Boro travel down to Wycombe today in another game where fans will be expecting points from. The midweek showing at Wednesday will need to be significantly improved upon if we are to get anything from this game. Wycombe are this season's whipping boys but Boro need to show up full of intent from the off and not wait until going behind before starting as they have done on their last few away games.
Injuries seem to be improving and it is likely only Hall and Fletcher will be unavailable with hints in the local media that Browne is close to perhaps being started. Whatever his team selection Warnock needs more influence and assertiveness from the attacking half to ensure three points. Personally, despite his terrible finishing accuracy stats I’d include Tavernier to pull the strings in midfield alongside Saville with Morsy anchored behind in front of the defence to provide momentum.
With West Brom allegedly dropping out of the Watmore race (I would doubt any Premiership manager trying to “save” a club would gamble on an injury-prone player taking up a squad number) I’d play the ex Sunderland man up front with Browne and Johnson providing support.
If Dijksteel is struggling I’d also give Spence a run-out and look to get at the soft underbelly of the Wanderers before waiting for them to score. Perish the thought that we lose this one with the transfer window now open, players and agents will take a look at the table as well as the map to find Middlesbrough. I’ll go for a 1-3 win for Boro with a soft Wycombe goal coming from another goalkeeping spill.
Thanks RR
I’m not sure Watmore is available as I think his temporary contract expired this week and his new contract is still left on the table unsigned.
we will see if loyalty wins over and the offer of money from other clubs goes unheeded.
NW keeps saying that Wycombe are a difficult side to play against so I’m going to go for
⚽️⚽️
Going to start this year carrying on with the way I left the old one !
Happy new year everyone and hope to hear from werder soon
OFB
Thanks RR
I’m not sure Watmore is available as I think his temporary contract expired this week and his new contract is still left on the table unsigned.
we will see if loyalty wins over and the offer of money from other clubs goes unheeded.
Happy new year everyone and hope to hear from werder soon
OFB
Not sure how much credence we can give to this report:
Note that it says that Watmore's contract expries after the Birmingham match at the Riverside on 16th January.
I echo OFB's New Year wishes & sentiments about Werder.
A happy and healthy New Year to all the blog members.
After being convinced Mr Warnock would have the team hurling themselves at Sheffield Wednesday I'm afraid I'm with 'Mr Eyes in the sky' himself because if ever a game was set-up as an exposure for a 'Typical Boro" performance this is it.
Chairboys 0 - 0 Unpredictables.
However a win wouldn't disappoint...
Stay safe everyone.
UTB,
John
Difficult one this. Wycombe have been showing signs of life recently. For us, with 3 wins then 1 loss it is hard to know what kind of performance we'll see. With all the issues around COVID and the Christmas break the players may be struggling to play at their best. It certainly feels like just about every result is equally possible so I'll go for a random 2-2.
I agree with Deleriad it is difficult to know what Boro we will see today. On paper it should be three points but Wycombe are fresh off the back of a win against Cardiff who are no mugs.
We should have won at SW but didn't. A draw at least is a must and we should not even contemplate a defeat. 1-1 for me.
Interesting to note that Watmore has been benched. Is NW planning life without him! 😎
Well we're off to a good start, down by one goal.
UTB,
John
Well not the greatest half of football but at least we are in front having conceded within the first three minutes. No Radio Tees commentary for some unexplained reason. Hope Rob Law and Maddo are ok.
A rare but good goal from a corner for Browne and another Tavernier left foot classic when cutting in from the right hand side. A good save from Bettinelli to keep the lead.
Need to ensure we see this out now. CoB 😎
Awful start from Boro, but from 15 minutes we have dominated the game and are well worth our lead via a smartly taken debut goal from Browne and a Tav left-foot classic into the bottom left-hand corner.
Akpom has been lively in holding the ball up and linking play, Browne has become influential after a slow start, and Boro look to have the measure of the Wycombe defence down our left,
A little disappointed that we didn't seal our dominance with a third, and I hope that does not come back to haunt us.
Wycombe have to come at us now and this should leave plenty of gaps for us to exploit on the counter. We mustn't cede the initiative and go into full defensive mode. We are a far better and more experienced team at this level than they are. We should go on to win by 3 or 4-1. Anything less would be a disappointment
It took us a while to get going but the last twenty minutes of the half were very good once we started moving the ball a bit faster. We're making progress down both wings and Browne is turning up in all kinds of places. Tick for NW for picking him. Good corner by McNair for our first goal and a cracking shot by Tavernier for the second. Their goal was surprising. Good turn by the big centre forward left McNair nowhere and he smashed it across Bettinelli into the goal. He could be quite a handful and we'll need to avoid giving them too many chances.
We could have already scored a few more but it's vital that we get further ahead to avoid letting Wycombe back into the game. We have the quality but need to make it count.
UTB
So much for not being able to score from corners, two in a match and 1-3 CoB. 😎
Decent match for Akpom, by the sounds of it: he assisted Tav with his goal & has just put Boro 3-1 up from a corner taken by Paddy! 🙂
Hats off to NW. Three changes and they all score.
Boro looked like a quality team and we really should have scored two or three more. Thankfully, it didn't matter.
I also hope that they now realise that hitting hard crosses into the goal area is a better way of taking corners than passing it back and losing it.
Solid professional performance with Saville and Morsy working tirelessly to lock down the middle and the attack as a whole looking sharp.
Hello 2021.
utb
A typical Warnock away from home start of late by actually not starting and then going a goal down. As the saying goes, once is an accident, twice is unfortunate but three times is deliberate. OK whilst clearly not deliberate it was predictable albeit the manner of it did elude my pre kick off prediction.
That we are doing it against the divisions weakest sides is a cause for concern. The recent hype about how good one or two of our players are needs a sharp reality check. There again it may all be a cunning and deliberate plan to put off the admiring glances of other clubs, in which case I have no doubt it is definitely working.
The end result was welcome and at times there was some really slick interpassing displays involving Bola, Browne, Tav and Johnson in particular but there were far too many slow, pedestrian build ups that allowed the Chairboys time to regroup. The last half hour of the first half was the best of the afternoon for us but in the second half we made hard work of it at times, far harder than it should have been.
Browne done enough to suggest that any thought of sending him out on loan should be well and truly shelved. A little overly enthusiastic and consequently wasteful at times his overall contribution showed enough to suggest that he will get better. Indeed he looks like he could become a real asset at this level once he gets up to speed both with his fitness levels and intuitive understanding with teammates. The one caveat to that is that NW can curb his hitherto reckless, nay, headless tendencies.
Despite my initial early afternoon angst with him Akpom linked up well. After an inauspicious start he started to do the hard graft and in doing so allowed the above mentioned individuals to cut open and create chances. There were however some very frustrating aspects of this afternoon's showing, particularly in the second half when we showed too much respect to Wycombe and at one point even looked in danger of conceding an equaliser prior to our third and killer goal.
I'm grateful for the three points but it still isn't good enough. As bad as this squad was under Woodgate and as good as the turnaround has been under Warnock I believe they are better than the current sporadic and indifferent displays would indicate.
I listened to the match on Radio Tees, heard a remarkable number of comments along the lines of 'if he gives the ball to blogs it's a goal, oh! He given it to the opposition and they have cleared it up field and are in our box'. This is really basic stuff and frankly is not acceptable. As ever there was a lack of shots on goal, the stand in commentator, a certain Mr. Hignet said at one point, " that is the first shot we have had in this half" it was after twenty minutes of the second half".
Yeah, we have been rubbish in the last five matches as we lost at Wednesday.
Terrible, we have got (just) 2.2 points per match in that run. That is nearly relagation form. And the play-offs are a full (!) one point away from us now. We must improve.
I do not want to sound negative, but the table never lies.
Up the Boro!
An enjoyable result and the game wasn't too painful, in fact RR report was very down to earth and gratefully read. Yes a lot of things to moan about, but then we are never happy unless we can have a whinge or two.
I think the link below was provided by one the forum a year or two back, I love it as it is based on an continually updated dynamic spread sheet similar to my relegation chart but much more complex. It shows the reality combined with realistic predictions and currently it thinks we will end up 5th.
https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/middlesbrough/middlesbrough/league-table/predicted
Many thanks to whoever posted initially way back when, I have had quite a bit of fun with it.
UTB
Yeah, we have been rubbish in the last five matches as we lost at Wednesday.
Terrible, we have got (just) 2.2 points per match in that run. That is nearly relagation form. And the play-offs are a full (!) one point away from us now. We must improve.
I do not want to sound negative, but the table never lies.
Up the Boro!
On paper that sounds good but over the last six games we were hammered 3-0 by Preston (who still struggle at home for results for some strange reason), we then beat Millwall 3-0 who are on a perilous slide down the table, beat mid table Luton, Aitor's Birmingham (who I doubt will still be their Manager when we play them in two weeks time) and bottom of the table Wycombe. We also lost to managerless, basket case Wednesday. If we are to make the play offs the above teams are all sides who we should be taking points from. It was a generous run of fixtures. Anything under two points per game would have to be considered disastrous.
Reality however is that we have gone behind in four of those games, two of them we never came back from. While it is exciting to come from behind and get a result we shouldn't be getting ourselves in those situations in the first place, certainly not against sides of that calibre.
When we played Norwich a while back (and matched them) we were almost neck and neck with them, they are now eleven points ahead of us and disappearing fast. That is the ruthless measure we should be benchmarking because while congratulating ourselves in beating mediocre and very poor sides over the last few weeks one of the automatic places is almost gone.
We are bouncing around on the brink of the Play Offs which we would have accepted quite happily after last seasons disaster but if we are to seriously make the Play Offs then we have to improve on where we are because the non lying league table has us outside those Play Off places. If we cough and splutter against these type of teams then what chance are we going to have when we play Bournemouth, Watford, Norwich, Swansea, Reading, Stoke and Brentford (even Barnsley) again later in the season? What is going to happen when if go behind against those better sides?
If we continue to make hard work against poor sides our Play Off hopes will never materialise. Something is mentally lacking in the side at the moment, there should be a snarling hunger, an arrogant confidence but I'm not seeing it until we go a goal down. Mike Tyson never got into the Ring hoping his opponent didn't hit him, he got in snarling and had to be restrained, even warned bout his conduct. The great Ali never ever considered that he would be beaten whoever he boxed against, it never entered his mind because he was "the greatest". I don't see that belief in this Boro side "yet", until I do I don't believe we will or can push on.
Sorry to rain on people's parade at the moment because it is nice to win but if the fans and the Manager tolerate this then we will end up four or five pints adrift come May saying how close we almost came. "Typical Boro" if only Tav hadn't slipped or Bettinelli hadn't fumbled or a goal here or there not been chalked off or a game hadn't been postponed when the opponents weren't scrapping for survival and so on. Where we are now is more Stan Anderson territory, a long way off Jack Charlton or even Aitor's or Robbo's sides. This is in fact typical Boro territory, always the Bridesmaid but never the Bride, always close to but never quite good enough until SG took over and gave us the nineties and early noughties. It is our default setting and if we are not careful we are sleepwalking back into it.
It needs to be fixed now while there is still time, the very worst that will happen is that we smash the Play Offs, if we don't act then we won't even make them. This season we have a chance, maybe against the odds but a chance. It is too good a chance to spurn by accepting that beating the dregs of the Championship with indifferent performances will deliver us to not only the Premiership but more importantly financial safety. Bulkhaul will be facing a turbulent market due to Covid and Brexit will have compounded matters further. Rockliffe has and will now more so than ever continue to be a massive financial millstone while the Football Club voraciously consumes huge sums of cash.
Great post bringing reality into play and all our hopes crashing down!
Very well reasoned and true unfortunately and hopefully NW also realises this and does something about it.
Appreciate your input RR
OFB
Thought provoking response by RR and little to disagree with.
I feel, that apart from 2 or 3 teams, the standard of the League is not very good with most teams much the same - hence almost anyone can beat anyone and without fans the advantage of playing at home is lost.
Perhaps the vast improvement in some of the players and the higher League position gives us a higher expectation whereas at the start of the season most would have settled for mid table . Also have other teams sussed us out and that is the reason NW is wanting to play with wingers.
No doubt we’ll have further ups and downs as the season progresses which, in equal measures, raises our spirits and then deflates them. But this happens to all teams.
Turning to transfers I’m getting less optimistic of Watmore signing. We’ve gone from - ‘ he loves it here, ‘ he wants to sign’ to -‘ his last game is the Birmingham game’ , ‘I’ve more than one player to think about’. And then not chosen yesterday or even brought on as a sub. Is NW preparing for life without Watmore?
All the time we hear nothing from the player himself or even his agent who no doubt is trying to get him the best possible deal. Does he owe us anything when we only give him a very short term cheap contract? You can argue either way.
Was NW ‘having a go’ at the recruitment team when he said we’d probably get someone in on 31st January at 3pm ?
Philip of Huddersfield
We haven’t a given right to reach the playoffs with such a young side and we’re certainly not as good as at least 4 of those sides above us. We missed our chance under Pulis with his negative tactics against Villa and look how well they are playing at the moment. But our biggest chance was thrown away by Karanka when we were actually in the Premier League when we found one goal defeats acceptable. If only——— the two hardest words to accept in the dictionary and can be attributed to any disappointment in life, but there’s no reason IF ONLY we had remained in the Premier League in season 2016/17 we might have been a mid-table side by now. We missed a great opportunity then and as you state, this side is not a patch on Jack Charlton’s side or even Aitor Karanka’s despite the latter’s negative tactics.
Was NW ‘having a go’ at the recruitment team when he said we’d probably get someone in on 31st January at 3pm ?
Maybe a thin veneer is starting to make its way through to the surface. Several Boro Managers now have had some disappointment with us not being able to get deals over the line and as a consequence we have knee-jerked and brought in some last minute donkeys.
I have no doubt that expenditure is the last thing that SG would want to be contemplating right now but to me it seems that if he can speculate just a little bit his present manager probably offers a more realistic opportunity for promotion than many in the past.
On the Watmore thing had we offered him a three year contract on £20K a week and then he pulled up after six or seven games and out for six months then there would have been plenty said about it. Nobody including the Player himself knew how he would react to getting competitive game time and we have to temper that with the realisation that he isn't going to be a two games per week Championship player like McNair. He may not even be capable of playing a full 90 minutes on a weekly basis. That said the cameo's that he has had so far are more than enough to warrant an offer of some sort, the dilemma is how big of an offer, at what point does the risk outweigh the offer or vice versa?
Any Club that his agent is speaking to will have a similar concern. No doubting that he can perform at this level but for how long and how often?
Yes, it is irritating foolishness which costs so many points, the most glaring bit of nonsense was, of course, the First goal. As said here on many occasions, when the box is full of optimists hoping to get a boot to the ball, the Keeper should be in the centre of his goal and on his line, that is the optimum position, our keeper was drawn like a magnet towards his left hand post, and someone finally got a foot to the ball and guess what? He curled it into the far corner at shoulder height, an easy save if in the middle of your goal, he wasn't, and didn't. However, our constant nagging about Tav. Is paying off, he is showing a bit of class, I like the idea of the low curve ball into the far corner, it does the business on a regular basis in the Prem. And I expect more from him because he has got a lot more to give, i also expect to see Wing in a forward position behind the strikers, with instructions to score more goals i can see those two having a successful time this season if allowed to settle in the team. We are slowly getting together a few players who can form the heart of the team, and are capable of seeing off a good number of teams in the Champ. Brentford will be a good test this weekend, i rate them, and will be impressed if we win.
Great, Great post. R.R. I have no intention of dissecting it because it is true. Even I had forgotten the superb position we should have been in but for Fred Carno selections and results.
I believe the boro "golden age" began when robo became manager and ended in eindhoven, I never saw Charlton's team, since then it's been a struggle, this could be because SG can no longer compete in the world of billionaire owners, we probably blew our best chance of getting back when we had the parachute money first time or after karanka
As you say the division is much of a muchness I expect Norwich, Bournmouth & one of swansea/brentford to go up. I was really disappointed by the shef wed result but that's this division
What worries me is that I suspect a lot is fans may never return to watch the team live again, given i dont think it will be this season and given the stae of the world people will find something else to do or not have the money or inclination.
I just smile when I think of the players that I have seen in a boro shirt Ravanelli, Mendieta, boksic, the Brazilians, Merson and the memories of cardiff & eindhoven
I still get frustrated and angry by the teams performances but at least I dont support sunderland/bolton/bury luckily
So I'm just going to roll with the punches and try and enjoy the games no matter what happens it is only a game after all and there are bigger mountains climb.......
you are quite right to be frustrated by the lack of consistency that the team shows and I’m sure that NW feels exactly the same way. He is nursing a small squad with limited alternatives and that is evident by the lack of true impact subs. In essence he is performing a fairground magic trick by making us look like a strong Championship team which we are at first team level but too many injuries and we could fall away.
if, by the end of January, we have Fletcher fit and firing, Hall as backup and a couple more added into the squad then we may be able to keep the balls in the air. Until then every good result is a little triumph and I’m glad for them as they come. Just how much money we will have to spend will be up to Steve Gibson.
As I have written earlier, the run of games after the cup will tell us a lot. The cup game itself will be a time to rest and test. Rest some of the first team and test some of the kids. Then we have Birmingham in a rather rapid turn round from the recent game. Winning that will be expected but we did have everything go right for us in the St. Andrews game. Then it gets interesting. If we are still in touch by midFeb it will be worthwhile getting quite excited.
utb
I am optimistic for the future - we will eventually be firing on all cylinders and when that happens we will be unstoppable.
I feel comfortable with him in charge.