Please can anyone explain to me why we are playing left footers on the right! It occurs to me that some players are being set up to fail to justify them not being picked. 😎
It's got to be good that that the manager has split up our best three players at the business of actually scoring goals by combining their talents. That would be Wing, Tav. And Fletcher. He obviously continues his tried and trusted method of preventing goals (by us ) that would be playing Britt, who never let's you down in that respect.
This has to be one of the worst performances, in football terms, for some time.
We have more “midfield” players than you can count, and none of them can create anything. Not sure what Morsy will add, certainly going forward.
I assume NW is looking for a tall holding type striker, because we only seem to be playing the ball in the air. Awful to watch, just awful.
RR said he couldn’t provide a report for tonight’s game and I fully endorse that. The less said the better.
That was miserable. I can only assume that Warnock was using it as a training exercise.
Ten quid for a product that would have had Poundland customers demanding their money back.
Only McNair looked even reasonably competent.
Barnsley were neat and tidy, no more than that, but it was more than enough for them to complete a comfortable win.
We seemed to play without any method or design.
Very sad that Wood belied his promise of the last round. He looked out of his depth here, with Bola being not much better. The pace at which he jogs back when out of position is infuriating.
And as for the new keeper...Neither of the two he has replaced has ever played so poorly.
And the decision to play our most promising young left wing back on the right defied explanation.
None of the peripheral players looked capable of holding down a first team place.
This was a thoroughly miserable performance from a team lacking skill, energy, commitment and tactical nous.
I'm delighted that Redcar Red didn't have to witness it, let alone report on it.
The longer term question of what kind of team and club we hope to become remains bafflingly unclear.
I’m afraid to say that Lewis Wing is in danger of becoming another Tarmo Kink.
Well. Aren't I pleased that I totally forgot we had this fixture tonight...
On my reach the reaction s in herd to be fair, but it sounds to have been dire.
It would be wrong for me to express an opinion not having seen it, but all the same it is a little concerning even after only three games.
The cunning plan looks a bit Baldrick at the moment but as Mr Warnock said we're not going to win it, The League Cup or whatever it's called, so let's test some fringe players and see if they can step up up. They fell over.
We seem to be back to square pegs in round holes syndrome. I never saw the game but the fault is somewhere, but where? Is a point being made? The Barnsley manager said he expected hoofball and we gave him it apparently. And the saving grace of the evening? An empty stadium.
Mr Warnock you have a lot of work to do I fear.
UTB,
John
Besides being very disappointed with that performance from a number of so called first team players and squad fill ins, I am more disappointed with Mr Warnock.
In the past when he may have been linked with MFC, I always said no on football terms. Experience in promotion yes. As we don’t have a squad with a cat in hells chance probably of the top half, looking at the last three games, I can see already that the ball in the air route will get us nowhere. That’s discounting square pegs in round holes.
This could be another long hard season.
This team faced relegation last season and has seen widespread departures and few quality incoming. What do you expect? Of course it will be a long grind of a season. NW doesn’t have a magic wand.
Basically he’s starting from scratch and will have to play tactics suited to the players at his disposal.
Hugely disappointing and very worrying.
Our new ‘number 1’ goalkeeper looks highly suspect. He was beaten twice at his near post, and for the first goal made no effort to stop it.
We had no width. The wing-backs were largely ineffective and anonymous. Bola hardly got forward at all. Coulson, played badly out of position on the right by the manager, made a couple of very late runs to the byline but his crosses came to naught. Maddo complained that Boro were ‘playing in front of Barnsley all the time’, making it easy for their defenders. Certainly, there were very few instances when Boro got behind the defence. This has been a deathly feature of our play for ages now.
In the second half, Boro put in quite a lot of crosses, mainly from deep, but every single one was calmly headed away by Tykes defenders, who generally had a comfortable evening. None of our forwards appeared able to out-jump or outwit their markers.
As ever, it seems, we created hardly any clear-cut chances. I certainly can’t recall any. In part, that is because we have no-one who can create them. I can only recall one killer pass from a red shirt all evening, when Wood played a lovely 50 yard ball inside the full-back for Browne to run onto.
We allowed Barnsley - Barnsley!! - time and space to play neat, fluid and quite inventive football, and they often broke forward at pace. In contrast, we plodded through the game, building up our attacks all too slowly, and failing to find our own men far too often.
We know NW made a number of deliberate changes for this game, but it is already becoming clear that he is going to have his work cut out to improve results and league position.
Any positives, I hear you ask? Well, Dijksteel looks good, and McNair, who came on at half-time, was strong and effective.
Thankfully I neither saw nor heard any commentary but judging from the reports I made the right decision to put work first. As GHW has said Warnock doesn't have a magic wand, the squad is decimated from the one that struggled to survive to the point where Barnsley reserves are now clearly better than ours. It is what it is as Mogga would say.
I’m quickly losing interest in Boro now so didn’t listen or watch the match. In fact I’m quickly losing interest in all sport except cricket at the moment. Never thought I’d ever say that, but bored and so tired at the moment.
@grovehillwallah With respect GHW, we do not have the players that are suited to the long hit ball. It has always been his style and I can accept that.
However you have to have the right players, we do not.
@grovehillwallah With respect GHW, we do not have the players that are suited to the long hit ball. It has always been his style and I can accept that.
However you have to have the right players, we do not.
As far as I can tell we don't have the right players to play *any* tactic. Can't play 4 at the back because we don't have orthodox full backs, can't play 3 at the back because we don't have enough centre backs. Can't play on the counter because we don't have pace. Can't play possession because we don't have the creativity. Can't play long ball because we don't have right strikers. Can't cross the ball from wide because we only have one orthodox winger. Can't play one up because neither of our strikers can play that role effectively.
I mean I would hate to be a manager of this group because there is literally no formation and tactic which seems to suit them. However, right now you can't sell players because players don't want to move for less money so NW's ability to create a coherent whole is really limited.
I get the impression that NW has been reduced to trying to keep a solid defence, clear your lines and hope for the best up front, and that the law of averages say you get at least one goal scoring opportunity. The management keep their fingers crossed for 90 minutes hoping that one chance goes in.
( I notice NW is usually seen with his hands behind his back, so the cameras don’t see his crossed fingers )
@grovehillwallah With respect GHW, we do not have the players that are suited to the long hit ball. It has always been his style and I can accept that.
However you have to have the right players, we do not.
As far as I can tell we don't have the right players to play *any* tactic. Can't play 4 at the back because we don't have orthodox full backs, can't play 3 at the back because we don't have enough centre backs. Can't play on the counter because we don't have pace. Can't play possession because we don't have the creativity. Can't play long ball because we don't have right strikers. Can't cross the ball from wide because we only have one orthodox winger. Can't play one up because neither of our strikers can play that role effectively.
I mean I would hate to be a manager of this group because there is literally no formation and tactic which seems to suit them. However, right now you can't sell players because players don't want to move for less money so NW's ability to create a coherent whole is really limited.
Can’t disagree with any of that really.
As I said last week, we don’t have full backs who can defend and we don’t have a left footed CB, so neither 442 nor 352 are comfortable options and that’s ignoring the creative and goal scoring problems.
Why did I renew my season card? Am I certifiable?
Yes Boro demonstrated yesterday that they certainly need players - apparently Boro are closing in on the signing of another former Arsenal striker, Chuba Akpom - yes that Chuba Akpom! - who would have thought it.
OK, the 28-year old only made 4 league appearances for the Gunners with some of them as long as four whole minutes. He's not quite what you'd call prolific and in the four years he spent on loan in the Championship and League One with the likes of Coventry, Brentford, Forest, Hull and Brighton he managed to net three league goals. He since moved on to Belgium where he upped his game to score six league goals before going to Greece where he equaled that six-goal haul and improved on it last season to his best ever with eight.
Some may wonder if that (23 career league goals for a 28-year old striker) will be enough to improve Boro's scoring record but he's apparently Neil Warnock's number one target - I guess we'll soon find out...
Lewis Wing should demand a move. End of.
The club stated ( via NW) that all players were available for transfer ) I didn’t see a rush of clubs trying to buy any of them.
@werdermouth according to some sites he is only 24, his birthday is either 9th October 1991 or 9th October 1995. I wonder which one we signed and if we actually know? I shouldn't laugh but you just know its got another "Typical Boro" all over it.
I've just watched a PR video entitled 'You Won't Believe How good Chuba Akpom has become'.
It's correctly titled.
I don't believe that he has become any good on this evidence
In fact if these are his best bits then the lad has been struggling.
I wonder if anyone has taken the trouble to have watched Akpom playing in Greece in the recent past.
I wouldn't put money on it, even as the Boro appear to be about to put money on him.
@werdermouth according to some sites he is only 24, his birthday is either 9th October 1991 or 9th October 1995. I wonder which one we signed and if we actually know? I shouldn't laugh but you just know its got another "Typical Boro" all over it.
On re-checking the details it seems the 1991 date is wrong as he made his debut for Arsenal in 2012 aged 17 then he's probably only 24 - especially as he also played for England U17s in the same year.
Unless of course there are indeed two Chuba Akpoms 🙂 Maybe we should sign them both just to make sure! Still, I will look forward to the Riverside chant if stadiums re-open of "There's only one Chuba Akpom..."
I take it all back - he sounds like a great young prospect...
Isn’t there a forum for transfer talk, just asking like. 😂😂😂
Come on BORO.
I suppose if you make a point or reply to a post on one thread that also applies to another you could always post it again on another thread - but that would make it confusing for anyone to know which one to reply to.
This team faced relegation last season and has seen widespread departures and few quality incoming. What do you expect? Of course it will be a long grind of a season. NW doesn’t have a magic wand.
Basically he’s starting from scratch and will have to play tactics suited to the players at his disposal.
I agree that he will have to employ tactics suited to those at his disposal but left footed players on the right and vice versa rarely work imo. 😎
Well via the wonders of modern technology I was able to watch the MFC match stream last night and wish I had not bothered and put my £10 to better use! It was an absolutely dire performance by us and if NW thinks the answer to our problems is an extra two attackers then this is one season to far for him.
Deleriad suggested that NW was using it as a training exercise. My understanding of training is that you learn something new and improve and enhance your skills; we learnt nothing new whatsoever from last night's performance other than some of those on the fringes of the squad are just not able to cope at this level.
Bettinelli did not cover himself with glory and Morsy did not look as if he brings anything especially new to the party. We are clearly at a loss when we come up against teams who play football, as was the case at the end of last season and therefore nothing has changed. A long and worrying season ahead I fear. 😎
btw Just to clarify a point on Exmil's earlier cheeky little jibe (not sure what the appropriate emoji is for that sentiment) - I'm not expecting that posters should head over to the 'Speculation on Appointments and Players' every time you want to mention potential signings or sales.
The origional purpose for that thread was as a general cover-all on the football side during the season break. Now that we are back into the season, I figure the main thrust of the discussions will revolve around each fixture and the subsequent post-match fallout and the issues that arise from subsequent comments.
Basically, it's natural that in each match thread the subjects of tactics, line-ups and who should start and whether Boro need new players to better fit certain positions will arise. It's therefore inevitable that people will respond to other posts if the subject of not having the right players is an observation of the failings during a game and the discussion within a match thread will head in that direction.
I'm pretty relaxed about allowing a thread to go with the flow of the conversation and not forcing people into a narrow box of what is just directly related to the game thread and the need to post related points on another thread - that would become slightly complicated to follow I suspect.
My point pre-season was more that completely unrelated non-football points were being posted on the 'Speculation on Appointments and Players' out of habit of there being a 'current' thread in such cases where there is no obvious connection to a current thread then it's better to create a new one - perhaps in some cases a broader topic that covered the point that also allows similar points in the future to be made to avoid having very specific threads with just a couple of posts would be better.
@steely: I renewed. MUST be mad....... I feel like Ken Smith at the moment. Thank goodness for the cricket (but I might have a different view on that after Australia bat in this decider).