What a great result! Didn't expect it after the team was announced. What do we know, total respect for MC.
Jonny Howson made his debut for the Leeds first team against Barnet in the League Cup on 20 September 2006. The manager who gave Howson his debut, Kevin Blackwell, was sacked immediately after the game.
Law McCabe was born on June 12, 2006. He was three months old when Howson made his professional debut. And of course McCabe made his debut today. A very contrasting substitution today.
Nice to see young lads given a chance by Carrick. Up the Boro!
Match report by Adam Shergold for The Daily Fail:
Match report by Adam Shergold for The Daily Fail:
And The Yorkshire Post:
- all helping to add a few more pieces to the jigsaw.
Interesting to see how assured Law McCabe was when he came on and hats off to Dan Barlaser. He played a run of short passes to the kid and gave him every chance to get into the play and get over his nerves. Small things like that and the way that everyone mobbed Bangura when he scored his first goal give a hint that there's a really good morale in the squad. It's a bit hard to tell from 10,478 miles but they do seem to look after each other. Is that how it looks from a lot nearer?
Also good to see that McCabe at 17 has been called up for the England U-18s and Cartwright at 16 for the U-17s. It looks as if we have some quality midfielders coming through.
UTB
Thanks for a very informative intro about our opponents tonight. I am concerned that if we don’t sort our defence out then I can see no more than 2 points from our next three matches. Sorry for the pessimism OFB’s foam hands don’t reach this far.
Well what do I know! Missed listening to the first half and was surprised at the half time score. The second half sounded like good game management. Some good management by MC with regards to Saturday. We know Greenwood can't play so giving Rogers 70 minutes means he is ready to go on Saturday. Maddo was raving about Mcabe saying he is a very technical with a good range of passing. Also no bookings so Jones can play Saturday but if booked will miss Ipswich and Greenwood can't get booked on Saturday so is clear of suspension worries until the next cut off, I think.
@mw-in-darwin Technically, should Greenwood have got a yellow card deliberately last night? Would he have suspended for the Leeds match which he would miss anyway being on loan from Leeds?
Or perhaps he would have been missing the following match ...
Just thinking out, like. Up the Boro!
To a Preston fan. There's always the Christmas Turkey to stuff . . .
UTB,
John
N Echo and Dominic Shaw Boro Ratings
7 Dieng: Early injury scare when he needed treatment. If he was at all in pain, at least he wasn’t tested. Preston had one shot on target.
8 Dijksteel: Confident display that will do his chances going forward no harm whatsoever. Linked up well with Crooks and Jones on that right side.
8 Van den Berg: Solid defensive showing and got his first Boro goal.
7 McNair: Calm, assured display in the middle of an unfamiliar backline.
7 Bangura: Wasn’t tested defensively which gave him the chance to join in with the attack at every opportunity. Full of running. Late goal a surprise boost.
7 Howson: Covered well, allowing the attackers and full-backs to thrive.
8 Barlaser: Had a hand in both of Jones’ goals. Showed a calm head for the first to pass to Crooks when he could have gone for glory. Made Boro tick.
9 Jones: Two classy finishes. Was denied hat-trick by fine Woodman save. His display wasn’t just about his goals. Was a constant threat on the right.
8 Crooks: Created the first goal with inch-perfect through-ball. Linked everything together in the first half.
8 Rogers: Took his chance and will almost certainly start at Leeds in absence of Greenwood. A lot of clever touches, assist for Jones’ second.
7 Latte Lath: His pace and movement terrorised Preston. The striker’s run and pass for Crooks won the corner that led to second goal.
Substitutes:
7 Silvera (for Jones, 70): Bright from the bench.
7 Greenwood (for Rogers, 70): Was in the mood to make an impact. Free-kick hit the wall and shot blocked.
Gilbert (for Crooks, 82): N/A
Clarke (for McNair, 82): N/A
McCabe (for Howson, 87): N/A
Subs not used: Glover,, Coburn, Coulson, Cartwright
Preston: Woodman 7, Potts 5, Lindsay 4, Storey 4, Hughes 4, Best 5 (Woodburn, 64); Ledson 5 (Whatmough, 88), Whiteman 5; Keane 4 (Ramsay, 46), Frokaer 5 (Stewart, 88), Osmajic 5 (Evans, 46)
Subs not used: Cornell, Bauer, Browne, Evans, Holmes
Man of the Match: Isaiah Jones. Took his goal tally to five for the season with brilliant first half double. With key attacking players ruled out, Jones in this form is a major boost for Boro.
From CJ
Middlesbrough controlled the game from the start and were three goals up at half-time thanks to an Isaiah Jones double and a Rav van den Berg goal. The scoring was completed in the second half by Alex Bangura.
The victory takes Michael Carrick’s side up to 9th place in the Championship table, just three points off the play-off places.
One player that impressed for Boro in the game is the aforementioned van den Berg. The 19-year-old moved to centre-back from right-back in the game, and scored his first goal for the club as well.
Teesside Live rated the player’s performance on Tuesday night as an 8/10, with journalist Craig Johns writing:
“Marked his move back to the middle with his first goal for the club and was also really solid defensively, rarely letting anyone get beyond him in a really mature performance.”
Apparently it was very cold last night at the Riverside but with that performance I never felt it in the East Upper. Jones got MOTM mainly for his two well taken goals (should have had a hat trick but got a bit excited) saying that there were many worthy of “mentioned in despatches”, VDB, Bangura, Dijksteel defensively were very good and two of them getting on the scoresheet. Barlaser and Howson easily controlled the midfield, always seemed to have so much space and time combined with some excellent passing. Matt Crooks in the number 10 role supported by Jones and Rogers turned Preston’s defence inside out, I think Latte Lath must run on Duracell batteries as, I think it was the 89th minute (or later) he sprinted about 30 yards to close down their keeper after a back pass, his speed and strength plus his unbelievable “spring” to get to head the ball beating defenders much taller than him. It was great to see Matt Clarke finally get on the pitch, how assured did he look in possession and the crowd responded every time he turned a player trying to close him down. Alex Gilbert getting 10+ minutes will help his confidence and development, cameo appearance for Silvera and Greenwood, the latter is ineligible for Saturday’s game so, as someone else said earlier, it was great management by Carrick to play Rogers from the start to give him confidence to play against Leeds. It was also a touch of management master class to bring young McCabe on in such a vibrant Riverside atmosphere.
I know many people had misgivings about Scott and his recruitment team with the summer buys of “potential” players but they are starting to come good now, last night we had 8/9 first team players out and we tore apart PNE who have been in the top six all season up until last night, so a well done to Scott and his team.
Come on BORO.
MC on Matt Clarke & Law McCabe, as reported by the Echo:
The article about the Boro "weapon" linked in the "Read more" refers to Isaiah Jones & is also worth reading - closing paragraphs:
Jones is one yellow card away from a suspension and while Carrick didn't bring that up before the Preston game in his conversations with the winger, he did have a quiet word at half-time in the Boro dressing room on Tuesday night, with Saturday's Leeds trip in mind.
"I didn't have the conversation before the game, I did at half-time and said be careful," said Carrick. "But I wouldn't want to get in his head before the game, it's part of football and that's how he is. But in the second half I told him to be careful and took him off to look after him a bit."
Thanks exmil. Your post said virtually everything I wanted to say.
I really enjoyed last night’s win. We made PNE look very poor. I texted my mate, Mike, who’s a big North End supporter, pointing out that to lose 4-0 to Boro once might seem unfortunate, but to lose 4-0 twice on the trot looks careless (with apologies to Oscar Wilde)! Mike just responded that PNE were ‘pathetic’. It’s hard to disagree, though you might argue that that was because Boro were so effective.
We played some scintillating football and carved out loads of chances. It’s good to read that MC was frustrated early in the second half because we’d taken our foot off the gas. Now they’re the kind of high standards our manager should be demanding! Very Alex Ferguson.
I think we learned / confirmed that Dijksteel is a very good footballer at right back, and that Van den Berg is a much better central defender than he is a full-back. The right side of our defence looked much more balanced as a result. I do hope MC sticks with this formation, and I hope he repeats it at Leeds, firstly. I also thought that the right hand side of the team - Van den Berg, Dijksteel, Crooks and Jones - gelled really well together. It was a potent mix.
And so to a much sterner test at Elland Road. I’ll post my starter Thursday morning. That will give us all chance to fully comment on yesterday’s game.
Btw, I forgot to say: we scored from a corner!!!!!! I think I was 12 last time that happened………
From C J
When summarising his side's heavy defeat at the hands of Middlesbrough on Tuesday evening, a clearly agitated Ryan Lowe admitted he expected better of his Preston North End side, making the point he didn't think Boro were the 'formidable force' they were last season.
The Lilywhites boss wasn't intending to be disrespectful and indeed went on to clarify that he still believed Boro have a fantastic head coach in Michael Carrick and some top players, as they proved in the Riverside victory. But he was, in reality, only saying what we all know in terms of the difference in quality between Boro of last season and this.
With his own side improving this season to come into the game sitting six places and four points better off than Boro, he certainly had not expected to watch his side lose by the same margin as last season on Teesside, when Carrick was then able to call upon the attacking talents of the likes of Ryan Giles, Aaron Ramsey, Cameron Archer and Chuba Akpom.
READ MORE: Middlesbrough 'formidable force' factor that left Ryan Lowe so disappointed in Preston loss
In a sense of not getting too carried away with Tuesday night's victory, as nice as it was in the moment, Lowe's frustrations with his own side were understandable. Boro were ruthless in scoring four times, but the reality is, they didn't have to be anywhere near last season's attacking levels to knock four past North End this time, because the visitors were so disappointingly poor.
You can only beat what's in front of you though, as the old cliche goes, and even if it's not a victory to get too carried away about, there were certainly plenty of positives to take from it - the most obvious being what it did tell us about this season's incarnation of Boro.
Lowe may be right about Boro's formidability factor this season compared to last. But the issue, as would come to haunt that Boro side, was a lack of squad depth and balance. Far fewer injuries than the ones Boro are currently nursing right now ultimately derailed their season last term.
As Carrick pointed out after the Preston win, eight senior players missed the game through injury and you can add bright prospect Sonny Finch as a ninth. 'It's the makings of a good team in itself," Carrick joked.
And that is the one big improvement Boro have made from last season. Their squad depth now, to be able to deal with so many absentees is so much better. Let's be honest, even the most optimistic amongst us would have seen Boro's team an hour before kick-off, unexpectedly minus Dael Fry, Hayden Hackney and Sam Greenwood, and feared the worst.
But the players forced to step in ultimately all carried out their duties brilliantly, which speaks volumes about how well-coached this Boro team are. It seems strange to say after a 4-0 victory, but it was arguably Boro's defensive discipline on the evening, particularly with the context of the makeshift back four, that was the most pleasing aspect.
Coming off the back of the sloppy errors that ultimately cost them at Bristol City on Saturday, it was the perfect response from Carrick's side as they recorded a fifth Championship clean sheet in nine games.
They are positive signs of a side moving in the right direction, and yet we do have to appreciate that there are some truths in Lowe's verdict on Boro. In many ways, it makes the importance of defensive discipline all the more important teams perhaps not showing Boro as much respect as last season are teams with far more spaces for Boro to exploit.
Five goals scored in their last two away games, for example, should have been more than enough for far more than the solitary point they yielded. On both occasions on the road, their defending ultimately let them down. But as they've proven, they are more than capable. The key, as we so often say, is consistency.
And that is Boro's big challenge moving forward. They may not be feared right now as much as they were. But if they could start to show more defensive solidity, that would quickly change.
Well that was a nice surprise. After the first 15 mins we really started to dominate the ball/game and with some nice interplay and great team work we fully deserved our half time lead and ultimately the win.
Good to keep a clean sheet and to see players stepping up to the mark.
The big question is can we now build on this and show some consistency, particularly on the defensive side which still remains our Achilles heel.
One particular lesson from last night was that the team looks stronger when players are utilised in their natural positions; as well as McNair has been doing, I would prefer a left footer in his position even when Lenihan is fit again. 😎
I noticed that as well and wondered when was the last time Boro scored from a corner. Ken would have told us wouldn’t he? RIP
OFB
Just had a look at the Table after tonight’s games. We’re only 3 points off the play off positions, so that should be the next ambition - it’s hard to believe we’re so close after our start to the season.