Bristol City v Boro
Saturday 19/2/22
K.O. 3PM
Ashton Gate
Boro have had a well earned rest from a hectic, but productive week. A week in which Boro claimed the scalp of Manchester United, drew with QPR and thrashed Derby County.
It now appears that we have two sets of paired strikers, Watmore and Sporar and the other pair being Balogun and Connolly.All four are interchangeable and the new recruits are now getting game time for fitness and used to Wilderfootball.
As I posted previously, I listened to Wilder on his post match press comments on radio and on club website and basically what he said about Connolly was.
”He texted me last week because he couldn’t understand why he had started so slow in the Boro games to get up to speed. I told him to stop trying too hard and that it would come good. The goal will have made a difference to him.”Connolly himself at a post match video interview also said that he hadn’t really played much over the last two years and that he had been in contact with Wilder who had told him not to worry.
I think as fans we can’t go against the manager’s, coaches and football director professional judgement. Wilder seems pretty confident that he can get Connolly and Balogun up to speed for the assault on the playoff positions. I think this manager is the best that we’ve had since Karanka whilst playing better football.
Our captain Johnny Howson seems to have found a new pair of legs and new strength. Perhaps it was his long hair and beard which were causing drag in his running. It’s been commented on by Wilder that Howson is an important player and Captain in this team when a lot of us were suggesting that he drop further back as he was ageing!
Another player who has been subject to some adverse comments is the bubbly Marcus Tavernier. Under Wilder, who has persevered with him, he has run for over 17km in recent games and is an important fixture in the team. He’s getting better and better.
Wilder also comments quite frequently on Fry and McNair our two centre backs who could probably walk into a lot of Premiership teams.
Dijksteel and Taylor have both improved recently but we all know who is the star man in the team.
Isiah Jones, he is rubbish and we all know that. (Just in case anybody from another club is reading this!) I absolutely love his play and he is more exciting than Adama Traore ever was. This is because Jones has a finished product which creates goals, own goals for the opposing team and plenty of assists. Hopefully he will still be with us next season (in the Premiership) where his skills will be admired further)
I’m not going to go on about Lumley. We all know that he has a mistake in him and sometimes his ability to read crosses is poor. What he is as a keeper is a good showstopper, who fills his goal. As I’ve said before, if he’s good enough for Wilder he’s good enough for me.
McGree who looked a steady substitute for the mighty Crooks, who has been immense since his signing is the player who makes Boro tick. If he isn’t up for the game (like Blackburn) then Boro don’t perform. Crooks is only two bookings away from a two match suspension so McGree needs to get up to speed.
Mention must also be made of Payero who looks like he will be out for at least two months. It’s unfortunate for the team as he looked like he was starting to fit in. We wish him a speedy recovery and hope he becomes an important member of our team.
I absolutely love this team, but I must confess that my favourite is Watmore, his running and never say die attitude is a joy to watch. I was talking to Gary Gill last week and he said “If Watmore hadn’t had those injuries he would be playing in the Premiership for a top,top, club.”
All credit to our previous manager for signing him and that’s said thankfully not begrudgingly.
We turn to our next opponents Bristol City known as “The Robins” who lost another game over the weekend. Managed by former Boro Captain and Centre Half (they weren’t centre backs then) their problems continued as they suffered a 3-1 defeat to Swansea City in the Sky Bet Championship on Sunday. Cyrus Christie got a goal for Swansea and provided an assist for Michael Obafemi’s equaliser as they bounced back from conceding to Bristol City’s Andreas Weimann’s first-half opener. Swan’s Joel Piroe then added his eighth goal of the season to compound City’s misery.
Our own ex Boro Stalwart, now Robin’s coach Curtis Fleming was giving Zak Vyner lengthy instructions from the touch line, as the player was having a torrid time, but he didn’t get any better.
It is interesting that the game was an all too repeating theme of City’s season, who have the league’s worst record when it comes to holding onto a lead and getting maximum points.
One striker that they have on the books who can’t get a game is Nahki Wells whom I have admired over the past few years. He admits “entertaining” the idea of leaving Bristol City on loan but having seen a deadline day move to Cardiff City denied is determined to try and win his place back in the Robins starting XI.. Wells was subject to two loan bids from the Bluebirds in the final 24 hours of the January transfer window but City maintained they were only willing to let the Bermudian international leave on a permanent deal and as the deadline passed he remained at Ashton Gate.
Another player that they have that il like is Tomas Kalas. A good defender who now plays at Centre Back. I always thought he fought for the Boro shirt when he was on loan to us from Chelsea. I never understood why we didn’t sign him but it’s too late now. His game has been slightly off the boil in the last couple of weeks, but over the weekend it was redemption day for Kalas at the back. He won his headers when Swansea put the pressure on and appeared to be the first man on the front post to get the ball clear on numerous occasions.
Our opponent’s have now dropped down to 17th and have 37 points from 32 games played. It is hoped that the Boro will win on Saturday and the Robin’s will suffer accordingly.
Right Diasborians In the words of Norwich Director and culinary expert Delia smith “let’s be havin yer”
Forecasts please.
Me?
I quite like the name “Robin” I don’t know why but ! If is good enough for Bristol City…..
Reason must prevail in this instance and…..
I’m going for a 1-3 win to Boro
UP THE BORO
OFB
It would appear that the Boro secret is out! Our “rubbish” player Isiah Jones is being a tactical target for opposing teams.
Wayne Rooney admitted that he had set his team up to counter the threat of Jones which spectacularly backfired with Isiah having three assists for Boro goals.
It will be of no surprise if Nigel Pearson who is an excellent coach and manager is training with his squad with tactics to nullify Jones threat.
One advantage of teams starting to do this is that Boro can start to use tactics on the left flank to create and score goals.
OFB
It is now clear that there are 2 factors which are producing the results - firstly we have goals in us and are creative, secondly we fight back and don't let our heads drop.
So we will win 3-1, a classic round-robin
Allan
Who are you calling “round robin?”
I resemble that remark !
OFB
Banana skins aside, I can’t see anything other than a win for us this weekend. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much positivity in this Forum as we’ve got at the moment. Has someone put something in our water?
Also, isn’t it great to see the players with smiles on their faces? They all seem to have bought into Wilderball.
Excellent starter for 10 from OFB. This is definitely a game that we need to win and you would expect us to win. The Robins are struggling for form and we need to keep the pressure on the teams around us. That said, Pearson is a savvy manager and, like Mowbray, will undoubtedly find a way to pose us a problem. This is probably not a bad time to play them. Their season is basically over; they're not going to go down and definitely won't finish in the top half.
It was interesting that Rooney's inexperience as a manager probably told against him at the weekend. He recognised a problem and came up with a tactic but wasn't able to execute it. Pearson, with a week to prepare will provide us with a much tougher opponent.
With Balogun and Connolly showing promising signs and a very promising debut from the bench by McGree, it's now down to Wilder to demonstrate that he can get results from this team that don't rely on Messiah Jones.
Who'll start? The only real question is which 2 strikers. I think we might see Connolly and Sporar together but I do think we don't want to over-rotate the strikers because they do need to build an understanding with the midfielders and each other. It looks like Wilder thinks Sporar and Connolly are his two best strikers with Watmore as a super-sub and Balogun to provide a different kind of option.
Ultimately we should have too much for Bristol City so I am going for a hard-fought 1-0 to us.
Thanks Bob. Great start.
Martin
I agree about the unprecedented degree of positivity (which I share). But you begin with "Banana skins aside..." That's one hell of a proviso. But it's the kind of caveat that comes with the territory for any Boro supporter.
I mentioned banana skins abounding in my last post of the previous thread...
Nice one, OFB. Boro by 2 goals (now that's something we've not been able to say for a while!).
Bananas are not the only fruit…
… let’s hope for a peach of a game, with Jones the apple of all our eyes and a big raspberry to all of our opponents.
Bananas are not the only fruit…
… let’s hope for a peach of a game, with Jones the apple of all our eyes and a big raspberry to all of our opponents.
... and 3 points the cherry on the top
Martin
Go man go
Martin
Go man go
pipped at the post by that one
Don’t forget, it’s a game of two guavas.
Sorry.
For those of you who remember Threads -
Middlesbrough 2 Oldham Athletic 1 -courtesy of my 12 year old who spotted it!!
Those of you who don't remember - watch it and be prepared.
Perhaps it’s a good job we no longer have Pears in goal……..
Excellent opener by the way, OFB. Thanks as ever.
Great opener again OFB, thank you.
I think the Robins will be a harder nut to crack than many think. Their home form is good and they have only lost two in the last eight; it’s away from home where they struggle having not won in the last eight.
Banana skins apart, we should have enough to take all three points and will go for 0-1 albeit a draw would not be a surprise and would at least ensure we keep the non losing run going.
I suspect on the team front it will be the same starting eleven again, subject to any injuries. 😎
Thanks Allan. Threads was written by my good friend Barry Hines, author of Kestrel for a Knave (fimed as Kes), who sadly passed away three or four years ago. He was a great man, a football man too. His great hero was Tony Currie, and I persuaded him to come with me to see the Boro on more than one occasion. His novel about football, The Blinder, is well worth seeking out.
I see that Dani Ayala got picked to play for Blackburn tonight, but injured himself during the warm-up and couldn't play.
He must have been so looking forward to battling with Andy Carroll.
Thanks Allan. Threads was written by my good friend Barry Hines, author of Kestrel for a Knave (fimed as Kes), who sadly passed away three or four years ago. He was a great man, a football man too. His great hero was Tony Currie, and I persuaded him to come with me to see the Boro on more than one occasion. His novel about football, The Blinder, is well worth seeking out.
I read his story Len. Kes, one of my favourite films of all time. When I was in the cinema business we showed it 3 times a day over 7 days and I have the DVD now.
Thanks Allan. Threads was written by my good friend Barry Hines, author of Kestrel for a Knave (fimed as Kes), who sadly passed away three or four years ago. He was a great man, a football man too. His great hero was Tony Currie, and I persuaded him to come with me to see the Boro on more than one occasion. His novel about football, The Blinder, is well worth seeking out.
That’s quite a claim to fame, Len. Is now the time to reveal I’ve never seen the film nor read the book? I’m not sure why, because I’m aware it’s lots of people’s favourite film. I have, of course, seen the Brian Glover football scene.
Kes of course are my initials Edward being my middle name. And for anyone who worked in the DVLA before the current changes were made will tell you it is for vehicles registered in the former capital of Scotland ie Perth, the ES referring to Eastern Scotland and the K for Kenneth being a Scottish Christian name. As a child when there were few cars on the road I collected car numbers. If my pals or I saw a car with the letters XG denoting cars registered in Middlesbrough we would say “XG, no nips back”. Don’t know why really!
Most boys also had Ian Allan’s Train Spotters Guide which listed all the classes of locomotives. Many the time I took the train to Darlington during the school holidays and underlined the number of the locomotives I had seen. I’m telling you this because in my dotage I’m now reminiscing about my childhood in general, not only about football and cricket, but the Second World War years and the immediate post-war years. I sometimes think I ought to have written my autobiography, but too late now and probably of little interest to the current population, although I did write my eulogy for my funeral about 7 years ago including the order of service and hymns.
Yes, I’m a tad eccentric, but there’s nobody alive now who knows the real Kenneth Edward Smith.
Boro have sold 1 700 tickets for the Bristol City match. Up the Boro!
Another Great Headliner OFB, seamlessly alternating with Andy. The pair of youare doing sterling work. Appreciated by all.
OFB, with regards to Crooks, I believe that was his NINTH yellow card.
According to the internet the cut off is week 32 for the 10 matches. However I thought like you there were TWO more matches to be played for him to get suspended. On one site I looked at was showing Derby as week 32 though I think it will possibly be against WBA.
@KES, there was a 3-page story about Redcar in the biggest newspaper in Finland called Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday. As the name suggest it is published in Helsinki but name have a genetive of the capital of Finland in its name.
The headline was: "Get rid of Boris". The first page was a picture of Scott Bell playing snooker in a local club in Redcar. Him saying that still at the beginning he thought Rishi Sunak would be a good successor for Johnson. But not anymore as price have gone up.
The article tells why a Red Wall town choose to vote Johnson in 2019. So in addition to Mr Bell, Valerie and Philip Stapley were interviewed with a picture taken on the Redcar beach. Also Tracey Johnson were interviewed. And local MP Jacob Young and Luke Myer from Redcar Labour.
Also a picture of the wind mills in the sea and an old advertisement from 1960 were published. The latter saying: "Visit the beach of Redcar" or similar. And of course a map showing the location of Redcar in the UK.
So it was nice to see that the local paper in here to send a journalist all the way to Redcar. In addition to the politics, there was also a little bit of history and present day business in there.
I often stay in Yarm or a hotel in Boro, and in the distant past in Gt Ayton. I have only driven through Redcar (and Dormanstown). Next time, I will see the beach at least - weather permitting 😇.
Up the Boro!
Another Great Headliner OFB, seamlessly alternating with Andy. The pair of youare doing sterling work. Appreciated by all.
OFB, with regards to Crooks, I believe that was his NINTH yellow card.
According to the internet the cut off is week 32 for the 10 matches. However I thought like you there were TWO more matches to be played for him to get suspended. On one site I looked at was showing Derby as week 32 though I think it will possibly be against WBA.
This weekends match is week 33 for Bristol City and week 31 for Boro because of postponed and rearranged games, Fulham and Shef Utd I believe.
Come on BORO.
Many thanks for the opener, OFB. Essential reading as ever.
Oddly with everything looking quite rosy in Boro's garden just now, there seems less to discuss. Even the bread and butter debating points such as tactics and team selection are falling by the wayside as we know how Wilder will set his team up and have little reason to question it, whilst, as OFB says in his opener, we're all quite trusting of him to make his selections as he sees fit at the moment. The front two of Connolly and Balogun was a surprise against Derby but then they both put in their best displays for us so far.
I can't recall ever being so content with everything the Boro manager is doing. Even in the Karanka days there were calls to be more attacking and have less sideways passing (quite often from me!). When was the last time we had such trust in our manager - Rioch?
Perhaps that's partly because the upturn has happened so suddenly. We looked a midtable team at best for the opening months of the season despite briefly making the top six. Now we look so much more convincing and playing some really good football the likes of which I haven't seen for such a sustained period. There were spells of excellent football under Robson and some shorter spells under McClaren but, even with some big name players and large sums paid, I don't think it felt as coherent as it does right now.
Ken has rightly cautioned against getting carried away (though I'm not sure what the downside is!) but for me we don't even need to get promoted for this to have been a very enjoyable season. The quality and style of the football and the return of hope has been far more than I expected whatever happens.
It's got to the point where I'd be disappointed not to finish in the playoffs now, but not dejected if we blow it. This feels like the beginning of a strong period for Boro and I'm happy enough to have another season like this one in the Championship next year anyway, but with a better start which would likely mean automatic promotion.
The elephant in the room is that, if we do manage to get promoted, the next season could be a bit of a slog in comparison. We'd have to view it for what it really is - a chance to put several million in the bank to help build a more sustainable future for the club. Now that the club is aligned from the boardroom to the terraces, you'd expect that kind of windfall to be invested far more wisely than it was last time around, and success to breed success.
For now though, Bristol City away. No game is easy in this league but the key for me is the consistency we have now - consistency of tactics, team selection to a large extend, "philosophy/identity" and, generally, performance levels. I've no reason to think we won't go again. Away win.