Well I said I would be happy with a scrappy 1-0 win and so it was albeit not a scrappy game but an attritional one, comprising one team on the front foot trying to win it against a well organised and functional team defending for most of the game and trying to pinch a win on the counter or via dead ball situations.  

Solid performances throughout the team with PM capably deputising and looking assured for most of the game.  One slip up could have proved costly but thanks to a Millwall player staying on his feet when he could so easily have gone down and been awarded a penalty we managed to clear the danger. We also managed to survive a nervous last 15 mins and eventually ran out as deserved winners.

Chuba was not at his best today and once or twice reminded me of the type of form he was in under NW.  Hopefully this was a one off and his purple patch will return next time out.

Giles supplied some superb crosses which unfortunately we were unable to take advantage of and Steffen made one or two good saves interspersed between poor attempted punches and clearances.

Howson and Hackney chased and harried all day, with Howson producing a superb ball for Forss to eventually score from.  Fry was immense at the back and ably supported by Smith who now looks to be a fixture at right back.

Forss took his goal well after a stroke of good fortune when his initial shot was blocked and bounced back to him.  I wasn’t convinced by his first half performance and would have substituted him at half time, so it just goes to show why MC is in charge and not me!

We are now showing we are capable of beating the majority of teams in this league and should travel up the road next week with the expectation of at least a point if not all three. 😎

A dogged, determined and thoroughly professional performance by Boro saw our team take all three points against fellow play off hopefuls Millwall. Middlesbrough have now moved up to fourth in the Championship, by beating “The Lions”, courtesy of a seventh win from our last eight league games

The calm assurance emanating from our manager seems to have been thoroughly absorbed by the players who were in no mood to be dissuaded from their task of winning the game on the day.

It was pleasing to see Forss working hard and getting his reward with a well taken goal. The 23-year-old created space for himself by brushing Murray Wallace off the ball before firing low and perfectly inside the far corner of George Long’s goal in the 54th minute.   In recent games, Forss has been preferred on the right in place of Jones, despite the Finland international being a natural number nine. Jones’ form has dipped of late and wasn’t even involved against Millwall yesterday.

A good performance from Forss,  a player who has now scored his fifth goal for Boro and was so disdainfully discarded by Wilder as “one for the future!” It was pleasing to hear Carrick say after the game “Marcus has been great. The way he has gone about it, with his attitude, and tried something a little bit different has been great.” It is not brand new to him but it is different. Just because he is playing wide doesn’t mean he can’t get in the box and score goals and he has shown that today.”

Paddy McNair slotted into the left hand side of the defence and looked comfortable at all times during the game.

Carrick has been extremely impressed by McNair's attitude during his spell on the bench, telling of how the defender would ask for extra work in training to stay as sharp as possible. He said: “Credit to Paddy. He hasn’t played anywhere near as much as he would want to.

"It’s easy then, because you’re out of the team, to let your training standards slip and then all of a sudden you get an opportunity and you’re not ready for it. It’s then easy to blame other people for that.

"But Paddy has done really well and everything we could have expected of him through that difficult period. Even when he hasn’t got on in games he’s done extra work and sometimes asked for extra work after games so he can stay up to speed and that’s the rewards you get. He’s stepped in and done fantastic today, so I’m really pleased for him."

Carrick has shown his ruthless side in managing the team and Jones and Munoz absence from the squad raised a few eyebrows from the supporters and also the members of the press and media. Carrick explained his position on his team selection. “It was a decision. We have a good group and everyone is training to be in the team and squad. I have decisions to make every game, that’s the position I’m in. That was it. No issues,” Carrick went on to say, “It’s not an individual thing. It’s not just about, from my point of view, the position I’m in now and knowing him as a player, it’s about what it takes to play well and have a performance,” he said later in the interview. “You’ve got to put things in place and that’s part of our job to put on the right sessions to have the right standards, and that’s then up to each individual player to set their own standards to be able to perform and to be in the group.”

The absence of Rodrigo Muniz from the squad was not unexpected as just two goals in 16 appearances means he has fallen down the pecking order. Chuba Akpom, Marcus Forss, Matt Crooks and new loan signing Cameron Archer look to be ahead of him as things stand, whilst there could be further additions before the month is out. It therefore seems likely that Muniz will be on his way out and probably will be heading to another team on loan.

Carrick speaking after the game said “I’m delighted. Not just with the win, but really pleased with the first half and how we controlled it. We didn’t get as many chances as we wanted, but how we pressed and counter-pressed, I thought we were good.

“They put us under pressure a bit late on but the boys defended really well, it’s not easy when there are so many bodies in the box. Sometimes it feels even better when you grind it out.”

OFB

@k-p-in-spain A good summary above by K P

It was a very important win. Never an easy game against Millwall.  And especially so after the FA Cup defeat a week ago. I was a bit nervous before the match yesterday if we could feel a bit uneasy after the Brighton hiding.

But after the first ten or fifteen minutes, I was sure Boro will play well. So normal Carrick Boro was there.

So a fabulous result. Now we can again look forward to the Sunderland derby on Sunday.

Happy days. Up the Boro! 

@k-p-in-spain I am fortunate to watch Forss live at the Riverside every home game and I think he is a very good player, by watching live (as opposed to watching on TV) I can witness his movement off the ball, the work he does defensively, let alone the goals and assists he accumulating, so I more agree with OFB’s view of his performance yesterday. Yes he is usually subbed around the 75+ minutes but that is due to the amount of work and energy he puts in to games, but we are all entitled to our own opinion of every player, that is the beauty of football and therefore I respect your opinion.

Come on BORO.

@exmil.  Thanks for that Exmil. It endorses my view that MC is far better qualified to manage the side than me! 

I agree that you get a far better view and have a more informed opinion when watching players live as opposed to via the TV.

On current form, work rate and ability he is certainly worth his place in the side ahead of IJ. 😎

Good posts from KP and Bob. And I heartily endorse exmil's post and his view that it's best to have attended a game to have a the most fully informed view of it.

I have a personal sliding evaluation scale when reading this and indeed any other blog. I'm interested in all views, but I give most credence to the first hand views of those who have attended a match.  

Then to those who have seen it live on TV.

I pay the least attention to those who haven't been, but still have a view.  They can sometimes have interesting things to say.  For instance I always enjoy deleriad's contributions because he is invariably perceptive, and he is always honest and specific about whether he has been to the game or not.. By contrast I find it particularly irksome, as Dormo said recently, to be coming home from a game and listening to the frequently strident immediate post-match opinions of listeners who who have not been.  

What happens, I think, is that when you see a game it is such a richly sensuous and complex experience that  you are making judgments and evaluations from second by second in real time ,and therefore frequently modifying, amending or confirming your prior assumptions and opinions.  

This can happen too when watching on television, and of course there is a case for saying that you can sometimes see more on TV via slo-mos and replays of key moments. But as exmil implies you are watching through blinkers.  You only see what is confined within the TV's frame and miss all of the vital things that are happening off the ball. And the views of commentators and match pundits may tend to produce a conformity of opinion about particular incidents and the match as a whole. You need to be a reasonably sophisticated viewer to be able to separate what the image is telling you from what the commentary is saying whether you are watching the news, documentary or sport.

Sounding off about a game that you haven't seen tends to be an exercise in confirming already pre-held views and prejudices, because you have been denied the kind of complex ambivalent experiences that might have modified or changed your views.

In short the greater the distance you have from the experience of being at a match the less nuanced your view is likely to be.

I should say that I apply my evaluative scale to my own views as much, if not more, than to everyone else's.

I believe that I have the most valid things to say when I have been to a game.  Less so when I've watched it on TV. And I scarcely ever comment on games that I haven't seen, not least because I fail to see why anyone should give my opinion any credence.

The first thing to say is that I have enjoyed reading the posts after the Millwall game, some of which are as good and as perceptive a collection of comments as one could expect to read on any medium.  All the posts above on this page have been excellent and I'm sure there were similar \ ones on the earlier page - I read the two pages before starting to write this but on attempting to go back part-way through this post, to read again and name-check those posts, I was warned that if I left this page mid-post I'd lose any information left open (ie this Post), so I decided to carry on here instead!

Lovely goal scored by Forss who did well to show his strength against the defender and then to take advantage of his good fortune when his first strike came back to him off that defender, but who then calmly finished across the keeper into the far side of the net, having first brought the ball into the penalty area from the far edge.  I agree we might easily have conceded a penalty but for the "honesty" of the Millwall player who tried to go on and hopefully get off his attempt on the Boro goal - but didn't! One or two "gulp" moments from the keeper and I agree there were some murmurings about the slowness of Boro's build-up and possession play, but it's all means to an end and, if it is successful, it makes sense to continue in the same vein.

There were many good performances.

Seven wins out of 8 is certainly success and if that were played out across a full season it would inevitably result in a record points haul and first position in the League. Great stuff so far, and much better than anyone had any right to expect when Michael Carrick took over.  We might have HOPED for this run of form and results, but nobody could have EXPECTED things to have gone so well immediately after the change of manager. Frankly things had previously been so bad that stabilising the position and avoiding relegation might have been seen as acceptable and mid-table mediocrity would have been grabbed with open arms.

It was pointed out above (by Powmil?) Boro's 1-5 reverse against Brighton was given context by Brighton's 3-0 demolition of mighty Liverpool yesterday.  Brighton are, as I said earlier, a top team.  I'd have been very concerned by a 1-5 reverse against, say, Everton or one of the stragglers suffering at the bottom end of the Premier League.

But Boro marches onwards with, as hoped, league form being unaffected by the intervening FACup defeat.  It's what I had expected of what appears to be Michael Carrick's professional approach to football management. It's almost as if he had picked up a few lessons from the managers he's played for over the years of a glittering football career...