Good to have you back John. Hope all’s well.
@john-richardson Welcome back, John. I hope you are fine again and ready for the match today. Leo in charge.
I hope for a win and a turn for the best for you, John as well as Boro
UTB!
Some have made a succesfull aquad rebuilt this year.
Napoli, who had a squad rebuild in the summer as youngsters replaced several veterans, are unbeaten in all competitions this season.
They smashed Ajax by 1-6 yesterday. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/63080274
I was very sceptical about signing over ten players in one transfer window by the Boro and Hartlepool, but Napoli has been more successful. So what do I know?
Hopefully Boro will recorver like the Pools have done in the Fourth tier yesterday. At least it be interesting to see how Leo will start today. Up the Boro!
@john-richardson - Glad to hear that you are back home and feeling well enough to get yourself a coffee. Let's hope your health worries are now in the past. (And also that Boro can turn the corner).
Great to hear you've got through your op and are back at home and are smelling the coffee as Boro have woken up to their relegation plight. Whether Dr Gibson's surgery will do the trick to get Boro on the mend is still to be discovered!
I read on on some other blogs that Wilder and Leo had a punch up last week. Anything on that OFB
I also had heard on the blogs the allegation that Wilder and Leo had fisticuffs last week. Whilst there is not any substance to this rumour it was interesting to see that Gibson sacked Wilder within 24 hours of this rumour surfacing.
OFB
welcome back. Let’s hope for a good win to make everyone feel better. I totally agree about a smart young manager who will buy into the club’s philosophy not someone who will take a year re-making MFC in his own image.
utb
I wish someone from the club would come out and explain exactly their directive , is recruitment and signings by committee, do we have a manager or head of coaching, who decides to hire or fire a manager , are we seeking promotion ,can we afford promotion considering the extra costs and the enormous debts the prem clubs have, and above anything the reasons behind the firing of recent managers going back to mogga, were the mature decisions or emotional.
Nice to have you back John, take care.
@john-richardson. Welcome back John and I hope all is well following your stint in the N&N.
Hopefully the shenanigans at MFC will keep your mind off any post op issues. Hope you are back to 100% soon.😎
@gt. I agree with your sentiments and of others who have talked about better communication between club and fans and sharing of strategic plans etc.
We seem, however, to overlook the fact that this is a privately owned business and as such these things are rarely, if ever, shared outside the boardroom other than with financial advisors/bankers.
I know that we all feel the club is part of the community and that the supporters are invested in it, which in part is true, but not to the extent that strategic and management issues are provided for our consumption.
In its barest form MFC is in the sport/entertainment business and we are merely paying customers who are entitled to watch a game of football and to purchase ancillary products but no more and no less.
I wouldn’t expect to see any changes to what we have seen for many a year without the presence of a supporters representative at board level, which under SG is highly unlikely. 😎
About the Birmingham match today.
I hope to see one or two younsters given a chance. As Jones is suspended, I hope to see Joe Gibson featuring.
With an interim coaching team in charge of this game, it could bring new ideas and new opportunities. Forming part of that coaching team are academy manager Craig Liddle and under-21 manager Mark Tinkler who will be aware of potential young stars who might step up and fill the gap.
Gibson won Academy Player of the Year last season playing largely at right wing-back in a similar manner for the second string to what Jones did for the first team.
Also, we could see either Hoppe or Forss in attack.
I will be flying over to the Uk to see the Blackburn match. Let's hope we will have a new manager in place by then. I also hope Leo will stay at Boro. I wouldn't mind seeing Woody as an assistant, too.
Up the Boro!
Middlesbrough are being linked with a move for Chelsea first-team coach Anthony Barry. The 36-year-old also works with the Belgium national team
OFB
@k-p-in-spain I don't understand your stance on the subject ,are you suggesting , it's none of our business how the club is run , in my case I'm asking their strategy regarding football results ,they after all ask for our support and loyalty, I'm ok with that but in return don't we need to know at least how they come to their decisions ,a simple Q and A would suffice,
@gt. No I am not suggesting that but pointing out that as a privately owned business they have no more responsibility to us than to sell us a ticket and put on a show.
MFC may in turn say they do a lot more than that and that they regularly have Q&A sessions with various supporters groups. Whether or not they would provide some of the information we would like to know we would probably only find out as a party to said meetings.
I believe that they do post some of the minutes of the meetings on the website. 😎
@gt. Further to my previous post I have identified the Middlesbrough Supporters Forum as one such group and they have a website where minutes of the meetings with the club are published.
If you are interested it is https://Boro.support 😎
KP I’m not sure I agree with you. I have been the CEO of a number of successful private companies in the financial software business over the years and in these companies we always made a point of sharing the company’s strategy, business plan, objectives and key actions to achieve them with the company’s staff and, equally important, the company’s customers.
It was clear to us that the staff wanted to understand where the company is going, how it is going to get there and their role in making it happen. It was also clear that the customers who were investing their money in buying our products wanted to know the company’s plans to be confident that their investment was safe and that they could expect services in the future that would meet their developing needs. We found that this approach was very well received and contributed significantly to the company’s success.
We supporters are the customers of MFC and I believe that the club, private or not, would do well to share their plans and goals with us so that we can all buy-in to the plan and be able to handle the bad times safe in the knowledge that the plan over time will deliver.
@boroexile. I fully support and applaud the approach that you have taken in your business.
In my experience, from the banking sector, many of the customers that I dealt with or audited across a wide range of sectors did not take the approach that you adopted.
In many cases they often did not have such things as business plans/objectives etc!
I fully agree that the better run, open minded, companies follow such practices but they are not obliged to and in MFC’s case we are in the dark and are likely to remain so, based on previous track record. 😎
KP I’m not sure I agree with you. I have been the CEO of a number of successful private companies in the financial software business over the years and in these companies we always made a point of sharing the company’s strategy, business plan, objectives and key actions to achieve them with the company’s staff and, equally important, the company’s customers.
It was clear to us that the staff wanted to understand where the company is going, how it is going to get there and their role in making it happen. It was also clear that the customers who were investing their money in buying our products wanted to know the company’s plans to be confident that their investment was safe and that they could expect services in the future that would meet their developing needs. We found that this approach was very well received and contributed significantly to the company’s success.
We supporters are the customers of MFC and I believe that the club, private or not, would do well to share their plans and goals with us so that we can all buy-in to the plan and be able to handle the bad times safe in the knowledge that the plan over time will deliver.
As a former business owner, I, too, subscribed to a fairly open view of our plans, but there are limits to how much you can share. If we’d been planning to bring in a buyer for the company, for example, it wouldn’t have been wise to publicise that until any deal was done. Similarly, if we’d decided to close offices in the future or to sack senior managers we couldn’t have broadcast the info until after the event.
I suspect if SG were to share his plans with supporters that he’d have to be talking in broad brush strokes about wanting promotion, balancing the books, playing attractive football, developing the academy, etc. Fans would be pretty unforgiving about him saying anything else, I suspect.
@boroexile. I fully support and applaud the approach that you have taken in your business.
In my experience, from the banking sector, many of the customers that I dealt with or audited across a wide range of sectors did not take the approach that you adopted.
In many cases they often did not have such things as business plans/objectives etc!
I fully agree that the better run, open minded, companies follow such practices but they are not obliged to and in MFC’s case we are in the dark and are likely to remain so, based on previous track record. 😎
Sounds like the UK banking sector alright !!! 😉
KP, I agree, they are absolutely not obliged to do so and I also agree with you that in the case of MFC the darkness likely to remain. It’s a pity because I think lifting the veil and sharing the plan (if there is one) with the supporters who care desperately about where the club is going would benefit the club a great deal.
Team News...
Some interesting selections including a surprise start for Hayden Hackney and possibly a back two or more likely McNair returning to left centre-back
@boroexile. It has amazed me for years that we can have a manager who speaks to the press weekly both pre and post match yet the club’s owner can’t do something similar at least once a year.
It would at least be an opportunity to put to bed some of the misinformation that is spread via social media. 😎
Steve Cooper staying at Forest, according to a Beeb report:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63150117
after it was decided he should be given more time in recognition of his achievement in getting Forest promoted after a 23-year absence.
@werdermouth. 442 with McNair CB. Hackney in midfield with Giles, Crooks and Howson. Dijksteel and Bola at full back. 😎
I’m reading it as
Steffen
McNair Fry Bola
Djiksteel Crooks Howson Hackney Giles
Akpom Muniz
You could be right - though we could possibly find quite a few permutations 🤔
Yes that would maybe be the least upheaval but I'm open to other options 😀
Interesting that Matt Clarke is not in the squad