Thanks John and it’s nice to be in contact with Werder again.
A few people have said my leader posts are bit pithy as well. I think that’s what they said!
OFB
Everything you say about the type of striker is right, but I would be very careful about paying money on the grounds that you will sort him out. Why should you take such a chance with your money. You should sign nobody except those Young players who have exited you in an actual game. There were enough warning signs about Britt to equip a motorway repair gang, and a big fee. Short, didn't mix it, loved the near post, wanted to play holdup, could not play hold up, hated the ball in the air, with Good reason, believed that if he could get about 12 goals a season, that would do, that included penalties, which (apparently) every club averages 10 a season. That scheme collapsed for reasons which we need not go into here. So the pitfalls are many, largely because of the money, which brings us to the Young unknowns, the Good scouts, the quick action, and still you get lucky and get Wing for nothing, he scores goals, is good at dead ball situations (what are those things?) good in the box, very Good at penalties (what made me say that?) result zilch, so you still need a brain to sign Good players.
I’m not saying that we should sign Diedhiou, just that basing your signings on their stats at other clubs isn’t the best way to go about it. We’ve seen that ourselves with Britt for instance and I’ve no doubt that Neil Warnock would never have forked out £15m for him were he in charge at the time.
On Wing, what a player we could have on our hands if he had the sort of turnaround we’ve seen from Bola, Djiksteel and McNair. Unfortunately, it seems to have gone more the way of Hayden Coulson for him.
Wing needs a big pre-season for us to convince Warnock. I do like thought of a midfield three of Morsy, Tavernier and Wing if all in form - a nice balance of quality, energy and bite with that mix of destroyer-passer-forward runner - but only if we’re going to use them rather than sending the ball over their heads.
@andy-r. "On Wing, what a player we could have on our hands if he had the sort of turnaround we’ve seen from Bola, Djiksteel and McNair. Unfortunately, it seems to have gone more the way of Hayden Coulson for him."
Spot on Andy. I was a big fan of Wing when he first broke into the team and for a season or so. Then something happened, not sure what, but he has not produced his early displays on a consistent enough basis to justify a starting place.
Yes he can do many of the things that Plato mentioned but he does not do them often enough and on the goalscoring front he has not scored for Rotherham despite being a regular in their side. He also needs to improve the defensive side of his game for me.
I think it was a good decision to send him out on loan to get some game time and, as you say, he now needs to have a big pre season and convince NW that he has improved and is worthy of a starting place or as a minimum to be on the bench.
The Boro team to play Luton Town...
STARTING XI
Archer
McNair
Hall
Bola
Howson
Saville
Johnson
Coulson
Kebano
Bolasie
Watmore
Subs: Bettinelli, Spence, Kokolo, Robinson, Hackney, Malley, Coburn
1-1 after 21 minutes: Luton scored first in the 19th (Glen Rea) & Dunc restored parity in the 21st from a cross by Marvellous Marvin. 
So we have unearthed a long throw in player with Hayden Coulson taking new set pieces
OFB
Archer saves a penalty, given away by Paddy & taken by James Collins, in the 71st minute.
Correction - Wing scores his first goal for Rotherham and earns them a point and still in with a chance of avoiding relegation! 😎
Archer is much better than Bettinelli, me thinks. Not only the penalty save today but we are three unbeaten now.
But I still miss Fry and Tavernier. We would be much better with them in.
And there is something for the last game now with Wycombe still needing the points to save them. I am sure NW will field his strongest team that means the kids will miss a starting spot.
Where was Akpom, though? Perhaps we should star with Coburn up-front. Up the Boro!
With Derby playing Sheff Wed (what a game), I think Wycombe would have to beat us by at least fourteen goals to stay up, Jarkko.
Sort of a nothing game. We played ok, didn't resort to hoof ball too often. Luton didn't have much pace or creativity so it felt like two very similar teams though they had the better chances to win the game.
I do feel like it was a bit of a missed opportunity. Watmore isn't a centre forward. If you're not going to play Akpom, at least give Coburn a 90 minute run out; he'll learn more from that than 3 months training. I can't help thinking that he should have given one of the U23s a whole match as a way to invest in the future.
The 3-4-2-1 line up sort of works ok with the players available. Kebano and Johnson are decent defensive wingers. I'm not sure that Johnson is good enough to start for a top 6 team but he's certainly good enough to be an important squad player if we stick with this line up.
I don't feel massively hopeful about next season. This season we will probably end up roughly where you would expect but I don't see us strengthening in the summer so there's nothing to imply we'll improve on this season's placing.
I missed yesterday's game due to doing some shopping and then getting home and doing some "get around to it" chores and the chore of watching another dire Boro performance seemed the harder of the two options.
Due to work I have just caught up on the last few days on here this morning. It was great to see Werder had come out of exile, albeit temporarily, and his "football under Warnock is only about the result and once the result no longer mattered then neither did enduring watching it" rings very true with me.
Looking to next season I can however understand giving Warnock an attempt to get us up as lets face it SG has tried various other approaches and they have all failed, some more spectacularly than others. With NW it's no long term strategy but it is very clear that SG has never run the Club with that mindset, it's been one knee jerk after another. Spend then skint, change the Manager a few times along with philosophies and style, save some pennies then spend and skint, rinse and repeat. With that mantra I think it matters very little who our Manager is at any given point in time.
Looking at the likes of Norwich and Burnley with envy just adds insult to the injury. Warnock will no doubt cobble together a team in his image on the cheap and may manage to instill a band of brothers mentality and get us up but we won't stay up and when Warnock departs there will be another "rebuilding" job to do either on the cheap or with another Premiership parachute payment and we all know how that will pan out. Small fortunes relieved up a wall and nothing to show for it. I think now all we have left of the Monk madness are Jonny and Marvin (who is out of contract after Wycombe). Yesterday was the first Boro match I have missed by either not being there, watching or at least listening to it for years. Sadly it doesn't feel I missed much, a bit like how Akpom probably feels.
Your swift recap of the amazing behavour over the last 3-4 Managers(or should that be 6-7) is a poor. Reflection on our Chairman. And done with the best of intentions. He obviously thinks that you pick a manager and stand back. The evidence says that the chairman must have an iron grip on recruitment, and the money, and incoming and outgoing players , and their cost plus contracts. All this means he must be able to call, and judge, talent plus character. A tall order, but delegating it to your Manager because you trust him, is not the answer, he is, or should be, a very good coach and know tactics, but the really important part of the game is scouting, they may be humble, but they are important.