Clive, Absolutely bang-on, I think you have hit all the nails on their collective head. I for one would like to see, in another world I know, what a different manager could have done with this lot. Like you say Mr Carrick doesn't appear to be for changing but surely even he can see that every team right to the bottom of the league have seen through Boro's Tactic? They've all done the same to us and OFB's stats in his last post were somewhat damning.

Anyway thank you for your excellent headliner but every one on here is writing the same about Boro, a bit like their tactics really, however the manager can't see what we all see and say and what the opposition generally respond to successfully.

A draw for me I'm afraid. I hope to be wrong then I won't have to spend a few days avoiding the local Norwich supporters!

UTB,

JOhn

Great work, Clive. I hope getting that off your chest has been cathartic - you’ve said what we’ve all been thinking and in the most eloquent of ways. 

We’ve simply got to win on Saturday - the players owe it to their fans to do the business in the last home game of the regular season - I shudder to think what the crowd’s reaction will be if we have another lacklustre first half. 

Great rousing preview Clive that no doubt channelled some of your infuriation of that Hilsborough defeat - I've finally just got round to watching the highlights and it was a mess at both ends of the pitch after the opening goal as our balloon burst after the penalty miss - btw isn't the taker after stuttering run for a spot kick supposed to place the ball on the opposite side to where the keeper dives?

There will be no hiding place on Saturday at the Riverside where anything less than victory will not be greeted well with away tickets to Coventry already sold out.

You'd expect this game to have goals and nobody will feel safe even if Boro are 3-0 up - which makes you wonder if Carrick will actually see the merits of protecting a lead if there was to be one!

In truth we could get any result, as if there's one consistent theme about this season it's Boro's inconsistency - not one for the faint hearted I suspect...

I should add that despite all nervous anticipation of missed opportunities the game itself should be a great exciting occasion and at least it's still all to play for!

Clive

Great Post thank you for encapsulating and putting into words what all the Diasborians are thinking !

it has been like watching two teams this season ! One good and one bad ! It’s amazing how any team can turn a defeat from the jaws of victory so often.

if we lose on Saturday I can only think there will be a couple of turnip heads ploughing a lonely furrow to the exit gate and deservedly so!

Let’s face it this management team will be on a fantastic celery and it certainly won’t be small potatoes. Hopefully Michael Carrott and his sidekick Woodengate will reap the harvest of success roared on by an enthusiastic crowd.

If we lose there will be quite a lot of furrowed brows and we will have to dig deep into our pockets for another growing season.

I think the forecast is going to be good and I really mean that as I’m going for Boro3 !

OFB

Thanks Clive for an excellent opener from which we can all dectect your frustration and annoyance with the last performance, shared no doubt by the majority of posters.

In the Exmil challenge I had us down for a point at Wednesday but as soon as we missed the penalty I was just waiting for the inevitable to happen and it did!

I also forecast we would beat Norwich but after Monday I can’t see that happening.  They will come to the Riverside with freedom to play and all the pressure on us to get a result; we have shown previously that when the pressure is on, more often than not we fail to perform.

I fear that the crowd could be nervous and that this could transmit to the players, further playing into Norwich’s hands.  It could get very ugly if they score first.

Regrettably, I am expecting at best a draw but would not be surprised if we lost, with either result probably putting an end to our top six hopes. 😎

@original-fat-bob 

🤣 Good to see you’re still on sparkling form, as ever, Bob! 

Thanks for the intro Clive. You are correct about Sainz and Sargent they have scored 47% of their goals this season. Interesting quote from Thorup to the BBC Norfolk reporter 

 Thorup himself recently told me he was "tired" of watching his side fail to deal with balls into the penalty area. I wonder if  MC ever says that. They have won one game in the last ten a record worse than Sheffield Wednesday's! 

@clive-hurren 

@original-fat-bob 

Sounds like you're starting to getting the hang of this gardening leave 😉 

So after Andy's Lord's Mayor Show we have another Lord's Mayor Show. Or rather an articulate rallying cry before Saturday's Great March on the Riverside. Thanks, Clive for giving such an authentic voice to our collective frustration. It's an opener that is bang on in both content and tone. Enjoyed every word.

I have never felt more critical of Carrick than now. I cannot for the life of me understand why Fry was not a starter against Wednesday. But Carrick knows more about the game than I do, and has more information at his disposal. If the lad is still not fully fit, or is nursing a knock and we cannot risk his missing the final few games and possibly the play-offs then the decision would make some sense, though Carrick would not be able to say so. If you had to choose between my ignorance and Carrick's knowledge and experience, you would probably be best advised to opt for the latter.

And whilst all of the criticisms of the coach make sense, we would be less inclined to insist on them if either Conway had put away two of the biggest chances of the season or Iling Junior had shown himself to have basic defensive competence when the Owls scored their two goals. We  know that  every coach is a hostage to his players' competence, but last Monday was a particularly glaring testament to that. No one, as far as I have seen, has been calling for the dismissal or dropping of either player. Not surprising since we have no one better for either position.

On playing out from the back, I understand Dormo's position very well, since I have seen the disastrous consequences of it at first hand. When John Barnes became manager of Tranmere he declared that his model was not going to be England or Arsenal, but Brazil with brave attacking full-backs. His players were clearly unsuited to this model which set in motion the decline of a side in a play-off spot to one which ended with their demotion from the Football League.

I get as frustrated as anyone else with Boro's slow build ups from the back, but the fact of the matter is that our way of playing out has rarely cost us goals. Jonny Howson's error against Plymouth was an exception, and I recall Morris dribbling back towards his own goal against Pompey and Hackney giving the ball away against Coventry but I'm at a loss to remember any other examples, though you can see them regularly committed by even the best sides in the Premier League.(Arsenal have just conceded one as I type). On a cost- benefit analysis playing out from the back the way that we do seems to me to be well justified, though I dislike the way that going backwards, even from throw-ins and wide areas seems to have become something of a default mechanism for too many of the players.

Outside of the Boro bubble I think there will be general astonishment that Carrick's job may be on the line. I have lost count of the number of pundits and managers who have described us as a well coached side capable of controlling a game as effectively as any team in the division. Carrick has given us far superior football than anything we saw under Pulis, Woodgate, Warnock or Wilder. He appears to be revered by his players, generally highly regarded throughout the game, and is certainly a magnet for future loan players and permanent signings alike. 

When the Boro sacked Gareth Southgate I felt that we were disposing of someone whose personal and professional qualities would assure him of a significant future role in the game, and that it would be a decision, in spite of all of the arguments that seemed plausible for doing so at the time, that we would come to regret. 

It didn't take long. We replaced a rookie manager, perceived to be tactically naive, who was too soft with and too close to his players with his opposite, an experienced and successful manager  who called a spade a spade and had little truck with the niceties of man-management.

And so began Strachan's Great Jockification, one of the darkest periods in recent Boro history. We should learn from that experience and take care not to repeat it at the expense of a talented and modest man, an excellent coach and someone who will assuredly continue to have the brightest of futures in the game. 

In spite of the current difficulties I hope that future will be with us.

That’s a superb comment, Len. I fully understand why you would want to stick with Carrick. Just like Gareth, he has all of those qualities you describe so well. I wish we were not having to make these criticisms of him and that Boro’s future success would be secure with him. 

My problem is that I’ve lost confidence in him. You could argue that Carrick was handed a bum deal in January and that to lose Latte Lath and Doak seriously weakened the squad, but you might balance that by his decisions (we’re led to believe) to buy Giles and release Clarke; you could blame the often woeful recruitment (Whittaker, Iheanacho, Hamilton ); or you could blame the painful lack of leadership on the pitch ( never more obvious than at Wednesday) and which is not easy to solve. But I can’t divorce those factors from the all too obvious and well-publicised failings of his team, a team which has lost 17 games this season and rarely looks like putting a string of victories together. I can’t get over the evidence that he doesn’t change games or change strategy when he needs to. I know man-management is supposed to be his forte, but I can’t understand why he hasn’t addressed the soft underbelly and fragile mentality. I know that’s not easy to coach when you haven’t got players with the Leadbitter kind of personality (and you yourself called it a team of lightweights lacking in steel) but Carrick should be setting the standards and expectations. I also don’t understand why he has stuck loyally to his coaching team; let’s face it, our defensive coach really hasn’t done a very good job, has he? 

Please don’t get me wrong. I would like nothing more than for MC to take us up to the Premiership via the playoffs, and for him then to have the chance to lead us in the top tier. I really do like him and I’ve loved much of the football his team has played. Unfortunately, I can’t see it happening. 

@clive-hurren 

You and Len are addressing the dilemma that is at the heart of the club. We are currently trying to build a side that can play possession-based football with quality passing and movement but the ball retention that is at the heart of such a style is beyond some of our players. What do we do?

We know that Michael Carrick has improved players and off the back of this we have seen some stunningly profitable deals of which Rogers and Lathe Lath are the standout moneymakers. Do we stick with our philosophy knowing that it could take two years or more for the young squad that we have to come up to the level required. This will run the risk of us losing our best players, Hackney above all as he is a major Premier League star in embryo, but may see us get the lifeline of an earlier promotion that will pump in some money and accelerate the cycle. 

Are the supporters prepared to accept that MFC is a club with a philosophy of decency and assistance to the local community, a club that we can admire and accept that we may be a yo-yo club or even a never-yo club.

On the other side, should Carrick be better at in-game management and the ability to react to the opposition's tactical changes during a match. Does he, therefore, need a bit more practical coaching experience by his side? 

Not easy to square this particular circle.

Finally, I remind everyone that our Women's team is top of the league on goal difference with one match to go and one promotion place available. Away at Barnsley this weekend to seal the spot? Let's wish them every success.

UTB and UTBW

Just wanted to pass on my thanks to Len, Clive and Selwynoz for three of the most well written and reasoned articles I have had the pleasure to read. 😎

@lenmasterman 

Good post Len! Playing out from the back is indeed a high-risk strategy but it's with a purpose of breaking through the opposition ranks in order to take advantage and attack the opposition. Unfortunately, we did often see Boro play out successfully only to stop around the halfway line and then play a backward pass and allow the opposition back into shape - possibly more so now in the second half of the season after losing the key outlets of Doak and Latte Lath.

There was an article back in February that reported that Boro had conceded the most goals in the Championship due to individual errors - that was 11 back then and unfortunately couldn't find the current stat but there have been a few more since. What they also said that this had accounted for nearly a quarter of all goals conceded by the team, which was way above anybody else.

I agree that most opposition managers have praised Boro as the best team in the Championship in possession and we all enjoy watching many of the passages of play that the Carrick style brings in comparison to many who have preceded him. Perhaps it's a price worth paying if it means the ceiling for this style is probably the play-offs rather than automatic promotion - given the club recruit players that are not of PL standard and must manage with just a handful of players best suited to fast slick passing.

Though, there's definitely room for improvement in overall defensive ability and tactical nous from the manager - plus OFB's earlier stat that 40% of Boro's goals are conceded in the last 20 minutes seems to indicate tiring players and a team that needs fresh legs or indeed different types of players.

There does appear to be a mismatch in the composition of the squad that can win games and then switch to players who can see the game out - if we'd only lost the same amount of points as Burnley from winning positions then we'd be sitting 3rd not 7th!

@werdermouth.  The worrying aspect to all of this is that supporters can identify the problem statistics/areas and yet we have not seen anything to indicate that the management are attempting to address them.

What does this mean for the future? 🤔😎

@selwynoz “Are the supporters prepared to accept that MFC is a club with a philosophy of decency and assistance to the local community, a club that we can admire and accept that we may be a yo-yo club or even a never-yo club.”

This particular supporter definitely is!

If we were to try to predict the future, say  two years time, what kind of manager do we expect MC to be? Exactly the same as now, worse than now, or someone who has learned from past mistakes and become an even more sought-after manager? I would very definitely put my money on the latter. 

@peter-surtees I’d agree with everything you’ve written. If MC stays it gives us long term stability and he can build his skills with us. We all know that if SG sacks him, he’ll soon get another job as he’ll be in great demand. 

There are plenty of Championship teams who’s fans would love to be in our current position, with a chance of promotion still available. 

I agree with all the sentiments of the above posts, IMHO I think we should at least let MC see out the rest of his contract (if only to save the cost of paying off him and his staff). I remember when we sacked Southgate (much to my horror and disgust) then look what happened to him, yes MC is making mistakes but are we expecting too much from MFC in this current financial climate, can we really compete with 3 rich premiership teams coming down with a premiership squad all ready then the parachute payments, so they can cherry pick the better championship players not poached by the remaining premiership sides 🤔.

Do we set ourselves up for a fall at the beginning of each season with unrealistic expectations of automatic promotion or even the playoffs. There is talk of Leeds sacking Farke during the summer, so what chance does any championship manager have 😱.

Come on BORO.

Thanks to Clive, and indeed Andy before him, for providing such excellent starters and stimuli for our current debate about the future of the club. The brilliant responses today show that, notwithstanding divergencies of opinion and approach, we are all singing from the same hymn-sheet in terms of our common concern for the Boro's immediate future and the kind of football we want to see the club pursuing.

I try to watch as many podcasts as I can, listening to many ex players and managers etc, even Scouts, Sporting directors , finding out their insights, especially possible future managers, some of them when you listen are surprisingly not what you think and are very forward thinking and seem to understand the big picture.

Obviously I'm thinking could they be a Boro fit.

Now I'm going to send people crazy now ,when I say who I want to replace Carrick , a guy I've listened to and he's football obsessive, lives it 24/7, his ex managers and players have said one of the most dedicated to his craft,  understands player management ,expectations, tactical astute, and recently had success. 

Gasp now

Craig Bellamy ,current Welsh Manager

@original-fat-bob - I'll have a dose of what you're on, Bob...

@gt 😱

I just want to say that it was a pleasure to read Clive Hurren's Match Preview and then the replies which, so far, have been excellent. Good points, reasonably made.  Better than the football.

Of course we'll all be behind the team when the starting whistle blows on Saturday afternoon. Having said which, should the game pan out in the same way as the Sheffield Wednesday game on Easter Monday, I wouldn't advise the players to go on a tour of the stadium with todllers in hand, after the final whistle.  The children might hear some words to which they should not be accustomed.

You've just got to hope that, despite it all, the team plays well and effectively on Saturday and wins 3 points, whatever the score.  Then the regular season would be set up for a shoot-out finale between Boro and Coventry City - a winner-takes-all ticket to the Play-Offs.  At that stage anything is possible but you've got to be in the Play-Offs to win them. Amazingly the "ticket", with all the money it means to the club, is still available to be grabbed! We have lived through a few nightmares so far this season. Hopefully some dreams can yet come true.

There seems to have been be a lot of agreement for a long time regarding why Boro don’t play the type of football and individually and collectively don’t have the correct talents which wins games to be in the top 6. My main grudge is that Carrick doesn’t play to the players strengths. It’s the most obvious thing to do rather than play a style which the players aren’t capable of achieving.

Those of us who achieved manager status in our various careers made sure we had the right staff in the right jobs and a management structure which suited the organisation. I remember in my last job I inherited a management structure which I would have never chosen but it worked and so I kept it. Surely this is the most important issue and not the pattern of play which the players have proved many times that they can’t achieve.

And so to Saturday. I expect Carrick to persist with what he’s done all season but hope he sees what player changes are needed. The most obvious is to play Fry and move Howson out of the back 4. I’d like to see more of an attempt to play with passion, with speed and get crosses into the penalty area to save Conway charging all over the pitch and so given more of a chance of scoring.

Ive no idea what the result will be- you could put an argument for all 3.       I would  expect Norwich to get at Boro just as they did in getting back to   3-3 when at home.   I am nervous that Norwich are on an awful run of results just like Sheffield Wednesday and so …………. You know what I’m thinking.

So, I’ll go for the draw and Boro probably saying good bye to a top 6 finish.

Philip of Huddersfield 

Is the game live on to?

@philip-of-huddersfield.  No I believe it’s only on Riverside Live. 😎

Thank you all for your very kind comments, which I greatly appreciate. I must say that I, too, am enjoying the debate about the club and the manager. I’ve particularly admired posts by Len, selwynoz and Peter Surtees, but it’s actually unfair to single out people, as there have been many excellent, articulate contributions. This blog just keeps on giving! 

What a brilliant thread this has been, starting with Clive's exeptional Headliner and then the follow up posts from too many to mention, but particularly from Len, aided by Peter Surtees and Philip.

Excellent arguments, for and not exactly against Carrick, but pointing out some of his areas of frustration and ineeded mprovment in our eyes.

Believe it or not, I would love Carrick to succeed at MFC, the majority do. However, he does appear to have a stubborn streak in him that says, it will be done my way.

One cannot get away from the stats, especially those around the defensive zones. If he had of been a little more pragmatic, changed the tired legs with earlier substatutions, as has been mentioned, against OFB's stat of goals conceeded in the last 20 minutes. Players played in their best positions, well we would not be having these conversations, because we would already be in a gaurenteed play off place.

Plus that does not include the recruitement, which he I guess must be part off.

So Saturday is the must win of all must wins, once again. Unless all the others lose.

I will be there at the Riverside, hoping for the best.

Thanks to all for this lovely blog.