https://www.mfc.co.uk/news/watch-chris-wilder-post-match-reaction-hull-city
Quite rightly not a happy chap☹️😎
Another moan about the match, how poor were our corners, do we practice them?, also as somebody else has observed, matt crooks form seems to have evaporated and he must be close to another suspension.
A very disappointing performance and result today. Who knows why some players failed to turn up but the simple answer is that the team is just not good enough to deliver the results week in, week out.
Philip of Huddersfield hit the nail on the head when he highlighted the lack of goals and the weakness of the goalkeeper. No teams win anything without goals and clean sheets and we just don’t have the strikers with the necessary quality and productivity and, as I have said before, our goalkeeper is poor and is costing us priceless points on a too regular basis.
Wilder has done an excellent job with the material he has available but he needs to strengthen the team in the key areas of weakness before he will have the right resources to both sustain a promotion challenge and then stay in the Premier League if the challenge is successful. The changes he makes in playing personnel this summer will be critical.
Right, that’s the last time I leave you lot to look after the match!
Andy
So if you’re blaming this lot for losing the game whilst you were away just have a thought for me!
How do I generate enthusiasm for the next game with my match preview for Boro against Bournemouth?
I’ll have to start with a few jokes, Lumley, Lumley, Lumley?
Support gratefully received for the next post?
Thankin Yew !
OFB
OFB
Well that wasn't a surprise really. We are all long enough in the tooth to know that the past few heady foam filled months were just an aberration, a glitch in the Boro inevitability field.
Disclaimer: I had actually looked at hospitality rates for the playoffs and started to plan the flights etc. ..... but
For the past few months, to the absolute credit of CW and the way he had made his silk purse, we had a dream and were punching way above our weight. Next season we will definitely need to up our game but I am sure CW has his plans.
I will now just take each game as it comes and benchmark it against reality instead of hope.
These past few months have shown us that better things are to be expected, and if we still make the play offs then we should enjoy the ride and the spectacle.
The lads out there are now feeling the pressure, physically and mentally and our squad weaknesses are coming home to roost.
The Bournemouth game is a no-pointer, so don't know how CW will approach it but should be an interesting battle of the minds.
Anyhow heres to an interesting run-in.
UTB
Once the shock is over, and one can think in a rational manner (difficult) it is reveiling to realise that we have played three identical games, and got three identical results. Plenty of passing, no shooting, letting the opposition have the First half for free, that would be no effort on our part, just passing the ball around, in fact a no hassle game, they showed us plenty of hassle from then on, and we still passed the ball for fun. I think that the game is up, any thought that these tactics will do the job is fantasy, plus a couple of players are now certainly n.w.o.v.
Heads up everyone. Sure, the runes look less than perfect, but we’re not done yet and if we fall short this year at least we’ve got a manager with the skill and plan to have a good go next year.
I wonder where we’d be now if CW had been in charge all season. Whatever happens between now and the end of the season we should be stronger next year now that our Manager knows his players’ strengths and weaknesses.
Has anyone watched the highlights of Pools draw at Forest Green Rovers? I’ve taken an interest in Pools goalkeeper Ben Killip who has made some amazing saves this season. Is he better than Joe Lumley? Definitely in my opinion! However one thing that puzzled me is why he was allowed to wear a yellow jersey whilst Forest Green played in yellow shirts? How the referee allowed this clash of colour I’ll never know, or were my eyes deceiving me?
I actually arrived in Cleveland yesterday morning but decided not to go to the game as didn't want to risk catching Covid while here - it certainly was a good decision as I probably would have had to have worn my mask over my eyes after that performance.
Watched the game on one of those unofficial streams and it was a terrible performance in all departments with only Dijksteel and Bamba reaching the required standard. Defeat is a serious blow to our play-off hopes and it's now probably going to require an unlikely six points over Easter to repair the damage.
Hopefully Jones will be back to add some spark and free-up Tavernier but surely Connolly, Balogun, Crooks and of course Lumley will be lucky if they start any of those games.
Worst performance of the season and a worry!
Well that was disappointing. Two losses in a row for the first time under Wilder, no goals scored, both games at home. Both goals conceded due to poor defending: from a free kick against Fulham and rank bad goalkeeping against Hull. It's a bad time to have a wobble and makes qualifying for the play-offs much harder. It does show how much we miss Jones though and how much we need a plan B without him.
Wilder's post-match comments said a lot. He comes from the Alex Ferguson school of management which means he occasionally chews out his players in public. When he says he's just a plain-speaking Yorkshireman who says it as he sees it, he's being completely disingenuous. He uses that as cover to attempt to motivate players in public as well as private. (His character is quite blunt but he uses that rhetorically as well.)
Like Ferguson he is most likely to be publicly critical when he thinks a player has been complacent or has let him down in some way. He'll also do it drive up standards when he thinks a player is under-performing but doesn't realise it. If a player isn't playing well but doesn't get criticised (or even gets defended) it's because Wilder thinks he needs to be supportive.
This is why he never seems to criticise Balogun and Connolly. You can tell by how he handles them that he knows they're not good enough but they are trying so public criticism would be counter-productive. Up until today he has done the same with Lumley but clearly he's decided that he needs a public wake-up call. Same with Crooks in the last match; Crooks has had a lengthy dip in form so Wilder has decided to give him a public kick. It's a risky approach and can lead to divisions; it's also a tool that has fallen out of favour with modern managers.
When Wilder publicly criticises a player it is basically him saying that he has one more chance so I fully expect Lumley to start the next match. On the other hand, Crooks didn't improve after his dressing down so I expect him to be benched next game, assuming Jones is back.
As for Lumley, at his very best he's a middling Championship keeper. I think he struggles with reading the line and pace of a ball unless he's 100% focused and that he is prone to losing focus. He makes two similar kinds of mistakes: one is slow reaction to a shot as he tries to read its line the other is misjudging when to rush out. I reckon Lumley at 95% focus is not good enough for professional football because he'll fail to make routine saves that any keeper in League 2 would expect to.
I think it's perfectly possible that we'll beat Bournemouth on Friday but whatever happens will tell us a lot. Are we a top 6 side with some consistency issues or are we an upper-mid-table side that over-performed for a while? I suspect the latter. You also have to figure that the January window was another failure. The two loanee strikers replacing Hernandez and Uche probably weakened the team. McGree looks good but has hardly played. Prioritising the strikers rather than keeper has back-fired.
Anyway, it's not over 'til it's over. We all know the weaknesses we have. It's down to Wilder and the team now to find a way to work around them.
Just watched goals on quest and oh my lumley that was not good, didnt look that bad when in the stadium. We have made progress this year but there is big issues strikers, keeper and I think we will need a jones replacement, I'm sure he will be enticed away, let's face it we cant turn the money down.
Didn't see the game or follow it because I wad fortunate to be at a Scottish family wedding. So we all had an absolute ball and a very very late night rather than me getting disappointed at a backfiring Boro performance that Ken had had the prescience to warn us about.
All the same, it is not all over yet, but typical Boro if we are to make it into the playoffs it will be the hardest way possible.
I expect we will raise our game again against the Cherries and the Terriers, but how many points that will translate into is another question.
CoB. Don't spoil things now.
As for Lumley and the goal I didn't notice but apparently Mcnair angrily pointed his finger at him and Bamba was so incensed that he gave the impression that he wanted to ring his neck.
Thinking about Lumley - Paddy saved a certain goal the other day clearing off the line when Lumley went walkabout and Tav did the same thing yesterday ! Poor decision making by the goalkeeper.
OFB
As for Lumley and the goal I didn't notice but apparently Mcnair angrily pointed his finger at him and Bamba was so incensed that he gave the impression that he wanted to ring his neck.
I didn't spot McNair but I did see Bamba stamp his feet angrily. I think some of it was just frustration but players make their own judgements and Bamba definitely blamed Lumley. I think that's part of what underlay Wilder's comments; if the rest of the team lose confidence in him then there'll be unrest if Wilder doesn't say something.
I like Lumley, he's an engaging character but it's increasingly looking like Wilder's attempt to manage with him until the end of the season was a bad idea. I freely admit that given we had minimal money to spend and Wilder prioritised attacking and midfield upgrades that it made sense at the time.
One tries to be specific when calling individual players, so these are my calls re. Our keeper. He does not have an obsession with the centre of his goal, he regards standing on his goal line as for the birds. All long shots will be saved by a keeper who is central, whether they are High or low, in the corner or not, this is a central fact of trying to score goals, every marksman knows it as part of his trade. When the keeper is not central they are capable of setting up a shot with every hope of scoring, we have conceded that goal in the last three matches, one was a header, to our shame. At the other end of the field we have completed three- four lovely passes in and around the box without ever looking like hammering the ball at the goal. As soon as they realised this it was party time. It is perfectly true to say that all of the last three teams came here quite ready to be beaten, and played like it, but we were not having that, so it's reckoning time.
Good post deleriad. But I do now think it is realistically all over.
CW came in improved matters and made the sum bigger than the parts. He then had a chance to make the parts even better and you would have to say has failed miserably with obviously the recruitment team equally to blame.
He was by all accounts chasing Connolly when he was at Sheffield. Well what he sees in him baffles me, he is certainly not Championship material.
Balogun possibly has potential, but again is too light weight for our league. McGree looks the part but has not played for various reasons.
Lumley has cost us points, one cannot argue against that, but also have some of the defenders and the forwards. Crooks has also been mentioned and I have never been totally convinced. He has disappeared once his card count mounted and his past tells you that he has an issue with discipline.
We know all midfielders and defenders get booked, Crooks however has become a liability in my opinion. Whether CW would have stuck with him if Payero and McGree had been available is subject to debate.
We can only now hope for a few decent performances to the season end and hope we get good money for Spence that Mr Gibson will allow to be spent.
Again hopefully Mr Wilder and the recruitment team will do a better job of moving players out and bringing better players in, than they have to date. This area of the club has just not improved sufficiently.
Oh, and I would also sell Fry if we got a good offer. CB’s are easier to find for reasonable money than Forwards.
What a shambles. Where to start?
Let’s start with the keeper. Another serious error, punished this time, and two points lost as a result. I’ve said it before, as we all have. Time to bring back Daniels. Mind, I reckon Paul Daniels would be better than Lumley.
Playing Crooks wide right clearly didn’t work. He’s far better in the middle. He had a poor game and, frankly, looked absolutely knackered. And he picked up another pointless booking. Wilder could have solved the issue of not having Jones by playing Peltier at right centre-half and Dijksteel wide right - the Dutchman may not have Isaiah’s pace or trickery, but he can pick a pass, can cross a ball, and often accelerates smoothly away from his man. I’m afraid it highlighted just how reliant (over-reliant) we have been on Isaiah.
McGree was disappointing overall. In my view, he played 10 yards too far back and was too often too close to Howson. For much of the second half Boro had a line of four forwards strung out across the pitch, but each one was closely marked by a Hull defender. In between the 2 Hull lines there was a gap, but nobody in it, where McGree should have been (or where Tav usually is), so when the ball went forward to the attackers, it often got recycled straight back to the two midfielders. Progress zilch, therefore. Boro simply didn’t have the guile to break down a very disciplined and well-drilled Hull defence. Bola pinged across several terrific crosses in the first half but there was no-one on the end of them, unfortunately. Hull addressed this in the second half by close marking Bola, but Boro couldn’t replicate his threat with anyone else.
Of course, if you don’t shoot, you probably don’t score. Four times in the first half Boro weaved into the Hull box, but seemed to want the perfect shooting opportunity, so nobody took the shot on. It didn’t help that Balogun and Connolly didn’t get much service, nor that Connolly, in particular, isn’t up to the job, regardless of his hard work.
Must do better. We must especially do better against Bournemouth and Huddersfield.
Got home at 13:30 today after a very disappointing and tiring weekend supporting the Boro. I thought it was our worst home performance since Wilder took over, back into Warnock ponderous sideways and backwards passing mode without the sudden pace of Jones to disrupt the opposition defence. I don't like Tav at wingback as he is too right foot orientated and it means he starts his attacking movements from too deep rather than adding pace to the central/left sided attacks. Lots of poor passing throughout the team and the usual attack trying to find a player in a perfect position rather than taking responsibility and shooting early. Another mistake by Lumley who seems to find the low shots that should be within his reach harder to save than those he has to stretch for.
It looks like Forest have shown the form we need to clinch a playoff place but I can't see us winning 5 of our last 6 matches. It may turn out that we “only” need to win 3 more points than Sheffield United to replace them in 6th position but with only 7 points from our last 6 games (as compared to Sheffield's 8) and all our matches being against teams in the current top nine for form as compared to their easier run in that looks unlikely. The poor performance in the recent 4 – 1 defeat by Sheffield United maybe shows where we stand and has also damaged our goal difference which needs recovery.
I did add a cheesecake to my usual large Rioja for my after match meal but it was only a minor compensation.
I see that Craig Johns is talking about this in the Gazette where he talks about things "not dropping" for Connolly. I agree in part but I think the reason is that Connolly simply can't read a game. That's why I think despite his hard work and some reasonable physical skills that Connolly won't make it at this level. He's not unlucky, he's not good enough. Balogun may be lightweight and tending to fade out of games but he always seems to have an understanding of the game. Connolly is never going to be good enough but Balogun might be good enough for the Championship next season.
I can see why Wilder sticks with Connolly because he does at least create space for others by pressing and he has decent endurance.
I think Wilder will stick with Lumley for the rest of the season if he can.
It does all get a bit doom and despair despite the fact that 90% of the games under Wilder have been better than we expected while the team was flailing around under Warnock. I think we're still more likely than not to make the play-offs. If the season does fizzle out, it'll be disappointing but there's plenty to build on.
deleriad
“I think we're still more likely than not to make the play-offs.”
If we are to achieve the play offs as you suggest then I feel we will need ideally 6 points or a minimum of 4 from the next two games which I can’t see us doing.
We haven’t done the double over any of the teams above us so far and I can’t see that changing; I just hope I am wrong. 😎
So is this why Connolly can’t score ?
Police called to Premier League ace Aaron Connolly’s home over bust-up with Love Island girlfriend Lucinda Strafford
OFB
So is this why Connolly can’t score ?
Police called to Premier League ace Aaron Connolly’s home over bust-up with Love Island girlfriend Lucinda Strafford
That can’t be our Aaron Connelly, OFB. The Sun calls him a ‘Premier League ace’ and says he is ‘regarded as one of the Premier League’s brightest talents.’
Nah. They’ve clearly got him mixed up with someone else…….
All of this nonsense was known about Connolly when we signed him. I said at the time that we appeared to have signed another George Best, minus the looks, charisma and footballing talent. What continues to stagger me are the salaries commanded by these lads who still have it all to prove. Don't forget that Balogun was on £44 grand a week playing for Arsenal U23s, and is still on that money now, of which we are paying a thickish wedge.
Neither of these lads has added anything to what we already had on the books at a fraction of the price.
Len
The thing that gets me is the loan deal players have the time to fly back home for a little break. Connolly using scheduled flights and Sporar chartered jet. Not subject to the same discipline as the Boro contract players and surely the money they are on causes divisions within the ranks.
Connolly doesn’t really divide opinion of the Boro fans they all think he’s rubbish !
OFB
@Clive Hurren Or we got this chap from Scotland in January!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Connolly_(Scottish_footballer)
Up the Boro!
The pity about Connolly is he hasn’t really played for last two seasons and I think he can get better. Wilder wanted him when he was at Sheff Utd and has been following his career. There is talk of Boro signing him permanently!
OFB