@chris-hunneysett I think Tav is best wide (but able to cut in) in a front 3 or central in a freerer role behind the striker. He’s more mobile and energetic than Wing and can go past people more easily, so I prefer him there.
I think Wing can play a little deeper but with the instruction to get forward - a Championship Scholes or Lampard.
I think we can play both in a 4-2-3-1 with Tav wide and Wing at 10 but then we need a couple of holding midfielders and I’m not totally convinced we’ve got any natural players for that position, plus as mentioned Wing isn’t particularly quick or much of a dribbler for that 10 role.
I like Wing but he’s a liability when asked to defend and always on the verge of a yellow card when trying to tackle.
You just described Paul Scholes.
Seriously though, Wing currently has one trick. It's a good trick. Get the ball 25m out in a bit of space and score a goal. If he could add a second trick he would be playing in the Premier league before you know it.
re: Wing and Scholes - it’s funny because it’s true.
Scholes started his career as a centre forward but was moved back to midfield to better exploit his range of passing, movement and spatial awareness and to nullify his lack of pace over distance. A sprinter he was not. However he retained a forwards inability to tackle cleanly. Mind you, being partnered in the middle with Roy Keane meant as long as Scholes held his defensive position when necessary, Scholes could leave the breaking of legs to the thug next to him.
No white smoke from the Rockcliffe yet? Was hoping to hear something about the new manager of Friday but now it looks like it takes longer as NW is on holiday. If you can be on holiday after you are retired from work ...
Up the Boro!
@andy-r Andy, of all the issues I believe we need to address before most is the midfield.
Whilst we have an abundance of them, none have any pace at all, and none are really any good at tackling. We require a 25/6 year old Clayton, better would be a Leadbitter, because he could pass a ball reasonably well, score penalties and most importantly loved being the Captain.
Saying that how much would he cost?
@pedro If I could bring back any of our former Championship players in their prime for this team I think it would be Nigel Pearson.
The midfield needs work but at least we have numbers there. We’re desperate for centre backs and Pearson had the quality, attitude and brilliant leadership we so badly miss.
No white smoke from the Rockcliffe yet? Was hoping to hear something about the new manager of Friday but now it looks like it takes longer as NW is on holiday. If you can be on holiday after you are retired from work ...
Up the Boro!
Does anyone know for how long NW is on holiday?
No white smoke from the Rockcliffe yet? Was hoping to hear something about the new manager of Friday but now it looks like it takes longer as NW is on holiday. If you can be on holiday after you are retired from work ...
Up the Boro!
Does anyone know for how long NW is on holiday?
I thought it was just the weekend, for which he said he was turning his phone off.
NW only away for a few days I believe. So come on SG what is the hold up on our next manager. Is it to be Neil or has he refused and are you going through your jobs for the boys list. Once again the communication from the club is appalling. All the fans are waiting and trying to find scraps of information from football related sites. Just say something please SG.
Why so impatient?
I think it's fair to say that there are some divergent opinions from the bloggers on here as to whether NW is the right choice or perhaps the only choice right now.
I have no doubt that SG and NW will have had plenty to discuss last Thursday, but it's also possible that there wasn't quite a meeting of the minds and there are still one or two things to be ironed out or discussed further.
The question of whether to appoint NW as the manager or whether he would be interested in what is being offered is a big decision for both parties for different reasons.
I'm content to let it play out. Better to make the right decision than a hasty one to be repented at leisure.
I certainly don't think it's a case of poor communication, but more likely nothing to communicate.
I don’t know whether this is the correct place to mention this, but might interest Malcolm if he is unaware of the situation. The 2020/21 Scottish Premier League starts this coming weekend with 12 clubs as per normal with the following fixtures :-
SATURDAY 1st AUGUST
Aberdeen v Rangers
Dundee Utd v St Johnstone
Hibernian v Kilmarnock
St Mirren v Livingston
SUNDAY 2nd AUGUST
Celtic v Hamilton
MONDAY 3rd AUGUST
Ross County v Motherwell
The 2020/21 Scottish Premier League starts this coming weekend with 12 clubs as per normal
That is exciting. I think I am able to see those matches on TV (ViaPlay) - at least last season I was.
In Finland the season was started late but in July there has been spectators in. About 25 % of maximum capacity.
And from the beginning of August they can take more people in, again.
What is the situation concerning the fans in Scotland?
Up the Boro!
Boro will probably be forced to operate at a lower financial level to last season. This applies to all clubs in the Championship and it is the ones who make the right decisions this close season who will rise above the rest.
Relatively speaking, I think we could be stronger than most clubs in the Championship next season. We have got six high earners off the wage bill now and the club is OK financially. So I expect an exciting transfer window and a play-off challenging season to come.
The close season will be interesting, too:
- transfer window opening (today)
- five to six new players
- a couple of contract extensions (Friend/Johnson)
- the new kit introduction (white band in memory of Big Jack?)
- appointing a new manager/head coach (NW?)
- appointing of director of football/recruitment
- dates of matches (starting September 12th)
A lot to look forward to in the summer 😉. Up the Boro!
I suspect the question that Steve Gibson may be pondering, and that we might reflect upon, is whether he wants to appoint Kevin Blackwell as our next de facto manager with Ronnie Jepson as his assistant.
Warnock, in his seventies, will not be looking for a full-time job. When you get to that age you want a "consultancy" ie. a nice little earner without doing very much work.
He won't want to be moving house, putting in a 60 hour week or over extending himself in any shape or form.
He'll turn up for matches, do a good job at pre-and post- match pressers, give the benefit of his advice on transfers, and be on the end of the phone for Kevin and Ronnie. And of course be on his nice little earner with special multi-million pound bonuses if Boro manage to get to the play-offs or, by chance, promoted. Nice "work" if you can get it.
If any of this speculation is even marginally close to the truth , then the question we all have to ask is whether any of us would willingly choose Blackwell , whose managerial record in the lower tiers is relatively undistinguished, as the next Boro boss.
Pondering this could just conceivably be the reason for the current hiatus. Plus , as ever, the lack of any plan B.
Me? I'd go for Struber, whose relegation- bound team managed to out- football both Leeds and Brentford in the past week on their own middens.
@lenmasterman. Liked the post Len but not the thought of Blackwell and Jepson taking charge. You quite correctly point out that KB has an undistinguished record as the man in charge and I think he is better suited to the assistant role. If that happens, then I fear the cycle of boom to bust or rather bust to bust will continue. I don't know much about Struber but he has to be better than being managed from afar by NW.
If he has not yet found a home, I would go for Chris Houghton who has a good experience of both Championship and PL and is the sort of manager who if he got us promoted has the ability to perform and sustain us at PL level. It's all very well wasting millions on poor performing players, we need a manager with a good pedigree. It is a shame we missed out on David Moyes when he was available in my view. 😎
Agree about Hughton, KP. And Lee Johnson did a better job of producing decent footballing sides at Bristol than any recent Boro bosses. And on a fraction of their budgets. It was essentially his side that played us off the park at the Riverside a couple of weeks ago.
Howabout Mogga with Woodgate, Mark Venus, Leo P and Woodgate as a team?
Mogga has done well at Blackburn. He is very good in signing right players on low cost and improving them.
Up the Boro!
@jarkko A romantic idea Jarkko but given our defensive record under Mowbray, Venus and Woodgate, coupled with that fact that we are desperately short on defenders, I'd be pretty worried if we went down that route!
I'm expecting Warnock and his crew to be announced as in permanent charge this week but stranger things have happened.
Nigel Pearson would be worth a mention as a back-up plan.
I like the idea of a manager who gets his teams playing good football but I think we're in stabilisation mode for the next twelve months at least.
If we cast our minds back over 12 months ago to when Woodgate was made manager, there was a lot of division on whether it was a good appointment or not. Unfortunately it turned out to be wrong, but was it really?
@andy-r Yes, it has been my dream that Mogga would return. He is good at buying players for low fees 😋 . UTB!
Howabout Mogga with Woodgate, Mark Venus, Leo P and Woodgate as a team?
Mogga has done well at Blackburn. He is very good in signing right players on low cost and improving them.
Up the Boro!
Edvard Munch came to mind reading that!
I have laid down in a darkened room now, all this Teesside nepotism is a large part of why we are in the state we are.
Can you imagine if at the press conference SG had said.....The club is struggling financially and we need to trim the first team squad and we can’t really afford a top class manager and the financial demands his transfer targets would put on the club. Therefore we have given Jonathan the job and the aim this season will be to avoid relegation and finish the season with most of the high earners off the books,
At the time many were duped by that press conference and the way it was "sold" by the Club and the Gazette at an attempt to try and convince us that Woodgate really was the "outstanding" candidate but there were many more whose views ranged from slight doubt to outright cynicism over the whole shabby affair.
AV was dropping loud coughs and hints in his articles weeks before the announcement whilst receiving dogs abuse from reader responses. You can fool some of the people some of the time and that essentially was the totality of the logic behind what they went with. The cynical lot however knew darn well what was really being done rather than being said. The unfortunate things was that it was even worse than the worst fear of the biggest cynic. It may actually have been better to be more open and to state that they were re-balancing the club to ensure they complied with fair play finances even if only to make a point to the EFL and to later investigations with other Clubs affairs.
It's done now and by the skin of our teeth we survived so in that respect the objective was achieved albeit not in the manner or with whom it was intended. With Clubs unlikely to be able to count on turnstile income for at least three months, funds put aside for purchases and wages will be eaten into. This will of course apply to all clubs but I'm going to guess that there will be more than a few whose P&L's aren't looking too healthy right now and it should affect their ability to wheel and deal. I say "should" but know that it's unlikely as there is always that disused 1930's toilet block from the old stadium in the corner of the car park that can be sold and leased back for an extortionate sum or indeed even sponsored. The Domestos Arena would seem apt for a growing number of EFL clubs. I should add that other bleaching, stain removing, whiter than white sodium hypochlorite based products are available that could also be useful for deep cleansing of "fit and proper" persons.
A lot of it is down to fans expectations. The pressure will be on Watford and Bournemouth and to a slightly lesser extent Norwich to “ bounce straight back up”.
The fact is that those clubs were relegated because their players weren’t good enough to accumulate enough points to stay in the division. Norwich will probably have the best chance as basically they still have the same team that achieved success in the Championship. Similar to Burnley’s eventual success.
The danger for Bournemouth and Watford is are their players equipped for a hard slog to promotion in the Championship, the inherent danger being slipping down to the league below like Sunderland, Sheffield Utd, Southampton etc.
Football fans aren’t noted for their patience and understanding, that’s why it’s important clubs are up front with them. In hindsight perhaps SG should have been more forthcoming with the realities of his strategy. When you cloud your plans with tub thumping rhetoric ( smash the league) you’re asking for trouble.
Instead of the new normal, let’s have the new realism.
Redcar Red and Peasepudinperth neither of you posted your entries for the playoff semi final but since you play each other I will accept an entry from both if it is posted before 1930 tonight, obviously you cannot predict the time of the first goal in the Swansea v Brentford match so you are left with the time of the first goal in tonight’s match and I will record 1-0 as both your predictions for that match. If you have decided that you don’t want to take part in the playoffs then please let me know.
Come on BORO.
* that match being Swansea v Brentford.
Come on BORO.
I do not think that Wing is a midfielder, his strengths are as a playmaker and goalscorer. His style is to pass into space, yes he has the wonderful ability to score from snap shots outside the box, but it is important to realise that he scored 37 goals in one season. His style is to pass into space, hence Tav. Flourishes with him on the park, and Fletcher scores goals. He provided Britt with his goal in our last home match, and would have scored one himself, but Roberts decided to beat a third man with the goal gaping.
A goal scorer does not lose it, just as a non scorer never ever learns how to do it.
I do not think that Wing is a midfielder, his strengths are as a playmaker and goalscorer. His style is to pass into space, yes he has the wonderful ability to score from snap shots outside the box, but it is important to realise that he scored 37 goals in one season. His style is to pass into space, hence Tav. Flourishes with him on the park, and Fletcher scores goals. He provided Britt with his goal in our last home match, and would have scored one himself, but Roberts decided to beat a third man with the goal gaping.
A goal scorer does not lose it, just as a non scorer never ever learns how to do it.
When I have watched them there is a definite synergy between Wing and Tav. They seem to be able to read and anticipate each others runs and next movements. Both decent players in their own right but somehow they both appear better when playing together.
Yes, these people who decide that a player has commited some sort of misdeed, and therefore his career must be over are very dangerous. After watching the England Cricketer take control of the Test and enthrall the crowd, it was disturbing to think that a punch up outside a nightclub, could and nearly did end his career. These people really did think they had got him. The thing that puzzles me is the following. If they can advocate a complete ban on a life in sport, why don't they advocate a complete ban on digging ditches, or similar jobs? Just asking?