As somebody on radio tees said as I was coming back from the match "there is 90 minutes of my life I won't get back"

Jarkko I can only apologise to you and your goodlady wife, I hope you got your money back and she must really love you to sit through that.

Is Carrick going to be manager? This has turned into a saga, what is sureweneedsomenew ideas, the high of Wednesday to that borefest

The only good thing is we didn't get beat, also isthe standard of officiating getting worse?

A poor game that neither side deserved to win. Boring.

Pluses? Lenihan and Fry both look more assured and assertive in a back 4. Watmore looks decent as a wide forward in a chaotic sort of way. Not much else.

Don't want to see Mowatt or McNair in the team again to be honest. Desperately need some attacking width from the fullbacks and someone who can pass in midfield. Does Payero have a recall clause?

That was brutal today.

First of all we need a captain who will shout at the players, give them a rocket etc. This team is too quiet. A clear out of players is required again

I also guess the reason the manager hasn't been announced yet is there will have been lots of negotiations going on of course. One of them could be that Carrick won't want to work with Keiran Scott. He will want his own man in, so he can get the players he wants and not duds that Scott has given to previous managers including Wilder. Seems to me there are too many ineffective  people at Steve Gibson's dining table.

Player ratings from The Northern Echo

MIDDLESBROUGH (4-2-3-1):

Oh dear, what planet is Leo on!

Quote "“We got a clean sheet today, and were very positive defending set-pieces – Huddersfield are one of the best teams in the league at scoring from set-pieces. We brought stability with this clean sheet.”

@malcolm 

Good question.  We all love Leo dearly but it doesn’t matter how he tries to put any positive spin on a poor display the fact is that it we want to attain the heights of mid-table we need to beat teams like Huddersfield and we couldn’t.  Getting a new manager/coach in is now becoming urgent.

@malcolm Like any manager, he's putting the best spin he can on the result which is fair enough. We can all see that the players are massively under-performing and a large part of that is a response to everything that has happened. You can say that they are professionals being paid a huge wage and should be able to do better but they are only human and part of the reason they're not playing in the Premier League is that they struggle to produce their best form consistently at the best of times.

I don't think Leo's the answer but he's done reasonably well. He's clearly a more defensively oriented manager. Like Karanka he seems to prefer a compact shape and for players to maintain defensive discipline. It means the football is nowhere near what it was like at Wilder's best but at least it's not the absolute shambles of Wilder's worst.

Another, that was the “worst game this season” but we did not get beat, probably the only positive along with a clean sheet.

Not sure where we go from here as I am not convinced Carrick, if he is coming, or any other Coach could make much of this squad of players.

I was not happy that Giles started, then Bola comes on and what can one say about his performance. Did he actually play a forward ball?

I thought Fry was the pick, Lenihan did OK apart from one or two slip ups, Smith tidy, and then Howson if only for his endeavour. Hackney tried but to no avail.

The rest looked clueless. I would love to hear Mr Gibsons thoughts. Even he must be very concerned with the distinct possibility of relegation now.

That didn't work out as planned in our minds, Boro can repeat rubbish performances but not good or promising performances, add to that the fact that there always seems to be a 'churn' in the team selection bore never settle on a team. Maybe that's just the style of the modern game.

Not an uplifting experience for Jarkko and his good lady and then there are the regulars... my diagnosis is that the team seems to be suffering from creative constipation, it is in there somewhere but god knows how a manager gets it out.

By the way just when is the Ghost Manager going to show his face? In the stand would be a help or is the show going to be run by a computer link from manager. Still it is a 'Typical Boro' way of doing things I suppose.

Ah well, perhaps the 'Ghost manager' will turn up soon, after all it is almost Halloween.

UTB,

John

Well not a lot more to say about that abject performance other than we managed, just, to keep a clean sheet and are now two games unbeaten.  Additionally, we are looking more solid and a back three needs to be consigned to the bin indefinitely.  We still remain, however, suspect at dead ball situations.

I am of the view that some players are not willing to be adventurous and are taking the easy option on too many occasions, passing sideways or backwards rather than play the ball through the defence or even cross into the box; those that do are often lacking in execution.

Whoever comes in, they have a lot of hard work in front of them just to get us playing as a mid table team; at the moment a relegation battle is still on with Coventry being in a false position and will surely climb the table once they have played their three games in hand.😎

The 4-3-3 didn’t work for us yesterday. As mentioned previously, we haven’t got the inverted wingers and the midfield yesterday was missing both a passer and the one who gets into the box. We also lacked the overlapping fullbacks. It’s little wonder that we created so little.

It’s not fashionable but I think we would get more out of what we’ve got with a 4-4-2 at the moment. Jones and Giles can play as orthodox wingers backed up by Bola and probably Djiksteel for me, as he does have pace and can get forward to support attacks better than Smith I think.

Howson has been the best of a bad bunch in central midfield and we’d have to play Crooks alongside him as he’s the one who can break forward and get into the box.

If we play him along with Muniz and Akpom then we should have some height and presence where it matters to make use of the crosses from Jones and Giles.

It’s old school but there isn’t any creativity from central areas so I think we’d be better off trying to get crosses in with some bodies in the box.

@andy-r.  I agree on 442 and suggested it many moons ago.  Yes it is old school but it makes best use of what we have available.  

I also agree that Smith is solid but offers little going forward and Dijksteel is a better option both in terms of athleticism and skill on the ball.

Giles doesn’t look happy in the full back role, he appears to be doing the minimum and has produced little by way of offensive support.  Play him on the wide left of midfield where he will be more comfortable and should be effective providing we get people into the box and on the end of his crosses. 

It still puzzles me why those employed in the coaching roles have difficulty in addressing situations which are clearly not working and obvious to all. 😎

A potential candidate for the manager’s job? 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/oct/23/benito-carbone-sheffield-wednesday-aston-villa-bradford?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Well what an Omnishambles !

A situation of total disorder, both off the pitch and on it. 

Boro are not a very well run club at the moment and Steve Gibson should take a hard look at his own non involvement and reliance on personnel who quite frankly do not appear to be up to the job.

If Carrick is to be the manager then I would have expected all the problems surrounding his support staff to have been competed by now. If it’s negotiations with Stoke for the release of O Shea or placating the wives of coaches who don’t want to move to the north east this is what executives do ! They make things happen and we don’t!

I’ve heard a rumour that other senior Teesside Business owners who have a greater wealth than SG have offered to invest in Boro but have been turned down.

Whilst the model of creating a production line of players and having a DOF may be used at other clubs it’s obvious that it’s not working at Boro. We either have the wrong staff, or the wrong players and not playing the right notes at the right time! I would suspect it’s a combination of all.

Of course it may all be sorted by tomorrow and our new management team announced. But why all the secrecy and non communication to the fans, the players or even drop a few hints to the press! But nothing !

Mowatt an extremely disappointing player. Where is Luongo? who wanted him? Boyd Munce ? Where ? Forss why did we sign him? A lot of questions to be answered and no sign of the rainbow at the end.

A true Omnishambles!

OFB

Please find below an article from Simon Bird in the Sunday Mirror which I think is a fair summary:

Car the next cab off the rank

IT’s hard to know which job is more secure – being a Tory PM or Middlesbrough manager.

Contrary to popular myth about the patience and loyalty of Steve Gibson, Boro get through head coaches at alarming regularity, if not quite as fast as the Conservatives.

Michael Carrick will be their eighth boss in under six years, in a coalition of chaos that has seen the club become early-season relegation candidates in the Championship.

Aitor Karanka left in March 2017 and since then Steve Agnew, Garry Mony, Tony Pulis, Jonathan Woodgate, Neil Warnock and Chris Wilder have all tried and failed to reclaim Premier League football.

The question that must have made Manchester United legend Carrick (below) pause before taking the job is this...What is the real Boro?

In the late ‘90s Teesside fans, and the nation, loved that influx of Brazilians including Juninho, Emerson and Italian legend Fabrizio Ravanelli under Bryan Robson.

They had 14 consecutive years in the Premier League. They were runners-up in the FA Cup and League Cup before winning the latter in 2004.

There was the high point of boss Steve McClaren and skipper Gareth Southgate’s charge to the UEFA Cup Final 16 years ago.

But they’ve been in the top flight for only one of the last 14 seasons.

The real Boro? A mid-table Championship side, capable of flirting with the top six at best, but ultimately financially overpowered by relegated rivals armed with massive parachute payments.

You can’t be too critical of Gibson. He saved the club, pours his soul (and cash) into it and has been let down by coaches who should have performed and behaved better.

So as Carrick looks to start his solo management career after coaching under Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, it can only be hoped he is a fast learner and is allowed to build over the next two to three years. 😎

@malcolm 

Good summing up, as someone who has bored on forever on this blog about recruitment, May I say that I always meant that said recruitment must be the most important task, and never given to any employee of the club because it has the power to destroy said club, if, for example said employees with such power, were simply worthless, very bad! If they should be naughty Boys, fatal. It could be that this is the stumbling block for our new manager because if he has the knowledge we require of him he will have either laughed or cried at the collection of players who are dead average, who have poured into the club, and poured out with equal speed. I need not mention the players who show any sign of real talent, who of course, depart at speed from us to flourish elsewhere. We could go on at length about the mysterious loan outs of our own products. Right now we can only envy the club who are enjoying the efforts of our young striker,(we speak as a club without a striker), it was revealing to hear the Manager concerned speaking about him. A bit different to our own manager, who i believe was not familiar with him, he certainly never played him. Just a final word, we have a truly top class player, Jones is being wasted, and will be on his way.       

Latest report on possible support to the new manager: 

https://the72.co.uk/2022/10/23/38-year-old-set-to-turn-down-middlesbrough-role-after-west-brom-departure/

😎

I mistakenly put my comments in the Wigan section, so I’ll repeat some of it here.

Yesterdays game was a real let down after Wigan who I expect to be in the bottom 3 or 4 of the League at the end of the season.

The game was there to be won against the bottom team who, before the game, would have snapped your hand off if offered a point.

Apart from Watmore, Fry and Lenihan most players were poor. I don’t always understand the criticism of Jones who is our most direct forward and who , because of his ability, is quickly closed down.  He is criticised for ‘ his final ball’ but when he looks up before crossing the ball, there is a lack of forwards moving into space ,or, getting into the box and so inevitably his crosses are often intercepted. I applaud him for his efforts over 90 minutes.
Compare him to Giles , in particular, who hardly breaks sweat.

And now to our rumoured new coach.    Where was he yesterday or indeed on Wednesday?    One of the things that concern me is that he hasn’t worked for 9 months.  What has he been doing ?   Going around other teams to learn from what they do ?.   I doubt it as the press would have told us.
So perhaps he’s spent a lot of time on the golf course?. If he hasn’t really done anything actively involved with football  then I’m concerned as to suddenly to start working 100%  will be very difficult.     I say this as , after retiring at a relatively young age of 54, I was offered a 3 month job as a finance director ( a job I was well qualified to do as it was what I’d done for the previous 10 years before retiring)  I didn’t take up the offer as I felt I’d been out of the frame too long and it would take me a few weeks to get up to speed.

Obviously, I hope I’m wrong in my views about Mr. Carrick and he appears this week to prepare the team for a much improved performance against Preston and future games.

Finally, our thanks are due to Leo for his efforts.

Philip of Huddersfield 

The Carrick situation is strange ,the good old boys network is still around, were you have former players and managers touting ex players for jobs, you get former managers all over the media trying to keep themselves relevant, I can't remember anything regarding Carricks take on football, not someone that's out there pushing himself, so the question is how as Gibson whittled it down to him,I'd prefer the foreign root it seems their apprenticeship is more organized and thorough.

I heard a rumour that Steve Gibson is in Singapore. He has missed the last two home matchis and it looks like he is on a business trip in Asia. Bulkhaul is a global company, anyway.

So that could be a reason for the delay in an appointment. Perhaps he wants to do the final desision on the managers interviewed. But other possibilities possible.

Yes, not the best of matches yesterday. Excellent first 20 min, but very boring after that. The only positive was the defending. I think Fry was excellent,  again.

I was hoping to see a new manager during my visit to Teesside but it was not to be. Let's hope all finalized early next week. Up the Boro!

@original-fat-bob     I think your post OFB is a fair assessment of our current situation. This is not a position that has just happened, but has manifested itself over a number of seasons now with each year appearing, from the outside, to be worse than the previous.

As I and many other people on this blog have said over those years, at the end of the day, the buck stops at the Owner. Yes we are all more than grateful for the support that Mr Gibson has given to the Club, the Town and linked Foundations. He deserves more credit and acknowledgement of that than perhaps has been given.

However, the continued mistakes and lack of transparency from within MFC does not stand him in good light, especially at this critical time with the possibility of relegation staring down at us so early in the season.

The Carrick saga with its cloak and dagger drama appears to be amateurish at best. Whilst I appreciate that all the goings on cannot be revealed, courtesy surely should prevail with a statement of intent at least.

Unfortunately Mr Gibson now appears to have removed himself from view and is leaving far too much to his chosen Lieutenants. Still as the Owner, I guess that as deleriad said a while back, that is his perogative.

As for other Teesside business owners being interested investing in MFC, I find that hard to believe. I could not imagine Middlesbroughs richest person putting money into MFC with Mr Gibson still in overall control.

I’m not against Carrick given that I can’t be really - there’s nothing to go on. In his few games as interim manager for Man Utd, they did quite well. That’s about it.

If/when he’s confirmed, good luck to him. He’ll have my support.

What disappoints me is that this just feels like another fairly typical Gibson appointment in the same vein as Robson, McClaren, Southgate, Karanka and Woodgate (although that’s not to say they all did badly). I was expecting our Head of Football to have a keen eye out for managers/head coaches showing real promise elsewhere but as yet a little under the radar. Managers like Pocchetino, Hassenhutl, Farke, Frank etc we’re not greatly known in the UK but identified by recruitment teams and installed with success following.

It’s possible that Carrick has been identified but it doesn’t feel like that. It just feels like another stab in the dark with a biggish name former pro.

The players signed by the recruitment team (Hoppe/Forss) have yet to offer anything and it’s worrying that we’re seemingly not ahead of the curve on managers/coaches either.

Transfer windows and managerial changes are where Kieran Scott et al earn their corn but so far there’s no evidence that they’re delivering anything but disruption.

We’ve seen it all before. Get the defence right before sorting out the rest of the side. That’s what Jack Charlton did in 1973 in his first 12 matches in charge when Boro only conceded 6 goals including 9 matches without conceding a goal but only scored 12 goals in those 12 matches five of which they failed to score at all. If I remember correctly the football was fairly boring to start with, score a goal and shut up shop in a league that consisted of low quality as Boro were top of the league but with average home attendances at the time only just over 15,000 until the visit of Hull City when the attendance improved by 50% thanks to an influx of Hull supporters from Bridlington as well as from Humberside. Although Boro were running away with league it wasn’t until the two 4-0 away wins against West Brom and Fulham within 3 days that the shackles were thrown aside despite an unbeaten run of 24 matches as after celebrating promotion Boro scored 4 at home to Notts County and 8 at home to Sheffield Wednesday. That was the start of 8 successive seasons in the First Division.

Less dramatic but equally effective was in Aitor Karanka’s first season in 2014 when Boro only conceded 5 goals in 14 matches but included a run of 7 matches without scoring. Boro finished mid-table but it paved the way to promotion two years later. It would seem that a period of boring football in shoring up the defence may be required before Boro can start turning draws into wins and the ultimate aim of promotion, so patience my friends.

@jarkko. Do you think SG is on a trip looking for a buyer? 😂😎

@ken I remember going to watch Boro in the Charlton days and yes you are right, it was boring.

@malcolm.  Only after we got promoted.  The Second Division Championship winning team was the best we have had in my opinion and played some excellent football.

After our first season in the First Division, when we surprised a lot of teams with our pace and style, the team really struggled and it was a case of everyone behind the ball from the off and hope we could nick a goal.  Hence we got the tag of “boring boring Boro”. 😎

@ken - Fair comment, Ken.  And for others, I'd be content with less than cavalier football if it ended up with promotion and then an extended spell in the Premier League.  And no alcohol has passed my lips today so that talk of EPL is very hopeful rather than expected...

Dreadful match. After first 15 minutes of at least trying to take game to Huddersfield  we seemed to have decided that they were too good to keep attacking and perhaps leaving us open at the back so we reverted to sideways and backwards passing to see the game out without too many risks. I did actually feel sorry for Giles. I don't think he is a wing back or full back and if we are going to play him it must be just as an attacking winger (as he apparently was with the previous loan clubs where he had good reviews).  There were numerous times when he was alone unmarked up the field and midfielders had the ball a few yards from him but instead of passing the ball for him to to run/cross from the left they ball was eventually worked to the right to the doubly marked Jones.

5 1/2 hours to get to Middlesbrough, £114 for hotel room, evening meal/breakfast and train fare then 6 hours to get back. Not worth my time or money. I did enjoy the post match Prawn Cocktail, Steak and Ale Pie and 250ml Malbec and then to cheer myself up a bit more had an Ice Cream Sundae.

The 4 - 1 win against Wigan was clearly a blip. One home match (which I will not be going to) and 4 away before the World Cup break. 2 points maybe to cement our place in the bottom three?

I have had a thought about the delay in Carrick joining us. Could it be that he has seen how we have no midfield drive and has decided that he will have to be a player manager so he needs a few weeks to get his fitness a bit better than our current players? 

SG has asked me to be Manager but, despite his support and that of the other 101 directors, I’ve had to tell him that now isn’t the right time, because I couldn’t reunite the fans at the moment. I tried to do a deal with Carrick but he turned it down. 

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/23072078.adam-sadler-set-part-michael-carricks-team-middlesbrough/?ref=rss