Let’s see if the American left wing-back comes off - last time I heard they were talking up his price to $8-9m rather than the $3m we offered - don’t think Boro will move much higher given in theory we have 3-4 options in that position (Silvera, Bangura, Borges & McCormick).
Though I’d agree that there was far less backward passing than we saw under Carrick.
As someone who neither saw the game nor listened to it on radio, I’ve been really enjoying - and appreciating - your ‘reports’ on the Millwall game and your excellent analysis of it. These have been so good they sound as if you were actually there in the flesh. I do hope so - that would mean you are well on the way to a full recovery after your recent lengthy hospitalisation.
I have two further comments to make about the Millwall win:
1) Boro looked good on the highlights. We may have faced a torrid opening 20 minutes, but there’s a clip in the second half which shows several players really getting stuck into Millwall, fighting like lions (sorry) for the ball and preventing the home side from clearing their lines. It ended with a crisp shot from Whittaker. I hope this and the clean sheet suggest that our former soft underbelly has been addressed. Defensively, we look much more solid so far, at least in the league.
2) Conversation with the Millwall manager:
Interviewer: So, Mr Neill, how do you like your grapes ?
Alex Neill: Oh, sour, laddie, very, very sour.
Thanks for your kind words and concern, Clive. I greatly appreciate them. I'm not yet able to get to games but I manage to access a good stream of Boro games thanks to the expertise of my great nephew. I used to lap up fans' reactions on this blog, since the Gazette's live reports were singularly useless, so I'm pleased you found my bits and pieces of interest.
@lenmasterman "singularly useless"; perhaps not diplomatic Len but difficult to dispute!
I thought I was being diplomatic. I never look at it now, because the 'service' used to run to a sentence every five minutes or so. The BBC's service is even worse.
We may be overlooking the obvious change which turns Carrickball into Edwards (and others) ball.
Playing a back three gives much more solidity in the middle and so we are less vulnerable to counterattacks. This also frees up Haden and Aidan to push forward as needed and the wingbacks are also free to get forward and, even though we might not yet have exactly the right personnel, playing a back three in the Championship could simply be a better option to ensure that we ship fewer goals.
We have at least six senior players - Fry, Jones, Edmundson, Ayling Borges and Lenihan - to fill the three positions and so this area is pretty well covered.
UTB