Appalling second goal to concede with a Millwall player left unmarked in the six yard box and able to receive a header from their free kick and volley into the net.
Whoever get’s the managers job has a major job on his hands to avoid relegation. 😖😎
Millwall 2 - 0
A second for Flemming in the 49th minute. 🙁
Giles on for Bola & Hackney for McGree in the 51st minute.
Yellow card for Jones in the 57th minute (bad foul)! *sigh* Why does he do it? He's fast becoming a liability!
Dijksteel on for Paddy & Forss for Akpom in the 65th minute.
85th minute and first shot on target! ☹️😎
85th minute and first shot on target! ☹️😎
🍾
Good grief. Mentally weak, tame, meek were the common words used by the Radio Tees commentary team. Body language poor second half. We deserved absolutely nothing.
We need the new manager with real urgency now. And whoever comes in has a hell of a job on his hands to keep us out of a relegation scrap.
Well that was a dire game of football in the second half - both sides were rubbish and Boro completely lacking shape and ideas or indeed any sense they wanted to win. They gave away an inexplicable second goal where everyone ignored Flemming and left him alone until it put the ball in the net. We need a new head coach asap and probably a complete rethink on how we play as the wing-back system no longer works or offer a threat with the players we have.
Listening to Radio Tees it was a very poor Boro display. Half time talk seemed to make us even worse. No fight.
It looks like it will be a relegation battle rather than us moving up to mid-table. I hope we find a really exceptional manager as our squad doesn't seem capable (interested?) of getting us up the table.
I won't be at the Blackburn match as the hotels are too expensive but that looks like being a hard game even if we are better at home. (We must be close to top of the yellow cards table.)
Nice 1/2 bottle of Malbec even for just £6.00.
Didn’t see the first half - Don’t think I missed anything.
Watched second half- after a couple of minutes and a long ball down the middle, headed on and Millwall player completely unmarked and 2-0.
Game over. Boro were appallingly slow in their build up, plus too much passing sideways and backwards and hoofing long balls aimlessly forward. Easy for the Millwall defenders.
Boro, at times when they had the ball looked as though they didn’t know what to do. Gave away too many free kicks when a player lost possession of the ball plus the usual stupid bookings. Do some players lack a brain.
I would be ashamed to collect my wages if I performed as a team like today.
They made Millwall look a decent team.
Who would want to be manager of this lot?
Philip of Huddersfield
@philip-of-huddersfield. Good point Philip, if any of the prospective candidates watched that game they may decide to withdraw their CV. 😉😎
Two words....Relegation fodder. Now Gibson must stop dithering and get someone in quick to avoid disaster. But whoever it may be has got one headache of a job. For me , it's time to drop Howson, Mcnair and Crooks for starters. Most of the team seem to be going through the motions. It's going to be a very long and arduous season.
Malcolm, I agree about dropping McNair and Crooks (maybe get his hernia sorted) but Howson was the best of a bad bunch. Muniz appears to be another non scoring striker although not a great deal of service. We need an appointment early next week, preferably Monday.
Come on BORO.
Oh dear back to the norm, can't understand why crooks is playing with a hernia
Danny Baker got that spot on!
Amazingly, Boro had 63% of possession, and 7 corners to Millwall’s none. Yet we had just one shot on target while they had seven! Damning statistics that show how ineffective we were (are) going forward. We had all that possession but did precisely nothing with it.
Glad I missed that. By all accounts the team is shot right now. Individually we have a squad full of good championship players. But as a team and in their current state, they are a complete mess.
If we get this appointment wrong, something of which there is a non-zero chance, we're looking at League 1 next season. There's always a team that collapses unexpectedly each season. This season it could easily be us.
@werdermouth You beat me to it Werder. As you said the current system is not working and whether a new Coach would move to 4-4-2 or a variation of it is debatable.
The truth is the majority of the players look as though they just not good enough to play in any kind of system.
The recruitement has been one big disaster over the summer with a number of the new players obviously not good enough or the right players to fit the system they where bought for.
Not sure where Matt Clarke is, Mowatt looks a dubious inclusion and then we have the forwards. It is hard to believe that we have brought in Muniz, Forss, Hoppe and the returning prodigal son Akpom.
Are they good enough, is it the service. Certainly Forss and Hoppe looked lightweight against Millwall’s big defenders. Common in most Champion sides.
It is hard to believe that a new Coach can come in and make a significant difference in the short term.
We need wins and points to stave off a relegation battle which we are certainly now in. This season is a write off, one more of many that Mr Gibson has overseen in the last number of years.
@deleriad Individually we have a squad full of good Championship players.
I think that is a debatable statement I am sad to say. How many would walk into a top ten team, which is where we were supposed to be at least. Very few I think.
@deleriad. Are they good Championship players?
How have we so quickly gone from a top seven side to a side in disarray?
What concerned me must was the way in which we conceded the second goal and accepted it without any inquisition, players merely turning around to get ready for the kick off.
Warnock and Wilder both talked about leaders but I didn’t see any on the pitch today and that really concerns me.
Things were bad under Woodgate and we are now in similar territory. As you say, we are currently looking like the team most likely to collapse and drop into league one.
I think that the players should be made aware of Danny Baker’s summary of the game (see PaulInboro above) and asked to explain what part he got wrong. 😎
The managers who are being considered by Boro all have their pros and cons and none are standout managers guaranteed to turn around the current shambles of a team into something decent. Indeed, one of them - Carrick has to be regarded as a novice and therefore a risky appointment.
So, why not do something different Eg,go for 3 experienced ex professionals of international quality - one a defensive coach, one a midfielder and one a striker.
I would start with someone like Tony Adams to sort out the defence- I think he’d stand no nonsense, I’d love someone like Graham Souness for the midfield and say Kenny Dalgish for the forwards.
You are probably saying this is a crackers idea but humour me and for a bit of fun come up with your three appointments.
Philip of Huddersfield
The first half was disappointing but rather in the “why did we again have to be the victims of some lousy luck but we’re playing OK” manner as opposed to the absolute rubbish that we delivered in the second half. It was made worse by the fact that I had to stay up to nearly 3.00am in order to watch it.
The most disappointing aspect was that Millwall didn’t do anything. They just let us meander down dead ends and then played the ball forward as well as they could which really wasn’t anything special.
The first goal was bad luck; not much more one could say except perhaps that it was a stupid foul to give away.
The second goal was understandable if one assumes that our defence is worried about getting the latest Covid variation because there is no other possible explanation for the social distancing within our six yard box. I assume that it was actually Jones’ fault but given that it was a set piece it’s hard to know who should have been there.
Whoever comes in as new manager, there is one clear priority - “Sort out the defence and particularly down the sides.‘. If this means that we have to go back to a 4-3-3, 4-3-1-2 or 4-4-2, so be it but even if we stick to the current plan we need full backs and/or wingbacks who maintain some defensive discipline. Far too often we find ourselves overloaded down the inside forward channel. This makes it too easy for even poor sides who can simply drop back knowing that we don’t have the creative midfield that can hurt them and they then attack when we lose the ball.
Given that we can’t pass through sides we’re going to have to try and carry the ball forward and, with Tavernier gone, we don’t have that kind of midfield player. Hackney tries but it’s a lot to put on a young player who is just breaking through.
Anyway, next step is a new manager. I don’t know whether Carrick is right for us in this stage of our development. Can he sort out the structure? There’s no guarantee so maybe success at any level is the yardstick which could lean towards Edwards or Corboran. Lets wait and see but I can’t say that I’m looking forward to another late night give the way that we are playing right now.
utb
@selwynoz I believe we should go for any experience available and try and lesson the gamble. Edwards appears the best choice of those mentioned, Carrick only three games experience, Corboran I doubt would want to but into the Coach scenario.
As you said the midfield gets out numbered and generally we defend poorly from the wings. As much as Jones has not been anywhere near his best, he made one run from inside Millwall’s half to tackle their player who had the ball played over the top nearly in our corner. That was on Giles’s side??
I have tried to look at a 4-4-2 line up and who to drop to make us more compact, but it is scary. There are holes all over of players not up to it.
What has happened with McNair from Wilders favourite son to another subbing yesterday. Crooks another player with a big question mark over him. If he has got a hernia problem, then the fans deserve to know and he deserves to have it fixed.
To be fair to Mr Gibson, I would not want to be making the final choice, it will be just like the Conservatives choosing a new PM, none of the really wanted and the old one still a favourite with many.
@pedro. To be fair to Giles, I believe the incident you are talking about when Jones covered in the left back position, Giles had just taken a corner from the right so Jones was probably his cover.
After yesterday's performance, I am struggling to see a way forward with this team; I am afraid that our years in the wilderness are destined to continue for many a year yet and whilst there is still a long way to go in the season I believe we are definitely relegation candidates. 😎
I see that Josh Coburn scored for Bristol Rovers yesterday after being given his first full start by Joey Barton:
Interesting thought! I don’t think I could better your choice of three, unless it was to put in Paul Merson as an attacking midfield coach. It occurs to me, though, that Boro don’t seem to have a specialist defensive coach, unless I’m mistaken? And of the three names said to be in the running, Corboran, Edwards and Carrick, I think all are forward-thinking, attack-minded coaches. Was any of them actually a defender in their playing days? Carrick played as a holding midfielder in his latter years at MU, but that hardly counts. I guess all three would say that defending starts from the front with a high press. Nonetheless, I do think it would benefit us to have someone specialist leading the defensive coaching. Tony Adams is a very good shout!
But I wonder if yesterday’s tame, spineless performance will give Gibson pause for thought? Does any of the people he has lined up, or the one he has as favourite, have the ability to grapple with our mental weakness, midfield monotony and defensive sloppiness? Or does he think we need someone else alongside the new man to steady the ship? Should he eat humble pie and bring Neil Warnock back in to work in partnership with the new guy, if NW would accept a secondary role? Is there a similar senior statesman out there who might do a similar, short-term job? We saw what happened when Woodgate brought in inexperienced Robbie Keane. But we also saw what a difference a calm head can make when Gibson brought in Terry Venables.
Not sure when Boro plan to appoint a new head coach but hopefully no later than Monday given the lack of organisation and shape displayed at Mllwall. I'm struggling to see how the wing-back system can continue given it's neither delivering shots on goal or preventing goals at the other end.
I'd be happy to see Fry and Lenihan as a centre-back pairing with Dijksteel and Bola as full-backs with pace, which is what they recruited as. This overlapping centre-back idea hasn't really worked or proven to be a weapon of any significance - in some ways it has become a distraction that has dictated the whole shape of the team.
If Boro move to a back four then it offers an opportunity to mix it up in the forward positions where Jones and Giles could play in wide attacking roles without leaving the defence exposed. Indeed, even players like Forss or Watmore could play in a wide attacking role with someone like McGree or Hackney being a midfield playmaker behind the forwards.
Perhaps even a return to Karanka's favoured 4-2-3-1 would make Boro both harder to play against and give opportunities to press from the front and rotate the attackers. Much will depend on who the new head coach is and after seeing the mess yesterday I'm not sure this is a job for someone with no or little Championship experience.
Apparently, Carrick and Corberan are now joint favourites ahead of Edwards - perhaps out of those three Corberan may be the better appointment under the current situation as he has turned a Championship team around with Huddersfield - though it did take him over season to do it so there's also a risk he'll not get it right.
Just on the Crooks hernia issue - I suspect the plan would probably be for him to try and have the op and recovery over the Qatar World Cup break - it obviously can't be that bad if he was left on the pitch for 90 minutes yesterday - though I've no idea how he wasn't subbed purely on a performance measure.