I try not to "go for the man". I try not to let poor results get to me. But yesterday's collapse from 1-0 up (with a penalty to go further ahead - have you heard that before?) to lose 2-1 was grim even for a supporter used to being disappointed. How can the current form be corrected if Boro keeps on with the same plan? Sadly, experience tells me the same plan is likely. The same policies/tactics will end up with the same results.
Michael Carrick must know a lot more about football than I do. Even a cursory peek at his career stats show that he was winner of the FA Youth Cup and then the UEFA Intertoto Cup when at West Ham, and the deluge of honours won at Manchester United can hardly be believed. As a player there he won 5 Premier League winners' medals, an FA Cup, 3 League Cup winners' medals, 6 FA Community Shield medals, and the UEFA Champions' League, the UEFA Europa League and the FIFA Club World Cup all once each. He was on the Manchester United coaching staff under Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and even took over briefly in two stints at Manchester United as Caretaker Manager when Mourinho and then Solskjaer were sacked, before Ralf Rangnick took over the reins there.
Having played under Harry Redknapp as a young player at West Ham, Martin Jol at Spurs and then Sir Alex Ferguson, David Moyes and Jose Mourinho at Manchester United, it wouldn't have been possible for Carrick to have failed to learn nearly everything one could learn about the game at the top level. Wikipedia quotes Arsene Wenger as saying about Carrick in 2013: "He is a quality passer. He could play for Barcelona, he would be perfectly suited to their game. He has a good vision and is an intelligent player." That was during a discussion about whether Gareth Bale or Carrick should be the 2012-13 PFA Player of the Year (an award which was won by Bale).
I don't think it a cheap argument to point out that the comparison with the style of football for which Barcelona was rightly lauded goes right to the heart of Carrick's suitability as manager for Middlesbrough. The quick acccurate passing game for which Barcelona was famous bears very little resemblance to the type of football we can expect from Middlesbrough. The players Barcelona was able to field at that time were amongst the best that have ever graced the game. The Manchester United players, including Michael Carrick himself, weren't bad either (to put it mildly). How many of our current Boro players would come close to getting a place in those Barcelona and ManU teams?
You could no more expect Boro's current players safely and quickly to pass the ball out of tricky situations in defence and then to create havoc in the opponents' penalty area (in the way Barcelona or Manchester United players could) than you could expect a beach donkey at Redcar to win The Derby. How many times would Michael Carrick have played with players similar in ability to those in the current Boro squad? He'd be wondering if some of them were actually professional footballers, so little did their skills match up to Carrick's or the skills of Carrick's ManU team mates. Horses for courses - you can't expect our Boro players to pass quickly and accurately time after time, making only very occasional mistakes, whilst being under pressure from opposing players closing them down. The current Boro players, bless them, are just NOT AS GOOD as Barcelona players or Manchester United players, so it may not be sensible to ask them to play a similar style of the passing game.
I suspect the way forward is to look at the players in your squad. Assess their individual strengths. Play to those strengths not the strengths you'd like them to have. Work out how to minimise the importance of the players' weaknesses. Try to organise the players in a team, using tactics that best suit the players. Try to make the team stronger than the players as individuals. Obviously if Boro had a Xavi, an Iniesta and a Messi (or even someone on the same football planet as them), intricate passing and dribbles would be wonderful to watch as the team ripped apart its Championship opponents. Or if the team had Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick himself (amongst others) it would be able to play the sort of football that it seems is expected of the current Boro team.
It should be obvious that the Boro squad isn't capable of playing the way Michael Carrick would prefer. This isn't a recent revelation but has been apparent for some time. The error is not to have realised this a LONG time ago and therefore changed the way the team is expected to perform. Boro should be attempting to play according to the ability of its squad members rather than to the abilities that in our fantasies (or those of the Manager) we dream they should have. The Championship is not a Fantasy League.
Just seen on BBC Mogga sacked by West Brom
And now the Canaries have sacked Johannes Hoff Thorup! Jack Wilshere will be in charge for their final two games...
@forever-dormo I definitely accept all that you’re saying. I wonder if, when SG gave MC the manager’s job, there was an agreement that MC could play his style of football. It may be that MC insisted on it, if he was to accept the position. If that was the case then recruitment has been the problem.
I agree with earlier comments that, had Doak stayed fit, had ELL stayed (but with the caveat that he would have had to want to stay) and had all of our defence avoided injury, then I think we’d be comfortably in the top 6 now. Those things didn’t happen, our new forward has looked unsuitable for the Chanpionship and, for me, a lot of the team look like they’re running in empty, so I’m of the opinion that we’re doing well to still be in with a shout of promotion.
I’d like to see us stick rather than twist for next season.
@forever-dormo. One of the first things I was taught when becoming a manager was that all good managers play to their strengths and minimise their weaknesses.
Good people management consists of producing above average results with scarce resources; in footballing terms I would equate this to producing close to PL performances/results with Championship players.
Not easy I accept but something to aspire to. Sadly MC and his players are nowhere near. 😎
@martin-bellamy - I understand that view. It really IS remarkable that Boro could still, even at this stage and after all we've seen so far this season, qualify for the Play-Offs. We have a small number of decent teams at the top (but we'll have a look at HOW decent this time next year when their Premier League season approaches its close - they may, after all, "do a Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton") but maybe the rest of The Championship consists of very average teams. Good for competitiveness, if not for quality.
For all the talk of Burnley "boring their way to the Premier League" - it's probably worth noting that they've only scored 3 goals fewer than Boro this season but Carrick's team have conceded 39 more goals.
Werder, their low goals against tally is probably because they have a “they shall not score” attitude and a defensive coach who knows what he is doing. Wish we had one of those.
to be fair, I think we have those when all fit. They are simply not well drilled defensively and appear coached into playing too risky football when some commen sense clearing the lines is called for. .@boroexile. And some players who know how to defend! 😎
Hi Diasborians
Hi home now
Surgeons found a blocked main artery which they are reluctant to operate on due to location of blockage. Can’t bypass or stent. Doubled up on medication to widen other arteries to compensate and seeing consultant to discuss shortly.
Many thanks for all those kind words and messages it’s really appreciated,
OFB
@original-fat-bob Fingers crossed for a positive prognosis. Keep smiling.
I remember when big Jack Charlton took over as manager of the Boro. He famously said there are some good players, average players and some bad players here !
Jack them played to their strengths, he signed Alan Foggon and Bobby Murdoch so he had a player with vision and a player with pace who was once the English schoolboy 100m champion and devised tactics to suit them. A ball over the top from Murdoch for Foggon to run onto and beat the offside trap and job sorted!
The icing on the cake though was when he discovered that within the squad was Graeme Souness, a lad who was homesick at Spurs and signed by Harold Shepherson. Harold was alerted to his unhappiness at spurs at an England get together by Martin Peters. Shep convinced Souness that Boro was only an hour away from Scotland and the rest is history!
So the point of that blast from the past is …. MC is not stupid. Why doesn’t he play to the strengths of the squad and not try and get them to do things they are not capable of ?
I knew when we missed the penalty it was only going to end one way and I was right! I suppose we all feared the worst.
OFB
@original-fat-bob. Glad your home OFB and hope your discussions with the consultant comes up with a plan B. 😎😉
@original-fat-bob - Best news of the week, Bob, that you are back home and that the blockage has been identified. You've got work out what the problem is before you can have it solved! Fingers crossed for the longer term.
Glad you are back at home Bob and that the blockage has been located. Now the medics know what they are dealing with they can work out the best treatment. Keep positive and definitely don't let this Boro get you down.
Yes, really good to hear from you, Bob. I hope the new medication works and that the doctors soon sort you out properly.
There’s a very well written article from Louise Taylor in today’s Guardian, about Leeds, their manager and the future. It makes interesting reading.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/apr/22/leeds-are-back-among-the-elite-but-the-real-task-for-farke-is-to-keep-them-there?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
OFB, great to hear you are back home even if there is still some unfinished business for you. Stay positive and get that Oracle's cave dusted and ready for the last two predictions.
Stay well OFB and keep us posted on how it all goes.
Look after yourself.
ATB,
UTB,
John
Great to hear that you are back home, Bob. Hope the new strategy works out well for you. It's good to have you back on the blog
it’s good to hear that things are moving forward. As everyone has said, identifying the problem is the key to finding a solution.
Boro’s results are so crazy that it’s probably time for all of us to just sit back and laugh. From the moment that the penalty was give (2-0 here we come) to the actual outcome is so ‘typical Boro’ that we can’t be surprised. I actually think that we might squeeze through to the playoffs by knocking out Coventry but we’ll have to see.
all the very best
UTB and UOFB
Glad to hear you're home safely and at least your doctors now have the full picture and sounds like the options are down to medication, suitable diet and some kind of exercise regime. Hopefully you'll feel some improvement over time as everything kicks in but in the meantime take the opportunity to relax and take it easy and of course follow doctors orders.
41% of our goals conceded have come in the last 20 minutes of games. That is bad game management, lack of leadership, poor substitutions, not reacting to opponents' strategic approach or all the above.
OFB
Welcome home OFB, I hope everything they have discovered can be resolved.
Come on BORO.