Anyone still watching the Boro !
OFB
Vic's half-time assessment:
HT: Absolute horror show. Boro ignored two warning shots as Bristol threatened on the break. Three gift-wrapped goals. So open down the flanks the defence is giving so much time & space. Bristol can't believe how easy this is. Nightmare. Need a massive reboot
@original-fat-bob. Just made Mrs P and myself a half time drink and am in two minds whether to keep watching or find something more interesting to do - bit of dusting and polishing perhaps! 😎
I’m pleased now that Sky didn’t show the first half, it would have been too embarrassing although I shouldn’t be that surprised. However they’re now showing the second half, think I’ll give it a miss though.
Some words of encouragement:
Come on then you bunch of lead-booted feckless clowns: get your fingers out and do something!
watching line of duty on iPlayer the violence and stress is quite enjoyable for someone who has endured more stress watching the Boro.
Mow the Doctor will know why my BP is so high and why I also needed a bloxxy pacemaker
OFB
@stircrazy. Very reserved and considered encouragement given what has gone before! 😎
On the topic of pertinent idiosyncratic sayings...
"Funny old game, init"... as I believe Greavesie would say to the Saint.
Well if Saturday was the best away performance since NW was appointed then this has to be the worst home performance by far! 😎
That first half was awful but, to be honest, we beat ourselves. We didn't respect the opposition. They were playing with two experienced forwards up front and we didn't man up the defence and so, time after time, we were caught with two against two or one against one. One was cleared off the line, Bettinelli saved one and they scored two from breakaways. Just over-confidence and we paid for it.
What a poor performance. Morsy and Bola were the only bright spots.
I hope NW shows that first half every day to the players, totally unacceptable.
We the public are suffering immense stress because of the pandemic and many people are suffering financially. To watch professional football players earning money we can only dream off perform like that for 45 minutes is an insult to our intelligence and our peace of mind.
No disrespect to Bristol who displayed more passion and determination that embarrassed Boro and all supporters.I hope NW doesn't come wih any excuses because there isn't any.
I honestly have nothing to say about that shambles. Howson looks to be following Friend and Clayts into the over the hill retirement home. Maybe if he got his hair cut he may actually look like an athlete once again instead of a eccentric mountain man which is how he is playing.
Our defending was appalling, Dijksteel looked well off the pace, Fisher lost his man, Bola failed to cut out crosses, Fry was the best of a bad lot at the back. McNair is definitely not Franz Beckenbauer and Warnock needs to wise up to that fact and remove both their heads from up there.
Akpom and Britt are both shockingly poor. Why Johnson has lost his place in the team is a disgrace in itself. Having stuck to his task and remained loyal in the relegation dogfight last season and provided goals along with the most assists this season his treatment is questionable management especially considering Warnock's alternatives haven't delivered consistently yet and in the meantime it is costing us dearly.
There is something very wrong when we fail to beat the Championship's poor sides but can turn it on for the likes of Norwich and Reading. It's not a fluke or a bit of bad luck, it is a very clear and obvious pattern that something isn't right behind the scenes. Even "Typical Boro" was never that "Typical".
Mrs Warnock's words of wisdom about not blaming Nigel Pearson had a chilling foresight, maybe she knows her husband better than she realises.
All in all that was another terrible performance against a side that we should have been looking for three points against. Wednesday, Rotherham, Birmingham, Derby and now tonight against (a side with seven straight losses and no goals in almost five hundred minutes) Bristol, that's 15 points relieved up a wall. To have not won at least 9 or 12 of those points is Woodgate levels of bad.
I hope NW doesn't come wih any excuses because there isn't any.
He certainly can't blame the Officials for his tactics, selection and game plan.
Well I’m going to keep quiet my batteries need recharging !
OFB
Bloody hell. I can’t believe what I’ve just watched. After an outstanding win at Reading, I genuinely hoped we had turned a corner, that we had every chance of putting together a good run and of breaking into the play-offs. Tonight, what a chance we had to put a real marker down - against a side shorn of confidence and on a terrible losing streak, and with Stoke v Barnsley and Bournemouth v Cardiff to come tomorrow. But it doesn’t get more Typical Boro than tonight’s performance.
Awful in virtually every department. Midfield missing in action throughout the first half. Schoolboy defending. A back three who played like complete strangers. No guile, no creativity, no pace, no clear-cut chances. Wayward shooting. Poor goalkeeping, at least for the third goal. Illogical substitutions. You name it, we did it. Or rather, we didn’t. Pathetic, and very dispiriting.
So, losing 3-0, we take off Watmore and Kebano, our best attackers (though admittedly not by much) and we attempt to claw something back with Akpom, Assombalonga and the totally ineffective Mendez-Laing up front. Surely, we needed Johnson on earlier?
Five losses in 6 home games is relegation form. I don’t now think we’ll make the play-offs. Just not good enough, even when we get Tav and Bolasie back.
Catastrophically bad. Chronic inconsistency is the biggest handicap the Club needs to overcome to make any progress. It has been a problem for a long time now but this season it seems to have got much worse. The Club will continue to be at best a middling Championship outfit until it has a team that turns up and a manager who generates the necessary level of motivation and commitment every match week in week out. We have neither at the moment.
Bloody hell. I can’t believe what I’ve just watched. After an outstanding win at Reading, I genuinely hoped we had turned a corner, that we had every chance of putting together a good run and of breaking into the play-offs. Tonight, what a chance we had to put a real marker down - against a side shorn of confidence and on a terrible losing streak, and with Stoke v Barnsley and Bournemouth v Cardiff to come tomorrow. But it doesn’t get more Typical Boro than tonight’s performance.
Awful in virtually every department. Midfield missing in action throughout the first half. Schoolboy defending. A back three who played like complete strangers. No guile, no creativity, no pace, no clear-cut chances. Wayward shooting. Poor goalkeeping, at least for the third goal. Illogical substitutions. You name it, we did it. Or rather, we didn’t. Pathetic, and very dispiriting.
So, losing 3-0, we take off Watmore and Kebano, our best attackers (though admittedly not by much) and we attempt to claw something back with Akpom, Assombalonga and the totally ineffective Mendez-Laing up front. Surely, we needed Johnson on earlier?
Five losses in 6 home games is relegation form. I don’t now think we’ll make the play-offs. Just not good enough, even when we get Tav and Bolasie back.
It's becoming reminiscent of Mowbray's post Xmas slump. Different circumstances but a seeming inability to fix the obvious and to get a response.
I’d have to agree with that, Clive.
I don’t think NW got his team or tactics wrong. Unfortunately this group just doesn’t have the mental strength to win when the pressure is on to do so. We’ve seen that time and again.
There was no pressure at the start of the season because there was no real expectation and we had a really tough start, fixture-wise. However, as we’ve got ourselves into contention, there has been expectation and pressure and we’ve not coped.
I asked in a previous post on this thread if we were contenders or pretenders and whether we could cope with the pressure. That was an emphatic answer that leaves me in no doubt whatsoever that we’ll be in the Championship again next season and will likely not make the top six either.
Only thing I liked yeterday was Warnock's presser. Like "“We had ten chances in the second half but the only ones at risk were the pigeons."
But the defending let us down in the first half, though. Up the Boro!
Thank goodness there weren't any fans in the stadium...
UTB,
John
Thank goodness there weren't any fans in the stadium...
UTB,
John
That's the only saving grace at the moment because the abuse they would be getting especially after last night would be deafening.
The lack of a Grant Leadbitter type Captain really showed last night, we seemingly don't have a motivator who the players respect and look to for direction.
I can't add anything to what has already been said other than that I am deflated, frustrated and p***** off.
Why do I bother putting myself through all the agony and continued let downs - typical Boro at their best! 😞😎
On answer to your question it is years of early childhood abuse - my own experience is well known here after being accused of child abuse for taking my sons to see the Boro and being asked to support Man Utd for the sake of the children......
It is what it is, anyhow there's always next season.
... and Ive paid already so I may as well suffer , just in case they win!!
If Fletcher is not available for Saturday (I wouldn't have offered him a new contract) do we have to put up with the terrible two Akpom and Britt. Surely there must be somebody else in the academy who could step in. Can't be any worse than those two who can't hit a barn door between them.
Personally I'd play Watmore centrally with Johnson left and Kebano right. It would be fast and fluid and rely on speed and stealth rather than hoofing it to an outjumped Britt/Chuba.
There is no way those two can outjump the Cardiff CB's so don't even try it. It would also negate the Cardiff CB's strengths and give them something else to think about. I doubt their turning circle is the best, low balls and Watmore's trickery is more likely to result in free kicks, cards and even a penalty.
As one who struggled to get the match on line ( fully paid up member) finally got on, then screen froze, then was kicked out as an unautharised and illegal viewer. If I could have spoken to any of the worthless I.T. Crew I would have explained to them the bleedin obvious fact that only those who had paid in advance would be even bothered getting on. Now to the disaster that is this team and club. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action, four times? I would suggest, is the most incredible incompetence. Each of these matches has followed a feel Good away day. Whatever is the reason, and i think that it is taking a relaxed attitude at the start, because all teams now kick off by rolling the ball to their central defender, who lifts it into the opposition box, an instant attack before anyone has settled down. As all the attackers have raced into the opposition box, you had better be ready. But really, lets not forget that we were lucky to beat Rotherham. We were like Rabbits in the headlights.
I do not think we can be considered a middle of the table club, to have a cunning plan of beating in form clubs away and being a chopping block at home is a very difficult game plan, reverse it and it might be doable, but in any case, a plan means that you plan to do something and do it, have you seen any signs of such behaviour? Because I have not!
Instead of Boro being the Teessiders, they might well be named the teasers as it has happened through most of my time following them. Personally I wasn’t surprised by the result or the performance going back to that FA Cup defeat at home to Second Division and relegation threatened Doncaster in 1952 the day King George Vl died, through further FA Cup defeats to Leyton Orient in 1978, Wolves in 1981, Darlington in 1985, Grimsby in 1989, Cambridge in 1991, Wrexham in 2000, Cardiff in 2008, Burton in 2011, and Newport in 2019. Add to that a League Cup defeat to Burton two years ago and to Villa three years ago in the Playoffs under Pulis, plus too many League defeats to mention that it doesn’t even hurt any more.
However remember that dreadful 0-4 home defeat to Villa 15 years ago when a fan threw his season ticket at Steve McClaren and a week later Boro stunned Mourinho’s Chelsea with a 3-0 win and then a season to savour as Boro knocked out Stuttgart, Roma, Basel and Steau Bucharest in the Europa Cup to reach the Final. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Boro beat Cardiff on Saturday to continue teasing their fans. That would just about sum up Boro ‘teasing’ their fans into believing again. I’m not saying that they will beat Cardiff, but just that it wouldn’t surprise me if they did as they’ve always been a Jekyll and Hyde sort of club and I reckon that everyone will just have to get used to it.
I’ve recently been watching some of Roald Dahl’s ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ when I can stay awake, and Boro should give him plenty of material to work with if he were a Boro fan.