I feel so sorry for the Derby fans. Their club is still in limbo after so many months in receivership. I really do not understand the situation now but it is worrying with about two weeks when the fixtures are published.
Really worrying. No club should disappear. https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/
I still remember the year of 1986. Up the Boro!
Middlesbrough FC have denied that any negotiations re the sale of Jed Spence to Spurs or any other club have taken place. Until the Boro website confirm incoming and outgoing transfers there’s little to be gained from speculation. Am I the only one to find such speculation so tedious? Enjoy what’s happening around the country in summer sports would be my advice and don’t celebrate all this tittle tattle until there’s something positive to report. Be patient, you know it makes sense.
Having a break in my favourite place, the river town of Dalyan in Turkey. In the background I can hear the bins being emptied even on Sunday. As for Dwight Gayle, no thanks. We have had enough of sell by dates..
Malcolm
Enjoy your holiday. Unfortunately I’m housebound more or less permanently now, but looking forward for the return of my carers on holiday in Marmaris where the temperature is 30 degrees.
Simple question for the brains trust.
Why wasn't the Wood deal to Swansea structured as a season long loan?We could have put in an option to buy at, say, 3 million and kept a hand on a potential star. To me, this suggests that the coaching team don't reckon that he will make it but, if that's the case, we will never get the bonuses attached to the deal any way.
UTB
Assuming Spence is sold for 12-20m depending on the rumours that is probably the second best outcome we could have had. The best outcome would have been us getting promoted with Spence in the team of the season playing for us. So I looked back at how we could have started the season and Warnock really did fail to make us gel. For example we could have been:
3-4-2-1
Lumley (ok, he'll cost us points)
Dijksteel - Fry - McNair
Spence - Crooks - Howson - Tav
Jones - Sporar - Hernandez
In hindsight, with the exception of Lumley, that looks like a top-6 team
Subs: Daniels, Bamba, Bola, Payero, JLS, Uche, Watmore
Again, with hindsight, JLS will prove to be waste of space but on paper at least that has strength in depth and a wildcard in Payero.
Rest of the squad and U23s: Brynn, Hall, Peltier, Wing, Morsy, Olusanya, Coburn, Gibson, Sivi, Coulson (Includes players we sent out on loan but could potentially have been kept for contingencies until the January window).
Long term injuries: Brown, Ameobi, Fisher
At the time, it felt like recruitment was all over the place but if you figure that Jones came in because of Ameobi's injury this looks like a team with cover in every position, plenty of pace and creativity and what ought to be real attacking threat. Warnock's failure to get the most out of this group looks pretty damming.
I’m still surprised that we let Morsy go. He looked like a great addition to me and never gave less than 100%.
Come on BORO.
A very safe option. But at least with the white band.
I like the red shorts and socks. But somehow very, very concervative and safe. And why the sponsor must have three lines of black text or dots in there?
Some say it looks better live. Up the Boro!
I like it; clean and simple. The grandad collar is a nice touch but I am a bit of a fan of grandad collars.
There's a slightly retro tracksuit top on display that looks great.
Do we really care to whom Djed Spence is next transferred to as long as Boro get the transfer fee with ‘add ons’ they think they are entitled to? As far as I can remember Cyril Knowles was the last fullback Boro sold to Spurs, the fee being about £45,000 and Spence has a long way to go to emulate him.
“Nice one Cyril” used to emanate around White Hart Lane for his attacking play as a left back in Bill Nicholson’s days although formerly he had been expected to follow in his father’s footsteps into Rugby League. Born in Fitzwilliam he maybe didn’t quite became as famous as another sports star born in that pit village four years earlier Geoffrey Boycott, but nevertheless a fine footballer for Boro, Spurs and England who sadly died of cancer aged only 47 in Middlesbrough in 1991.
RIP Cyril
I like it; clean and simple. The grandad collar is a nice touch but I am a bit of a fan of grandad collars.
There's a slightly retro tracksuit top on display that looks great.
We will have to disagree on this one Deleriad, the collar reminds me of my grandfather’s longjohns!
Not for me and the collar spoils the look, gives the impression of a second rate team who are having to do things on the cheap.
I accept that is not the case as the shirts won’t be cheap to produce or buy but that is the impression it conveys to me. There again, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. 😎
Boro's players returned to Rockliffe on Friday as our pre-season preparations for 2022/23 got underway.
Several of the first team squad reported to the training ground for a series of tests with the club's medical department, including physical examinations, drills and running exercises.
What is a nice thing to notice was that Darnell Fisher was back with other players for the pre-season training. https://www.mfc.co.uk/news/boro-squad-report-to-rockliffe-for-pre-season
Up the Boro!
I think we might have sold Luke Young to Spurs.
A shame as he was as good a right back as we’ve had in the Riverside era.
I think we might have sold Luke Young to Spurs.
A shame as he was as good a right back as we’ve had in the Riverside era.
Afraid not. He started at Spurs and moved to Charlton then Boro who sold him to Villa.
Yes, you’re right Ken.
Just seen the new shirt for this season and while it's being described as 'retro' or 'classic', for me it's probably alternative words for old-fashioned and a bit weird to see a top button on a football shirt in 2022 - if only they had modern fabrics that could stretch and remove the need to open a button to get it over your head. So feels more like a gimmick than a necessity.
OK it may look better on a current player with a bit more muscle than an ageing Ravenelli, who's trademark early greying is no longer unusual for a man of his age but with a receding hairline - having said that he's 5 years younger than me but I've not yet gained any grey hairs of experience as I head towards 60 in a couple of years.
Probably the biggest downside is the UNIBET logo with its six solid black circles and that heavy black bar with the marketing platitude of 'Player Safety First' - whatever that actually means. In my view it would be far better to drop that slogan from the shirt altogether as it makes the black logo far too prominent. I've seen other club shirts with the Unibet sponsor without that slogan and it's far less in your face - often in white over the club colours but the Boro white band is seemingly now used as an advertising hoarding to make the sponsor's name be the main thing you see.
Still, I'm not a buyer of replica football shirts so it will be interesting to see how this one sells or whether the away shirt (whatever it may be) is preferred.
Werder,
If that logo and the dots had been a grey, (75%of Black?), or another colour it would have looked better but the sponsor pays the money. I suppose any club shirt and colours with an advertising hoarding on it is always going to be a compromise.
UTB,
John
John,
Normally the Unibet circles on their logo are six different shades of green from light to dark but perhaps that would be too costly on a shirt - though I think it would be OK without the black bar and slogan. My point is that Boro's white band only really gives the appearances of an advertising hoarding if the logo is placed in it - the sponsor's logo would look better for me if it was below the band reversed out in white rather than the added colour of black. Don't know if Boro get a better payment for making the sponsor more prominent for having it in the white band.
Can Boro ever expect to have a 20 goal a season striker ever again? In my lifetime only the following Boro players have scored 20 or more league goals in a season:-
1945/46 Micky Fenton 20.
1947/48 Micky Fenton 28.
1950/51 Alex McCrae 21.
1956/57 Brian Clough 38. *
1957/58 Brian Clough 40.
1958/59 Brian Clough 43.
1959/60 Brian Clough 39. *
1960/61 Brian Clough 34. *
1961/62 Alan Peacock 24.
1962/63 Alan Peacock 31. *
1964/65 Jim Irvine 20.
1966/67 John O’Rourke 27. #
1967/68 John Hickton 24. *
1969/70 John Hickton 24. *
1970/71 John Hickton 25.
1987/88 Bernie Slaven 21. #
1989/90 Bernie Slaven 21.
The first three seasons Boro were in the old First Division, those marked with an asterisk indicate that Boro would have reached the playoffs had their been playoffs at the time, and the hashtag indicates seasons Boro were promoted 66/67 from the 3rd Division and 97/98 from the 2nd Division. The omission of Fabrizio Ravanelli is because only 16 of his 31 goals in 96/97 were in league matches.
It makes pretty dismal reading to think that it’s over 30 years since Boro last had a season when the top marksman scored 20 goals in a season, and that Boro are apparently searching for one this summer.
Teesside Live may as well become a weekly newspaper as they struggle to find anything original to report at the moment. Any news they report especially concerning the Boro are repeats picked up from the MFC website or even the Northern Echo. It’s no excuse to state that since being taken over by the Mirror Group that as Football and Boro are the dominant sports on Teesside it should ignore any other sport but football especially in the summer months. Gone are the days when previews of the weekend’s NYSD cricket were reported on a Friday and reviewed with full scorecards on a Monday, or even reports on the Speedway be it Teesside Tigers or now Redcar Bears, yet the sister newspapers like the Huddersfield Examiner, Hull Daily Mail and Sheffield Star still report on other sports, especially the latter on Golf where the local hero Matthew Fitzpatrick is joint leader going into the final round of the US Open in Brookline, Massachusetts.
What about news of Middlesbrough-born sports star’s successss like 21 year old medium pace bowler Dominic Leech who is making great strides in T20 cricket with Yorkshire? I bet hardly anyone on Diasboro have heard of him unless they read the Yorkshire Post which have excellent reporters on several sports. With the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships and the Open Golf Championship following the week after and no football to report surely our local reporters can find some other summer sport to report on.
Of course the internet can be blamed as it caters for every sport imaginable, but what used to be called the Evening Gazette is now a midday publication so old news now. That’s why it needs to become a weekly newspaper in my opinion like the Whitby Gazette or the Darlington and Stockton Times, and I’m speaking as a former newspaper delivery boy.
MFC website now confirming Joe Lumley to Reading on season long loan. 😎
Just been messing around in Photoshop with the Boro home shirt image - here's a visualisation of my earlier argument about moving the sponsors logo out of the white band and displaying it in white...
@Ken-Smith
Given the shift to online, the decline of local newspapers is inevitable with no real means of them being able to fund their business in order to employ enough journalists and pay their running costs. Perhaps a weekly offering of local news and reporting on local events is about their limit now - perhaps even as a free newspaper funded through advertising. Probably the vast majority of people under 40 never buy a newspaper anymore - I think I've only bought a physical newspaper maybe one or twice in the last 5 years.
Better but still don’t like the collar. 😎
Even photoshop has its limitations!
I wondered if a slightly higher placed and slightly thinner white chest band containing the Errea logo and badge might look better, which would still allow the sponsor to be quite central.
Still, I’m never too fussy over the shirts and don’t mind the latest. It’s not our best but it’s far from the worst.
I quite like the collar.
While some of us may wonder if shirt sponsors are taking over the appearance of the club kit - it could be a lot worse if you consider another Unibet sponsored kit in the Austrian Bundesliga with the club Klagenfurt. Their kit is literally plastered with half-a-dozen or more sponsors logos! It must be quite confusing for players when they try to kiss the badge in celebration...
I had the same thought about putting the club badge and kit manufacturer logo in the white band - plus the band could be a bit narrower too. I think the Boro identity of the white band gets lost when it's used for the sponsor's logo so not in favour of the recent trend of it just becoming the background white block for them.