One for Jarrko. Welcome back Riley and Sammy.
Just watched Championship highlights and watched Keiffer Moore score 2 goals on his debut for Ipswich. Couldn’t help reflecting that he would have been ideal for Boro and could have been the missing link for an attempt at a top 6 place.
Water under the bridge and all that as Boro soldier on without a proven number 9.
As for tomorrow’s game it’s a must win as Boro must significantly improve a poor home record ( 6 defeats).
This is particularly important as some teams above them eg WBA and Coventry are on a better run of form.
Lets hope Boro can “ do a Huddersfield “ - very poor first half today and then scored 4 goals in 12 minutes. Reminded me of a certain game last season where I had to grin and bear it sat in the Huddersfield supporters end of the ground.
I will gladly settle for 1-0.
Philip of Huddersfield
Interesting article from a Sunderland perspective, about spending money.
Thanks for posting, Pedro. Really interesting.
Hull's problem is that they may well make the play-offs, but even they cannot compete with Leeds or Southampton in terms of finance or either team plus Ipswich in terms of quality. So they are gambling everything on what remains a very long shot.
And then, even if everything goes to plan and they get promoted, they will be no match for any other team in the Premier League, and will probably become the kind of punch-bag that Sheff U currently are. And what is the fun or the point of that.
All of this applies, even more so, to the Boro.
That's why I'm not much fussed about whether we make the play-offs or not.
If we do, then we are unlikely to progress any further. And if by some miracle we do, our problems will really begin, since there is no one in our squad who is currently of Premier League quality.
When I watched Sheff U (ultimately better than us last season) being eviscerated by Villa last week- 3 goals down after 20 mins in front of their own fans- I thought, thanks heavens this isn't us.
I'm much happier seeing us play good football in the Championship against teams who are a reasonable match for us.
Before we can begin to even contemplate life in the Premier League we will need to recruit players of a far higher quality that we currently seem to be content with.
At the moment poor Michael Carrick is like one of those chefs in Ready Steady Cook. For those outside of the UK, this is a TV show in which top chefs are challenged to produce a first-class meal in 20 minutes out of ingredients they find in the back of someone's fridge: say a carrot, a sweet potato, some rice and an onion.
They do the best they can but it's more local takeaway than Michelin star.
Carrick is serving up perfectly palatable fare for us to enjoy on a twice weekly basis using the most basic of ingredients. I don't think we can reasonably expect much more than that into the foreseeable future.
@lenmasterman Those are my thoughts too. Unless we can hold our own in the Premier League, I can’t see any enjoyment in losing games week in, week out.
Good post Len and interesting article Pedro - I would only add that it's extremely difficult to keep PL-standard players on Championship wages unless you have £40m of parachute payments to subsidise them. So no surprise that Boro or most other clubs hardly have any players capable of playing in the PL once they gain promotion. The system sets up clubs to fail and it's highly likely this season that the three PL-relegated clubs will be promoted and the three promoted clubs will be relegated back to the Championship - or at a minimum 2 up 2 down.
The gap it seems gets harder to bridge with every season and the strict enforcement of Profit & Sustainability rules will surely prevent new clubs from breaking in to the elite. The only fair system would be more equal spending rules for all clubs in each league that allows some kind of non-debt creating investment that is not solely dependent on income - since it's unlikely that there will be any agreement on spending caps from richer clubs.
Needless to say, I don't expect to see a fair system in place anytime soon so that's the nature of the challenge facing Boro and most other clubs - pick up some bargains, bring through a few players and then create a war-chest every 3 years and then roll the dice.
Len/Martin. Count me in as well. Unless MC can put together a team which can walk this league (highly unlikely when you are not competing on a level playing field) then we will have little chance of being promoted or remaining within the PL.
I predicted when we were relegated from the PL last time that unless we gained immediate promotion the following season, we would be consigned to the Championship for many a year, which sadly has proved to be the case.
Since then the gap between the leagues and finances has widened and this has been well and truly demonstrated over the last two seasons when playing cup games against the likes of Brighton, Villa and Chelsea.
Ken used to say that he did not expect to see the Boro back again in the PL during his remaining lifetime and as a septuagenarian sadly, neither do I. 😎
Good posts and points from above.
All I would say, is that to keep the fans reasonably happy, especially at the home games, then we have to try and compete around the edges of the play offs and even in the play offs, to maintain wider interest on Teesside.
Considering we have only won six at home in the League, the fans have been very patient and supportive. Hence an average gate of over 27K.
This fan base will only continue if we have a good Coach, trying to play attractive football, and at least giving promotion through the play offs a go.
If Everton, don't win their appeal, then I think Luton may just avoid the drop.
Luton v Sheff Utd this weekend. Everton at Man City, earlier. A win for City will give even added incentive.
Thank goodness for the play-offs as without them our season would already be over being 19 points behind 3rd-place Leeds with a third of the season left to play. Can't imagine the crowds would then be anywhere near 27,000 as most games would be dead rubbers with no real meaning win, lose or draw - other than maybe being entertained
@werdermouth - Valid position to take from it all, Werder.
@pedro - Thank you for that link. An interesting article. Good to see it from other perspectives (in this case, Hull City and Sunderland's).
I seek for help. Craig Johns wrote the followig at https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/marcus-forss-effective-wide-middlesbrough-28602228
"Two different teams with different styles and different set-ups, Stuani's heatmap shows a player not in the box anywhere close to often enough. In comparison, there's a huge red mark in the right corner of the penalty area in Forss's, highlighting Carrick's point about instinctively getting into those threatening areas at the right time. It's from this kind of area where he's proven particularly lethal too, with his trademark finish usually across goal and into the far corner."
Should it be Forss' only? Just asking, like. To learn.
Up the Boro!
I understand even more having read articles recently linked in this and other threads, that money helps and BIG money helps even more in seeking success as a football club. I understand that unless backed by REALLY rich people, spending big money with the aim of obtaining success is a BIG gamble which could easily go wrong. Clubs go bust, go into administration, have points deducted and relegations may follow. The club's better players are the saleable items that have to be liquidated in order to reduce the debts incurred and, being in a fire-sale situation, the fees obtained are not necessarily the values that the selling club might have expected. And with debts incurred and the better players disposed of, the club would then be in a worse position than before it started to aim high. It's not easy to plot a course for a football club if you are in The Championship and want to live, permanently, in the Premier League.
But it's clearly not impossible. If we look at the Premier League let's for the moment ingore the bottom three teams (assume for the moment that those teams are the three which will eventually go down, simply because they are already in that position and, if they escape, others will substitute for them. We can't here account for all the possibililites). If we look at the other 17 teams in the Premier League, many of them are teams which have been contesting promotion from The Championship with BORO, and have achieved it. They were in our position. Some of them very recently but some of them a few seasons ago so they can now be looked on as being settled, established, Premier League clubs.
Let's look at the list:
Luton - 17th (everyone's absolute bankers to finish bottom this season, but they are certainly putting up a fight).
Forest - 16th (in their second season, and surprised many by avoiding relegation last season, but again fighting).
Brentford - 15th (would that be very Heaven?).
Fulham - 13th
Bournemouth - 12th
Wolves - 10th
Brighton - 8th
Villa - 4th (incredibly, with or without Rogers).
So that is a total of 8 teams from the Premier League (with Burnley and Sheffield United, promoted last season, in the bottom three, as well) who HAVE been fighting with Boro to climb the mountain to achieve PL status, and clearly several of them have not only climbed the mountain but have remained at altitude rather than having to come back to sea level. So it CAN be done.
But the question remains, do we want it? What if the risk is that, having staked so much money on the promotion gamble, we have a club that is financially hobbled, even put at risk, if the gamble fails? As we know, some gambles succeed but some do not. If we DID succeed then even if promoted, as the club doesn't have access to the unlimited funds of a multi-billionaire owner or a state-backed fund pulling the strings, BORO would no doubt be one of the 5 teams very heavily fancied to be relegated again. Maybe a season where we might perhaps see a staggering away win that was not expected, but mostly defeats home and away. Sometimes draws and defeats even if we got into winning positions. Would a period of several years between positions 17 and 15 in the Premier League (if relegation were avoided!) be better to watch than finishing in 6th-10th in The Championship where Boro would win more than it lost, and where the team would be competitive throughout the season against nearly all of the teams in its league? This season, so far, BORO has beaten Leicester City and Southampton which would be the Premier League equivalent of beating Liverpool and Manchester City. And there'd be no need to take a gamble with the club's finances that puts the club itself at risk, if the aim were to remain upper-mid table in The Championship.
Does the club, do the supporters who follow the club, think that upper-mid table security in The Championship would be better than gambling all on the possibility of promotion to the PL, with all that entails (especailly the year after promotion). There are three boxes left - £250,000, £10,000 and £1. You've been offered £56,000 to end the game. Do you take the offer or do you open the box and bet on getting the £250K ticket inside, whilst knowing that there's a 2 out of 3 chance that you will get MUCH less?
It's not a perfect analogy, of course. In the game, one came to the boxes with nothing. You didn't have to put up a stake. Any money at the end of the game would be a bonus and you've had the "fun" of playing the game. Though obviously if there's a chance it might be big money then that would naturally seem more enticing. But in our football world, we already have a stake in our club - whether that is a season ticket, matchday ticket, or just a lifelong attachment (I amost typed "affliction"). We may not have the BIG prize, the £250K of watching a PL club, but we have the 2nd prize of following an established, secure, Championship Club. A club safe in the 2nd tier of the English football pyramid (there are apparently 11 official tiers in that pyramid plus a number of levels, without official defintions of local clubs and competitions below that level) with the chance each year of a cup run, and a tilt at a victory over the likes of Chelsea, for example). Is that the £100K box that our competitor lost when he gambled in the previous round?
Or we are on the 2nd top rung of the ladder. There are many rungs below us but there is a large gap between ours and the top rung. Do we take a leap in the hope of properly grasping the top rung and managing to haul oursleves up so we can safely stand up on it? Knowing if we fail to hold on, it's a long way to the ground and the fall could be fatal? I mean, the view from up here on the second rung is quite good, and nearly all of the others on the lower rungs and some who have in the past been on the top rung (Bolton, anyone, or Portsmouth for example?) would be VERY happy to be where we are.
I don't offer an answer here but just pose the question....
@forever-dormo I’d be very happy to take the second box - I dread a promotion that gives us a season of losses every week, before being plunged back into the Championship. I’d rather be a top half of the second tier team than a bottom third of the EPL, although I suspect I’m atypical of fans in general.
On reflection, I think I’d like to finish 6th every season and to lose in the playoffs (controversial I know).
@martin-bellamy - No. I understand that position.
One might on the one hand take the "headlong gamble for promotion" route. Gamble everything on getting over the line into the PL, and then let the year after that look after itself on the basis you at least come down with the parachute payment for the year after that. Or you could adopt the more measured path in which it might take some years to achieve. Not gambling everything but hoping gradually to improve the players in your squad with the hope of securing promotion but, having gone up, just being sensible in the transfer market and NOT buying marquee players. Players who want to be at the club rather than seeking a Mido-like (or Ricketts) payday and who you know will inevitably leave for nothing or a transfer loss in 10 months time. Players who improve the squad but would also make the team much more competetive back in The Championship to enable a comeback the season after that.
In that way a team might be a yo-yo club for a few years but retaining the basis of the squad (with the odd sale of a home grown talent to fund other purchases), with incremental improvements each year. After a few ups and downs you'd hope the team, having gone up, would eventually stay up. And from there, gradual further improvements until the team can be regarded as a safe, solid, PL team.
I realise that is the dream. It may never become reality. If it were easy, you'd have thought we'd have cracked it by now. But a season of joy followed by a season of struggle with players running though treacle, then joy again, then slightly less of a struggle, followed by joy again and then, joy of joys, the elation of STAYING in the PL and the hope of slight Dave Brailsford-like improvements, so that survival in the PL becomes easier and expected. Of course, then greedy followers will look at the giants above them in the table and wonder if it would be possible to join THEM. A peak BORO has nver really climbed in all its history.
I'd love BORO to be a safe and secure PL club. But the process of achieving that, short of a plutocrat take-over, is very difficult and certainly a lot more risky and stressful than ensuring the team stays safely in upper/mid-table Championship security. BUT it's time to grab the car keys and see what the match against Bristol City has to offer.
I will take the plunge - a 2-1 win to BORO.
Though even one season in the PL could fund many following seasons in the Championship given the £100m in prize money for one season plus two-years of parachute payments of around £80m. In theory sales of players bought with this money would also help fund several years after that. Of course, much depends on the wage bill staying sensible and not buying over-priced players that don't lose value. Still, you'd have to put up with seeing quite a few defeats I'd expect 🙄
@werdermouth That’s a good point about the income which, for me, shows the crazy situation of football finance. Having a disastrous season in the EPL provides more financial security that finishing 3rd in the Championship. It makes no sense.
Not sure whether this quite right forum for this transfer rumour, but the Toffees are allegedly after Rav:
Grrr!
How come Coulson never seems able to turn it on for Boro?
@stircrazy Everton are looking for a cheap replacement should they lose Branthawitein the summer. Also supposed to be looking at a Norwich CB?.
My feeling is that this is his agent stirring the pot. Rav is undoubtedly being scouted but it's unlikely that any Premier team is looking to make him a big money buy right now. However, his agent can drop a word in a journo's ear to see if a) it brings out any real interest and b) push for a wage increase (and some knock-on agent fees) at Boro.
The thing to take into account is it’s league 1 and they were playing Shrewsbury, who are just outside the relegation zone.How come Coulson never seems able to turn it on for Boro?
Come on BORO.
It is reported that Bournemouth, Brighton, Palace, Everton and West Ham are all looking at Van den Berg but he is contracted until 2027 and the club is in talks with him about a new contract, along with Howson, McGree and Carrick.
Come on BORO.
@exmil i hope Howson, McGree and Carrick will sign a new contracts. We still need Howson even there will be a day when he is not the first choice in midfield. He deserves one more season, though.
I trust van den Berg will stay for another season. But he is class and surely there will be clubs after him before his contract ends. But I think he needs another season in the Champioship and he is just 19 now.
Up the Boro!
The views of an alleged transfer expert on the funds likely to be available to Boro to buy new players during the summer:
Not transfer news as such, but encouraging news about the emergence of young Sonny Finch: