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QPR v Boro

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Joined: 4 years ago
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Sorry about this, but this manager has committed every mistake in the game, while prosing on about his views and ambitions. I do not think that he has any stature as a coach (one attribute which is permanently missing without leave is tactics) another is dominating his players, essential if you are to get the best out of them. We are in perfect position to do a nose dive to the bottom, started badly, got worse, a hard game to follow, does it for me, every time.


   
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Clive Hurren
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Posted by: @ken

Is Chris Wilder now yesterday’s man? His win ratio at this moment is down to 45.7%, 1% lower than his percentage in his 227 matches with Sheffield United which included almost 2 years in the Premier League and initially earned him an extended 4 year contract until 2024 although summarily dismissed “by mutual consent” in March 2021 with the Blades bottom of the Premier League with only 14 points from 28 matches. Sheffield United were already doomed to relegation so presumably the board of directors didn’t have the confidence in his turning things round in the Championship and elevated Paul Heckingbottom in his stead. 

One wonders then why Steve Gibson should think that if the Sheffield United board had lost confidence in one of their own, why Boro would think that Wilder’s tactics would improve Boro. Admittedly the style of play is better than under Neil Warnock or Tony Pulis, but at least the latter got Boro into the playoffs. 

League tables mean nothing after only 2 matches, but by the end of the month when the transfer window closes Boro  might well be in the lower reaches of the league and needing something like a Forest revival to reach the playoffs. Wilder was noted for bringing players into his squad for next to nothing, but now we don’t even know whether our proposed acquisitions are first choices or even 4th or 5th choices. That is not necessarily Wilder’s fault, but something is not quite right about the recruitment process and loanees are not the answer in the long run. 

 

Thanks for this, Ken. I wasn’t aware of those statistics. You make some valid points. One concern I had when Wilder was appointed was his recent record with strikers. Even in his first season in the Prem with Sheffield United his strikers were hardly prolific - they relied heavily on Billy Sharp, as I recall. Strikers such as Ollie MacBirnie and David McGoldrick were generally poor. They were even worse in his second Prem season, with the relegated team amassing very few points and scoring very few goals. The aforementioned suspects weren’t scoring again, and neither did new acquisition Rhian Brewster. So I’ve often thought that choosing effective strikers and developing his strikers maybe aren’t CW’s greatest strengths. Further evidence for the prosecution comes from the signings of Connolly and Balogun. And before his injury we were just about to loan out Josh Coburn, potentially the best young striker we’ve brought through the academy in many a year. Wouldn’t we have been better to have developed him in-house?

And I think that Boro have mucked up the striker recruitment strategy big-style this time round. So far, we’ve brought back Akpom (as there’s nobody else), signed a striker from Brentford whose record is not prolific and are about to sign a guy from Malaga (hardly a big name in Spain) who also hasn’t scored many for them. It looks like we’re just hoping that all 3 miraculously improve on their recent records and start scoring frequently in a team that hasn’t of late created loads of chances. It strikes me as overly optimistic and ill-thought-through. I’ve heard it said we paid upwards of £3 million for Forss. Heaven knows how much we’ll have to pay Malaga for Hoppe, who is unproven at Championship level. Is either of these worth the fees we’ve paid? And we’ve just heard that Boro were prepared to pay £8m for Strand Larsen: it seems Boro have learned nothing from the failure of the last expensive super-striker we signed from Holland! Ok, perhaps we needed one of these guys or someone of their ilk, but couldn’t we have identified a couple of good, proven strikers from League One to fill two of our gaps? We would probably only need to have paid what we’ve laid out for Forss and Hoppe and would have acquired battle-hardened, proven pros ready to make the step up. 

So that’s my first gripe with our recruitment. How much of this is by Wilder’s direction is hard to say, but I sincerely hope I’m wrong and that these new guys score us a hatful of goals. 

My second gripe is this:- guys, you had one job! Get in the players CW needs and get them in before the season starts. Instead, we find ourselves seriously short of several in key positions. Yet, time and again we have been assured that the team is working very hard and the market is difficult. No wonder the boss is upset. Not good enough. It’s obvious that the policy has been based on cheapness and value for money; loan deals are essential. We understand that - clearly the club needed to regroup financially after Covid, as we incurred very heavy losses. I have no problem with Steve Gibson using a large chunk of the £32 million received for Djed and Tav to cover some of those losses, so that we avoid breaking EFL sustainability rules, and indeed to keep the club afloat. But if we really were prepared  to pay £8m for a Groningen striker, then that strikes me as rash. I do question, as with the strikers, whether the recruitment team has been as effective as it needed to be, given that we were shipping out 7 or 8 players and obviously needed to recruit at least that many good or better replacements. An ignominious defeat to QPR has obviously brought this whole issue under the spotlight. Get it sorted. 


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You have just damned the manager in severe terms for abject preparation pre season. There really is no excuse for the abject home draw after briskly taking the lead. There is less for a total collapse in the First half with no reason whatsoever  in the second match. We simply did not know what we were doing, and cared less. There is no point in continuing with this manager, and do not speak about our buying methods, he is the very last person who should be choosing players, as he most certainly would not recognise a good one if he saw such a jewel, besides which he would undoubtedly say he was ' a Young lad', and put him on the bench', for, oh! I don't know, ten matches, maybe? 


   
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Clive Hurren
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Plato

Was your reply to me? If it was, I think you’ve overstated my case. I’m very concerned that Boro’s recruitment has been poor - Giles and perhaps Steffen apart - and especially that our recruitment of strikers seems dilatory, haphazard and ill-planned. I’m not convinced CW is brilliant at developing his strikers, but I’m certainly not aiming to pin any blame on him for the current situation. I certainly wasn’t intending to damn him for poor game preparation pre-season. And I absolutely think we need to stick with him until it’s proven  that he’s not taking us up any time soon. Most of us would accept that he is one of the best managers currently available at our level: his record says so, whatever his strikers did or didn’t do at Sheffield United. Let’s hope he cracks the whip after Saturday’s debacle and produces the performances and results we need against his old side and Barnsley. 


   
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jarkko
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Joined: 4 years ago
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I think our defending was horrible in the first half at QPR. The first goal was an excellent strike but how Jones lost the ball was very poor and we had many chances to stop the guy, too.

The next two goals were the worst we have defended as long as I can remember. And we were supposed to have a good goalies and enough of decent defenders. 

But at least we played better in the second half. We nearly equalised  - a point after being 3-0 down would have been excellent. Occationally, we really played them off the park in the second half.

At least we saw Marcus Forss scoring on his full debut. That is rare for a Boro striker but of course Chuba Akpom scored a brrace in his first few matches for Boro, too.

Season is still young. We cannot play as badly as the first 40 mins at Loftus Road. We can only improve but we'll have a really tough match on Saturday when Sheffield United will visit Teesside. And points are needed.

And we need more players to cone in. We cannot afford injuries at the moment as we saw with Coburn.  In midfield we have practically no cover.

Up the Boro!


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Posted by: @plato

You have just damned the manager in severe terms for abject preparation pre season. There really is no excuse for the abject home draw after briskly taking the lead. There is less for a total collapse in the First half with no reason whatsoever  in the second match. We simply did not know what we were doing, and cared less. There is no point in continuing with this manager, and do not speak about our buying methods, he is the very last person who should be choosing players, as he most certainly would not recognise a good one if he saw such a jewel, besides which he would undoubtedly say he was ' a Young lad', and put him on the bench', for, oh! I don't know, ten matches, maybe? 

So the defeat to QPR was all down to the manager.  Jones and Dijksteel didn’t miss tackles.  Jones didn’t concede a free kick having lost the ball going towards his own goal.  Dijksteel didn’t fail to mark his man at said free kick.  Stefan didn’t fail to catch a corner albeit he may have been pushed and it was not seen by the officials.

I accept that CW has some responsibility when we lose but let’s have some balance please. 😎


   
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Ken Smith
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Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 2132
 

Would I have been happy if Boro had fought back from 0-3 down and taken a point? No, I would not! In reality they were lucky to be only 0-3 down. It’s the lackadaisical approach of the players that concerns me. Do they actually adhere to Chris Wilder’s instructions? It would appear not to me! The manager can only do so much. In normal circumstances some players would find themselves on the bench, but these are not normal circumstances with a prolonged transfer window. Nevertheless with an initial squad much smaller than Wilder’s, Bruce Rioch succeeded so maybe it’s a lack of discipline amongst the current squad. 

Whichever way one looks at it one point or even two is a poor return for a start to a season for a side hoping to challenge for promotion.


   
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