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Wilder's window of ...
 

Wilder's window of opportunity to build promotion squad

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KP in Spain,

I have the same nagging feeling. All of a sudden Ikepeazu is looking like a good super-sub alternative striker...

UTB,

John


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It's a long time since we had a transfer 'system'. I could not criticise them, as that would require a discussion about our tactics in the field, selecting our targets, finding out his opinion about us and our possible future, would he join us? We will not speak about our selling. Have we ever said, ' he will cost 'x', do not call us, we will call you when we receive our price.   


   
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Pedro

I'd agree about Forss in that he hafd a disappointing season lat year with what I think amounted to 2 assist and 1 goal with Brentford and then on loan at Hull. OK, he'd previously done better with Brentford in the Championship but he's now in that territory of needing to restart a once promising career - I think we've been here before with strikers and it's once again another gamble. A guaranteed goalscorer he is not, which means most likely an option from the bench once those two marquee signings have arrived!


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Andy

You may be able to replace Tav in one particular position but I doubt we'll be able to replace his energy, enthusiasm and personality - he's one of those players who you rarely have the luck to find and he's possibly on the verge of being a really special player as he matures. It would be a gamble to sell him at this stage if we all hope this next season is going to be our main chance of promotion if we get those two decent strikers - who in theory should be easily financed by the promise of £20m from the sale of Spence.


Pedro de Espana
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Werner I agree. As deleriad how shown and Jarrko continues to highlight, too many changes of personnel is not good.

As much as I have criticised Tav for not doing enough at times, as Werder has pointed out his passion and energy will probably be irreplaceable in one player. The answer should be no this season.


   
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Werder & Pedro,

Well done fellas - you passed the Tav test! 😀 

Seriously though, I do agree that whilst we have players who can fill his position, he'd be a huge miss and I also don't think he's reached his highest price point yet. If he can add more goals and assists - consistent "end product" - to his game then the sky is the limit for him.

That said, we do have to look at the balance of the squad overall and if selling him for an excellent fee now meant we could get the quality of strikers we clearly need, that could more than balance out losing Tav.

My hope is that as the window develops, particularly with Premier League clubs starting the merry-go-round, that we can get the forwards we need without sacrificing our better players.


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I am not convinced that the club/SG are looking to splash the cash in transfer fees but are more likely to use the DS funds to cover the wage bill; I think recruitment is very much going to continue as it has so far on loans and free agents.  

As far as Tav is concerned “ If he can add more goals and assists - consistent "end product" - to his game then the sky is the limit for him.“

A big if for me, as I don’t believe that we have seen season on season incremental improvements from him.  If we are to let him go then certainly the price has to be very good and we need a better replacement already lined up; I remain concerned at the lack of pace in midfield and the loss of Tav would impact that aspect significantly.😎


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DS saga finalised at last. 😎


   
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Ken Smith
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What did we do for news and sport in particular before the internet? The Gazette especially the Saturday Sports edition used to be the newspaper to read when I was a paper boy, but nowadays has abrogated its duty for news about almost every sport except football and even football is restricted to news about Middlesbrough FC. Years ago one would get weekly news about our local amateur clubs, not only football clubs but local cricket clubs also with Friday night previews of the North Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket fixtures and reviews on Monday with full scorecards. It has now been overtaken by the Northern Echo in that regard. 

If one wishes to find factual reports about local or test cricket, local Speedway, Major Golf tournaments, Rugby Union, Wimbledon Tennis fortnight, then don’t buy the Gazette. Even reports of the Boro are not a patch on the days of Cliff Mitchell, are often so badly written and it’s as if the reporters are finding it difficult to find articles on a day to day basis. Surely it’s time that the Gazette became a weekly newspaper. Today most news about Middlesbrough FC are copies word by word duplication of the MFC website.

Whilst the Northern Echo has overtaken the Gazette in local news, the award of the Newspaper of the year and and any other year must surely go to the Yorkshire Post established in 1754. It’s always the newspaper I used to turn to whenever it was available at restaurants and hotels which I used to frequent when I was able to drive, and now my first call on the internet after Diasboro of course.

 


   
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Well I must admit I’m pleased the Spence saga has been completed.

A player who sent his thanks to Forest not Boro. A player who didn’t want to be part of us and really we had the last laugh by getting a good fee for him.

Do I wish him well? I’m not churlish enough to wish anyone bad luck but his attitude appears to leave a lot to be be desired.

His five year contract will secure his future financially but will he develop into a great player?

The jury is out for me !

OFB


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Posted by: @original-fat-bob

Well I must admit I’m pleased the Spence saga has been completed.

A player who sent his thanks to Forest not Boro. A player who didn’t want to be part of us and really we had the last laugh by getting a good fee for him.

Do I wish him well? I’m not churlish enough to wish anyone bad luck but his attitude appears to leave a lot to be be desired.

His five year contract will secure his future financially but will he develop into a great player?

The jury is out for me !

OFB

I'm with you on all of that Bob.


   
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Can't really blame Spence for thanking Forest given he was essentially told by Warnock he was no longer part of his plans at Boro. He joined Forest when they were bottom of the Championship and was looking to play football and revive his career. He can't have imagine a year ago that he'd be one of the stars in a promotion-winning team and then be targeted by Spurs in a £20m move. Indeed, many Boro supporters were hopeful of possibly offloading him with rumours that a club may potentially offer us £5m - after all he arrived on a free from Fulham so pretty good piece of business for a player the club were looking to move on!


Ken Smith
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Why would Djed Spence mention the Boro after his transfer to Spurs? It was Warnock who sent him out on loan to Forest which I doubt that Wilder would have done if he’d been manager at the time. At least he didn’t bad-mouth Middlesbrough FC after his transfer, nor did he mention Fulham either. Good luck to him I say, it’s just a pity that he wasn’t left footed but few players today are comfortable with both feet. There aren’t too many Tom Finneys or Trevor Fords around nowadays.

This post was modified 2 years ago by Ken Smith

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Spence, a bit disrespectful not to mention Boro, who took a chance on him when he was released by Fulham, which started the ball rolling for him to end up at Spurs. Like OFB, I don’t wish him any harm but I hope he plays well enough and long enough for the add-ons to kick in. A lot of credit to Gibson and Bauser for playing hard ball with Spurs to get the deal we have but I suspect that to get that amount we may not have got any sell on percentage.

Lets hope that we have the same fortitude when it comes to acquiring the players we need as clubs will want a big slice of the Spence pie to release their players, we must stick to the principle of not paying over our value of the player we want.

Come on BORO.


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The loan of Zack Steffen from Man City has now been completed so I've added him to the table along with turning Djed Spence from an uncertain grey to a definitely gone black as his transfer is completed. I've also made Dejan Stojanovic black too given he played in goal for Regensburg in a friendly at the weekend - though still haven't seen an official transfer completed announcement from MFC - it may just be hidden.

This post was modified 2 years ago by werdermouth

   
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Though to be fair to Warnock he did congratulate Djed in a Tweet for taking his advice when he gained promotion with Forest...


   
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You have just described a club in free fall, a manager who targeted your best player as, n,w,o,v, and sent him out on loan to a rival club, who duly cashed in with promotion. Where was our owner to quietly but firmly tell him he had made a grave mistake as it was him who was going, permanently.  


   
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Now Middlesbrough FC  get onto Chelsea and bring Scotlands finest Billy Gilmour on loan to the club. He was on loan at Norwich and played every game for Scotland.

 


   
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Pedro de Espana
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Malcolm I think he will end up on with a EPL team, and not unfortunately MFC 


   
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Interesting comments from Conte on Spence, perhaps suggesting he didn’t really want him:

”Spence is an investment of the club.

”The club wanted to do it. I said okay, this player is young but he showed he can become a good, important player for us.

“The club decided to buy him”.

Certainly not a huge welcome.


Clive Hurren
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Hi everyone. I’ve just read through the whole of this thread, having been away from the blog for a few weeks. No offence - it’s just that, like Ken, I rather tend to avoid football in the close season and concentrate on the cricket. I have, of course, been keeping up with Boro’s various transfer sagas and with our fortunes in the friendlies. As ever, the quality of the debate on here has been first class. 

I’ve been anxious for a while that we haven’t yet made progress on signing the missing strikers, with now less than two weeks to the new season. It’s hardly encouraging fans to think we’re really geared up for a promotion drive. We’ll have till the end of August, of course, but new players often take a while to settle into a new club and without goals we may soon find ourselves 6 or 7 points down on our rivals before the squad is finalised. It’s been unfortunate that the Spence transfer took so long, even though I’m glad Boro refused to budge on price, as the delay may well have limited our capacity to go out and sign quality strikers. Hopefully, now it’s over, Gibson will take the handbrake off. 

I agree with many that to lose Tav now would be catastrophic and I agree we should have said, ‘Not for sale.’ If he goes, does this say that we’re serious about mounting a promotion challenge? 

Braga apart, there have been some encouraging performances in our friendlies, though we’ve hardly tested ourselves against high quality opposition! Nonetheless, it sounds as if McGree and Giles have struck up a good understanding. Giles apparently pings over frequent accurate, penetrating crosses, including from dead-balls, so it may be that in him we have found the answer to our long-standing left-sided problem and our equally long-standing ineffectiveness from free-kicks and corners. Now all we need is someone to get on the end of his crosses……… 

I can’t wait for the season to start in earnest. Unfortunately, I’ll have to miss 3 of our opening 4 home games, having long since booked a family weekend away at Center Parcs when the Baggies come, then a week in Pembrokeshire when I’ll miss both Swansea and Sunderland. Gnash. I’d entirely forgotten that these days we often get two consecutive home or away games, so I really fell foul of the fixture planners. I always hate missing the Mackems game, especially as this time we’re guaranteed three points! 🤞Very selfishly, I’m hoping Sky opt to show the game live and move it to the Sunday, for in that case, I’ll be back from South Wales! 


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Posted by: @clive-hurren

Braga apart, there have been some encouraging performances in our friendlies, though we’ve hardly tested ourselves against high quality opposition!

I think the way we play makes us, to use a cricket term, flat-track bullies. The general idea is to keep possession in the opponent's half and keep on pressing them until they make a mistake or we get an overload somewhere. When we lose possession the idea is to get it back into their half as quickly as possible. Basically we press hard in possession and aim to win it back quickly. Against weaker opponents, that's easy to do but against stronger ones it is a lot more difficult especially now the league has seen how to cope with our system.

This season we'll probably face a good half-dozen teams who are simply better than us, man-for-man and quite a few teams where there's not much difference quality wise. That means we have to get a *lot* better at playing our system and adjusting it to deal with teams when we can't "bully" them. 

So far this season, our recruitment is looking good. Giles, Lenihan and Steffen are all clear upgrades on Taylor, Bamba and Lumley. Roberts (and presumably Smith) seem like improvements on Daniels and Peltier. There is, however, a long way to go.  


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Posted by: @martin-bellamy
Posted by: @exmil

David, download the official MFC app onto your phone and under fixtures (bottom right) the Barnsley cup match is 10th August and has been for awhile, although I agree if you go online to MFC.co.uk it does say the 9th. I have synced all fixtures onto my calendar and when a fixture gets changed it automatically moves it on my calendar 👍

Come on BORO.

Could you give guidance on how to sync the fixtures from the App please, Exmil?

Martin if you look at the Wilder post Morecambe interview on the MFC website, to the right of the interview there is feed to add Boro’s fixtures to your calendar by putting in your mobile number, hope this helps 👍.

Come on BORO.


   
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Posted by: @clive-hurren

I agree with many that to lose Tav now would be catastrophic and I agree we should have said, ‘Not for sale.’ If he goes, does this say that we’re serious about mounting a promotion challenge? 

Tav by all accounts had a good game in yesterday's friendly against Morecambe, scoring one and hitting the bar with a free kick. Afterwards, Chris Wilder spoke about the transfer speculation saying that Tav's performance was excellent and he didn't want to lose "arguably one of our top players".

However, he said he understands football and the lure of the PL - the noises from the club seem to infer that should a club come in with an improved offer that meets the club's valuation then they'd have a decision to make.

Although, I'd prefer it if they just said that they don't plan to sell him this summer as he's an important player in their plan for promotion - that will either end the speculation or force one of his suitors into making that 'ridiculous' offer that is more in the Djed Spence category and not within the reasonable fee mark.

Either way, Tav has just two years left on his contract so he'll be unlikely to sign a new deal unless Boro are promoted this season and will then be cashed in before his contract ends.

The player himself is apparently unfazed by all the speculation and is not trying to force a move - maybe it would be better if the club made it clear they won't be selling him this year and just get on with building a promotion-winning side. I'm sure Tav would also be happier to stay once those marquee strikers have arrived and he can look forward to the prospect of enjoying his football with the buzz of potentially celebrating a return to the PL with Boro rather than struggling at the wrong end of the PL with some of those clubs mentioned who are chasing him.


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Posted by: @werdermouth

The player himself is apparently unfazed by all the speculation and is not trying to force a move - maybe it would be better if the club made it clear they won't be selling him this year and just get on with building a promotion-winning side. I'm sure Tav would also be happier to stay once those marquee strikers have arrived and he can look forward to the prospect of enjoying his football with the buzz of potentially celebrating a return to the PL with Boro rather than struggling at the wrong end of the PL with some of those clubs mentioned who are chasing him.

I do think we have an informal agreement with all our players that if a top level club comes calling for them that we won't demand an unreasonable fee to block a transfer. As you say, I don't get the impression that Tav is angling for a move. If we're not in the play-off places in January then I think things may change. Likewise, if we get half-way through August with no sign of a "marquee" striker and a slow start to the season then a firm bid from the likes of Leicester may cause problems. 


   
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Ken Smith
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Werdermouth 

Nevertheless money talks. If he could be guaranteed a first team place at a club like Everton that would be ideal for Tav. If he stayed at Middlesbrough and gained promotion there’s no way that Boro would triple his wages which Everton might possibly do. It’s not as if he was a local lad where loyalties often run deeper. Unfortunately today it’s all about future earnings, and the Boro even in the Premier League can’t compete with the likes of Everton. Middlesbrough FC have been in this position before ( Graeme Souness and Craig Johnston come to mind) but even local lads such as Dave Hodgson and Stuart Ripley were lured away by higher earnings. It’s a fine balance nowadays as players have the power. Many of us will remember Wilf Mannion putting in a transfer request in the 1950s and actually going on strike, but in the end had to concede defeat after about 6 months and return to his roots.

This post was modified 2 years ago by Ken Smith

Martin Bellamy
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Posted by: @exmil
Posted by: @martin-bellamy
Posted by: @exmil

David, download the official MFC app onto your phone and under fixtures (bottom right) the Barnsley cup match is 10th August and has been for awhile, although I agree if you go online to MFC.co.uk it does say the 9th. I have synced all fixtures onto my calendar and when a fixture gets changed it automatically moves it on my calendar 👍

Come on BORO.

Could you give guidance on how to sync the fixtures from the App please, Exmil?

Martin if you look at the Wilder post Morecambe interview on the MFC website, to the right of the interview there is feed to add Boro’s fixtures to your calendar by putting in your mobile number, hope this helps 👍.

Come on BORO.

Thanks Exmil. Sorted. 


   
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Pedro de Espana
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Emil / Marin.  I have tried on my mobile, seen the fixtures icon but not the link to add to calender.

The last bit, do you have to do that through a browser, say on my laptop?  


   
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Martin Bellamy
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Posted by: @pedro

Emil / Marin.  I have tried on my mobile, seen the fixtures icon but not the link to add to calender.

The last bit, do you have to do that through a browser, say on my laptop?  

I did it from my phone but via the browser rather than the MFC app. 


   
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Martin Bellamy
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