Just to say that I am excited by the MC appointment, though I wasn’t at first, as I initially thought we needed someone like Corboran or Hannes Wolf, i.e. someone with experience or a bit of a track record. But all good managers have to start somewhere. There is no reason why MC shouldn’t be a success at Boro, provided we give him time and the necessary resources. He has a hugely successful pedigree as a player, comes with first-rate references for his coaching prowess from the likes of Sralex, and he has bided his time to wait for the right opportunity at the right club.
Equally, I’m not dismayed by the Woodgate appointment. His time as our head coach was a debacle, obviously, but I do think he got a raw deal. Following on from Pulisaurus football and switching the style completely was what we absolutely needed to do, but I think JW was very naive in the way he went about it. He needed to proceed much more carefully. Then he went to Bournemouth, of course, where he got to the play-offs. His punditry is very strong - he certainly understands the game, and as someone pointed out above, he should be able to organise our leaky defence.
So, I feel we have the makings of a good team, which will be supplemented once another coach arrives. Time will tell, of course, but I am optimistic.
Good afternoon, chaps (or as 5pm approaches, is it already evening?). I have not yet seen the interview for which a link was offered earlier, because I have only just returmed home after a trip out - including a visit to the South Gare where it was sunny with clear visibility though blustery. I will look at the interview/Press Conference later.
My views on the Blog - it is fine for people to express their views whether positive or negative, but, as AV used to say, contributors should play the ball not the man. No abuse or insults but, to be fair, I hadn't noticed any of those recently. But criticism, especially constructive, is fine.
I like to think my posts are balanced. I have an equally large and heavy chip on both shoulders. I'm OK with funny anecdotes and stories that are not football based even though this is primarily a Middlesbrough FC supporters blog. If something is good, we should acknowledge it's good. If bad, we shouldn't shy away from expressing dissatisfaction - prime examples of that for those with long memories, was the infamous Strachan post-match interview and, for those with short-term memory recovery issues, the first half performances like those against QPR (A) and Cardiff City (H). We are not here to varnish the truth. We are here to express happiness, unhappiness, and to give our opinions generally.
Me? I'm hopeful this appointment will work out. I'm not a betting man so wouldn't put money on it. I recognise that most teams will NOT be succesful in any given season. There are few pieces of silverware available as prizes to a Championship team (the Champions, runners-up and the promoted play-off teams may be regarded as successful, and a team promoted from below which retains its place in the league the following year) but most teams will not be within that group and some will be relegated or find their position lower than had been hoped. I suppose if you have low expectations there is more chance of achieving them but if you have high expectations there is more chance you'll be disappointed. And, of course, expectations change in line with previous performances - so Manchester City will feel it a DISASTER to be runners-up or lower in the Premier League and if they are dumped out of the Champions League in the QF by Real Madrid.
I think we will NOT be relegated this season but we will not be good enough to go up. Eighth in the table this season with a sly look upwards next season...? (I acknowledge that eighth, from where we are currently placed, would be a considerable improvement).
I should have added that I have no problems with Jonny Woodgate returning as a coach. I thought his commentraries/expert pieces as co-commentator on the radio started off (in his early days) a bit ropey but I was telling my wife a while ago that I thought he had come on leaps and bounds and was now well worth a listen. I can't comment on his coaching but I can only assume from his stint at Bournemouth and the fact MC is happy with him, it must be good quality, too. The glass is 70% full.
I watched the presser and again not impressed by Kieran Scott. I'm sure I heard him say he hasn't signed any player that the manager didn't want. I think Wilder has the answer to that one.
Also I complained many times about the presentation of Press Conference in the past. You can hear the top table ok but where the press are it is difficult to understand them when they ask a question. All that is needed is a few more microphones. Surely the club can afford them. If not I have 2 quality mics spare. 🤣
@forever-dormo - at 11.28 this morning.
Brilliant FD, and topical on multiple levels. Great writing.
Coventry play Rotherham tonight and a win for Coventry will put us back into the bottom three. 😎🙁
Don't be so negative KP 😉🤭
I don’t disagree with your view that “there are certain posters who see nothing but bad in everything MFC does (We are doomed Mr Waring doomed).”
That is my point, they and others yourself included should be able to express their views as they see fit without being criticised. Similarly there are those that see everything through rose tinted spectacles and are also entitled to do so without being criticised.
I gave thumbs up to virtually ever post on here as an indication that I have read the post but not necessarily as an indication that I have agreed or disagreed with it.
If I regard a post as particularly well written or argued then I tend to post a comment to that effect or if I disagree then post a counter view.
I would prefer if we could get away from this negative/positive argument as I do not believe it serves any purpose and could be counter productive.
A post is a post and make of it what you will but please don’t give it a label. But there again someone may have a different view! 😎
I'm whole heartedly in agreement with you KP... and I tend to use the thumbs up to acknowledge a post rather than as endorsement of what it might say
@malcolm at 3.48 this afternoon
Quite right.
@powmillnaemore - Thanks for that Powmil and others.
I thought it was an interesting and ultimately quite uplifting press conference.
Carrick came across much like he used to play: not flashy, not a huge personality but self-assured, relaxed, quietly confident. Fingers crossed he also has the quality he once possessed as a player.
Scott came across less well to me, using his few minutes of air time to put the knife in regarding both signing players and managers’ intentions. I thought it was a bit spiky on what should have been a positive occasion.
Back to Carrick though. Certainly the noises on national radio (5live last night) and some areas of the press have been complimentary of him. He’s been praised for his deep thinking about the game and tactical planning, and also decisiveness with him being willing to drop Ronaldo (which is commonplace now) cited, especially given his youth in managerial terms.
I often think that a good coaching setup, as well as the obvious things around tactics and recruitment, usually involves a mix of personalities and that’s one of the reasons that I’m quite happy for Woodgate to assist him. Carrick strikes me as the quiet, thinking man whilst Woodgate (as we know from his press conferences and radio work) is a more outgoing character who may be more overtly motivational. As a duo it could work, though I’d feel more comfortable still if there was an older head among the team just to balance the thinking at times.
I’m still a bit sore from the past few months and retain some confusion and ultimately concerns about the setup at the club above the coaching and playing staff but glad to be at the beginning of what is hopefully a new and successful spell. Certainly nothing that Carrick said made me feel nervous about his appointment.
Good luck to him. And Woody.
I’m not sure whether I’ve upset people or not with my post today. If I have, I’m sorry, but as has been pointed out on subsequent posts, we’re all entitled to our opinions.
I quite like an articulate debate, but I don’t like upsetting people unnecessarily, so, again, apologies if I’ve done that.
@forever-dormo Apologies Dormo. A very good post that must have taken quite awhile to construct. Well done
Yes, I agree that M.C. Is the sort of coach I would like to see at our club. When he was in the last two seasons as a member of the all conquering team. I was surprised to learn that he was used by Fergy? To assist with the coaching. These are the players who move over to coaching, and, of course, are very successful in general. An example is the great player of African descent who is spreading his wings with Cristal Palace? This pool is where we should be fishing if we wish to get out of our present rut.
Just checking- do you mean Patrick Viera, ex-Captain of France?
Malcolm. I too was disappointed in what Scott had to say, or should I say what little he had to say given the opportunity.
Yes I also thought he indicated that all players signed had been done so with an all party agreement. I don’t think as said, Mr Wilder would agree.
Luongo perhaps, Forss, Boyd-Munce, Hoppe certainly
I’m not sure whether I’ve upset people or not with my post today. If I have, I’m sorry, but as has been pointed out on subsequent posts, we’re all entitled to our opinions.
I quite like an articulate debate, but I don’t like upsetting people unnecessarily, so, again, apologies if I’ve done that.
I see your cunning ploy there Martin, to get me to go back and read your post again to see what nuance I missed first time!! 😉
@powmillnaemore I’m just in it for the clicks. 😉
Get your money for nothing and your clicks for free.
@powmillnaemore I’m just in it for the clicks. 😉
Get your money for nothing and your clicks for free.
Isn’t it our club that’s in Dire Straits? 🤣
@powmillnaemore I’m just in it for the clicks. 😉
Get your money for nothing and your clicks for free.
Isn’t it our club that’s in Dire Straits? 🤣
Boom boom 💥
To be honest I have no idea if Carrick will be the coach to take us forward to I hope he is, the first thing he has to do is sort out the fact teams have an easy time counter attacking us,we are far too open and don't have the speed to recover when we give the ball away.
I'd go back to 4231 ,I'm not a big fan of it but it has safeguards, the at the back Four from last game ,I'd use Howson and Dyksteel holding , then Jones ,Mcgree and Whatmore ,as the three with Chuba up front, a bit of a mix but some speed with Jones and Whatmore and Mcgree will be ok moving around because of the two behind him.
@gt? All good teams start with a solid defence and as a club we have not had a solid defence since the days of TP.
We need his defence coupled with a pacy and creative midfield and strikers who strike.
Could take a couple of seasons to get to that position, I just hope we are still in the Championship if we do. 😎
Whilst were on about quips when I visited Northern Ireland I visited County Antrim, and Carrickfergus one of the oldest towns in all of Ireland. After Michael Carrick’s praise of Sir Alex yesterday perhaps in the future it will be renamed CARRICKFERGUSON. I’ll just get my coat!
Cobourn is merely a sign of an ongoing and active stupidity at this Club. To play, match after match without a striker is an indication of a malfunction which would have taken us lower than we would like in the football World. There still remains the shattered buying model, because we are the go to club if you are unloading a worthless player (for a Good fee). I would doubt anyone could name all the dross that has landed on planet Boro. So the sheer stumbling, anguished, muddle that has accompanied an obviously sensible and welcome arrival at our club of a great player who was always going to become a coach (at the highest level) is par for the course. It will signal the end of our current buying model, and, no, I could not describe it, could anyone?
Cobourn is merely a sign of an ongoing and active stupidity at this Club. To play, match after match without a striker is an indication of a malfunction which would have taken us lower than we would like in the football World. There still remains the shattered buying model, because we are the go to club if you are unloading a worthless player (for a Good fee). I would doubt anyone could name all the dross that has landed on planet Boro. So the sheer stumbling, anguished, muddle that has accompanied an obviously sensible and welcome arrival at our club of a great player who was always going to become a coach (at the highest level) is par for the course. It will signal the end of our current buying model, and, no, I could not describe it, could anyone?
I’m not sure we’re much worse than other clubs of our size, but of course we’re not aware of the moans and disappointments of their fans. I suspect that if we’d signed Coburn, instead of bringing him through the ranks, there’d be many fans saying he isn’t good enough and was a sign of our hopeless recruitment process.
I certainly don’t believe he’s the answer to our goal scoring malaise, not until he’s learnt his trade and has had a few hard edges knocked on to him.
As fans, we seem capable of ignoring the apparent stupidity to continue supporting the club. I doubt that if you felt the same about your local garage in terms of service, business model, staffing incompetency or communication, you’d still be using them for your car maintenance needs and yet, I assume, you are still a Boro supporter. It’s a complicated relationship this fandom thing isn’t it?
@martin-bellamy - You are correct, Martin, about the stupidity (some would say utter futility) of football fandom. It may very well be different if you were to be a supporter of, say, Manchester City, Bayern Munich or Real Madrid. Even supporters of apparently successful Premier League clubs, say Arsenal or Spurs, have had their very recent periods of despair, though they HOPE they can have some tangible results (silverware or Champions League participation/success) in the near future.
But, as I have suggested in the past, few would keep going back to a restaurant - or to a hairdresser - if they were unhappy with what they were served. OK, not everyone can keep their levels of performance high all the time. Maybe the Chef is away this week and his team are just not up to standard without him; or maybe the serving team is short staffed for various reasons, so the normal eating experience isn't what you'd expect. You MIGHT go again in a month or so and give the restaurant another try, in the hope things will be better. But if they are not, and you go a third time, and a fourth, and a fifth, outsiders would say you are mad.
I suppose if my wife went to "Sven" for her normal hairdo (funnily she has an appointment this afternoon, before we go for our 'flu jabs) but came back with an unasked-for Mohican, or an unasked-for Afro, she would NOT go back. Probably understandably throw the chair at him on the way out, too. But football fans are different.
I can think of a sort-of-equivalent, though. I quite like the Battered Badger pub: it's just a short walk away from the house. In my beer drinking periods (rather than wine) I like to drink some of the real ales on offer - currently a choice between Wainwright, Sunbeam, Director's and Boondoggle in addition to the lagers and ciders the "youngsters" like. It is a pub which has a real fire although we are currently in the middle of an unseasonally warm spell so I don't expect it be lit when I go out this evening, and there is sometimes live music on an evening at the weekend. There is often sport on the TV. But it's the craic, the conversations with friends in the pub that make it. Nobody would call it "plush" inside.
During a particularly bleak period with a different licensee, the pub had "erratic" opening times. Some of us would go there expecting the pub to be open, but it wasn't. There's only SO many times you want to stand outside in the cold, hoping it will open. But when the licensee changed and we had Covid-19 it was a different world and we all wanted the pub to succeed, knowing the challenges pubs, restaurants and places of entertainment were facing. As soon as pubs could open, for people drinking outside, the hardened regulars were prepared to sit outside, well wrapped up (it wasn't very warm then!) either out the front of the pub so that passers-by could see it was open, or at the beer garden out the back. We wanted the pub to be profitable and open.
There have been occasions (thankfully few) when I've not been happy with a pint - normally if I just hold it up and look at it, the licensee would notice and come over and ask what the problem is, if it wasn't obvious at first sight. I'd recognse if the barrel was coming to it's end and perhaps I've had the last pint from the pipes and there'd be no problem replacing it. I can get cheaper beer from supermarkets and drink it at home and I've certainly got better wine at home than I can buy in the pub. But it's NOT for the beer or the wine that I go to the pub. I'd be somewhat forgiving if there were a problem or two at the pub. Too noisy on occasions, or if my favourite beers (in beer-drinking periods) were not available because of a strike at the brewery or whatever, or if sport were not shown on the TVs for example. I'd still go out, and I wouldn't go to the lager-heavy, youth-pub down the road instead. It's because the Battered Badge is MY pub, where I know I'll meet certain people on certain nights. But even then, if the beer continued to be poorly-kept or the pub was unwelcoming or run in a way I didn't like, I would eventually stop going there.
It would take season after season after season of repeated failure, disappointment and feeling taken advantage of before that is likely to happen with my football club. I could occasionally go with my son to watch a match at Newcastle but I am unilkely to replace supporting Boro with support for Newcastle. I can see that, particularly if this happened when I was younger, if I had moved to another part of the country, I might have gravitated towards watching the local team there and, after some years, I might have come to follow THAT team, but I imagine I'd still feel something for the Boro. There must be many who, over the years, fall out of love with football (or other sports and pastimes) or with their particular football club. Were it otherwise, there'd be several tens of thousands - I know there are SOME - of very old suppporters attending games, who've done the same for 70 years. There'd be no room at the Riverside for them all....
I reread my post of yesterday at 2:02 several times, although my first paragraph makes my own observation (and others) about the direction of the tone of the blog, the same paragraph also states I (and others) accept everyone is entitled to their opinion and at no point did I mention any individual, therefore did not “play the man”. At least it got the attention of quite a few people.
I find it interesting that people are criticising Scott for what he said at the media conference, stating it was the wrong time to do it, but was it ? When would Scott have the opportunity to make a one line statement, defending his corner.
If I explain my train of thought, then others may understand or express their thoughts on the matter. Scott will have seen on lots of social media platforms, maybe even this site, where he has been accused of bringing in players that Wilder didn’t want, although I can’t remember CW actually stating that, yes he hinted at it with comments like “the club have bought player X for the future” or words to that effect but did he ever say I didn’t want MFC to buy player X ?
So now we are down to what has been interpreted from “he said, he said”. I therefore (in my own opinion) look at what I know/believe about each of the two involved. Scott, first role as “director of football” after a successful stint at Norwich as a No2, yes he will make mistakes same as an experienced DoF but he is only one of a group who make the decision to buy/sell players. Wilder, an experienced manager who (maybe to get the job) signed up to the new recruitment model at first, then tried to change it. Allegedly he then started to “tout” himself to other clubs who had sacked their manager, Burnley, Bournemouth etc which saw the disintegration of his relationship with Gibson and the rest of the management team. This next point is purely my own opinion from what I observed on his team selection towards him being sacked, I think he deliberately picked weakened teams to prove a point or to force Gibson to sack him (compensation) which cost us points.
I think Scott took the (possibly) one time opportunity to set the record straight on who is involved in the buying/selling players before his fledgling career is tainted by what people think they know based on hinted comments from individuals.
Again I will stress this is my opinion only and not an attack on anyone else who has a different view. On a slightly different point, I only click on the 👍 if I agree the comment not just that I read it as I tend to read every comment, even if I haven’t been on for a few days, I always backtrack to the last comment I read (truthfully the iPad starts me at the last comment 😂) and read from there.
Come on BORO.
Come on BORO.
I have just watched the video of Carrick taking his first training session and it includes sound of his instructions to players which I found interesting, especially the bit about not playing a straight ball back to a player but play it at an angle. I have attached but I don’t know if the video will play 🤔
https://www.mfc.co.uk/news/2022/october/26/inside-rockliffe--michael-carrick-s-first-session/
Come on BORO.
I have just watched the video of Carrick taking his first training session and it includes sound of his instructions to players which I found interesting, especially the bit about not playing a straight ball back to a player but play it at an angle. I have attached but I don’t know if the video will play 🤔
https://www.mfc.co.uk/news/2022/october/26/inside-rockliffe--michael-carrick-s-first-session/
Come on BORO.
Very impressive Ex Mill. I like Carrick already.
Further to the press conference yesterday, it was confirmed that Jonathan Woodgate is returning to the Riverside and taking up the role as Michael Carrick assistant.
However, the pair will also be joined by the Boro’s current U21s manager Mark Tinkler, as well as former captain and current individual development coach Grant Leadbitter.
Alan Fettis who was at Manchester United for many years will also remain as part of the team as the goalkeeping coach.
We all believe that there is one more coach to come but MC said that he wasn’t going to rush into making just any appointment.
OFB