Though the article seems to conclude that Boro should prioritise a new centre-back over a new striker - I'm OK with our defensive options on recent performances but not content with just having a recently returned Josh Coburn as the only fit striker who isn't even really a senior player yet.
More on the possible poaching of HH in the current transfer window:
https://sports-view.co.uk/2024/01/tottenham-eye-move-for-middlesborough-midfielder-hayden-hackney
Bloody cheek, but very complimentary about HH, who's apparenrly (according to Transfermarkt) valued at £6m. I think Spurs would have to cough up more than that to tempt him away before the summer.
As I've mentioned before - Hackney still has three-and-half years left on is contract at Boro so the club are not forced to sell him unless it's an offer that's too big to refuse. It's a problem that can be ignored until the summer at the earliest and if we're lucky he'll be a PL player with Boro.
Farke said he would have liked to keep Luke Ayling at Leeds.
Up the Boro!
Michael Carrick is using his Manchester United connections to try and land Amad Diallo on loan for Middlesbrough. (Express Sport)
OFB
Be great if we could get him OFB, then the fans could sing "Is the way to Amad Diallo" I'll get my coat!!
@original-fat-bob He did well at Sunderland with 14 goals and 5 assists last season..
This season he has only one sub appearance for United. He is regarded more as a winger/midfielder. Although he has pace, I am not sure he is an Archer.
Related to transfer window - Forest and Everton both expecting to be charged with breaking profit and sustainability rules per The Athletic. (Link goes to Archive which shouldn't be paywalled.
Forest are definitely a basket case financially so we may see a few players let go. However, looking at their owner's normal modus operandi I suspect they'll simply delay any sanctions until after the window shuts.
As well as Diallo, there's rumours that we're interested in Aaron Ramsey on loan or Scott Twine as a permanent. Twine's currently on loan at Hull from Burnley. I suspect that there's nothing in either of these.
A poster over on FMTTM reckons that we're in for a
a striker we’ve been looking at for months, £4m, ‘a foreigner’, has scored 17 goals this season.
I suspect it's attention seeking rather than anything concrete. Another poster on OneBoro who has a decent track record for inside information, claims that we had a bid rejected for Devant Cole of Barnsley.
Do Boro absolutely need a striker this window?
Sure, if there's someone out there who can make a similar impact to Cameron Archer, or a Rav van den Berg youngster with huge potential, then it would make sense to make the move. However, I'm not sure that adding another body is necessary.
With the arrival of Azaz, Boro are now stacked with attacking midfield options. In a month or so, Carrick will be choosing three from Jones, Silvera, Rogers, Crooks, Azaz, McGree and Greenwood. What does that have to do with a striker, you might ask.
Well, I wonder if it means that Forss' days as a right-sided forward are over, and we therefore have another no. 9 on our hands.
Forss is a good finisher and has plenty of experience as a no. 9. Are we going to sign someone better?
If he's fit enough, I'd like to see him given a run in the role. It might well save us a few bob. With us only ever playing a lone striker, I'm not sure that we need four senior strikers. Three plus Kavanagh ought to be enough, with Rogers maybe needing to play there now again whilst Coburn and ELL are out and Forss is only just coming back.
@andy-r That makes sense. A good measurement for a new striker - he must be better than Forss.
I do not know why Marcus has not played more as a striker for Carrick. OK, Jones was out most of the second part of the season in 2023. That could explain something as well as having Archer on loan, too.
Yes, I think it is time to see Forss in the middle now that we have so many options as attacking midfieders. Forss plays also as a striker for the national team. Up the Boro!
@andy-r your post andy is a fair assessment of the situation going forward, however the caveat being, are we going to see an end to our weekly game by game injury issues.
Of the players brought in during the summer, we have had a mixture of unlucky injuries, O'Brien, long term and you could include Latte Lathe for the games missed. Short term in Engel, VDB, Bangura (hopefully) and Dieng (possibly).
Then we got unlucky with Smith and Lenihan and HH for 5/6 games?? Coburn for two periods and still an issue.
LL, as I posted previously, reminds me of Stuart Ripley, will he ever be fully fit and be available for say, 30 games in a season.
In my opinion, we have been very lucky indeed to be where we are in the League, and only one point off probably the only slot for for grabs, sixth place.
Going down to 12th placed, we are near the bottom for goals scored and third from bottom for goals conceded. PNE are bottom for both.
If we can get a proven striker, that will slot in reasonably quickly, yes a big ask I know, then I think it is a "no brainer", if we want to climb the table and get closer to WBA.
We have been unlucky with injuries, OK, but we may continue to get even our fair share as the second half of the season continues. We appear to have possibly sufficient numbers to cover defence and up to the front runner.
But can we be really happy to take the risk of LL, Coburn and even Forss, who has suffered too many games lost to injury of late, being available for the number nine slot.
Unfortunately lost a long post on the striker issue (I think I'd turned my VPN on and got logged out without realising)
Anyway, can't repeat all the points as I'm on kitchen duties shortly but my point would be if Boro were to sign one more player in this window in what position should it be? I would argue that the striker position is probably our weakest position as we've got Coburn with seemingly a long-standing groin injury that is being managed and Latte Lath, who until Josh was injured wasn't being picked to start - both have 5 goals each so far this season, which isn't prolific by any measure.
We've now got Forss returning, who looks a good finisher but is he ready to start games and how long will it take him to be fully match fit? We've Rogers or even Azaz who could play up top but they're not going to instinctively make those striker runs into the box. OK we've got plenty of attacking midfielders who could step in but again can we rely on them to hold the ball against defenders - Rogers main weakness is not keeping the ball and that's often true of other attacking midfielders - nobody is as good as Coburn or Akpom was last season.
Still we do have plenty of attacking talent but nobody who can play with their back to goal other than Coburn - either Carrick will need to adjust tactics or dip into the market. Personally, I think Boro would regret falling short this season if they lacked a fit striker for the last dozen games - it's too much of a risk given if Boro fail this season then there's already talk of clubs circling for our better players and indeed Michael Carrick.
Related to transfer window - Forest and Everton both expecting to be charged with breaking profit and sustainability rules per The Athletic. (Link goes to Archive which shouldn't be paywalled.
Forest are definitely a basket case financially so we may see a few players let go. However, looking at their owner's normal modus operandi I suspect they'll simply delay any sanctions until after the window shuts.
As well as Diallo, there's rumours that we're interested in Aaron Ramsey on loan or Scott Twine as a permanent. Twine's currently on loan at Hull from Burnley. I suspect that there's nothing in either of these.
A poster over on FMTTM reckons that we're in for a
a striker we’ve been looking at for months, £4m, ‘a foreigner’, has scored 17 goals this season.
I suspect it's attention seeking rather than anything concrete. Another poster on OneBoro who has a decent track record for inside information, claims that we had a bid rejected for Devant Cole of Barnsley.
Here's teh Guardian piece on the Everton Forest situation.... https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/jan/15/premier-league-charge-nottingham-forest-everton
"Give Forss a go", seems to be the dominant theme amongst supporters at the moment, and you put the case very succinctly.
We may not have long to wait. It seems entirely possible to me that he will be given a run out as a mainline striker this week-end.
I hope I'm wrong, but I would estimate the chances of this strategy working out as a solution to what has been a long-term problem at the club to be pretty low.
Even as an immediate short term solution it is surely asking a lot of a young man who has only a 15 minute cameo and a well-struck goal to his credit after a long lay-off.
Asking a lot both in terms of his physical fitness, and his past record as a striker since his arrival.
This has not been distinguished. Forss never really impressed as the striker we hoped he might be when we signed him. Neither Wilder nor Carrick thought him worth a place in that position.
He lacked the physical strength to be a target man able to hold the ball up and bring others into play. Nor did he show that he had the pace to run the channels and get behind defences.
So the question remains, what are we expecting Forss to do as a striker that is part of his skill set?
His renaissance as we know came as a goalscoring wide man who played facing forwards with an energy that he had not always shown with his back to the goal. He did well there and for some time was deservedly preferred to Jones as our first choice right winger.
I would love nothing more than for Forss to "do an Akpom" and return as a 20+ goals a season striker that surprises us all.
But that seems to me to be a remote possibility.
Nor is it fair on Forss himself to have a run out on Saturday in the expectation that he can carry our main attacking threat in one of the biggest games in the club's history a few days later.
That this is even being seriously contemplated is a damning indictment not only of our recruitment, but of our lack of even the most basic planning as far as strikers are concerned.
Compare this with how well the club has planned and recruited for another part of the spine of the team, our centre-backs.
We started with four and the balance of experience, youth and talent looked ideal from the beginning of the season
We had two established, tried and trusted Championship stalwarts, Lenihan and McNair, alongside an outstanding young but now experienced academy product, Fry, and an exciting young European prospect, VDB, whom we had done exceptionally well to spot and recruit.
We have needed them all. Indeed even this strong quartet has needed augmentation, and it is fortunate that Clarke has returned and produced performances that scarcely seemed possible after such a serious injury and lengthy spell on the sidelines.
Of course finding goal scorers is considerably more difficult than recruiting reliable centre-backs, but the contrast between the club's planning and recruitment for these two key areas could scarcely be more stark
I'd agree that relying on Forss to play as a lone strike would be something of a gamble as he doesn't look physically built to play with his back to goal and looks like he would be better suited to play on the shoulder of defenders. Josh Coburn is reported to be 6' 4" and Marcus Forss 6' 0" - though the real joke is that Coburn's weight is given as 74kg compared to Forss as 76kg and I defy anyone to look at both players and decide Coburn has a lighter build - perhaps these stats need an update.
Andy has suggested Kavanagh could step up and I would suggest if that is to be considered then maybe he should start against Rotherham this weekend as if not against the bottom club when Boro have no fully-fit strikers then when? Surely he needs a game to show what he can do if he is to be considered part of the first-team setup - otherwise how can he be a serious option when this season reaches the business end.
Perhaps Boro should take note of how Chelsea played against us without a recognised striker - they had plenty of talented attacking midfielders but rarely looked like scoring. Not having a striker made them lack focus and maybe Boro could also take note of when they played Rotherham a few weeks ago without a striker - Silvera played up top and Boro had over 70% possession and 20 shots but no goals and lost to the opposition's only shot (cross) on target.
Still, not many clubs let a genuine striker leave in January on the cheap so it maybe just a hypothetical argument on whether Boro should sign a goal-scorer in the next few weeks. Chances are on our budget it will either be another project lacking in pitch time or a punt from abroad with a good 'best-of' YouTube clips.
Having read the Guardian article it seems charging both Forest and Everton is something of an odd box-ticking decision. It says Everton are the lowest net-spenders on players in the last 5 years other than Luton and Brighton - who we know have sold players for hundreds of millions in the last two seasons alone. Is this what fair play was meant to be about - punishing clubs for losing investors and improving stadiums?
Forest argued that they've only breached FFP because they opted to hang on to Johnson until the end of the transfer market in order to get the best price - this meant they sold him outside the June 30 cut-off for FFP. What nonsense would it be to deduct points from a club because they didn't roll over and make a quick sale.
Still no news on charging either Man City or Chelsea for their billion pound spending sprees wrapped up and hidden under opaque commercial deals and inflated sponsorships.
So they will punish two clubs who have spent a fraction of what others have on players and present it as enforcing fair play - a joke even the post office didn't try.
@werdermouth A couple of good posts there Werder.
I agree about Kavanagh, if you don’t try, you don’t know. However, I just do not see MC giving him a shot against Rotherham. He has already used the ready made reasoning (excuse) of not putting pressure on young boys shoulders. Thank goodness Leo gave HH a try.
Fair Play is a joke, but not a very funny one. The big boys getting away with, as you said, inflated sponsorships. Could you imagine little old MFC getting away with Mr Gibson, if was inclined to do so, having Bulkhaul sponsor the Riverside for 20 million a season.
Ton of Bricks, I think.
So many good posts on here.
I do tend to support the view that if you can't test Kavanagh by giving him a game at home against the bottom team in the league, when CAN you give him a try out? Putting him on for 9 minutes at the end of a game when we are 3 up tells us little against a defence that has been run ragged for 80+ minutes, and putting him on in the reverse situation (3 goals down with 9 minutes to play) would be similarly useless. Unless he is tried, we will never know. Someone had to take a punt on EVERY footballer to start his first game.
If Forss is good enough to play for Finland you'd think he might be good enough to play for a Championship team. Having said which Finland apparently currently ranks 59th in the world which seems lower than I expected. But people might say Boro currently lies lower than expected in the league.
Hopefully The Management knows what they are doing...
(Apologies in advance if this post proves the fatness of my typing index finger).
The obvious block to Kavanagh getting a game is the sheer number of attacking midfielders Boro have in their ranks that would all be chasing just 3 shirts - Jones, Rogers, Greenwood, Azaz, Crooks, Forss plus with McGree and Silvera to return in a few weeks.
However, only 4 of those will be available to play Chelsea next week and if Josh and Latte Lath are not fit then that means Kavanagh would likely be the only possible sub in an attacking role. So maybe he better get some game time under his belt against Rotherham.
@werdermouth It's a strange thing P&S (Profit and Sustainability is the new name for FFP). At heart, the idea is that it is trying to reduce the risk of an owner stocking up on unsustainable levels of debt then failing, causing the club to go into administration. Then the problem is not just the club but every other club in the same league which has to deal with issues around games and all the other football clubs the failed club owes money to.
Because of the name of FFP, people have assumed it's meant to be a form of leveling the playing field financially but it absolutely isn't. Hence the name change.
It largely doesn't work and has the side effect of preventing clubs investing to succeed. It would have prevented Gibson from spending the amount of money he did under Robbo. That said, we have had a 15 year hangover trying to recover from those years with a performance that is worse than our historical average since then.
It is also incredibly hard to regulate because, by definition any kind of financial analysis is retrospective, meaning it's really difficult to assign the penalties for breaches during the season it happens.
I believe there is now an attempt to recast this as a turnover based cap; i.e. you can't spend more than some percent of your turnover on running costs. I could just about see that working if, when the teams are registered for the season ahead, they each get a budget cap based on the previous years or, if they are new in the league, an average figure for the rest of the league. Personally, I would have a budget cap for football costs (largely player salaries) that is the same for each team in the league.
A rebranded FFP as profit and sustainability then in theory shouldn't be bothered with clubs owned by states like Man City or Newcastle as there is absolutely no danger of them having unsustainable levels of debt. Though I agree that retrospective analysis doesn't stop anyone from overspending it only punishes them and could possibly relegate them and thus push them over the financial edge after losing their PL income.
I'm also in favour of a cap on spending and given clubs receive at least £100m for just being the PL then a wage cap should be viable as indeed should be transfer spending. Your budget is your prize money obtained from the previous season with promoted clubs given their £100m in advance instead of the bulk of parachute payments after you're relegated that skew the Championship in their favour.
The "Big Clubs" which might be capable of spending eyewatering sums because they are backed by billionaires or are effectively state-owned have what we used to call "F. U. Money". So much money that no financial penalty could hurt them. They could put a LOT more money into defending claims against them, delaying the "end result" until it is more convenient to them or more hurtful to the wronged party, perhaps in the knowledge that those pursuing them either in the courts or in sports tribunals etc are likely to have much less money to spend on the litigation. But if, in the end result, the Big Club loses, handing over a wedge of money would amount to nothing more than pocket money for a state bankrolling a club and it would allow the Big Club to say "F.U" to the claimant whilst making the transfer of cash, in the knowledge that the Big Club has the resources to do it all again next year and gradually grind their victims down.
The end result of all this is that the only sanctions that bite are not fines but points deductions/relegations/expulsions from leagues or cup competitions. And that should include penalties which bite over more than the current season but include future seasons. A club that has gone into administration may have a points deduction as a result of that situation, but if the owners realise that the club's positition in the league makes relegation inevitable in any event, effectively taking more points off THIS season is no penalty at all. But it would certainly bite if the penalty were to apply the next season if relegated anyway this season. So there needs to be flexibility in deciding whcih penalties to apply and when to apply them.
When clubs go bust some footballers might be owed money but the biggest issue is not other football clubs owed millions in unpaid transfer fees, but lots of local businesses, many of them small but owed sums of money that puts THEM out of business in turn. The local florist, the local butcher etc. So with the cleaning staff, the club's laundry employees, the ground staff and others employed on matchdays, lots of local people may suffer when a club drowns in its own money problems. The players etc will have their contracts torn up and so can move on as a free agent. The supporters can't really do that.
Maybe football will devour itself in time. Chariot racing was the Premier League football of its day, and its popularity lasted centuries (whereas league football is very recent - 150 years or so, and much less in some countries abroad where football is a recent interloper). Massive crowds watched chariot racing. Lots of money and fame for the champion charioteers. No doubt LOTS of money won and lost on wagers. Where are they now (apart from long dead?).
Perhaps it should simply be called, for the sake of clarity, FUF. Financially UnFair play. Seems appropriate to me, there is no 'play' only manipulating and meddling by the usual suspects.
UTB,
John
PS perhaps they should be allowed their own super league after all and cups. I'm sure there could be some creative naming there for cup competitions and sponsors.
I think that for everyone to remember what’s involved they should rename it:
Financially
Unfair
Commercial
Knowledge
I Think that acronym would be remembered by everyone participating!
OFB
In the discussion of different financial management systems, nobody has mentioned Spain where, to the best of my knowledge, they have a system in place which regulates the transfer windows by some sort of measurement against anticipated future income. I don’t know exactly how it works and, in any case, it doesn’t appear to prevent Barcelona and Real Madrid from doing exactly what they want.
Any experts out there?
UTB
Not only a gifted footballer but also a very humble and decent human being. UTB
https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/sport/football/finn-azaz-st-lukes-hospice-9036313
Birmingham have beaten Hull in the FA Cup replay, so our match at St Andrews is postponed therefore after the Chelsea game 23 January we don’t play again until Sunderland on 4 February.
Come on BORO.
@eboroacum Nice article, sounds like a lovely person
Birmingham beat Hull, so an extra day off for Boro. However, I guess it will mean a extra midweek game, which we could probably do without.
We have plenty of free midweeks to fit in the fixture, plus it also allows time for players to come back, such as McGree etc.@eboroacum Nice article, sounds like a lovely person
Birmingham beat Hull, so an extra day off for Boro. However, I guess it will mean a extra midweek game, which we could probably do without.
Come on BORO.
time for some injuries to clear up