This article about playing out from the back seems prescient:
I haven’t seen the highlights from yesterday (we’re there any?) but I’d be interested in whether we played as many long balls forward as we did against Sheffield United.
It will be interesting to see what the attendance is for the next game - though visually as I think they count season ticket holders as attendees regardless of if they're there. I guess much will depend on the results in the next 2 away games at Bristol and Stoke - which won't be easy games!
@martin-bellamy. I haven't seen the highlights from yesterday, I have stopped watching them as I had already suffered the live 90 mins!
From memory, we mixed it up a bit yesterday by both playing out from the back and by going long at times.
For me its all about decision making and keeping the opposition guessing with both methods having their places if executed properly.
One of the Man City goals yesterday was as a direct result of the keeper playing a long ball over the top of the Newcastle defence into the path of the city forward who scored; that won't always work and sometimes going long just gives the ball away, so for me we need to mix and match as each game dictates to counter how the opposition sets up. 😎
Actually, Travers kicked very few long balls yesterday, at least compared to the Sheffield game. At Bramall Lane we had Burgzorg at the front, so the thinking might have been to knock it up to the big guy, or perhaps to try to bypass their dynamic midfield? Yesterday, for the first half, we had Conway and an extremely ineffectual Iheanacho up front, so that might have made a difference. There were few scares yesterday playing out from the back, apart from one from Barlaser inevitably, but that may be because Watford weren’t very good.
I look forward to your analysis on your Easter preview and hope your record is considerably better than mine - thankfully just the last game of the season against Coventry left for me now - if it turns out to be a crucial game where Boro need to win then I can only apologise again...
Maybe one the problems is they show us a glimmer of we are going to achieve something build up our hopes and then cruelly dash them.
I mentioned Iheanacho. It’s worth dwelling on, as yesterday’s team changes by Carrick smacked of desperation, and were an utter shambles in the first half. It appeared that Iheanacho had been asked to play in a midfield 3 behind Conway. What happened in effect was that he stationed himself about five yards from Whittaker on the right wing and barely moved. My neighbour and I both felt he couldn’t possibly be fit, so little effort did he make. He did very little in the second half either. I had absolutely no clue what his role was and I doubt if he had, either. Carrick got this very wrong indeed.
Dana Malt on Tees said she’d spoken to Leicester fans who felt Iheanacho was a lazy player at their club. His ‘performance’ yesterday - if I can call it that - seemed to encapsulate that attitude perfectly. It seems we have swopped a brilliant striker with non-stop energy and a desire to do everything for the team for a guy with a poor goal-scoring record and an indifferent attitude. I’ll be saying a bit more about our recruitment in my starter for Bristol City, but suffice it to say I am not impressed.
I wonder, when Iheanacho first started his career, whether one of his dreams was to play for Middlesbrough. I somehow doubt, when he helped Man City win the League Cup and then was part of Leicester’s FA cup winning team, that he’d see himself at the Riverside in 2024. He had been the most expensive Nigerian player 7 years ago when he signed for Leicester for £25m.
His Wikipedia page is really interesting and seems to indicate considerable ability and a decent goal scoring record
However, from what little I’ve seen of him so far he doesn’t look like he’ll bust a gut to make himself a scoring sensation at the Boro, but I’ll be happy to be proved wrong.
A lot of really excellent posts above on the shambles of the January transfer window and the resulting hugely disruptive effect on the team. The quality of the debate on this blog is truly first class.
My question on the current position would be for Steve Gibson. I think most of us are eternally grateful to him for keeping our club afloat and for putting in the funds necessary to keep it so. I can see why he might want to encourage the trading of players to generate revenue that helps him in that endeavour. However, the repeated significant changes in playing resources each transfer window means that we don’t have a settled team for more than half a season. How Carrick or anyone else in the manager’s seat can create a strong, cohesive team with the ability to win promotion under those conditions is impossible to envisage.
So my question for the Chairman would be whether he can maybe substantially reduce the volume of the wheeling and dealing of players for a couple of seasons to give the manager a better chance of building a team capable of winning promotion. If not, then presumably he has ditched any ambition of being a Premier League club and settled for the Boro being a Championship club for the foreseeable future. I think the supporters who are the lifeblood of the club would like to understand the strategy so they know where the management is taking their club but, based on the absence of Chairman to fans communication in difficult times the past, it’s probably best not to hold our breath.
Busy at the moment, but just wanted to record my gratitude for the quality of the discussion following Werder and Selwyn's fantastic pieces which have moved the terms of the debate to a level way beyond that produced by local journalists. Hopefully they will catch up with us over the next few weeks
it may not be the last game ,! Remember the play offs and the final at Wembley !!
🤔.
OFB
Just read that passing out from the back article - I think like any tactic, if you do it the majority of the time it becomes a predictable one that the opposition have a plan to counter - plus just how many Championship defenders are comfortable passing accurately under pressure is perhaps more about ambition over ability to execute.
You often see Boro defenders forced into making a pass that just isn't there and even if it's made the next pass is even more difficult and then the next is often the last. I've even seen some Boro defenders just make the pass to get rid of the ball and it doesn't find a team-mate.
In the end it looks good if it works and looks terrible when it doesn't - especially if it leads to an error that costs a goal and becomes a self-inflicted error. Best to have options to go long or short or in the channels and players who can read the game and make decisions on the pitch rather than follow a script that the opposition has read in advance and then fluff your lines!
I'll be up for writing a preview for the final if we beat Coventry in the last game to qualify for the play-offs - otherwise it may be safer to give it to someone else 😉
@martin-bellamy - Thanks, Martin, for the link to the article in The Grauniad. I think the discussion about "possession football/playing it out from the back" has been had a number of times in various threads of this Blog. My own view is that (1) the possession stat can be meaningless** (2) playing the ball out from the back is great some of the time and if you have the players to do it and (3) it should have an element of flexibility so that where another option is the right one, that alternative option should be taken (eg don't attempt to pass to a colleague in your own 6 yard box if it is possible to boot the ball into Row Z, and if you have an attacking player in space 50 yards upfield going long to him might well be the correct option).
** According to the BBC Sport App, Boro had 58% possession against Watford yesterday.
As regards players and their abilities, it might be all fine and dandy for clubs like Liverpool, Manchester City and Real Madrid to play ticky-tacky football. Their players are some of the best in the world. They can pass more accurately and, when receiving a ball hit to them at pace, are better at getting that ball under control instantly than the sort of players available to clubs like Middlesbrough, let alone clubs in the 9th tier of English football. But even with really good players who can excel at possession football, there are times when the better decision in the situation would be to go long, or to clear the lines. Play the percentages!
It was always my view that football styles come and go. Empires are built but all empires eventually collapse and the same will happen in football (may already be happening in the case of Manchester's two major teams?). It would be vanity of an exteme kind for Pep Guardiola to think he has landed on the ultimate example of football's progress through the various style and tactics available to the sport and that this, in 2025, is the ultimate expression of football's skills and strategies. Imagine if you'd listened to the equivalent of football pundits in 1950 and believed that the "W-M" set up and dribbling would continue to rule supreme in the hotbed of soccer that Great Britain then represented! Imagine then watching Hungary ruthlessly dismantling England home AND away with a new set of tactics, admittedly with the benefit of a squad of very talented players. And imagine then being faced with the revolutionary "Total Football" of the 1970s exemplified by Holland and Ajax in particular.
There WILL be new tactics or a combination of tactics which will gain sway. It is inevitable. But I just wish that players in red & white were given permission to play within their capabilities. It would be stupid to ask me to take corners at speed in even my own car just because Formula One drivers could take those corners at 120+ mph. I'm just not a good enough driver to do it. I might get it right once or twice but I'd almost inevitably come a cropper before long. And so it is when we ask Boro players to play as though they were Champions League regulars.
I think the problem with Dyche began whilst he was playing for Chesterfield against Boro in the league cup semi final. He scored a penalty and his celebrations got up the noses of the travelling Boro fans. Boro eventually won with much controversy and Dyche fuelled the hatred with his vitriolic comments.
When Karanka came on board and Dyche was at Burnley he agin used to snip at the Boro and whilst it was probably gamesmanship he riled the Boro fans including me.
So the answer is I don’t like the man and never will and would not support him as Boro manager. Its also fair to say I hated Strachan and Wilder too !
I don’t suppose any of them will lose too much sleep over my dislike off them though ? 🤔
OFB
Perhaps he is a better player than we think. The article said he is quick, too.I wonder, when Iheanacho first started his career, whether one of his dreams was to play for Middlesbrough. I somehow doubt, when he helped Man City win the League Cup and then was part of Leicester’s FA cup winning team, that he’d see himself at the Riverside in 2024. He had been the most expensive Nigerian player 7 years ago when he signed for Leicester for £25m.
His Wikipedia page is really interesting and seems to indicate considerable ability and a decent goal scoring record
However, from what little I’ve seen of him so far he doesn’t look like he’ll bust a gut to make himself a scoring sensation at the Boro, but I’ll be happy to be proved wrong.
But we must also understand he might be rusty if he has not played much. As Latte Lath was injured and Conway was coming back from his injury, perhaps Carrick was forced to throw Iheanacho in to start so soon.
Pity that Forss is rusty, too. He was away injured for about ten months. So a lot of problems at centre forward. Hopefully we wil be better as a team soon. Up the Boro!
@boroexile. I agree there certainly needs to be some clarity around the operating model as I for one understood that it was designed to reduce the numbers generated via the loan market and high churn of players; clearly given what happened in January that has not been the case so far.
It has generated some good profits given sales of Rogers, Jones and LL which I applaud but as I questioned previously, is it capable of allowing us to build and sustain a team that is able to challenge for top six/promotion?
The trading of players in January should, however, not be allowed to overshadow the fact that the team has, by and large, underperformed for the majority of the season apart from a brief purple patch.
The biggest question is can MC, his colleagues and the players put it right and only time will tell; the next two games may go some way to answer that but I still believe that SG will not take any action this season and nor will he communicate the club’s strategy with the fans, as you suggest. 😎
....and, as to yesterday's game against Watford: I support the freedom of spectators to "BOOO!" if they feel the need to do it, although I refrained from joining in yesterday.** Before the game Maddo had told BBC Tees listeners that it was the duty of the players to give the supporters something to cheer about. The players didn't do that. We were told that previous games had been "Must Win" but now the club was in "Must, Must Win" territory. Well, the team again failed to win. So how many "Musts" should be applied to the next games? There were boos at half time but the boos at full time were louder and longer. You have to bear in mind that at half time many had already left for the concourse long before the ref blew his whistle. To be fair it was cold and miserable with a mist hanging in the air so that even a sparkling 45 minutes of football might have made thousands long for a hot drink/pie/chips. However I had to stand up several times towards the end of the half to allow supporters to get out early to go to the concourse and that probably started after about 32 minutes.
In the second half when it became increasingly obvious that an improvement in the on-field entertainment was unlikely (let alone a turn-around in the score) people again started to drift out in a manner that became more noticeable around the 75-80 minute mark. When the full time whistle was blown, it was only the die-hards left. For the boos to be so loud and prolonged when only the loyalists remained in their seat says a lot.
** The paying public must be entitled to show a measure of satisfaction (or non-satisfaction) with results. If the players or some of them are really on form, if the team does well and, after an exciting game, Boro wins the match, I guess the players would expect singing and cheers and a raucous atmosphere of joy. The other side of the coin is that if the performance is poor, if there are suggestions that not all the team is "up for the fight" or putting 100% in, or if the result is poor against the team which at that point had been bottom of the form-table in the whole division, you might expect some booing. Even more so if the result comes as the fourth consecutive defeat for a team which had been hoping to qualify for the Play-Offs. I suppose there remains the option of a deathly silence where the players leave the pitch as though they were leaving a library. And it would defeat common sense to have cheered the players off the pitch as though they had taken part in a magnificent rearguard action to secure a victory (or, these days, even rescued a point) against the odds. You pay your money and have your right to express your views even if I kept quiet after the final whistle.
It was a grim way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Maybe I should take a book with me next time so I have something to do if the game isn't even remotely entertaining, yet again. I haven't checked today's emails but up to yesterday I hadn't received a request to invest further monies for another season ticket. Call that bad timing, or what?
KP, I agree that the Chairman won’t share his strategy with the fans and it is a shame. Many well-regarded companies share their strategy and vision for the business with their stakeholders who are usually shareholders. With a football club I would suggest that the stakeholders are the fans because the club is nothing without them. So I am at a loss to understand why the Chairman seems so reluctant to say anything to the fans about his vision and goals for MFC.
@boroexile I’m conflicted on this one, particularly because (this Forum excepted) the standard of public discourse generally is dreadful.
I’m pretty sure that whatever SG put forward as his long term strategy, he’d be castigated because those plans didn’t dovetail exactly with fan's expectations. There’s be calls for him to invest more or, even more implausibly, for him sell up his ownership the club.
Whilst those of us on this most civilised of Forums might understand and accept the nuance of his plans, there’d be thousands who only saw the headlines and would condemn him for not delivering Champions League football in 12 months.
Im with you in this Martin as most blogs do not understand the sheer economics of running a major company and the problems which can beset an organisation whilst providing a public service.
One thing I’ll ad about Steve Gibson.
It was a couple of days after the infamous Barnsley v Boro match when a dreadful Boro performance had led to the calls from the Boro supporters who were there for Mowbrays resignation.
i was at a conference sitting next to Steve Gibson and of course our talk turned to football.
“I was at the Barnsley Game I said and was surprised to hear the Boro fans calling for Mogga’s sacking.”
Steve grinned at me and replied” I wasn’t, it was me leading the chants for his resignation!”
So don’t think that there isn’t a hint of steel in our chairman’s makeup for making difficult decisions!
OFB
@original-fat-bob You don’t succeed in business without making some difficult decisions. You can’t get them all right but in my experience, on balance, decisiveness is generally a virtue.
I dream of the day when Boro begins to share information with its customers, though. I don't expect a day-by-day running commentary as to progress from Steve Gibson. What is the point of a post-match interview with the manager?
I don't know whether someone has sponsored Michael Carrick for giving the most interviews without giving any information but, if that is the case, some charity is about to get a windfall.
I can't see what is to be gained by keeping your core customers, the ones who spend money with the club and who most want the club to succeed, in the dark. I suppose if your team was doing well, beating all and sundry in exciting games, the mere sound of your manager's voice would be like music. But when your team is in the depths of a slump (4 defeats in a row now) you really want to hear more than your manager playing a straight bat to every question. When did anyone go away after an interview genuinely having learned something?
It's not as if, in answering questions put by a journalist who also supports Boro, the manager is going to divulge information not known or not available to other teams in the league. The managers of those teams will have scouts/representatives watching Boro's game if we have a match coming up, and they will scrutinise the videos of recent games. They will know our weaknesses and issues. It's not as though opposing managers will be hanging on every word spoken by the manager to BBC Tees before the manager works out his team's strategy to play against Boro.
Players disappear for half of their contract after an apparently innocuous contact during a game (or worse, after a "knock during training") when "he'll be out for a few weeks" but these situations metamorphose into long-term absences. Why the reluctance to give out information to the supporters? This is a football club and the manager during interviews and Press Conferences is the main route to talk directly to the club's supporters. A football club, not a top secret nuclear establishment...!
@forever-dormo So true, mate. As much as I like Carrick, his pressers are quite boring. No news exept sometimes about injuries. But then "a few weeks".
I loved the pressers of Mogga as he at least told something interesting. At least gave his opinion. And Warnock was funny sometimes. Woody wasn't that bad either.
But Carrick is like a politician - talking but not saying anything really.
I would like to hear an interview with Gibson say two times a season. Up the Boro!
How about Warnock as a consult. Just for a couple of months along side the current coaching team. As a spirit and motivation coach?My view is that Carrick’s time is nearly up, unless Sir Steve can somehow find another Venables ‘father figure’ to help him negotiate the rest of the season, or unless Boro somehow get unexpected points at Bristol City and/or Stoke. The booing that greeted Boro at half-time today was repeated more vociferously and to a more sustained degree at full-time. The EG reports that the Boro bench was the target of some of it, which I didn’t see, but I did hear several players, bravely going round to applaud the fans, getting serious booing and catcalls. This definitely appeared aimed at individuals - Edmondson, for instance - as well as at the team as a whole. Fans had already greeted Ayling’s replacement by Dijksteel with huge cheers. The message was very clear and the atmosphere decidedly toxic. Contributors to Radio Tees after the game were unanimous in condemning our performance with a majority calling for the manager to go.
I think it will be very difficult for MC to turn this round and rebuild the players’ confidence, and even harder for Steve Gibson to ignore it, especially as early bird season cards are now on sale.
I get me coat now. Up the Boro!
I’d have Warnock back to support MC, Jarkko. He might even give some of the underperforming players the occasional boot up the behind (metaphorical or otherwise!) Purely for motivation, you understand!
....... My own view is that (1) the possession stat can be meaningless** (2) playing the ball out from the back is great some of the time and if you have the players to do it and (3) it should have an element of flexibility so that where another option is the right one, that alternative option should be taken (eg don't attempt to pass to a colleague in your own 6 yard box if it is possible to boot the ball into Row Z, and if you have an attacking player in space 50 yards upfield going long to him might well be the correct option).
....... There WILL be new tactics or a combination of tactics which will gain sway. It is inevitable. But I just wish that players in red & white were given permission to play within their capabilities. It would be stupid to ask me to take corners at speed in even my own car just because Formula One drivers could take those corners at 120+ mph. I'm just not a good enough driver to do it. I might get it right once or twice but I'd almost inevitably come a cropper before long. And so it is when we ask Boro players to play as though they were Champions League regulars.
Some very astute comments from @Forever Dormo.
I am actually in favour of retaining possession whenever possible but there has to be a recognition of a) the danger inherent in any particular situation and b) the overlap between the maneuver being planned and the player's ability to carry it out.
Pulling four or five opposing players towards the keeper/centre half should create space in interesting positions and then it's a factor of the coaching whether our men in possession continue to play through the opposition or go for the longer option.
However, for me, more problems are being created by bad decisions in open play and by this I mean in the area between the edge of our penalty area and the halfway line. It was striking when we were playing well that we recognised the pathways to strike forwards with speed. This is still a great option although the loss of form by Azaz is making things much harder. The problem is that too often players are trying to control the ball or make passes under great pressure and they are losing out, giving the opposition a dangerous attack against a stretched defence. The defence gets blamed for the goal that ensues but it is often not their fault.
I watched both Liverpool and Arsenal and it is clear that they have been drilled to recognise a dangerous situation in the defensive half and clear the ball up-field before resetting in an attempt to win it back. They are the best players in the country but even they have been drilled to recognise the risk/reward equation. At Boro's level it should be as simple as either make a pass/move that you are, say, 60-75% confident of pulling off or put some extra players between the ball and our goal and start again'.
This approach is even more important when things aren't going well. Losing the ball in the wrong place is our biggest crime and it has to be stopped.
UTB
I don't have anything original to add at this point. I'd just like to add my voice to the comments that the quality and considered nature of the discussion on this forum has been outstanding. It's when things are not going well that true quality rises to the surface, and that applies as much to this place as it does to our beloved football club.
“The theme all season has been lack of consistency, lack of resilience, and failure to capitalise. Losing as many as we have won shows lack of consistency.
13 times we have gone behind and not won (D3) shows lack of resilience.
8 times we have led and not won shows failure to capitalise.
Norwich (missed penalty to go 4-1 up) and throwing away a 3 goal lead against Sheff Wed were the biggest mess ups.
It's got even worse after the window in which we vowed to come out of stronger.
This season has gone from high expectation of promotion to apathy and scathing opinions regarding Carrick's future. What a sorry turn around it has become.”