A bad day at the office, me thinks.
Latte Lath was not up to his normal high level, he played like an injured version of himself with his first touch often bad. Mind, normally that is his best attribute. He improved a bit in the second half.
Again, we saw that Conway (or Connolly to some) is not a number 10. I even think Gilbert was better overall even he was on for about 15 minutes only. Actually, it was.great to see Alex fit again.
Blackburn defended very well, most of the time it was very crowded on the field like they had two players more than us. There were no spaces to get forward for us.
Likewise, we could not find Ben Doak often enough. He got the ball very seldomly, and he didn't find space to attack his defender or two, when he had the ball.
I think we missed McGree, when he went out injured. I hope it is just a dead leg, but it looked a muscle injuri to his front thigh, though. Fingers crossed, it will not be long term.
I think Hamilton was decent. He is a very raw and young boy, though. He did not make any mistakes and was just bang average, like the rest of the team, really. He is behind Burgzorg and McGree in the pecking order, a bit like Alex Gilbert was when first joining the club. Hopefully his turn will come and he might be a useful player in the future.
We played much better in the second half and until their goal, Blacburn were not able to cross the half way line. They needed to play really deep in the second half and never deserved to score. Unfortunately, they got one goal which looked like offside (mind, it looked like a world class built-up to the goal). Both Maddo on BoroLive (via Radio Tees) and Carrick were fuming it was offside. I can agree.
Neither team deserved to win the game. It should have been a draw. So points lost.
We lost ground to the top two spots, but there is plenty of season left. Let's hope we will play better on Saturday. Up the Boro!
@jarkko That is the trouble - football is no fun unless the other team turn up. Yet when they do - and compete and score a goal - we are downcast. Football fans are truly fickle creatures!
On the plus side, last night was quite a timely result for putting paid to any rumours of Carrick to West Ham or Leicester!
If Saturday was a pinch me I'm dreaming last night I awoke to the nightmare reality. Team play low block against us and all we do is pass it sideways while they wait to score and then it's game over. All very frustrating. I have a couple of questions
1: is Riley Magree made from glass
2: Micah Hamilton can he play football
Without our full squad I don't see how we make playoffs and top two forget it we concede too many goals and any semi reasonable team can nulify us.
Just shows football is all about opinions, I thought Hamilton was slow, just strolled around and somebody behind me said he looked like he enjoys a Parmo, Doak is young but he appears to have a totally different attitude. I suppose that's why he is a Liverpool player and Hamilton isn't.
@paulinboro 1. Yes, Riley has had his fair share of injuries in a year. And got a dead leg in his collision yesterday (where he was yellow carded). Carrick confirmed, taht it was "just" a dead leg, but Riley could not run it off - he tried. So not made of glass.
2. Micah was not exceptional, but no worse than Conway, for example. Work in progress and the third choice behind McGree and Burgzorg on the left side. Give him time, let's discuss more in the Sping time. One for the future, but was forced to play most of the match.
The lost was hard to take, especially so after a goal scored from an off-side position by Blackburn.
But let's be positive, it was just one defeat after three wins and 15 goals in them. We are still sixth in the league, and more than half of the season still to be played. Let's trust Carrick a bit longer than four days after a 6-2 win away from home. That result at Oxford happens once in a life time for any supporter.
Up the Boro!
I can't say that last night's result was entirely surprising, just another "Typical Boro" performance not helped by illness/injury to key players and a failure by the linesman to spot the offside.
I posted previously that at last we had shown we were capable of putting teams who were lower in the league to the sword but needed to show that we were capable of beating teams above and around us, if necessary grinding out results; sadly we failed at the first hurdle against a team who appear to have a hex over us for years.
John Eustace had clearly done his homework, Blackburn came out and went toe to toe with us in the first half and probably shaded the half. In the second half they sat back and were well organised, they conceded possession with the intention of hitting us on the break as teams before have done and were eventually rewarded, if somewhat fortuitously.
Sadly we appeared more akin to the team that played against Bristol City and Coventry, ponderous in thought and deed, coupled with failure to take our chances.
I was disappointed by Hamilton, he offered very little and in my view failed to grasp his opportunity. Conway offered very little and both he and Lathe Lathe did not seem the same players without the support of Azaz. Barlaser seemed to revert to type after his recent promising performances, with misplaced passes and at times, dwelling on the ball too long.
Substitutions were far too late, as usual, and again there was no thought of changing the game plan to stop playing into the opposition hands. In my view, it's no good sticking to the process when it is clearly not working.
We can but hope that the illness and injuries clear up quickly and that Boro can redeem themselves on Saturday, before sterner tests to come in December. 😎
Doak is a brilliant asset but if he’s the entire focus of our attack then it’s relatively easy for teams to double up on him. We offer very little from the left hand side and I’d agree with other posters in saying that Hamilton looks ponderous and devoid of very many ideas.
Blackburn had a game plan and stuck to it. I do think their goal was clearly offside so 0-0 would probably have been a fair result but we need to vary things up against the better teams if we’re going to stay in the play off positions. We’re nowhere near ready for Premier League football but I’d enjoy the excitement of the play offs.
Just returned from a routine hospital visit and all is Ok but on the topic of last nights game I did warn everyone about the return of the 'other Boro', known as 'Typical Boro' and sure enough they appeared.
Still Saturday next and we move on.
Now I'm going to watch the, er, highlights again.
UTB,
John
@john-richardson You are right ; only a few days to the next game. One of the reasons I like the Championship, we move on quickly after setbacks.
In contrast The Ashes is deeply frustrating.
Chris
When I posted earlier on this thread I said I wouldn't give a prediction as to the result, but I would come back later, nearer to the game, for that. In fact I had other things to do and didn't come back with a prediction. It's probably a good job I didn't come back to it. The performance wasn't great. Without Hackney and particularly without Azaz available, and realising that there would be a lack of creativity in the team, I was delighted that McGree was able to start the game. Sadly he didn't last long before being retired due to injury (hopefully not at all serious). In that event Boro would rely even more heavily on Doak.
Unfortunately in the first half Doak was starved of the ball. At least three attempted passes to Doak in the first half were massively overhit so that even Linford Christie wouldn't have reached them (all went over the touchline). Doak did get SOME touches and ran at the doubled-up defenders. But the first half was Blackburn's even though it ended goal-less (I have no idea how it was possible for Blackburn to miss a header from 3 yards!). The second half was an improvement from Boro's point of view but it was very hospitable of Boro to allow Pears to go untested (in terms of shots or headers on target) until late in the game. When Blackburn scored from a breakaway attack (having had a goal disallowed not long previously), there was no great surprise. Boro huffed and puffed and, with some good fortune, might have scored. And it's right that the Blackburn goal that WAS allowed is shown by screenshots to have been well offside.
The reality is that Boro didn't deserve to win the game. It would have been very helpful if Boro had scored a goal to get a draw or if Blackburn's winning goal had been disallowed. However it wasn't a great performance by Boro. As drab as the weather.
Some people in the West Stand and maye elsewhere booed at the end of the game. Whilst accepting that people who pay to watch a match are allowed to boo, just as they are allowed to cheer loudly and applaud if the team does well, I thought it inappropriate for people to boo after ONE poor performance immediately following three goal-happy and successful performances. I can accept that if Boro had LOST successive games 1-4, 1-5, 2-6 and 2-0 (rather than having won the first three games, reversing the scores there) booing would have been almost inevitable. But since there had been one less-than exalted performance after 3 good ones, booing seemed a little "excessive".
Having said which, the evening was not what I'd hoped for. I hope that Azaz, Hackney and McGree will be fit to play against Hull because, after yesterday's defeat by Blackburn three points against Hull assume a greater importance for our season. My fingers will be crossed hard.
Good to hear your news on the health front, but with regard to your watching the highlights: that won't take longJust returned from a routine hospital visit and all is Ok but on the topic of last nights game I did warn everyone about the return of the 'other Boro', known as 'Typical Boro' and sure enough they appeared.
Still Saturday next and we move on.
Now I'm going to watch the, er, highlights again.
UTB,
John
@john-richardson. Pleased to hear your good news on the health front.
I would, however, caution you on watching the highlights (if you can call them that) lest you suffer a relapse! 😂😎
So what went wrong?
You can say with some justification, as Boroexile and John have done that it's the age-old problem of Typical Boro.
But teams failing to find the net after scoring a bagful of goals in their previous game is definitely a thing in football. It gives rise to a familiar lament " If only we could borrow a goal or two from our previous match / Share the goals around" etc
I'm not too impressed by the argument that we were missing our best players, even though it is true. One of our strengths is supposed to be the depth of our squad and the coverage we have for every position. The consensus before the game last night was that we were putting out a strong team in spite of the absences, yet we failed to produce a strong performance.
Nor do I think that the injury to McGree was necessarily a defining moment. Riley has had an unsettled season so far and he hardly looked on top of his game up to his injury. Indeed it was his unsure touch in what was not a tight situation that lead to his injury.
I'm a great admirer of Jonny Howson. He was my player of the year last season when, in spite of his veteran status, he played more games that anyone else, and whenever absent was always a significant loss.
But an injury and Morris's form has meant that he hasn't played many games so far this term and cannot really be match fit, so that two games in five days was always going to be a stretch. And so it proved. Jonny showed all of his nous in using his head to save his legs, but was too rarely able to drive forward from midfield.
I thought Barlaser played well in taking the ball from deep positions and spreading the play with some accuracy. But he is a ball passer rather than carrier and so we had no one who was able to drive forward from midfield with the same kind of commitment we have seen from both Hackney and Morris.
The under par performances from both Hamilton and Conway were of some significance. These were the two players that Kieron Scott had in mind when he made the extraordinary statement that players whom the recruitment department had spent up to two years working to secure should be selected to play rather than being on the bench until they had been brought up to speed.
It was a foolish sentiment, a case of the tail expecting to wag the dog, and a significant attempt to undermine Carrick and Woodgate's authority. It provoked a rueful response from Carrick that he was evidently just a lowly link in the club's chain of authority ("The final link in a chain of understanding"), but it must have been a moment more unsettling to the squad than any number of international breaks, and it showed in some of the early season performances.
Jones in particular has been a victim of these manoeuvres. It is generally thought that his demotion ( he was fourth in the pecking order of Boro's wide men last night behind Doak, Hamilton and Forss) has been owing to his lack of form and confidence.
The opposite is true. Via an unattributed briefing in the run-up to the transfer deadline, Craig Johns revealed, alongside all too accurate details of the club's desire to offload Coburn, by either selling or loaning him to Millwall, that Hamilton had been signed as an upgrade on Jones, whom the club would be looking to move on.
The late signing and early form of Doak produced the headline, "Doak serves notice to Isaiah Jones", which was not only unnecessarily confrontational (The signing of Edmundson wasn't signalled as "serving notice" on Dael Fry), but excluded Hamilton from the process of being served notice, and overlooked the fact that for all his undoubted brilliance Doak is a Liverpool player who will be gone at the end of the season, whereas Jones, one of our own, might well still be here.
What is clear is that on last night's form neither Conway nor Hamilton deserve to be selected again in the positions in which they played. It's no insult to Jones to say that he doesn't possess Doak's quality (Who does?). But he will surely offer more than the pathetic pickings the team has provided from the left flank all season.
The politics of the selection process will be interesting to observe over the next few weeks
Well written about the Blackburn performance, Len. Excellent.
And you are right about the left side, too. But Burgzorg has played quite well on that side very recently, and I think our best player generally is McGree. Of course these two players were missing versus Blackburn.
Did you mean you would have prefered Jones over Hamilton on the left? I cannot remember Jones playing there many times if ever. So a touch desision for Carrick to call, me thinks.
I think there is always one or two signings that does not work, like Hoppe. About Hamilton, we cannot say yet. Before arriving, he had started only one senior match, and coming off the bench three times. All at our feeder club (Morgan) Manchester City. He has never been on loan to a lower league club, so I agree with Teesside Live, that a loan to another Championship club - or even the third tier - could help his development. He needs to play at the adult level next.
Up the Boro!
A good debriefing of the Blackburn game Len and I'd agree there was more to the disappointing performance than just missing Azaz and a couple of others - what seems to happen with Boro is often our two central defenders end up being default playmakers when we don't have midfielders who can hold the ball in tight areas or break the lines. Unfortunately, Clarke has looked less sure carrying the ball in recent weeks - though his options on the left are somewhat limited. I thought Edmundson played out of defence much better and even went on a few probing runs and distributed the ball fairly well.
I've been an advocate for Jones on the left in the past as Hamilton I believe is also right-footed so he's also playing as an inverted winger. Odd that Jones has been overlooked behind Hamilton given the summer signing has been billed as something of a project, whereas Jones is a seasoned Championship performer - though he's been below his best for some months now but there's no way he'll now ever get picked ahead of Doak.
My other pondering was that I'd prefer Ayling at left-back and Dijksteel at right-back rather than one of them missing out to Borges - who has proved to be an average signing that doesn't offer anything dangerous going forward and indeed appears to prefer a safe backwards pass once he crosses the halfway line.