Match Day Thread Middlesbrough v Hull City

[GEvans76]

Last nights pathetic effort was absolute disgrace.
A clueless manager who is completely out of his depth.
Poor tactics **** team selection same ****ing old.

 

[TIGERSCAVE]

Feel I have to comment on this game. Living south, my most recent game was Bournemouth and am expecting further embarassment when I go to Spurs next week. Tonight, though was really poor. Whatever the performance of individual players, the real culprit was the manager. They were clearly working to orders: no presssing of opposition, retreat in formation towards own goal, defend deep, hope they screw up, offer nothing in teturn, hope still be in game by 80th minute.

No decent team approaches games like that anymore. You press them, you force hurried decisions, you force errors. When forced to press the game after conceding we had to add this assertive intent to our game. We looked so much better, still might have conceded, but just might have scored.

I accept we might have the weakest squad in the premiership, but a passive approach to conceding defensive space will never give a chance of achieving the 35 points we need.

We all want the players to be in the faces of the opposition and then we forgive everything. Sadly the management orders are the opposite, concede midfield space, crowd the edge of the area. Looks awful, is awful.

Bournemouths amazing result Sunday aside... it just shows what can be achieved on little money with a great manager and an equally as positive and positive chairman.

 

[TIGERSCAVE]

I will always support the team, same as I did under Hateley, Molby & Parkinson.
Doesn't mean we're any good to watch.
He deserved a crack at the job & was the only person who wanted it, due to the idiots in charge. He has, however, shown he can't do the job he's employed to do.
His team selection is weird, the same players play bad but still get picked. His tactics are a mystery, nothing changes when subs come on for the same players that were subbed in the previous game because they were poor.
I don't know who had a say in the players we bought, but if it was him, I don't believe it is, they were ALL terrible & unnecessary signings.

Heres a left field thought.... the players take i t into their own hands... ignore his tactics. Whats he going to do sack them...!!!... they might keep him in a job.
Stuart Green hit the nail on the had last night .. not one player looks happy...

 

[ILivedTheDream]

Our midfielders are not all defensive, he's playing attacking midfielders in defensive roles. It's ******ed! Clucas, Mason and Henrikson can't tackle/break up play.

 

[Brucebones]

Our midfielders are not all defensive, he's playing attacking midfielders in defensive roles. It's ******ed! Clucas, Mason and Henrikson can't tackle/break up play.

**** knows what Mason & Hendriksen can do?

 

[look_back_in_amber]

**** knows what Mason & Hendriksen can do?

The only time that I've seen a spark from Henriksen is when he was on the left wing a game or two back, he turned a player inside out on the touch line, made his way down it and swung in a beautiful cross that led to a goal. So why the **** does Phelan insist on playing Mason, who looks completely lost, there?!

 

[Howden Tigress]

First half solid behind the ball..!!!!!!!... you're a **** Phelan.... what game were you watching.... players comfortable...!!!..

Waffle, waffle and more waffle.... **** off

Also, a thick twat, that's Phelan, not you TC! He said on Sky that despite the result we are in no worse position than before the game, unbelievable, we've just lost 6 points to near rivals, Sund'land and Boro, who have moved up the table, reducing the immediate relegation pack, widening the gap. He needs to give his head a shake. He put the loss down to an individual error defending a set piece, what happened to winning and losing together, scoring goals win matches, we didn't show any attacking intent until we had to in the last 10 mins.

The fact that it was nil nil at half time was more down to their woeful finishing and saves by Marshall. I can appreciate setting up like this against the top teams, playing for a point, but not against equally poor teams around us, camped in our own half, no out ball, hoping to hit them on the break, what with, we have no pace. Players who have proven in the past they can get to the by line and put balls in, Robbo & Elmo, are shackled in the back 4, with no room in front with 5 in midfield.

I just wonder if the senior players have any input with MP on set up/game plan, they were all bigging him up large to get the job, surely they cannot be content to be shackled back playing in their own half? Has he not learnt anything from SB, if we're gonna get beat, might as well get beaten "wer us boots on!" MP comes across very dour, no passion or enthusiasm.

Rant over.

 

[TIGERSCAVE]

Also, a thick twat, that's Phelan, not you TC! He said on Sky that despite the result we are in no worse position than before the game, unbelievable, we've just lost 6 points to near rivals, Sund'land and Boro, who have moved up the table, reducing the immediate relegation pack, widening the gap. He needs to give his head a shake. He put the loss down to an individual error defending a set piece, what happened to winning and losing together, scoring goals win matches, we didn't show any attacking intent until we had to in the last 10 mins.

The fact that it was nil nil at half time was more down to their woeful finishing and saves by Marshall. I can appreciate setting up like this against the top teams, playing for a point, but not against equally poor teams around us, camped in our own half, no out ball, hoping to hit them on the break, what with, we have no pace. Players who have proven in the past they can get to the by line and put balls in, Robbo & Elmo, are shackled in the back 4, with no room in front with 5 in midfield.

I just wonder if the senior players have any input with MP on set up/game plan, they were all bigging him up large to get the job, surely they cannot be content to be shackled back playing in their own half? Has he not learnt anything from SB, if we're gonna get beat, might as well get beaten "wer us boots on!" MP comes across very dour, no passion or enthusiasm.

Rant over.

Well thought as usual Tigress...

 

[PLT]

They're not, we've still spent a tonne on our squad. Don't know where you keep coming up with this delusion from.

Look at the squad! Diomande up front. If Bruce/Phelan had been able to sign players they wanted he'd have been absolutely nowhere near. Bowen wouldn't be even considered for matchday squads. Look at our subs when we go a goal down. Our only option was to hope that Huddlestone, Bowen and Meyler would turn the game around. That's surely an unprecedented situation, that a Premier League team doesn't actually have a single senior attacking player to bring on.

 

[Chilton's Hundreds]

The toxicity at owner level is slowly draining through the ranks.

Bottom of the league at Christmas and we'll then stay there for the rest of the season. Might scrape 22-23 pts if we're lucky.

The owners don't give a **** and now it's filtering down to the players.

Demoralised - that's what we are.

 

[Charon]

we lost to Boro 1 0 in March this year with Odubajo, Diame and Hernandez playing - our squad has gone backwards since then, Boro's has gone forward - unless and until there's some serious investment in the squad we're going nowhere and if anyone thinks otherwise they're deluded

 

[ILivedTheDream]

we lost to Boro 1 0 in March this year with Odubajo, Diame and Hernandez playing - our squad has gone backwards since then, Boro's has gone forward - unless and until there's some serious investment in the squad we're going nowhere and if anyone thinks otherwise they're deluded

We dominated this game a year ago, last night we gave it away with a whimper. Boro arent a good side, same as west brom and sunderland before them. The players we have are good enough to compete if used correctly. Phelan isn't doing that. Our squad is thin but not as poor as some of you make out.

 

[John Ex Aberdeen now E.R.]

Really?! Seriously?

They've got Negredo up front. We've got Diomande who couldn't make our bench in the Championship most of the time. They've got creative players in Ramirez and co in their midfield and attack. We've got a load of defensive centre mids, no creativity and only one winger. We go 1-0 down and all we can bring on is Bowen, Huddlestone and Meyler.

I think people just look at Boro and us as both being bottom end, recently promoted sides and think therefore we must be on a similar level to them. We're a million miles behind them. They finished above us in the summer and then signed about 10 quality players. We struggled at the end of last season, lost half our squad to other clubs or to injury, lost our manager and entire coaching staff, signed a handful of players in the last two days of the window who seem to have been picked out of a hat by Ehab, got even more injuries since then and now are making up the numbers by chucking kids into the first team.

And people think we should be able to compete because it's only Boro. Obviously if we played a trendier formation and Jak was in goal we'd be mid-table.

The players on the pitch should have been good enough to compete with Boro. Dawson and Davies are as good a back pair as Chambers/Gibson, even though I do like Gibson, Mason and Livermore as well as Snodgrass should be as good as anything they had on the pitch. Negrado has hardly pulled up any trees for them, and Dio to his defence had **** all service.

I am not saying there were as good on the night obviously they weren't, but if they played anything like we know they can they should have been more than good enough.

 

[Edelman]

There doesnt seem to be any passion in the team.
Theyre just going through the motions and picking up their money.

 

[Charon]

We dominated this game a year ago, last night we gave it away with a whimper. Boro arent a good side, same as west brom and sunderland before them. The players we have are good enough to compete if used correctly. Phelan isn't doing that. Our squad is thin but not as poor as some of you make out.

I agree - we beat Leicester, Swansea, Southampton, Stoke, Newcastle this season - Bruce lost all those games but apparently he was the best manager we've ever had whist Phelans just a **** - ps we dominated Boro because we had Odubajo, Diame and Hernandez/ Aluko playing but we still finished a very poor fourth in the league

 

[Obadiah]

We dominated this game a year ago, last night we gave it away with a whimper. Boro arent a good side, same as west brom and sunderland before them. The players we have are good enough to compete if used correctly. Phelan isn't doing that. Our squad is thin but not as poor as some of you make out.

Middlesbrough have conceded one goal less than Arsenal. Their problem is scoring goals. They are not as poor as you make out.

Sunderland have Jermaine Defoe and Victor Anchibe and they have stopped shipping goals. They are not as poor as you make out either. I don't expect either team to be relegated this season.

West Brom, well what can I say. A successful mid-table Premier League team with a manager who has never been relegated.

In contrast we have no right back, no experienced strikers, a midfield that can't defend and an inexperienced manager. The only thing that is keeping us in the mix is Swansea City, West Ham, Leicester City, Crystal Palace and possibly Burnley.

Phelan's solution is to play Steve Bruce's team the way Steve Bruce would have done. 2 or 3 defensive midfielders, Huddlestone or Meyler in place of Mason or Hendriksen. Play for a clean sheet and pray for a one-nil victory.

 

[Chilton's Hundreds]

2 poor teams last night.

One player had a very good game and that was the difference in the end.

Both will be relegated with their current squads.

 

[ILivedTheDream]

Middlesbrough have conceded one goal less than Arsenal. Their problem is scoring goals. They are not as poor as you make out.

Sunderland have Jermaine Defoe and Victor Anchibe and they have stopped shipping goals. They are not as poor as you make out either. I don't expect either team to be relegated this season.

West Brom, well what can I say. A successful mid-table Premier League team with a manager who has never been relegated.

In contrast we have no right back, no experienced strikers, a midfield that can't defend and an inexperienced manager. The only thing that is keeping us in the mix is Swansea City, West Ham, Leicester City, Crystal Palace and possibly Burnley.

Phelan's solution is to play Steve Bruce's team the way Steve Bruce would have done. 2 or 3 defensive midfielders, Huddlestone or Meyler in place of Mason or Hendriksen. Play for a clean sheet and pray for a one-nil victory.

They are poor. That mid table prem team looked ****e as soon as we got our tactics something like. had we started that way we would have won. I'm not saying we should be winning all these games but I expect us to have a go. Last night we didn't.

 

[Oregon Tiger]

That run was stopped by a Nick Deacy goal against Plymouth in front of 3,367 faithful fans. This so enthused the population that 2 less turned up for the next home game.

The match ball for the Plymouth game was raffled off in the social club and was won by a marvellous chap, profoundly wise and good-looking, the sort that men wanted to be like and women wanted to be with.

Do you still have the ball?

 

[Hessle Tiger]

For me, that's two games in a row (at least!!!) where we've made the opposition look like Barcelona. We've literally been played off the park in both games. Luckily Newcastle are still a poor side so didn't make us pay, but at times we made Isaac Hayden look like Patrick Vieira! Again last night, Gaston Ramirez, who let's be honest didn't exactly set the world on fire when he was here, was at the heart of everything good they did. Oh what we'd give for a Ramirez at the minute!

More worrying than the results is how we are playing. Zero ambition, negative throughout, lack of effort (this really grates on me) and a distinct lack of footballing ability. I've been going to watch City since the early nineties and I'm honestly struggling to think of a time when we were as bad as this. Yes, I'm sure there have been times in the bottom division that we were particularly poor but we just weren't very good then. This side is a PREMIER LEAGUE team not a Division 3/4/League 2 side.

The defence was so deep last night that Davies and Dawson may well have been at the bottom of the North Sea. We wait an age to get possession and then as soon as we do the ball gets hammered as far from our goal as possible. Or, even worse, the opposition show that desire we so desperately lack and they nick the ball back. I lost count of the number of players last night that were pushed off the ball by a Boro player that just wanted it more. I can remember Diomande, Livermore, Mason, Henriksen, Snodgrass, Robertson, Elmohamady. There may have been others. I missed the first 15 minutes last night (I'm guessing this wasn't a bad thing??) but I literally can't recall us doing ANYTHING until after they scored. I'm not just talking about shots on goal or on target, hell, I'd have taken 3 consecutive passes in their half and called that a success! We barely even strung together a couple of passes anywhere on the pitch. You can stomach getting beaten when the players give it their all but this lot aren't even giving us that much. The frustrating thing is that we seem to be able to play football when we go one down (Southampton, Newcastle, Boro to an extent). Why aren't we doing that for 90 minutes? The blame there HAS to be on the manager!