't work for a team like BORO, given the squad BORO has. We can all have opinions but results are facts. The league table might be misleading after just a few games but it doesn't lie after three-quarters of the season. BORO currently, after 33 games out of the possible 46, lies 13th in the Championship table - with 44 points from the 33 games (having won 13 but lost 15 of the games played). If we look at the stats which have been mentioned above, and can be seen on the BBCSport App, keeping a majority of possession doesn't pay for BORO. Our team had 68% possesion (Plymouth, therefore, 32%) yet out of more than two-thirds of the play, BORO had 11 shots but NONE on target compared to Plymouth's 22 shots (11 on target). And Plymouth had a team feeding on scraps of possession. Obviously I realise the Leicester game(s) were different but, as the league table shows, the Leicester games were the exception not the rule. If you have no shots on target then, in the absence of some crazy deflections, your team will never score a goal. It goes without saying that if you don't score, you can't win.
If the bulk of posession amounts to your goalkeeper and defenders passing the ball between themselves, or to a midfielder who then passes it back, and those players are deep within BORO's own half of the field, the players will hardly ever get into a position to take a shot - unless it is from such distance that there is little propsect of the shot putting the opposition goal under threat. Is that why BORO had 11 shots but NONE on target? It might explain the stats! If something doesn't work and you keep doing the same thing, don't be surprised if the failures keep on coming along.
Maybe something later about season tickets....
PS. It took me a while to type that. I see there has been a number of posts since I started typing. I will have to read them later. Hopefully I have not repeated what someone else has already posted while I was tapping away.
A fine analysis but it does seem that the coaches can't see it at all. Boro make the same errors week after week and now there is the added pressure of the crowd at home games although that will reduce a little as the crowds get smaller...
If Boro don't play players in their best position and insist on trying to emulate the more talented teams in the Premiership we just aren't going improve any time soon. After all the promise on the coaching side a lack of adaptability (pragmatism?) is going to see Boro in serious trouble, not only on the playing front, but financially and as an attraction for new players that quite a few are hoping will get recruited in the summer. Then there are those who will want away to throw into the mix as well. Some plain speaking is required behind closed doors to head the very real problems that must be growing.
Maybe Mr Carrick will leave but perhaps even his attractiveness to other clubs will be tarnished?
All in all a bit of a conundrum that is being allowed to grow because of inaction or being stubborn in your beliefs.
UTB,
John
Watching from the east upper yesterday, the team reminded me of the Jonathan Woodgate era as manager (Arsenal lite) hold on he is assistant manager now ! I will be honest, I was very disappointed when he was announced as assistant manager, especially with a novice manager, in my opinion Carrick needed an experienced head along side of him in the first few seasons. Considering Woodgate was a very highly rated central defender, it is especially surprising that we leak so many goals, both this and last season, I ask the question “ what does Woodgate bring to the table”.
Come on BORO.
@andy-r I could give you a long list Andy, but I doubt there would be many interested clubs out there. 🤣 🤣
The last time we won in league at home 23rd December 2023
Just a heads up that I’ve got my starter for the Stoke game ready to go, but I’m going to wait a few days before I post it, with the hope that the disappointment of this weekend’s performance has evaporated a little.
If we could all try and get ourselves slightly more upbeat, I’d much appreciate it. My writing skills aren’t good enough to drag us all out of the Slough of Despond, I’m afraid. 😉
I’ll try, Martin, but I fear that if we had a home cup game this week against Slough of Despond we’d most likely lose 2-0…………. 😉😀
@martin-bellamy - Mine, too! And probably a grand total of NO shots on target against that mythical team.
Just watched Klopp’s kids win the Caraboa Cup in a great game, unbelievable. Team without Salah, Jota, Nunez, Trent Alexander Arnold, Thiago Alancantara, Allison Becker, Curtis Jones, Joel Mapit and Dominik Szoboszlai, no excuses from Klopp he just uses his kids.
Come on BORO.
After a dismal game we stayed until the end as thousands had left by then.
We were Thera to vent our frustration and show our displeasure at such a poor showing and team selection.
Must do better or there will only be 10k at the games next season !
OFB
I think the most galling aspect for many ST holders is the disparity between the renewal prices (some of the most expensive in the league I believe?) and the calibre of the current playing personnel and associated performances. Is our cost base significantly higher than other similar Championship clubs? If not, what are the extra funds being utilised for? We know the chairman continues to "plug the gap" generously year on year, so why are the presumed higher overheads not reflected in better players and performances? In addition we continue to balance the books with player sales. Are we just more inefficient with player recruitment or are most Champioship clubs' finances in a more parlous state than ours?
That's the most I've laughed since 15:00 yesterday.
Thanks to Martin too, for the setup.
@eboroacum As I posted a week or so ago, according to the internet, MFC have around the 4/5 highest ST prices in the Championship. That was based on adult prices and possibly, discounted ST’s could make the average a little different.
So as for value for money this season, one could argue, how on earth can MFC put up prices, especially given the very poor home record, and especially given no forward statement of intent for 2024/2025.
As for club costs and player wages being the largest portion of the whole, here is a link showing MFC in tenth place with regards to player payments in total. (they may include all employee wages, I do not know? )
The club is clearly in the middle of an extended reorganisation of their finances. They have slowly got rid of the high wage earners and that process will almost certainly see McNair leave in the summer, unless he accepts a massively reduced salary. The new players are young, promising and inexperienced and so carry lower salaries. The question for the summer is whether we can fit O'Brien, Howson and Ayling into our salary plan even if we need their experience.
We've sold Spence, Tavernier, Akpom and Rogers for good amounts which must also have reduced some of the pressure. We have players such as Van Den Berg, Hackney, Coburn, Silvera and Azaz who will be worth more in a couple of years time than they are now, others such as Latte Lath, Bangura, Barlaser and Engel who may also fit into that category or at worst breakeven and there will also be others who just don't quite make it. When you add in the the Academy kids, it's quite a good picture.
All of this could have worked pretty well this season if we hadn't had one of the worst injury records that I can ever remember. Clarke, Coburn, Latte Lath, O'Brien, McGree and Lenihan have been missing for a huge chunk of the season and now Fry, Bangura, Hackney, Jones and Howson are out. I'm not sure that any coach could have coped with this but one avenue that hasn't been pursued is to take a risk with the kids. We have a number out on loan and others who are reported to be very good but we hardly ever see them given a chance n the Championship. Should we have tried to give our young forwards a chance in the first team rather than shipping them out or selling them. I don't know
The other big question that I'd like to put out there is to ask just how long Steve Gibson will carry on pumping his fortune into the club. Is this reorganisation along with his shift of loans into equity a prelude to him finally looking to pass the responsibility on to a new owner?
We always said that this is a transition season and we have to hope that it plays out without any further major problems. Sure, we could win 11 games out of 13 but who seriously believes that and, frankly, we could also lose a whole chunk. It would be good to know what the management and coaching team themselves now see as the target for the rest of the season.
UTB
I don't know about the target for the season but the target for Carrick and the team must surely be to win all four of the games before the international break - Stoke, QPR and Birmingham are all struggling teams plus Norwich at home. That shouldn't be beyond them if they can beat Leicester - it just needs them to concentrate and be more solid in defence and play with more intensity in the last third.
We actually have McGree, Azaz, Forss and now Latte Lathe fit as well as Greenwood and Silvera so should be no excuses that we can't score or at least get a shot on target. Time the players stepped up and the coaching staff get them mentally focused and arriving on the pitch with the right attitude for every game and not just the most difficult ones on paper!
Why not play the first half with a back three and then make a change after half time if Boro need to score - especially given the lack of midfielders available - both RvdB and McNair have the ability to step into midfield when playing as a back three so it could be flexible when needed.
It seems it's just being accepted that Boro are conceding 3 goals every 2 games when we play with a back four - that essentially means we have to score 5 to win two games and that's not happening as we're only averaging one goal a game in 2024.
The problems are not insurmountable but simply need addressing.
@werdermouth. It's time for Mr Carrick to step up and show he is more than the stats show.
I am travelling all week abroad and quite busy.
Please remind me how many shots we had at Leicester? And how many shots on goal?
Trying to be positive. Up the Boro!
@selwynoz - Middlesbrough FC, whilst dear to the hearts of some of us mugs, isn't a big city club, it isn't a club which can point to a trophy room full of cups and league silverware won in the past even if that were several decades ago, and it isn't a club in an area which the uneducated initially think of as a paradise despite having the beautiful natural world (whether that should be the NY Moors, the Dales or the beautiful North Yorkshire coast) on its doorstep. For some footballers (looking at you, Robert Lee, once famously convinced by Kevin Keegan that BORO is nearer to Scotland than Newcastle and therefore further away from his South East base!) Middlesbrough is in some distant place far away from civilisation.
Admittedly there is no Waitrose in the vacinity so maybe the Teesside market for "posh food and drink" is not considered large enough to justify a shop within close distance. From The Riverside, for example, the nearest Waitrose is in Jesmond, Newcastle (admittedly only a Little Waitrose) 41.7 miles away, and other "local" branches may be found in York (50.8 miles), Ponteland on Tyneside (51.5 miles) Harrogate (53 miles) and Otley in West Yorkshire (61.8 miles). Teesside is a Waitrose-free bubble, or desert, over 90 miles in diameter. That's too far to expect a WAG to travel to buy tofu, lobster or stuffed aubergine and Italian white truffles and, who knows, probably too far to expect a delivery if ordered online (no doubt they'd think it necessary to have armed outriders guarding the delivery lorry, especially if the WAG has added a few cases of Cristal to the order).
Middlesbrough is seen as a downbeat area of post-industrial English decline, and the "go-to" place to carry out a vox-pop if your TV news programme wants a typically threatening and miserable street interview with the local youth. I suppose Liverpool and parts of Manchester would also come within that category but the balance is tipped by the successful garnering of silverware (and therefore the entry key to lucrative European football and its effects on players' contracts) that their local clubs have achieved over several recent decades. So Middlesbrough's wider image (as a town) is probably one of grey and ugly decline, unemployment, poverty and crime, and the youth are expected to move away to further their ambitions, without the football club being an obvious beacon of football success to counter that initial image.
In those circumstances, quite apart from luring the players and their wives to come here (now that the initial early-Premier League Robson/Gibson dream has lapsed), how many of the sort of people who could buy and then fund a successful football club are based locally? How many Sovereign Wealth Funds from oil-rich countries, how many multi-billionaire football fans are out there in the big bad world, who'd think of taking over from Steve Gibson by buying the club from him? Would we want them anyway? The prospect of success on the field may be enticing, but do any of us want the club to be run by some autocrat abroad wanting to sports-wash his money, or some very rich person who has no links with the club or the area - and might not even have heard of it until some "middle-man" raised the money-growing-potential - hoping (against hope) to make more money by funding the club? The truth is that there are very few Steve Gibsons out there in the world who are prepared to invest decades of his efforts, money and time in a sporting venture with only a very minimal prospect of even limited success. Maybe we've already HAD all the success we were going to achieve (several years in the Top Flight, a few domestic cup finals, one League Cup trophy and an unusuccessful EUFA Cup Final) but, at the time, we didn't realise that was IT, and that it would not be repeated?
In short, who would buy the club? There are largish one-club English cities like Portsmouth, Norwich, Derby, Coventry - all of which may have had SOME success in the past, which have a hinterland to support a BIG club, which might be seen as nearer to "civilisation" and which are currently "under-performing" and so might be available for a realistic price. Why not go for one of them if you were a foreign investor? Selling BORO might be harder than we imagine.
@forever-dormo Very valid comments. I’ve met very few people during my travels throughout the UK who would rate our town as somewhere they’d consider living.
We don’t have the hinterland to be a massive club and no past history of success, so where’s the attraction for an outsider to buy our club?
I fear you’re correct in your thinking that our successful years are behind us and we should look back on those years with pleasure but not expect them to return.
Middlesbrough as a town is generally known, because is has MFC as a football club.
The hinterland of support now is Teesside and Middlesbrough as one of the five areas that make up the bigger area, is probably now the smallest in size and population.
Sadly it does come top or near the top of the League, for all the wrong reasons.
I may be wrong, but would guess that the majority of our players do not live in Middlesbrough. I know Mr Crooks lived in Nunthorpe, but he has flown to a nicer city.
A number of the younger single players will live in flats in or near Yarm. The players with families will probably live near Rockcliffe and within striking distance of Newcastle and Harrogate. (We'll I am not so sure of the striking bit given our shots on target)
However, attracting young and hungry players is possible in my opinion. And given the fan base support, as of this season, with average crowds of 27K, we should be able to be semi successful.
We have to believe, as hard as it is sometimes, that with MFC enbracing the fans, the right Coach and some luck in the transfer market, we can do a Luton, Bournemouth or Brentford. Even for a short period.
@jarkko _ I'm not sure whether you were really asking for information whilst you are on your travels abroad. If you were:
Against Leicester City the stats were Possession LC 71% - BORO 29%
Shots LC 24 - BORO 5
On target LC 2 - BORO 2
By way of comparison against Plymouth: Possn BORO 68% - Plymouth 32%
Shots BORO 11 - Plymouth 22
On target BORO 0 - Plymouth 11
So, apart from the shameful stat that BORO in 90+ minutes failed to shoot on target even once against Plymouth, we can see (1) that possession does NOT mean success at BORO's level of football, winning away at Leicster with 29% but failing at home with 68%.
(2) it's goals, not posession, that counts
(3) but Leicester with their 71% possession took 24 shots (2 on target) whereas Boro's 68% possession at home to Plymouth took only 11 shots (NONE on target). And Leicester with their 2 home shots on target had a 50% goal rate whilst BORO miraculously scored with both their chances on target.
(4) which of the two performances, against Leicester or Plymouth, are likely to be repeated most often for the rest of the season? One might suggest using the Leicester performance and line-up as the template would be a good idea for BORO for future games because the result was clearly much better. Mind you, it's difficult to see sides against BORO, whether Leicester or not, scoring with only 1 in 24 attempts.
(5) BORO's 2023-24 home form, generally, has been very poor. The tickets the club sells to its supporters!
I'm sure you could persuade anyone to live anywhere if you pay them enough but the days when Boro paid top dollar are gone forever - it was a brief window in history when Steve Gibson had the opportunity to outbid his rivals and that model will never return.
Anyway, Middlesbrough's decline in terms of the town is not unique for many areas in Britain - indeed the UK is also in decline and it's quite scary that essential services will need a generation of investment to recover.
I left Teesside at 18 and the UK at 39 and have no intention of returning - Mrs Werder even has angst about visiting as all the horror stories of people we know not getting ambulances and struggling to see a GP makes her wonder what would happen if we had an accident. My father just had his annual heart check by phone appointment for the second year running - he measured his own blood pressure and the doctor said that sounds fine keep taking the tablets after a three-year wait for a knee replacement was canceled last year after they decided his heart was not up to the op as it was planned as an overnight stay in a private hospital - so they didn't want to risk him staying too long in their expensive beds!
@werdermouth I’m pretty sure there are lots of places where no amount of money would make me live.
England (I’m not qualified enough to discuss the other GB nations) does seem to be a strange place at the moment with less to recommend it than it once had - part of me still regrets not moving to France before the B debacle - life wouldn’t have been perfect across the Channel either but I do believe there’s less division over there and I love the pace of life. We’ve got two weeks holiday there with our massive extended family in July and I can’t wait, although I’m sure I’ll pine for what might have been.