Thanks for the opener Andy R, two weeks on Monday (15th) is when the window officially opens, the fixture list is released on the 25th also. As far as comings and going’s, I haven’t a clue, we all have our wish list some of which will be unobtainable and there will be the odd shock/surprise also there is the new financial rules to be careful of, it makes sense to cut the higher wages off the bill.

I will leave it to the knowledgeable members of the recruitment department to make the correct decisions, although if there is a rumour from a reliable source I will pass it on.

Come on BORO.

Thanks for the new thread Andy. 

Yes, you are correct, best to put last season behind us and move on. Every time I see the stats it depresses me. It is hard to believe, but not unexpected that a poor Hull could beat us. 

However, one has to say, they won because they were better than us.

Thanks Andy for an excellent piece.

You have passed the interview for me, so move over KS and let you get on with the recruitment in line with your wish list which, I agree, covers all the bases. 😎

Thanks for the new topic, Andy. It’ll be very interesting to see things develop. 

Meanwhile, I’ve got another game to watch from Wembley tomorrow, with Wigan Warriors taking on Hull KR in the RL Challenge cup final. Surely my other team won’t disappoint me, although I fear that another Hull based team may ruin another Saturday in Bellamy Towers. 

I know it’s not Boro, but Liverpool sack Slot 😱.

Come on BORO.

Just read piece by Dominic Shaw in the NE about our season, start to finish.

Also when he got to the January window and the need for an additional striker, Armstrong was of course mentioned and then this guy. Not prolific though, which was what we needed.

He is usually on the ball. Just for interest.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/ransford-konigsdorffer/profil/spieler/470038

@pedro 

Wikipedia lists him as right winger. Maybe that explains why the goals tally isn’t particularly eye catching.

@andy-r. Well it does not matter now, apparently he has signed for Mainz on a free transfer.

Kante's  Sainte Etienne lose to Nice in the play offs. So that looks like another player with 4 years left on his contract to decide what to do with.

@pedro Naturally he could turn out to become a decent player. He is young and needs time to settle in England. We haven't seen enough of him to judge yet.

Up the Boro!

Posted by: @jarkko

↑

@pedro Naturally he could turn out to become a decent player. He is young and needs time to settle in England. We haven't seen enough of him to judge yet.

Up the Boro!

He looks like our only genuine potential cover for Morris as a ball winner. I hope that he comes back and gives it a go at Boro.

I wonder if Bournemouth would give us Ben Doak on a years loan, assuming that he has recovered from injury.

UTB

@selwynoz 

He played the first half for Scotland on Saturday against Curacao, so looks like he might be over his injury. He only appeared in 8 games last season. K Looks like he is quite injury prone. Sontje Hansen was on the bench and did not get on. Curacao only used 4 subs whilst Scotland used 9, as it was a friendly.

Thanks for the opener,Andy. Excellent, as ever.

Interesting that Slot was the fall guy for the fact that Liverpool spent £450m last season and finished up with a worse team. As with Hellberg, Slot was only the head coach and not the manager like Klopp. He wasn't responsible for transfers but only consulted on them. Meanwhile Michael Edwards, the Chief Executive and Richard Hughes, Sporting Director, both responsible for recruitment escaped unscathed.

@mw-in-darwin If Hansen can’t get into the Curaçao team then I’m not sure he’s the answer to our forward issues.

@martin-bellamy   Yes we appear to have a bloated squad of forward players that are not going to solve our issues in that area and unloading them could be quite difficult given their remaining contract lengths.

Kante did look as though he had something to offer, raw, but someone to develop. He has four years left on his contract.

It would be interesting to know exactly what would be Hellberg’s preferred system/lineup and importantly what type of number 9 he would really like.

Jarrko mention sometime back, that in Sweden his team did not have a player up front that scored a lot of goals. Did they share them around or not score many and won 1 nil quite often.

It will be also interesting to what players Hellberg gets, depending on who we have to sell/possibly want to leave,  or receive an offer too good to turn down.

@lenmasterman 

Yes, nowadays the Head Coach is often accountable even if he is not responsible.

Slot was significantly hampered by Alexander Isak’s non-season despite the £120m outlay, with back-up striker Hugo Ekitike also having regular injury problems.

However, I’m sure Liverpool fans will wonder why he got so little out of Salah this season and, more worrying, why they were so comparatively poor off the ball throughout.

Iraola makes sense as the perfect replacement from a stylistic point of view with his Bournemouth side being an all action, high tempo team more in the Klopp mould. They have consistently been the best pressers in the country during Iraola’s time.

The problem will be maintaining that tempo across multiple extra competitions/games.

Which brings it all back to recruitment and finding players who can handle 50+ games at a flat out pace, or big enough squad to cope.

So much of footballing success is rooted in recruitment.

Posted by: @pedro

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Jarrko mention sometime back, that in Sweden his team did not have a player up front that scored a lot of goals. Did they share them around or not score many and won 1 nil quite often.

Also, Hellberg did mention that he do not think about formats (what positions the players are in) but the attacking attitude of his players. And they can and must change places constantly. I think this adaptation needs time, so a close season under Hellberg could be helpfull as well having most of the players already knowing his preferances. 

But of course some tweaks are needed in attack. But next season could be an improvement over last season - except if Hackney is to leave and not replaced.

Up the Boro!

@andy-r.     Which brings it all back to recruitment and finding players who can handle 50+ games at a flat out pace, or big enough squad to cope.

I think it is almost impossible for any players to compete 100% over a whole season, especially when International breaks and the 3 games in 8 days kick in. Some manage more than others and then we have the less physical ones and those that are injury prone like Riley McGree or Dael Fry.

Whilst the Championship teams don’t have Europe to worry about, they do start with 8 games more from the off. If you don’t have a squad with quality in depth, you are liable to fail.

It was interesting to read MW’s (I think) where he hightailed Coventry and Ipswich players Clarke and Wright. Ever present more or less, but not often 90 minutes.

For those that want a heads up on when to book their holidays to coincide with the International Breaks.   😎😎

Also the new Financial Rule for wages etc at 85% of income/turnover

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/scr-financial-regulations-big-changes-34034921

Under Carrick then Hellberg the obvious elephant in the room, was the lack of players who could handle  what's required at this level,and that is the bench, hardly used and we now see why.

Maybe this should be the focus , we have enough youngsters , I think it's time to look at players who can compete to start.

In a competitive environment the  you need like for like not potential, I also think we need leadership, more in the dressing room, might not start but understands ,I might think of someone like Ben Gibson back , to really push the rest.

I'm sure many names will be thrown out , non we know, but we're close and I think four or five strong players in and probably alot more out

Hello everyone.

Back with a couple of insights for you to think about...

THE NUMBERS GAME

I did a lot of reading and researching on Saturday afternoon, and went a step further towards understanding the extreme frustration over our January transfer window activity, or lack of it. 

For starters, this wasn't the first "poor or underwhelming January" of recent times. 2023 had seen us bring in Cameron Archer and Aaron Ramsey, scorers of sixteen goals between them, to nearly get us over the line, and 2024 had seen the arrival of Finn Azaz - four goals near the end of that season, twelve the next. But you could argue that, even in '24, perhaps not enough was done to counter the loss of Matt Crooks and the possibly earlier-than-expected exit of Morgan Rogers, particularly with Emmanuel Latte Lath not hitting a properly consistent scoring streak until March.

2025 was a tough one. I read that Isaiah Jones had struggled on and off the pitch and therefore a move away felt like the right one, but - stop me if you've heard this before - it left us ill-prepared were Ben Doak to get injured. That he did, and on top of that, Latte Lath was sold. Kelechi Iheanacho and Samuel Iling-Junior did not inspire, and Morgan Whittaker wasn't fully ready to.

By the time 2026 came around, well... what happened? It is possible that, with the summer 2025 signings of David Strelec, Kaly Sene and Sontje Hansen to complement Whittaker, the club might have thought there was no need to bolster the attack with experience. Yet Sene and Hansen have felt mostly frozen out in the Kim Hellberg era. Delano Burgzorg had his limitations, but he was still a useful player who was integrated into our way of playing, not unlike I. Jones was. It's probable that Burgzorg was loaned out before Jeremy Sarmiento was fully up to speed - I recall reading that Sarmiento hadn't started a match for nearly a year.

So basically, Hellberg was primarily dependent on the following players - Sol Brynn, Adilson Malanda, Dael Fry, Luke Ayling, Callum Brittain, Matt Targett, Hayden Hackney, Aidan Morris, Riley McGree, Tommy Conway, Morgan Whittaker, David Strelec and Alan Browne.

That's a total of thirteen players.

Yes, we got horribly unlucky with the loss of Hackney, Conway, Whittaker and Alfie Jones. But we should have been prepared. Such dependence on a small group of players clearly burned them out to the point where you could see we'd little or nothing in the tank after that glorious first half against Southampton.

It is definitely a numbers game, in so many ways.

SCOTT OR NOT?

I've been mulling over the various views on our Head Of Football and... I think Len made brilliant points in highlighting the absence of "reliable performers" in our squad, and also the flaws in the strategy of signing "undiscovered gems" as a means of getting you out of the Championship. 

It's also been said that the trouble with buying young players with potential, then later selling them on at a good price if they develop well, is that it's likely to keep a club stuck in the second tier. There was a hope, in January, for reinforcements who could make an instant impact, and we didn't get that from Finley Munroe, Leo Castledine and Sarmiento. They all looked like players who needed the right players around them to properly thrive, rather than individuals who could inspire on their own. On the other hand, the goals were flowing throughout the team back then, and many - me included, I'll admit - didn't want the bubble burst, understandably. Coventry did that for us and we never really recovered, did we?

On the other hand - as Jarkko has pointed out, and pointed out well - we have a structure. We have a plan in place. A plan of stability. A plan where finances are not overextended, as they were frequently in the Bryan Robson and Steve McClaren years. And one can suggest that Chris Wilder and Rob Edwards having their heads turned wasn't part of the plan, and that, rather than dwell on the after effects, our hierarchy moved to bring in Michael Carrick and Hellberg, respectively. (With likeable caretakers in Leo Percovich and later Adi Viveash.) That is indisputably laudable.

@simonfallaha 

Brilliant, I concur fully

@simonfallaha I second to that. 

As January window is near impossible to buy a decent and proven striker, we must buy one to create competirion for Strelec in the summer. That must be a priority.

Then a right back. 

Hackney is an article of its own.

Up the Boro!

Feels like Southampton actually got off lightly

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cd7pqgxvy0po

And they are still questioning the partiality of the commission rather than humbly accepting their culpability

@eboroacum yes it does. You have to hope that mulriple other cases will come to light in the FA's investigation and then the EFL can issue new charges ans a new panel that will then send a mwssage by expelling them from the football league ar at least the bottom of league 2.

@powmillnaemore I couldn’t agree more. This is a terrible indictment of the culture at Southampton - to have the gall to cast aspersions on the integrity of the panel, given Saints lack of honesty in their initial evidence is frankly staggering. 

They’ve definitely got off lightly. 

@Eboroacum

Southampton owner Dragan Solak says he will not sack Tonda Eckert, despite the "mistake" the head coach made when authorising a spying campaign against rival Championship clubs.

"I think he deserves a second chance and I would give it to him," the Serb businessman told BBC Sport in an exclusive interview.

"My full support would be behind him actually, because I think he's a super-talented manager."

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cq6pn58pmn4o

Dear me. Not nice. Up the Boro! 

Boro versus Southampton will be an interesting match next season to say the least ....

Up the Boro! 

I have been watching the explanation/excuse from the Southampton manager and gave up part way through as I was disgusted as it was not a heartfelt apology just a litany of excuses; the apology to the teams affected  came across as something in passing.

Unfortunately it seems to be more and more prevalent these days that  perpetrators try and turn themselves into the victim.

I hope the FA do the right thing and ban him because clearly Southampton are not going to sack him.  

A club that appears to have learnt little and is devoid of integrity. 😎