Well, last season was hardly that was it? But as your wife has told me on many an occasion, you do tend to exaggerate things...
What do you get when you only turn up for one half against a side like Boro'?Big fat zero.First half we matched them with no real goal threat.Second half they stifled us and had that extra bit of class to finish us off.Towards the end at least we began to realise nothing was coming from Knudsen's long throws and someone else started taking them short(it's hardly rocket science Mick!)
“ I would love to know what MM thought Coke would bring to the game, whatever it was it didnt happen, the guy is ****ing useless!! “ I think the idea with this was for us to go 4-3-3. Agree re full backs Spanish - bang on. First half I thought it was very 50-50 - first goal always going to be key - sadly Boro got it. Second half bloody awful once 1-0 down stuffing well knocked out of us fair shout to Boro played well in the end and deserved the 3 points. Ohhh here comes a Canary, hilarious. Well I said before I thought we were pretty much playing for 6th and maintain that. While the defeat is non-helpful ( that's f***ing obvious ) we're still a maximum 3 points off the play offs IF the other sides all win - Wendy host Derby for example..... Boro / Derby / Hull look a class above this season. I would say the sooner Fraser comes back the better. Bishop injury is doing my head in - nice to see McGoldrick on but for 5 mins seems pointless - if the poor bugger can get 100% fit and STAY FIT that would be a massive help. Likewise Bru ( who I think is very good in a 4-3-3 ) we need fit for the whole season - he's had a very stop start one. Onwards and upwards - it's disappointing but we'll hope to bounce back at MK Dons.
Dimi kept us in the game lads, and was my man of the match 1st half, which speaks volumes for the chances Ipswich had. Second half was a massive contrast, you cannot give Downing the license to roam that your midfielders allowed, hes too good, also Adomah is hard to contain WHEN he decides to turn up Nugent? it was written in the stars wasnt it Expecting a lot harder game than that tbh
Haha Rob it's sooo funny how certain players just net vs certain clubs. For us, Tommy Miller had a bit of a " score vs Preston " fetish. Agreed Smoggo - Downing and Adomah superb second half. Wasn't unhappy with our first half display - clearly put you are a level above us and pulling you down to our level / 5050 battle served us well. Second half just not very good sadly! Onwards and upwards ( I hope )
The best side won I don't think theres much doubt about that which brings us back to that word quality again, Boro spent £4M for Nugent and £6M for Downing plus eye watering wages and the rest of their Summer signings, we in contrast spent the equivalent forty nine shillings and sixpence hapenny for Malrcyk and Knudsen one of which we know cant play and the other we don't know much about at all, so its hardly surprising we cant compete with the top Clubs in this division, no quality = no promotion which is fine if we are where we want to be so we either accept that and get on with it or get some quality in, over to you Mr Evans. We competed well in the first half and but for some good goalkeeping and woeful finishing we could have been leading at half time but once Boro scored it was game over, Mcgoldricks few minutes wasn't going to solve the problem and Knudsens long throws were as ineffective as ever, a few days ago the question was posed " is Skues Prem quality " to my amazement some said he was but I don't think theres much doubt now. Christmas shopping list to Mr Evans please get some quality players for your Club in the New Year or just come out and say that youre really not that interested, then we all know where we are.
" so its hardly surprising we cant compete with the top Clubs in this division, no quality = no promotion which is fine if we are where we want to be so we either accept that and get on with it or get some quality in, over to you Mr Evans. " It's all well and good people saying this - and while I agree with you to some extent, even with the Mings sale we've LOST YET ANOTHER £5 mill plus this past year. Absolutely ridiculous. Pretty certain although the transfer fees we pay may not be high, wages / signing ons etc add up. It was revealed last season our wage bill was the 6th highest in the league, so that speaks volumes. Murphy / McGoldrick / Bishop new contracts etc cost £££££. I have to say, this season has been somewhat bizarre. We've certainly added the wide boys where we were shocking last season - 4! Fraser has been different gravy, the sooner he's back on the pitch the better. Niles a mixed bag, Oar we've hardly seen ( and I bet he's on a decent penny ) and Traore. We've all seen what can happen under idiot 1 and 2 re transfer fees so although I'm always up for us spending ££££ on players, they have to be a good fit all around. Say we did blow £3 / 4 mill on a player, after the signing on fee ( generally 10% of a transfer ) and the wages they'd command ( immediately be top earner ) we'd have to think about the dressing room / player egos etc so it's a very difficult position we're in. This seasons tough - Hull / Burnley have the parachute ££££ and are annoyingly doing well with it. You rightly point out Boro spending £10 mill on just two players - Derby have blown ££££ on Ince - infact i've just gone on this website, http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/derby-county/transfers/verein/22/saison_id/2015 and if they have their facts and figures correct, that's £19.81 million Derby have ploughed into fees in ONE SUMMER. Plus Darren Bent's wages. It's absolutely out of control football. I was GUTTED when FFP was put up from £8 mill to I think £14 / 15 mill a season. It's spiraling out of control. Forest gambled on spending ££££ - take Assumobolonga - £5.5 mill, only takes an injury to ruin a player. Likewise Bournemouth splashed the ££££ on Mings, hasn't played hardly at all for them. You have Bolton who look doomed this season with debt approaching £200 milll, Blackburn are going nowhere with no parachute payments and still have Rhodes on £50,000 p/w bleeding the club dry. I have to be honest- though I'd obviously like us to do better on the pitch, the transfer policy I would say taking into account what I've said re other clubs above is pretty decent on the whole. I think our summer recruitment has been rather good - but clearly it hasn't clicked on the pitch yet. Yes last season we may have had a garbage squad but spirit goes a long way in football and players wanting to play for the manager - take Chelsea, players clearly want Mourinho gone and aren't playing for the bage. What has annoyed myself and others and Spanish will agree on this one is some youth players I think SHOULD have been given a chance this season. Yowerth in particular I think has been quite hardly done by going out on loan - Emmanuel perhaps needed a month out. Onwards and upwards.
First half I felt we left off where we had from Charlton, we looked pretty solid but actually started playing better football (didn't take alot to improve in that department) and had a few chances. Second half we were terrible, Boro just dominated and the last 10 minutes it was like watching an F.A cup match where the PL team had were just toying with the non-league opposition after they'd run around a hell of a lot in the first 60 minutes, our on the ball play was soo bad it was embarrassing, we just couldn't keep the ball. Although I don't like how Mick plays alot of the time it gets the job done and it's clear we play as a team but once we run out of steam and our plan A of trying to bring the opposition down to our scrappy level hasn't worked we have no answer. We can't change the pace of a game, we can't keep hold of the ball to take the sting out of the game, it's just hoof hoof hoof all the time, trying to play the game at 100 miles an hour.. we looked like a pub team on the ball. I try to take an level headed view and not look too much at the style of play because when we lose because our style of play isn't great it's tough to take many positives from the situation but I still think we'll finish in the playoffs this season, althought it'll be tight but we certainly need to improve. Gerks has had a great couple of games but we need a better GK, our fullbacks aren't good enough, our cb's need to start trying to play football, our CM also need to start trying to play football and get a grip of games rather than just trying to make a scrap of games but our forwards on the whole have been pretty good, we just need to get Sears back up to being a striker. I liked what someone said recently in it seems that Mick makes lesser players fulfil and even exceed their potential and talented one's he seems to sometimes coach the ability out of them.
I agree with most of whats been said and if we all accept we are a mid table Championship Club because we cant afford to be anything else then that's fine with me, in which case we shouldn't criticise the players, management, and the owner because they are all doing the best they can with whats at their disposal. I enjoyed last season more than the previous few years and had hoped we could kick on from there but as you say Westy the obscene amounts of money flying around in various Clubs just demonstrates the gulf that's appearing even in the Championship. oh well it could be worse.
If this is the case can we at least try to start playing entertaining football and bring through more of our own young players?
Field I'd love nothing more than us to be top 2 with free flowing exciting players etc movement galore but it's just so damn hard to compete. Annoyingly Derby + Boro's splash the cash + two relegated sides in Hull + Burnley doing annoyingly well this season - to me we've only two options and that's 5/6. Then you have bucket loads of other teams throwing £££ at it - Wendy loaning Hooper on £35,000 a week it's an absolute disgrace footy. I don't want a continuous change as manager - I'm happy generally with what we have but as Spanish and others say at full back and goalkeeper it's a disgrace. The lack of a ball playing CB is another issue. Apart from that, I must confess I'm pretty happy on the whole. Yes the style of play could be better, but it links back to the transfers we're likely to get in on this an the other article I've put above.
There's not much I'd like to add to what's been written in the last half a page or so, some really good posts We're a solid enough team, we haven't been out of the top two divisions for nearly sixty years and the club has had some success during that period. I agree with the point about playing better football, our current style is successful but tedious at times. I also like that we don't chop and change managers all the time. I think what I am trying to say is I'm happy with most things about our club and there are certainly a lot of teams who have more problems than us and hideous owners. I would love for it to be better but it could be a lot worse, as FM said.
Sorry but dont get all this 'happy with mediocrity bullshit' or even accepting we are **** and just puttimg up with it because there are teams far worse off than ourselves! This will be another season wasted and MM should go at the end of the season if he doesn't take us up!! Personally i would get rid of the tosser now but....
Really disappointed with Knudsen. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but his performance was dreadful in that second half. Why are we so willing to use his long-throw approach in games? I've watched us play several times, and I don't think he's ever managed to throw it to one of our players! Have we even scored using this tactic? I thought we might have managed a draw, considering our form, but Middlesbrough are rightly considered one of the favourites for promotion, and the quality of their squad is testament to that. In fact I'd be very surprised is they didn't get promotion, and that's despite the tough level of competition this year (as it is every year at our level). There isn't much we can do but push on and grab a win away at MK Dons which, looking at our next several fixtures, appears to be the easiest one on paper. I'm not expecting much Christmas cheer from the club, although they have a habit of surprising us, one way or the other. Still unsure why Bart is being left out of the team, despite a couple of good games from Gerken recently. Our full backs are the Achilles Heel in this team, we got exploited down the flanks so often in the second half, it wasn't much of a surprise both the goals we conceded originated from attacks down the flanks. Skuse had a shaky game, Douglas was okay, but it's clear we're missing Bishop and Bru, someone to give us much-needed creativity down the centre as Miles tends to drift wide. Strikeforce was fairly quiet, but, as ever, I'm impressed with Sears' dedication. Lad could be the next Premier League-bound player from our lot.
Nuggets,Knudsen's throws are one of my bugbears at present and I kept a check on them on Friday.Of the 11 he took,9 were long throws of which 8 were met be a defending head(one of which ultimately lead to a goal)1 found Murphy's head and the two short throws obviously found a blue shirt. On the question of Sears suitability in the Premiership he started out at West Ham where he was regarded as too lightweight,obviously he's improved since then!
