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Wilder Gone! Boro v...
 

Wilder Gone! Boro v Birmingham

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Pedro de Espana
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Well the sacking part is always the easiest bit.

As others have said there have been some good posts of this thread and I think Boroexile’s first long post asks a lot of unanswered questions.

I for one have been critical of Mr Gibson, Mr Bauser and the Recruitement Team.

The constant changing of Managers, the upheaval it brings and although he continues footing the bill, the cost of paying up the outgoing contracts. 
How much of our transfer chest will be spent on paying off CW and his team’s outstanding one and half year’s contract. Two million??

The Recruitement Team appear to be hidden from view with no questions asked or answers given as the the medium and longer term plan.

The last year alone has brought us Payero, Lumley, Uche, Mowatt, Clarke, McGree, Forss, Hoppe, Muñiz and a few others. How many have been outstanding successes. Those little gems found hidden under a stone.

For all his love of MFC and committment to it, Mr Gibson as the boss has made too many mistakes for my liking.

 


Powmill-Naemore
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@original-fat-bob 

So very well put Bob and I agree with your every word.

To me, the man has a bad flaw that marks him ultimately for no more than fleeting success. I stated in a previous thread that I felt everything about him is about CW, never about CW as part of the Boro.

The most successful managers and coaches are those that recognise this is a team game and they are a part of the team.  No one can lead a group of men or women unless he/she is recognised (and recognises his/herself) as part of the team. Sad to say that, and not for the first time it seems, CW has demonstrated he lacks that essential attribute. That is why I share Andy's disappointment, because he has demonstrated he does possess many other good attributes. Sadly none of the rest of it matters if all you care about is your belief in your own self-importance.


Clive Hurren
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@original-fat-bob 

Many thanks for your very thorough reply, OFB. Much appreciated. Really interesting. You don’t pull any punches and your argument is very compelling. It’s backed up nicely by Powmill. 

I guess that most of us were blind to all that stuff in the early months of Wilder’s tenure as the football was the best we’d seen for years and results were good. We couldn’t have cared less then about his personality. I guess, too, we were all prepared to give him some slack towards the end of last season when we missed out on the play-offs because he’d taken us close after starting from 14th. Everything looked set fair for a major promotion drive this season. It’s probably only the start of this campaign and it’s unravelling that has led many of us to question the manager.

I’m starting to wonder now if his snide comments and constant harping on about the recruitment were a deliberate attempt to deflect criticism and keep the fans on his side. They certainly worked in one sense:- because his was the only voice expressing these things many of our fans now have a negative view of Boro’s recruitment team and strategy. You’re right, of course. Four wins in his last 17 games and away defeats proliferating, together with low player confidence and morale, meant he had to go. It’s no wonder, though, is it, that Gibson’s curt dismissal statement was so cold and clinical? 

 

 


   
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The club might want to consider that if the signings of Forss and Hoppe et al work out well and gain real value for us, how will that compare to the £150m we'd get for a single season in the Premier League. Then whether promotion would have been a real possibility last season or this if they'd really gone for it.


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Thanks Andy for your amended starter and subsequent salient posts.  The contributions from all of the other posters have been excellent also.

For me, I am extremely disappointed that, for whatever reason, we find ourselves yet again in complete turmoil and without clear evidence of the causes or more importantly the solutions.

Clearly a new manager is required who will not only need to galvanise the team and produce results on the pitch but also fit into a management structure which is now embedded within the club and seen as the appropriate modus operandi.

I just hope that SG gets this one right, (not holding my breath based on his recent track record) as I fear for our future if yet another inappropriate appointment is made. 

I wonder how NW is feeling about our current situation! 😎


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Discussions have already taken place with Edwards, and Boro chairman Steve Gibson and head of football Kieran Scott rate him for what he did with Forest Green in League Two.

The pair want a new manager in place by the time Boro face Millwall at the weekend, so things are expected to move quickly.

When Edwards was appointed manager of Watford, former England manager Roy Hodgson praised him, saying as per the Watford Observer: “They’ve obviously appointed a very talented young coach.

“I know exactly what he’s done at Forest Green and I know the success he’s had there.”

At Forest Green, Edwards managed Jamille Matt, who told the Stroud Times: “Man management-wise, he’s (Rob Edwards) the best I’ve worked under.”

 

OFB

 

 


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Looks like someone has been reading our posts !

 

OFB


   
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I'm sure I read somewhere that Keiran Scott knows Edwards from the past in football terms. 


   
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@malcolm. It has been said they were at Wolves together 😎


   
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Looks as if these may be the two front runners, neither of whom have a long pedigree so clearly a gamble but nothing else has worked.  EG are suggesting that Gary O’Neil is not under consideration.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/oct/03/chris-wilder-sacked-as-middlesbrough-manager-after-less-than-a-year-in-role 😎

This post was modified 1 year ago by K P in Spain

   
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Clive Hurren
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Posted by: @k-p-in-spain

  EG are suggesting that Gary O’Neil is not under consideration.

Good! I sincerely hope we don’t appoint him.


   
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I see Daniel Farke has been mentioned as a possible Boro manager but I think that's a non-starter as he just took over at Borusia Mönchengladbach in the summer and his team were actually doing well sitting sixth in the Bundesliga, level on points with Bayern Munich, before last weekend games - when unfortunately they got thrashed 5-1 by Werder Bremen.

So I think there's zero chance of him swapping the top end of the Bundesliga for the bottom end of the Championship.

It also seems Gary O'Neil is not yet a serious option since he will likely remain as Bournemouth's interim manager until the protracted takeover is concluded and a new manager has been found by the new owners.

So we're left with perhaps only Rob Edwards as any firm option - though the local media seems to suggest other candidates have had discussions - possibly involving short phone calls like "Thanks but no thanks Sam", "Sorry Sean, I couldn't do it to Ben" and "I thought you'd retired Neil".


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@powmillnaemore 

Thanks!


   
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Posted by: @werdermouth

I see Daniel Farke has been mentioned as a possible Boro manager but I think that's a non-starter as he just took over at Borusia Mönchengladbach in the summer and his team were actually doing well sitting sixth in the Bundesliga, level on points with Bayern Munich, before last weekend games - when unfortunately they got thrashed 5-1 by Werder Bremen.

So I think there's zero chance of him swapping the top end of the Bundesliga for the bottom end of the Championship.

It also seems Gary O'Neil is not yet a serious option since he will likely remain as Bournemouth's interim manager until the protracted takeover is concluded and a new manager has been found by the new owners.

So we're left with perhaps only Rob Edwards as any firm option - though the local media seems to suggest other candidates have had discussions - possibly involving short phone calls like "Thanks but no thanks Sam", "Sorry Sean, I couldn't do it to Ben" and "I thought you'd retired Neil".

It's was I unfortunately I don't have kens eye for detail so hadn't realised Farke already had a job, Mr Gibson tends not to employ managers who are in post so that would rule him out.  Who should get the job, who knows, put your money on the roulette wheel and place your bets.


   
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jarkko
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This candidate does not put himself in front of the club.

Delivering a personal message to the fans, Percovich added: “It’s something that make us from Middlesbrough unique. It’s something that makes us different to every other club around the world. No matter what kind of situation when things are going wrong, when things are undoubtful, nobody cracks, nobody crumbles and we stick together.

“We are a forged in steel and iron. That’s why wherever we go, everybody knows we are Middlesbrough.”

See his interview at mfc.co.uk. nice. Up the Boro! 

 


Powmill-Naemore
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Posted by: @jarkko

This candidate does not put himself in front of the club.

Delivering a personal message to the fans, Percovich added: “It’s something that make us from Middlesbrough unique. It’s something that makes us different to every other club around the world. No matter what kind of situation when things are going wrong, when things are undoubtful, nobody cracks, nobody crumbles and we stick together.

“We are a forged in steel and iron. That’s why wherever we go, everybody knows we are Middlesbrough.”

See his interview at mfc.co.uk. nice. Up the Boro! 

 

Like I said. Middlesbrough through and through. I so hope the team deliver a special result for him on Wednesday.


   
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I read on on some other blogs that Wilder and Leo had a punch up last week.  Anything on that OFB


   
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Interesting little snippet in the digital Telegraph today that starts as follows:-

“Nottingham Forest’s recruitment chiefs are facing the sack after the club’s mammoth £150 million summer spend.

Evangelos Marinakis, the Forest owner, is set to take drastic action after the poor start to the season by axing some of the key men behind their summer transfer window. 

Steve Cooper is fighting for his job after losing five successive Premier League matches and a decision is likely to be made on his future in the next 48 hours.

Marinakis is also scrutinising the recruitment team, and chief executive Dane Murphy, with wholesale changes expected before Forest’s next game against Aston Villa.”

Maybe Steve Gibson should be doing a Marinakis……………


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In a dreamworld Boro would go out into the market and buy the core of a team that would be good enough to blast its way through The Championship and lead us into the Premier League. If dreams had no limit, the football would also be exciting and good to watch so that Middlesbrough FC would be a beacon of good football club management.  In the real world, however, the club doesn't have the money to buy the players good enough to perform at that level, so it must remain a dream for us.  And in the absence of the money to acquire that level of player, the choice of manager realistically open to the club will be limited. "I want a club which can match my ambitions" etc.  That sort of manager and his preferred players tend to be very expensive.

I have no idea how to change the way the club plays, or the names of cheap-as-chips players the club CAN afford but who would would be good enough to get our club to the top of the division. The sad thing is that, over a number of weeks now, it has become apparent that Chris Wilder had no idea how to improve things either.  I pay for my season ticket.  I am not paid (presumably very well) to manage the club whether as a coach or as an old-style "club manager".  To paraphrase Douglas Adams in H2G2 - I have as much idea how to run a football club as a tea leaf would have how to run the East India Company.  I hadn't appreciated that Chris Wilder might be in the same position, but perhaps he was. Maybe a lot of management is simply bluff and confidence and hoping for a bit of luck to go your way.  But once that confidence is damaged then, rather like a shattered pane of glass, it proves impossble to go back to the previous pristine/confident state.

It MIGHT be, as some have suggested, that CW's mind was affected by the possibility of his getting the Burnley job and that his subsequent failure to squash those rumours when he had the chance to do so soured his relationships with the playing staff and the ownership of the club. It might be that he had more recently been giving some thought to Bournemouth as well.  Equally, it MIGHT be, as others have suggested, that CW was unhappy at the recruitment of players over the summer - having had some players he didn't want foisted on him. I certainly seem to remember reference being made to the signing of some "marquee players" in the last transfer window. We did sign a few one and two-man tents but nothing remotely approaching a marquee (or even a smaller tent you might take up into the Cairngorms in winter).  On the other hand, CW might have just lost interest in the "project" which might at first (in his mind) have offered a swift and relatively easy return to the Premier League until reality set in and the future appeared to reveal a long and very much more difficult route ahead.

CW's record suggested he MIGHT have been "The One" for Boro but it didn't turn out that way, and we might never know why that was the case. Nothing in sport is a given. Sometimes even undoubtedly great players and great managers just "lose it".  Without wishing to compare CW - a good manager - with the Greats of the management world, at Porto and at Chelsea Jose Mourinho certainly seemed Special, whilst at Manchester United that was clearly no longer the case. Even managers at the SAME clubs can lose it - for example compare Arsene Wenger's first decade at Arsenal to his later years there, and Brian Clough at Derby County and then at Forest compared to the sad decline (and utlimate relegation) as his time at Forest came to an undignfied end. So maybe CW 6 or 7 years ago was a different manager, confident in his own abilities, than the CW of 2022. He MIGHT (only might) come good again at another club in the future but it was clear things were going wrong at Boro. The team was headed only one way.

Properly managed, the squad Boro has SHOULD be capable of finishing well up in the middle of The Championship and maybe capable of flirting with a play-off place (not necessarily getting there but at least giving the impression it was possible well into April). Maybe with another manager, some of the players will improve. That is surely the job of a football coach. But staying the same would have been to invite the very costly disaster that relegation would prove, and that was never going to be an option.  Maybe some of the players who have not been selected or felt they were never really wanted in the squad, will now bust a gut to show how good they really are, how they have been unfairly overlooked and how keen they are to play their part in the club's future. Some of them may prove to be right.  Hopefully performances will improve as players try to show their new manager how good a player they really are.

Time will tell.  Maybe there will be some enthusiasm at games.  I have not felt over-enthusiastic about attending games recently and I wonder how I might have felt if, tomorrow, CW was still in the manager's seat. Something had better change as, with Pools not having won a game all season, Boro in a relegation position and Yorkshire now having been relegated, sport has not been providing me with the intended enjoyable diversion from "real life" recently.

 


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I think the real missed opportunity with Wilder was in January, rather than the summer. It feels like the atmosphere within the club may have already gone south by June.

As we entered the transfer window on 1st January, we had already performed miracles to sit in a play-off spot. Along with Forest, who we'd comprehensively beaten days before, we were the team with the most momentum in the division and eyeing the faltering West Brom and Bournemouth above us. At that point, we looked very good for a play-off spot and automatic promotion wasn't out of the question, as Forest showed by continuing their momentum and taking Bournemouth to the brink.

The side was short of a reliable keeper and needed one more up front to cover for Watmore in particular. A left-wing back would have been a big bonus was but wasn't absolutely necessary such was our form, and the same for left centre-back where Paddy was generally covering well. Just the keeper alone would likely have given us the extra couple of points needed for a play-off spot by the end of the season.

I wonder what would have happened if we'd grasped the opportunity. It seems like Wilder would always have gone before too long if he wasn't prepared to play Boro's game but there was still a big opportunity to go for it in January and worry about the rest with a big wedge of Premier League cash in the bank.

This post was modified 1 year ago by Andy R

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Just watched the interview on MFC with Leo.  

If speeches won matches then we would guaranteed three points tomorrow.  If he stirs the players as much as he did me then we could be in for a cracker of a match and a win; I do hope so for Leo’s sake. 😎


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Too many posts over the last couple of days but one more….

A shout out to Len who wrote about his suspicions of discord behind the Boro curtain several weeks ago and appears to have been proven dead right. Again.

I wrote a response offering an alternative view but it’s pretty clear I was wrong.

Would be keen to hear your views on the current situation, Len.


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@andy-r 

We can talk about the falling away of last season as everybody on this blog (including me)has. But when things are going well and you are welded into the end of season playoff scramble, with a slack handful of games to play, as we were, the fans do not need any football experts to apportion blame. A massive question mark appeared over the head of our manager when we were lucky enough to welcome poor old Chelsea in the cup. They were worn out kicked to pieces by some dreadful Eastern European team, no time to go home, weary and  bruised. They came onto our pitch ad stood about for ninety minutes, our manager sent us out to stand about for ninety minutes, they  sneaked a goal, we left out our young striker who had put us through against Arsenal. Enough said, that was our Manager at his best. He has refused to play said striker since, on loan at this moment in time, whilst we have no striker at all. You could not invent this stuff. Good riddance.    


   
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Posted by: @andy-r

Too many posts over the last couple of days but one more….

A shout out to Len who wrote about his suspicions of discord behind the Boro curtain several weeks ago and appears to have been proven dead right. Again.

I wrote a response offering an alternative view but it’s pretty clear I was wrong.

Would be keen to hear your views on the current situation, Len.

I meant too many posts from me by the way, not overall!


   
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Powmill-Naemore
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@Andy-R

I meant too many posts from me by the way, not overall!

😁

This post was modified 1 year ago by Powmill-Naemore

   
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Re: My earlier post from 4.38pm on Tuesday 4th October. I am pleased to report that Hartlepool beat Doncaster Rovers at home on Tuesday evening - 2-1 with the winner coming 4 minutes from the final whistle.  First win of the season sees the team climb out of the relegation places to the heady heights of 20th out of 24 teams, with 9 points from their 12 games so far. Rochdale with 5 points, Crawley and Colchester with 6 points and Harrogate with 8 points (all from only 11 games) are now below Pools.

Maybe fortune has taken a turn for the better.  Maybe Boro's luck will change, too.  Here's hoping...


jarkko
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@forever-dormo So true.

About Clough, I think he was sacked after weeks at Leeds and wasn't very successful at Brighton, too.

So managing a a club and a team is always tricky. But in Clough's case, I think he said the most important thing was hiring the right players. And there his friend Peter Taylor was great. He is not to be forgotten.

Up the Boro!


Clive Hurren
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I’ve been listening to the Boro Breakdown podcast. It’s very good analysis from 3 (young?) fans. This week’s cast, analysing the Wilder sacking, is very good. It takes nearly an hour but can be paused whenever you want to. If you’ve time, have a listen. I found it well worth it.

Unfortunately my link below takes you to Spotify, which you may not have, though you can probably open it if you’re prepared to put up with adverts in the free version. I’m sure you’ll be able to access the podcast from other sources. 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7nJrdKiiKjUWhZmqJ8BAvy?si=FBNz_LfBRz6O_peX9vKiAg&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A6NEN3AHUIMht869ar5uyYz

 

Three much-needed points tonight, please, lads! Do it for Leo! 


   
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After having my life turned upside after a visit to the Dentist, then Consultants and admission to the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital and   being looked after by some wonderful people then after three weeks of ICU's, HDU's, and a specialist ward I'm home, so I decided to check up on DiasBoro and Boro. Now it's Boro world that is upside down and all over the place, again, but then Boro were never any different were they?

I'm now going to make a coffee and read all of the posts and there's plenty to read thanks to you all.

Meanwhile a note to Mr Gibson, please select a young manager who subscribes to the new philosophy not a manager who thinks he knows it all and doesn't but simply wants to be in charge. A man manager would help too. Calm down. Must remember to keep blood pressure down.

Thank you everyone.

UTB,

John


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