I wonder what effect NW being our manager will have on players wanting to join us. Will they see him as an experienced boss who will make sure they play in a competitive team or as more of a dinosaur who’ll make sure they are t part of a relegation battle?
From the Echo: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/18584273.neil-warnock-looks-set-remain-middlesbrough-manager/
Also from AV
Even if Boro don't take another point they could be safe come close of play on Saturday if a few things fall their way to stand three teams below them.
If Barnsley lose to Leeds tomorrow they can no long catch Boro. That is one.
Luton and Hull play on Saturday and if one one them win the other can't catch Boro. So that is two.
And if they draw then neither can make the 50 point mark. That will be the job done.
But it would be nice to get to safety under our own steam. A point for Boro on Saturday will seal it.
After today’s results unless Barnsley beat Leeds Boro indeed only require one more point to avoid relegation.
Strange to relate though if Boro win their last 2 matches they’ve got every chance of finishing the season in 13th position which many of us probably predicted before the season started.
Now that the FairPlay prize of a place in the Europa League no longer applies, perhaps UEFA could introduce a FinancialFair prize for those clubs adhering to the regulations?
I wonder if NW will play the same team on Saturday or will he have a “ look” at other fringe players, in order to determine who stays and who goes come the end of the season.
After tonight's fixtures we are 5 points clear of 3rd bottom club Hull and 2nd bottom Luton. With Boro having a significantly better GD than all three bottom clubs they will need one more point to overtake us unless we suffer a serious hammering by Cardiff or Wednesday.
Hull and Luton will need to win both their remaining games and hope that we don't pick up any more points to finish above us. Hull host Luton and are then away to Cardiff on the final day. Luton will be fighting for survival and Cardiff will hopefully still be fighting to retain a Play-Off place.
Luton are away to Hull (obviously) and then have Blackburn at home on the final day. As they play each other neither Luton or Hull cannot earn 6 points. A draw between them however would be an ideal result for us.
Barnsley can overtake us, they have three games left with a possible nine points to maybe win. Reality is that they face Leeds who need points for the Title, next come Forest hoping of staying in the Play-Offs and then Brentford hoping to beat West Brom to automatic promotion. If they garner three points from that run of fixtures I think they would be doing well.
Charlton who are 4th bottom and three points behind us face Wigan next (The Championship's in-form team and still very much fighting) and then Leeds on the final day at Elland Road.
Conclusion: analysing the above it would take a heck of a lot of weird results, twists and turns for us not to survive even if we don't manage another point.
What price now on Brentford finishing second after 8 successive wins? Only one point now behind West Brom with a far superior goal difference.
Brentford’s last 2 fixtures are away to Stoke and home to Barnsley (both winable), whilst West Brom visit Huddersfield and play QPR at home.
It would have been better to see Birmingham win but Charlton are at home to Wigan on Saturday which they are unlikely to win. I’m still looking for Leeds to beat Barnsley and Luton and Hull to draw. That will then be that.
re Redcar Reds analysis, i agree that Assombalonga has to move on for whatever price we can get. The salary saving alone effectively adds a chunk to the fee. Spence and Fry are interesting calls. When you see how much Wann-Bissaka went for, its tempting to hold onto Spence for another year or two at least. Fry has been disappointing this season but, again, he is young and still has some filling out to do. As this season has shown, you need at least four big centre backs to get through a season in the Championship.
it all might depend on the perceived quality of the young players who were out on loan this year. Stubbs has already been mentioned as a real chance and Browne will be coming back as a better player after his time at Oxford and there are quite a few others. If the Gazette staff wanted to do something helpful, they could run a rule over all of the young players who will be challenging for the first team next year.
utb
What price now on Brentford finishing second after 8 successive wins? Only one point now behind West Brom with a far superior goal difference.
Brentford’s last 2 fixtures are away to Stoke and home to Barnsley (both winable), whilst West Brom visit Huddersfield and play QPR at home.
It will be interesting to see how it pans out. Brentford like Wigan are on a roll (actually Brentford are even better than Wigan in terms of current Form), I suspect that form will be a deciding factor. West Brom look to be panicking and running out of steam looking nervously over their shoulders while Brentford are seemingly running on pure adrenalin and not giving up. Its in West Brom's hands as in its their's to lose but I have a hunch that there are just enough games left for Brentford to nick it at the death. So long as Brentford manage to beat Stoke and Barnsley and West Brom beat Huddersfield I will be happy.
I wonder what effect NW being our manager will have on players wanting to join us. Will they see him as an experienced boss who will make sure they play in a competitive team or as more of a dinosaur who’ll make sure they are t part of a relegation battle?
I doubt anyone will be thinking that Boro will be anything other than Play-Off contenders next season as a minimum with NW at the helm.
He has a few decent players at his disposal who are far better then the underachievement of this season would suggest. Already we are seeing Saville and Johnson (if we offer him a new contract) as two examples of vast improvement.
The younger lads will only get better under his tutelage. With a virtual clean slate and new team to build (he will have very little clutter to deal with) I think it likely that whilst it my be functional football we will be seen as an attractive proposition to many Players keen to make the next step up in their careers.
I also think that there will be caution not to overburden the club with ageing relics on final contract pay bonanza's. I expect a balance of a few proven old heads, some decent loans and one or two potential fans favourites coming in but all will be to fit a tried and tested Warnock blueprint.
Conclusion: analysing the above it would take a heck of a lot of weird results, twists and turns for us not to survive even if we don't manage another point.
RR - agree although don’t forget this is Boro we are talking about........... Typical Boro and all that!
With only one nailed on defender for next season in Fry - who we're talking about potentially cashing in on - the likelihood that Patrick Roberts won't be here next season and a lot of turnover in the squad whatever happens, I think any talk of the playoffs for next season is, whoever the manager is, a long, long way off.
With only one nailed on defender for next season in Fry - who we're talking about potentially cashing in on - the likelihood that Patrick Roberts won't be here next season and a lot of turnover in the squad whatever happens, I think any talk of the playoffs for next season is, whoever the manager is, a long, long way off.
Considering what we have witnessed this season whoever we end up with at the back can't be any worse. Warnock won't be sucked into the gullible mistakes that Woodgate made nor will he meekly accept recommendations from a Recruitment department not fit to lace his boots.
NW isn't trying to further his career, he has nothing left to prove, what he will do is utilise his skills and experience to give it a go next season otherwise what would be the point in him coming up here to finish 10th? Its a big ask but I think he will make a concerted effort to try and get promoted. To do that requires a totally different mindset than merely surviving which was the message ever since that fateful press conference announcing Woodgate's appointment.
@redcarred I don't disagree with a lot of that but I think if Warnock stays on, he will realise now that he needs two or three years to get the squad in shape and a flurry of new players bedded in and change the mentality as you say.
There are no quick fixes. The squad is miles away in my opinion and needs so much work. There is an opportunity to accelerate that with the amount of players potentially leaving but I don't think we will be splashing major cash to do it. As it stands, I think the team we have for next season is:
Pears/Stojanovic
Djiksteel/Spence Fry Wood/Stubbs Coulson/Bola
Howson Saville (+ McNair)
Browne Wing Tavernier
Fletcher/Assombalonga (+ a few untested kids)
One or two of the out of contract players may stay on to supplement that but I don't think any add promotion/playoff-level quality.
To me, going beyond the first XI and considering the wider squad, we look like we need at least two centre-backs, possibly a left back, another central midfielder and possibly three more attacking midfielders/wide players. If we can sell Britt - and I agree that we should try - then another striker is needed as well.
That's a lot of new faces. a lot of change, and it rarely works. To progress to the top six we would need the vast majority of new signings to work out pretty well - another thing we haven't got a good record of to be frank.
So whilst I agree that NW may not be interested in staying to finish midtable next year, that is the most likely reality, with a promotion push coming the season after or the one after that.
The question for Steve Gibson is does he want two to three years of Warnock to get there, or do we look at something more, shall we say, progressive?
@andy-r I think we need seven or eight players including CB's, LB, a RB and some striking options. Britt will be in the final year of his contract and needs to be shipped out. I've seen nothing from him to be desperate to keep him. Fletcher likewise may be moved on if an offer came in although I think we are starting to see something from him now that he has the chance to play as an out and out Striker.
A lot depends on who stays. Fry would only go if a serious offer came in but so far only Burnley have been really linked and I would guess after Bamford's stories on Dyche and now Gibson's the lad would likely be terrified to even contemplate it. I also believe that he is a bit of a home bird so maybe a move to Leeds or Newcastle may sit better with him.
Spence is a bit like stocks and shares, you buy cheap and sell high. Right now his stock may rise even higher but its also just as likely to crash so I'd sell now if we can make a significant profit and he is replaceable. We could maybe save on a CB if Fry stays or Stubbs is deemed good enough which I suspect he is but I'd be very wary of Gibson coming back, out injured for a long time and hasn't played for two years is a massive gamble. His heart being in the Club isn't in doubt its more a case of if he still has it and I think it would take three to four months to get him mentally fit which is a bit of a luxury.
We have plenty of CM's and maybe McNair may be sold or kept as a useful midfielder, centre back or right back when required. What will be key is getting in leaders, players who talk and shout, demanding of their team mates which Ben Gibson was in fairness but I think Warnock wants snarling to go with it. Someone who when Spence was "done" at Millwall would have gone a bit mental and made the Ref make a decision or certainly made it the next time and if not would leave a few studs in down a shin.
One of our problems this season is that we have been pushovers quite literally, I don't see that happening next season. As bad as we have been the squad had far better players than the league position portrays. Warnock is averaging 1.5 points per game coming in blind with a squad he knew nothing about. Over a season that would be 69 points. With a few tweaks and additions over the summer break I would expect another couple of wins on top of that putting us into the mid seventies on points next season at least.
RR, whilst I agree with what you say in essence, my issue that I have already stated, is the lack of pace in the midfield area. We have seen time and again this season those players just being by passed by younger, fitter and possibly less technical opposition players. This was even evident when Howson was played at RB. LB is also a position where we have no specialist defender with pace.
You can possibly manage with CB's not having too much pace, but the RB, LB, and at least one in the defensive MF area, needs decent pace, especially if we go with 4 at the back. Apart from TAV, who do we have with any of it?
I can’t see Neil Warnock wanting to extend his time at Boro beyond one more season and at the moment we are light years away from becoming a team that can push for a playoff place next season. Success comes in cycles with Boro and it may take at least 3 or 4 seasons to build a team to become a force again even in the Championship. Boro need a manager/coach with vast experience to do that and Neil Warnock isn’t the type of manager to stay at a club for more than a couple of years. I’m a fan of Sean Dyche. He is a manager who stands no nonsense as is Chris Wilder, but where do you find someone of that calibre nowadays? We had managers of that stature once in Tony Mowbray and Gareth Southgate but they were appointed at the wrong time. The only way to go is to appoint a foreign manager who has his hand on the pulse in the foreign market. Steve Gibson tried it once with Aitor Karanka and probably wouldn’t want to repeat that experience again. But why not? He’s available and probably wiser now.
I thought that the Keeper in possession had looked good in last gasp stops, but unfortunately we were letting in goals from perfectly straightforward shots from 15-20 yards, and they were not in the corners but the middle of our goal, a couple of them after watching the attacker taking an age to set his sights on our goal. This is basic stuff, so it was inevitable that he would get the chop.
Only at the boro would a continental manager come into a failing Champ club, which was failing in all aspects of running a club, and that does include buying and selling, discipline, coaching (non existent), existing staff, clueless, and full of themselves. What followed, was a real treat for us fans, hit the crossbar in season one, collected promotion in season two, After said staff had done a bit of furniture throwing, bad mouthing said continental.(no! I have no idea how they were still here?)
He was gone by Xmass(with plenty of bad mouthing) then followed an abject last 15 games, non tryers to a man, followed by the anointing of said local to general amazement.
Many clubs with a serious owner would have said, we will keep in place our manager, and slaughter the Champ next season. And of course dispense with said rubbish.
All the ensuing pain and distress for the fans was a death foretold, with anything that could go wrong duly obliging.
They have not changed, someone marked his card when he came here, and must have told him that Tav. wing, Fletcher, Spence, could be ignored as worthless, because he ignored them until it was too late (nearly)
I just wonder were they intending to sell them and did not want them to be too prominent?
@pedro I think Warnock will go with a 442 which would mean we need a good quality LB and if Spence goes a RB even if Dijksteel proves to be the business. We have already been linked with Chris Gunter who I believe is out of contract which would tick the RB box in terms of solid and experienced (but 30 years old). A LB signing to compete with Coulson and a few CB's would complete the defensive set up.
In midfield I think that a central Howson/Saville combo would be as good as any and better once they develop an understanding. For pace there is Tavernier and perhaps Johnson on the left if he is still here who has delivered some excellent crosses (and consistently) since Warnock took over. Signing Roberts or a similar type would add pace on the right and that leaves who would be the foil for Fletcher or a Sam Cosgrove/Cauley Woodrow type Striker.
We undoubtedly need signings. The positive is that a large proportion of high earners and loan players will depart (many already have) which leaves gaps to fill plus there is some equity in what remains that can be sold to raise cash. SG's plan I think was to get through this season with expensive contracts and then there would be cash to spend in the summer so albeit part of a failed plan that bit of it should still be intact.
Communication is vital to organisation in any walk of life. If Pears is “a talker” he should be our regular number one.
Stojanovic may be bigger, might be a better shot-stopper, may even be a technically better goalkeeper but if your defence is well organised in front you then you face fewer shots in the first place. Prevention of the chance to shoot is always better than pulling off saves.
It’s up to Stojanovic to add that to his game to overtake Pears.
Well that’s one team that can’t catch us now. Here’s hoping for a draw between Luton and Hull at the weekend. A win for us would be better still but I fear that might be beyond us.
Well that’s one team that can’t catch us now. Here’s hoping for a draw between Luton and Hull at the weekend. A win for us would be better still but I fear that might be beyond us.
I'd settle for a draw for Boro, I think that would definitely seal it for us.
Well that’s one team that can’t catch us now. Here’s hoping for a draw between Luton and Hull at the weekend. A win for us would be better still but I fear that might be beyond us.
I'd settle for a draw for Boro, I think that would definitely seal it for us.
Agree - 1 point should be enough regardless but we have to keep on remembering that it is the hope that kills you and that this is Boro we are talking about!
By my reckoning if Hull and Luton draw we will definitely be safe. Is that correct.
By my reckoning if Hull and Luton draw we will definitely be safe. Is that correct.
That would leave them on 46 each and unable to get to our 50.
@andy-r, I agree that something more progressive would in theory be good. The problem is that the Chairman’s record on managerial appointments in recent years has been abysmal. Bearing in mind the current state of the club a progressive appointment would be a massive unnecessary and, I suspect in the mind of many fans, an unwanted risk.
At least with Warnock you know what you are getting. He won’t take any nonsense, he has a solid track record, he communicates well and he appears to be a good man manager. With the club in transition from chaos to something hopefully much better I would take Warnock every time as the man we need in the manager’s chair.
Boro Exile, I would certainly love NW to stay. We haven't had a real man manager in my opinion since Bruce Rioch.
Here’s one for you Ken. What’s the highest total of points a club has been relegated from the Championship with?
Here’s one for you Ken. What’s the highest total of points a club has been relegated from the Championship with?
54 by Peterborough United in season 2012/13.