Boro being very sloppy with their passing, HH having a nightmare. However, QPR are not letting us settle, with McGree and Ramsey not in the game yet.
Need to get to HT and for MC to give a few bollockings.
Vic's verdict on the first half:
HT 0-0. Not often we say that. A sluggish start with passes going astray or not weighted properly & everything slightly out of synch. That said, a few flashes up front and some half-chances. Need to tune in & raise the tempo. Plenty of time yet.
At last! It's that man Chuba again, in the 64th minute from a Barlaser cross! 🙂
At last! It's that man Chuba again, in the 64th minute from a Barlaser cross! 🙂
He's promptly booked for what the Beeb describes as "excessive celebration"! *shakes head*
The flood gates seem to have opened: Chuba bags a second in the 77th minute (rebound from a weak penalty, according to Vic - McGree brought down in the box).
Crooks & Howson on for Archer & Ramsey respectively in the 78th minute.
The Hoops pull one back in the final minute of normal time, but McGree makes it 3-1 in the second minute of injury time with a little help from Matt Crooks! 🙂
Good shout at 3-1 by Len!
Boro have been renamed as
Middlesbrough 3
OFB
SheffU now has 61 points from 32 games & a GD of +24 in second place, Boro 57 from 33 & +18. The gap is narrowing...
Elsewhere, Dani Ayala scored his first goal of the season to give Blackburn the win against the Swans & Marcus Tavernier scored his first (I think) for the Cherries to give them an away win over Wolves.
Whatever it was MC said to the lads at half-time, it worked! ic's verdict:
FT: 3-1. A superb second half show after a sluggish, out of synch first 45. Boro came out fired up after the break, passing & movement slicker & quicker & created a lot of chances. Once opener flew in, game over. Pushed home the advantage, Very good.
Further comments:
Last time Boro scored three in four successive games was the start of the 1993/94 post-relegation season under Lennie Lawrence.
Last time Boro won five in a row was the Aitor Katranka [sic!] promotion season, March/April.
Thank you to everyone on keeping me up to date with Boro news, watched the master class at the Blades and can't wait to catch up on the highlights on Oz telly for the QPR game, they seem to be the glitch that were surely going to have, surmounted and appreciated three points, what's not to like.
Are we good, or are we good.
PPIP
Elsewhere, Dani Ayala scored his first goal of the season to give Blackburn the win against the Swans & Marcus Tavernier scored his first (I think) for the Cherries to give them an away win over Wolves.
And Matthew Hoppe scored his first for the Hibees in a 2-0 win against Killie - from Edinburgh Live:
Hoppe along
Matthew Hoppe will be buzzing with his start to life at Easter Road.
The young American came in on deadline day after it looked for some time Hibs would lose star man Kevin Nisbet.
But Hoppe admitted his focus was to get regular football on loan from Middlesbrough. And the forward rewarded Hibs faith with a big strike to seal the comfortable win. Hibs have lacked goals this season but seem to by firing on all cylinders at the moment.
I note that typos & bad grammar are not confined to the English media!
At last! It's that man Chuba again, in the 64th minute from a Barlaser cross! 🙂
He's promptly booked for what the Beeb describes as "excessive celebration"! *shakes head*
Having just watched the usual skimpy two minutes of Sky highlights (which didn't bother with the first half!), I see why he was booked: he took off his shirt!
I was in theatre with my wife watching a Finnish version of "The Play That Goes Wrong" in Helsinki. So I missed the first half.
On the way back home, we were able to watch the last 30 min of the match on the bus and so we saw all four goals. I suppose the theatre was better than Boro first half performance.
But Boro are excellent. Now only four points separating us from the Blades. Well done.
BTW, the attendance against QPR was 27,456. Not bad for the Championship game against a low-performing opposition. Up the Boro!
Interesting to compare the Echo's player ratings:
with those of the Gazette:
Only the Echo nominates a MotM, i.e. Riley McGree.
So. The 10 point advantage evaporates to 4 points in just 4 days. I did say that SheffU would drop at least 12 points from their 9 fixtures against the promotion hopefuls. Well they have already dropped 6 of them from the first two of those games.
All of a sudden that once awning divide begins to look eminently bridgeable.
One game at a time from Boro, that is all it will take. Automatic promotion is definitely a realistic possibility. Let's hope we can maintain this form, or close to it for the next dozen games.
Big shout out to Len for having the courage of his convictions to follow OFB's lead...3-1 it was. I am really looking forward to my next visit down south to see the Boro against Reading in a couple of weeks.
CoB
@jarkko I started reading your post with a little concern until I was relieved to realise you were at the entertainment theatre rather than in the hospital theatre with your wife!
In the first half Barlaser and Ramsey took a while to get into the flow of Boro way of playing, not helped by some wayward passing from a few Boro regulars but after (maybe) a few stern words from MC at halftime, completely a different second half to take over the game and run out comfortably winners. Before anyone gets on Steffen’s back for their goal, I sit in the East Upper and after it went in I was convinced it had gone behind the goal, a great or lucky strike, who knows 🤔.
Come on BORO.
The gamble paid off (Barlaser for Howson) and now the 10 yellow card (2match ban) has passed.
Come on BORO.
Boro are showing all the traits of a good team - don’t play very well in the first half but come out in the second half and put things right.
MC is so right - just keep to the way of playing in his calm manner and don’t get wrapped up in talk of automatic promotion.
Even though Sheffield lost against a decent team today they are still in pole position for automatic promotion. I’m sure that we’d all swop positions.
The really pleasing issue is that the team are looking increasingly good to finish in the top 6.
As long as the team continue to play well and pick up points then it’s not really important to me whether the team finish third or not.
Just take a game at a time and hope the team play well . If so, the results will take care of themselves .
Philip of Huddersfield
Meanwhile Neil Warnock produced his magic to get Huddersfield’s first win in 8 games.
🎶We always score 3 goals...
The narrow path to second place has got a little wider. The gap to 4th place has also got wider. We're 4 points behind Sheffield Utd (7 if they win their game in hand) and 7 points ahead of Luton (or 4 ahead of Millwall if they win their game in hand.)
My theory is that you need 16 players who are good enough to be first choice in their position to get promoted from the Championship. It was important for Barlaser and McNair to play today because they need to be capable of playing without weakening the team.
I was surprised to see Ramsey get a start but he's clearly an important part of our attacking unit. It doesn't look like Jones is going to regain his mojo this season so we'll need Ramsey.
Carrick made the call and kept faith after a shaky first half and it paid off. Barlaser's deep cross for Chuba's 1st shows we have found yet another way to score goals. That was a ball that no one else in the team is capable of. McNair might not have quite the defensive stability of Fry but he is definitely better on the ball than our other centre backs. I think Ramsey and McGree might struggle to play together because they both want to do the same thing but McGree showed today that you can move him out of position and he can still perform.
We have 13 outfield players who are good enough to start a game without weakening the team (though I still don't like Crooks starting as a centre-forward). We have players like Bola, Mowatt & Dijksteel who could start if they had to but they're not first choice. Then we have Ramsey who is getting up to speed and Jones who is struggling to recapture his form.
Today was all about Carrick leaning into his squad and the squad, eventually, coming up with the goods.
After the match against QPR earlier this season, Chris Wilder said
"But, as a group, I think we understand there's still an awful lot of work that needs to be done for us to be talked of in the same breath as a Sheffield United, West Brom or a Norwich or Watford or Burnley that have been tipped to have a successful season."
Turns out, the only thing that needed to be done was to replace the manager with one who believes in the players and works with them to get the best out of them.
40pts out of a possible 51 since Carrick took over. That is ridiculous.
Boro nowhere near our best today but much improved after the break and deserved winners.
@jarkko I started reading your post with a little concern until I was relieved to realise you were at the entertainment theatre rather than in the hospital theatre with your wife!
Sorry for my English. Didn’t know the word hospital theatre. But now I know another word more. Always learning 😁.
Up the Boro!
40pts out of a possible 51 since Carrick took over. That is ridiculous. ...
And only four (4) points behind Sheffield United. And Boro has 39 points to play for. Interesting, I would say.
Up the Boro!
@jarkko. Please don't apologise for your English which is very good as opposed to our non existent Finnish!
I for one am amazed and slightly embarrassed, as a spanish resident who only has a few words of Spanish, at the way in which you have embraced the English language, our culture, area and club. 😎
I don’t worry about the Boro, and that’s why I shan’t look again at League tables again until Easter. Boro have made a habit of scoring late goals under Michael Carrick and the sign of a good team is to win even when a little under par. I find all this talk about who has the most favourable run-in, the Blades or the Boro counterproductive and utter nonsense. Both clubs are likely to have bad results from now on in a league that has shown that any one team can win or lose against another on any given day. However even an old sceptic like me can now see that Boro now have an outside chance of automatic promotion, and even a defeat at the Hawthorns next week won’t change that perspective. In reality of course Boro are actually 5 points behind Sheffield United as their goal difference is superior to Boro’s at the moment, and with a game in hand are still favourites to finish second. As long as Boro keep winning there’s always a chance that Boro might overtake the Blades.
Nevertheless, in cricket one can almost guarantee that England will win any match, so far ahead are they tactically in all aspects of all other nations. In Chris Broad and Jimmy Anderson they have the perfect combination to bowl any country out twice, and will soon emulate the Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne as the former ‘terrible twosome’ that Australia were fortunate to have in the past. Once Jonny Bairstow is fit England will arguably have the three best batters in World cricket including Harry Brook and Joe Root, all Yorkshiremen by the way. What’s more like Michael Carrick at Boro the major prospective is to entertain at the same time as winning.
I was also mightily impressed how St Helens beat Penrith in Australia yesterday, the first British/English team to win the World Cup Challenge since 1974. However in contrast England’s current Rugby Union side is the worst to have represented the country in my lifetime.
After the most horrific week I have experienced health wise I have, I still have a major problem with bowel incontinence, although not quite as bad as it was a couple of days ago. I didn’t listen to the Radio Tees commentary of Boro’s match yesterday, as the production has lost its way in my opinion since the demise of Alistair Brownlee. I usually tune in to Final Score on the BBCs red button to get a wider perspective of what’s happening elsewhere. What I do miss is a list of the days attendances of each division alongside the scores of each match that used to appear on Ceefax which enabled one to compare every club’s attendance against each other.
Well this afternoon I shall be tuning into West Yorkshire Sport on Radio Leeds or Radio Humberside which provides excellent live commentaries on Super League. Of course with Boro winning yesterday (a result I had anticipated despite the slow start), then news from Australia about England’s great Test cricket win, I’ll be hoping for a winning treble with Cas winning on Humberside this afternoon. I do need a tonic after last week, and maybe the Gods will be on my side today. I’ll forever have to endure bowel incontinence for the rest of my life, but a treble win this afternoon will help to set me up for the rest of the week. Fingers crossed!
@jarkko - A Theatre in a hospital is the room in which surgeons carry out medical operations (medical procedures, removing an appendix, repairing a wound etc).
Hospital buildings will contain various combinations of reception areas, waiting areas for people who have outpatient appointments, examination rooms, theatres (where the operations take place), units where X-Rays or other scans like MRI, CAT scans etc are carried out, pharmacies where the drugs are kept and measured out when required, Wards (larger rooms containing rows of beds for the patients to sleep or rest in as they recover or between treatments), side-wards or individual rooms for those who may need individual care, Intensive Care Wards for those needing specialist intensive care, kitchens to prepare the food for the patients, staff and visitors etc.
Jarkko - you speak English like a native but a more educated native than many we see in these parts!
(There are, of course, other Theatres in English. The theatre in which you watched a play, or where a concert is given for example, or a lecture theatre like at university, or we talk about theatres in warfare - Montgomery was a general whose troops fought at one stage in the desert sands of the North African theatre in World War 2...).
@forever-dormo Luckily I have never been to a hospital in England. UBT!
...and sadly I have never been to a theatre in Finland !
Well unfortunately Cas lost 30-32 but after 60 minutes play were actually 6-32 behind and almost scored a last minute try which would have rounded off the perfect weekend. Nevertheless perhaps I may stay awhile longer as the summer looks inviting on the football and cricket front.