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im in the same camp as BD . ive gone through plenty of bad times in the past as well as wonderful times . ive seen players ranging from absolute top quality down to rank bad . right now what i see is arguably the worst its been since i started following the club i love. its not an over reaction as ive thought it through , many will point to the years immediately prior to our lowest ebb in 1986 as the worst time , but i was around and witnessed it , it was very low but i still felt a tinge of optomism that with each managerial change or incoming player we might turn things round , admittedly in that era pre social media and internet forums we had less access to the bigger issue of the state of finances other than reading gazette reports about problems with Amer and other higher associates, but player and management wise there was always a degree of hope. Then some will point to the Strachan days , but my main discontent about that era was the terrible signings from north of the border that we made. dispise him as much as you like but Strachan was a guy that at least had some experience to fall back on . Right now where are we ? We have a owner that is now dividing opinion and thats being kind. Sothgate was a huge mistake, Agnew was a similar mistake and still he follwed suit with this appointment. Gibson strikes me as someone who likes and is too used to getting his own way in life. maybe sorry and i was wrong are not in his reprtoire but unless he has an epithany and makes his own adjustments in the first place , youve got to worry for our immediate future. Then theres the already lambasted Merry Melodies recruitment team and grinmeister himself ,Bauser whose most positive aspect on his MFC cv is that hes managed to make Keith Lamb look effective. another stick to beat the decision maker with. The Manager, hes obviously not ready or experienced enough to deal with the issues which lie in front of him and too naive to see those behind him, its not his fault , he means well and had the best intentions but wont be able to carry them out for many reasons and now is starting to doubt and dabble with the intentions that won the percentage of fans willing to give him the benefit of doubt , over. Finally the players, ive read numerous times how they cant adjust to this new style of play. WHY? . These are the ones deemed to be the players that stood out from the many thousands of young lads dreaming of making a living of playing professional football . Surely theyre capable of adapting having reached this level . hate to say it but were horribly broken at this point in time and a lot of parts need fixing.

I don’t think it’s about how much money he has or hasn’t got, we’ve still outspent most championship clubs and even outspent half the premiership after we came down. Its not how much money we have but the how we USE the money that’s the problem. We are operated inefficiently

I'll have a rant because my week has been *** and now this is the icing on the cake. Firstly, I am not surprised we are where. Woodgate never had the experience to do this, and he has also not got the funds. Gibson knows all of this and is treating the fans like mugs. I don't think I blame Woodgate, I'd do the same to jump at the chance to manage us in his position. But, he must share some of the blame for where we currently are. Without Randolph we would be bottom, 100%. We started brightly and since that Luton game, I have no idea how we are trying to play. What is Woodgate's philosophy? There seems to be a miss match of different ones yet no clear one. We try to play out from the back, yet have no ball playing defenders. We got caught out today with it a few times. If we havent got the players who are comfortable, why are we doing it? We had no player in midfield who was linking up play to the strikers. This meant our play was either long balls or down the line. Taking the danger away from the centre where Britt and Fletcher are arguably their best. We then resort to long balls with players who are bad in the air? And it just shows that we are lacking our build up play. Because we punt it from the back, lose it, or win it back to then have an outnumbered attack vs their defence. We will never score goals like this. Going forward it's bad, but at the back, it's even worse. The second half the amount of times they had a player on the edge of the box or we didnt track a runner from midfield I'm honestly surprised we didnt lose by more. What worries me is that Woodgate appears to be stuck between playing in his ideal image of boro for the future, rather than the players of his current disposal. This brings me to my final point. Karanka could come in, and with experience make us solid and hard to beat. Then build the foundations to be able to go from there. I dont think Woodgate can do this.

I think Browne has had a good game

Just to let everyone know that the meeting went well and a vote will be taking place. They will let us know in due course. The voting comes from groups that are already members of the fans forum. The contents of the meeting will be published when I receive the minutes and I'll certainly share that with everyone. I think we contribute a lot the Boro community at large and there is more still we can be involved with. I argued for this passionately. However, I don't think we need to demand a place. Let our actions do the talking for us and lets continue to focus on being an great community for Boro fans.

What exactly did Pulis achieve? Absolutely nothing. He did leave us with an alienated fan base and a very poorly assembled squad though. Lots of credit for that. Just because Woodgate is worse doesn’t make Pulis any good. Limping out of the playoffs the way we did and stumbling to 7th as one of the worst attacking teams in the league is absolute failure.

You can't sack Woodgate after 11 league games that would just be ridiculous and contradict everything that has been said by the Club since the end of last season. Yes things aren't good at the minute but a reaction like that would be daft imo and make us even more embarrassing as a club! Media outlets would have a field day.....

It was a good post Wilson and I agree with a lot of it, but I just had to pick out that quote. The problem is that he isn't really doing that. We're not really playing a particular way. There were signs of that early in the season but those changes are gone and we've reverted to a crap championship side that can't do anything well. Christ, Woodgate spent all summer harping on about pressing but even that we can't do. He looks like a manager that hasn't got a clue about how to change it, and if the players havn't already started to lose faith in his abilities then they will soon. Do the players even know what to do out on the pitch? Everything looks half hearted and usually that stems from bad management.

Woodgate should resign tonight or he’s going to relegate us

Haven't posted much this season, as I've been quite busy and the apathy of last season still lingers, but I went to the game today for the first time in a couple of weeks. It's way too early to be calling for anyone's head, but I've got to admit I've been completely underwhelmed by Woodgate's start to the season. It takes time for managers to implement their plans, and for the players to get on board, so I wasn't really expecting to be up challenging for promotion. That being said, I just can't see what Woodgate's plan is. He keeps talking about this high press, high intensity football, but the Luton game aside I haven't really seen any glimpse of it. It just seems to be the same dross football that Pulis had us playing last year, but without the defensive solidity. I'm really hoping it comes good for him and I don't think he'll be sacked, but so far its been worse than Garry Monk's early era in my opinion, and he was getting slated on here. Onto the players; Bola and Dijksteel have looked garbage throughout, especially the former. Hopefully they'll come good and reach at least Championship level, but I've seen nothing so far. Wing and Clayton. Given an easy time because one's from the area and one just seems to have lots of fan boys. Both garbage again today. McNair finally showing his form has been the only good thing really so far this season. Assombalonga - devoid of confidence, and very much a confidence player. Two horrendous misses today. Finally, why are Ayala and Howson not starting? Honest question, as I'd have both in my starting eleven every week. I know it seems convenient to come out with a negative post after a 4-1 loss at home, but the above basically reflects what I've seen this season in general. Happy to give Woodgate the full season regardless to give him a chance at least, but from what I've seen so far it's not looking good. I think his whole 'I'm from Teesside, and we're hard working' mantra will start to wear thin soon.

And it would be miraculous if we could all enter a job and accomplish all our goals from day one. He is what he is and I'm still more than happy to give him the time he needs.

Sounds good to me. Quite a lot of stuff to keep the general forum going if you pack all that into it, rather than say split it down into different types of sub-forum. One all-purpose nattering section for anything not related to Boro. My only suggestion would be maybe sectioning out football topics from non-football topics. Stuff like Non-Boro Football still feels like it has a place in either the main sub-forum or perhaps better would be a more generic Football sub-forum of its own. So you have Boro, Football and then General. Something like that.

The Cowley's brother's know what they are doing and are exactly the type of people that Gibson should of brought in the summer.

I think someone is forgetting that this is Boro we support! We will win this to build up false hope, before losing the next 6

Yeah, that was obviously meant for all our Irish friends on here 😍

I actually booed at the TV when we equalised, that's how utterly shocking we were.

Agree if Woodgate truly loves the club he will resign tonight as he has to admit he has taken the plunge far too soon and is way out of his depth.

I really really really would love to of been a fly on that dressing room wall at half time and at training as honestly what are we even trying to achieve

I just wish we played like we did against luton every week. Even if we concede a million goals a week it would be better than this

he's crap

Not sure what Fletcher did wrong to be honest. I'd say what was more the problem was that we looked more like 5 at the back and let them back into the game when we made the changes. Tonight was the first game this season where I genuinely thought we could make changes and we could be stronger going to the end of the match with something a bit different and somehow we got it wrong and it made us worse, if anything we allowed them back into the game when they'd had very little of it all of the second half. We may well have been better off not changing a thing. Overall, once again the first half paled in comparison to the second for me. I thought even McNair had a relatively poor first half compared to his usual. He was great second half though. Real 'engine' of a player. Pulis said Saville will be a future captain of Boro whilst keeping McNair on the sidelines or a scapegoat at right back. I think McNair could be a future captain, really setting an example right now. Tav and Browne gave a good account of themselves, you could see what we were trying to do, shape to cross and cut it back and better finishing could have seen us win the game from a couple of those chances. Browne really often got the better of his man one way or another, he mixed it up quite a bit so they couldn't quite get a grip on him until they physically got hold of him. Shotton didn't look overly out of place at left back but it was a severe hindrance first half when he simply couldn't use his left foot. I don't know if it was tactical but neither him not Dijksteel really stretched the pitch on the counter, Dijksteel was almost always a bit off the pace on the overlap. Other than that he had a really good game. Ayala was often good when needed and Fry had a much easier game as a result. The goals, well first half Preston had more of the game than in the second but I think they got a slice of luck with their goal. The way the ball bounced completely caught us out and the lad couldn't miss. We got a similarly jammy goal from a decent move. Last but not least, I'm not gonna complain about the ref in the respect of denying us any clear chance today. I didn't think much to any of our penalty shouts as much as sheer desperation to score saw me shouting for one at the end when McNair threw himself to the ground. However, he was rubbish and the linesmen were similarly rubbish. There was that moment in the first half when Ayala cleared and it seemed like the ref gave a decision that the ball went out when the linesman didn't see it go out. There was the injury to the Preston player who seemed to think that because the physio was close enough to talk to him, he didn't need to leave the pitch and the ref didn't look like he gave a *** for far too long. There were 2 or 3 occasions where he gave decisions from our players being dragged to the floor the other way, Britt on the edge of the area and McNair racing down the right wing in the second half. The first one in particular was during us picking Preston apart and Britt was simply trying to hold up the ball, played it on and then the ref blew for sweet *** all as far as I could see, it ruined our momentum in the move and gave them a chance to run the clock down a bit more.

I can easily stomach another loss, if the players give their all! All I want is MEN on the pitch... Players who believe they have to fight, who know they can bring something to the team... NOT cowards who play with an alibi... Regarding Woodgate . he still has my backing very much - I won't be judging his style untill the January window closes. It's Tuesday, I have MFC TV subscription, I am home alone, I have 2 cold pale ales in the fridge and a bag of crisps and I support my team the best I can, not only when we play good. UTFB

I struggle to work out how anyone can find positives in this situation, it’s sunderlandesq

149 games since he last scored and on his 150th an own goal. Ra ra ra Gooooooooo Awaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Adaaaaam

To those posters above who have already posted their predictions I am making round 9 above void. I do apologise but after seeing the rising problem of No Shows I think it may be wise to revert back to last seasons 2 leagues and only play weekend games, and playing the odd midweek game in emergency's or cup games. There is ample time to do this and the quicker the better really. Sorry if this as been an inconvenience hopefully after today's results are tallied up and the league positions are correct I will be able to split the top from the bottom creating the Riverside and Ayresome Leagues. With a 2 up 2 down situation at the end of the season I make this decision because on hindsight I realise now that playing 50 games in a season with only weekend games is virtually an impossible task . So I think splitting up the league into two is the best solution. Lesser games but able to full fill all the fixtures. Hopefully I should have the new fixtures sorted by the end of the day at present I am thinking 12 in The Riverside and 14 in The Ayresome. I have posted a message to Youngy228 if he agrees to join in then I will also and make both leagues 14's. Anybody got any problems with this decision post and let me know. This may well be my last season I am just trying to get it right for the next fella that takes over.

Best manager we have had since the Spanish bottler

dunno why. Says more about you than him tbh.

He's actually from Hartlepool and believe it or not he actually doesn't like football but has enjoyed referring since school days. He's a friend of my wife's sister.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel envious when they see and hear the way Danny Cowley speaks about football. Really wish we had made a real push for him after Pulis.

no disrespect to Woody but the vast majority of fans were extremely sceptical of his ability to step into management from the beginning . its being very quickly shown to be a true assumption. i dont believe for a minute that resigning is going to happen any time soon nor do i think Gibson has his finger anywhere near the trigger at present , but, if we dont string 3 or 4 good results together before mid december latest , then any lack of intervention from the chairman would be a severe lack of respect to the future of the club. . i wished JW well despite not wanting him at the helm because i was keen to see him given the chance to put in practice what he said he would do with making us a more positive and adventourous team . once he reneged on those principles to save his own skin he lost my support . Weve regressed in every department and look completely disjointed and cant even string any semblence of a move together most games. At present even this early i genuinely dont see any team in a worse state as a cohesive unit in this division .

is there enough non-bono football for its own sub section? I know there is a massive thread on it, wouldn't that make sense to just have it as a sticky in the boro forum, or just have it as Football Chat and General? It could evolve into a subform dedicated towards that, but what I would suggest you want to avoid is having people have to switch sections too often as thats how stuff falls by the wayside. As forums grow subsections become a natural byproduct because it gets too busy to have those conversations all in one place, so if the "football" section grew too busy and too many non-boro threads taking place then by all means, but presently the boro section doesn't have a huge amount of active topics in it either so by splitting it you divide your audience.

Great post, but let's not deify Karanka too much. He's the best manager we've had in many years, but he was far too stubborn with his 4-2-3-1 formation. Even at the start of the PL season, we played very negative football - I remember dreadful early away performances against West Brom and Everton - and he did walk out of the club in a huff. We'll never know exactly why that happened, but I wouldn't have given him greater responsibility afterwards. It does seem that our club lives or dies by its choice of manager, much more than clubs where there's a long-term focus and a settled hierarchy in place. I'm not a fan of the chop-and-change managerial approach of clubs like Watford - in many ways it's the antithesis of what I want Boro to be - but changes in their dugout don't seem to turn the entire club philosophy on its head, or lead to boom-and-bust cycles every few years.

We were at least competitive on Saturday, certainly in the first half anyway, so I suppose that's something. Losing is still losing though, it really doesn't matter by how much or who it's against if you're struggling to beat anyone. When people talk about squad balance, just look at that team - three central defenders, a left winger at left wing back, five central midfielders (one at right wing back and one theoretically playing close to Assombalonga) and then one striker. I'd still love to have a conversion with people at the club, people still at the club I should say, who thought it wise to hoard central midfielders at the expense of other positions, as if we believed they were going to go extinct and we'd have cornered the market on them 😕

A tad unlucky today I thought, although we are seriously lacking in quality players across the squad. at the end of the day , don't expect any sympathy when your £7m sub can't convert from 3 yards

I have to say this because for 2 weeks it as been doing my head in on Randolph getting praise for the world cup save he made at 1-1. I see his game differently to others obviously. Yes I admit once again he did do a fantastic save but only for him to become a calamity a minute or two later in allowing the opposition to score from a cross he had just created by punching the ball clear of the box to the opposition who then commenced to put in a ball to the far post and we all saw what happened then. You could say I suppose that was the fault of the players not moving out fast enough and you would be right but at the end of the day that ball was crossed and everybody just stood there like statues. Randolph does have a major weakness and that is his command and presence in the box and his aerial ability is very suspect. In his favour perhaps its because of his lack of command, he may be over worked at times and that creates his miss readings of cross's. I would like to see him screaming at players around him and making them do the work. If you look back some of the greats were never really great keepers but they were excellent commander's in the area. You may think me stupid for digging him out and yes when I see him perform those magnificent saves that gain us points like he as done these last few seasons since his arrival I often think that of myself to. But there is no getting away from it if he concentrated a little more on telling those around him what positions they should get into and what players to watch and getting a lot of the sluggish players out of the area asap we may start winning games and not losing them. Personally I would drill this home to him in training and make him overall captain to show the team he as the backing of the coach's.

None. May sell Britt and reinvest about a third into another league 1 player with “massive” potential. Behind the scenes we are arguably as big a mess as Sunderland in the Netflix series. Truly awful.

Was at that game at Old Trafford, Erimus..........a very long 90 minutes.......wish we had scored three minutes from the end instead of the kick-off....weird how elastic time can be in those situations......good ride home on the coach though....listening to sports reporters trying to explain MU had been unlucky rather than outplayed, .......some things don't change.....thanks for the memories....

Absolutely fantastic stuff. Fair play E74. I love these articles. Keep up the good work.

Fletcher looks really light-weight to me.. it might just be his running style, but he dribbles like someone who doesn't want to get his shoes dirty.

There hasn't been anything through any sources to suggest he is under pressure. I am sure if senior figures wanted him gone it would be done, ask those involved in the discovery of protected bats which halted a multi-million pound project. There was reported to be a dressing down of a senior player in the team in front of the squad the week after the Cardiff match. It involved a phrase which has been used as a joke in the past due to the number of times it has been referenced by JW in training and interviews but it didn't go down well this particular time and JW questioned the professionalism shown and whether this player was good enough for selection after being substituted. There seems to be a sense of frustration with how many times things have to be repeated despite different ways of trying to get the message across in certain training drills. The comparisons with the training ethos of world class players (Don't need to be told) perhaps from past experience hasn't gone down too well either after being referenced a few times.

We end every game with 40 something possession whether it's PRESTON at home or CARDIFF away how does that = goals? Empty his promise and talk of 'goals hitting the net' I'm not sure where else there is to go with him it's a fundamentally flawed footballing setup the premise is 'our ball your ball' and 'quicker quicker' the whole thing's aimless and flawed there's no turnaround to be had we give up too much possession and crosses, by design, to keep clean sheets and on the ball we aren't setup at all at times we look like a pub team we stick 4 up front keep 4 back pass it 2 yards a couple of times and...?

Of course they are bothered, that’s not the issue. They just don’t have a clue what they are meant to be doing, and is it any surprise

Just leave it, thank you

Will Tav and Browne start again? I hope so! Will Woody’s Wonders™ win? We can but hope! What will the score be? 2-2 What food will you eat on Friday night whilst watching? Quorn Curry ? Why hasn’t Leo, as the largest of all the coaching staff, simply killed and eaten the others for sustenance? Fattening then up for a big Christmas feast!

And I stick by what I said, I don't think Woodgate hasn't had much criticism in the grand scheme of things. I think the overriding narrative is that Gibson is to blame and Woodgate has got an impossible job. I think we've got to a point in the season where we are entitled to point out technical and tactical things which are going wrong on the pitch. I think there's more to discuss than just blaming the chairman.

What I WILL say, to give credit where credit is due - his tactical adjustments have definitely worked and we look far better; but that's really just polishing a turd.

Or they might just go and do something that will entertain them.

After today's horror show all confidence gone What's AK doing these day's?

It's now on USAGoals.

Is he serious? Why should a large forum of Middlesbrough fans be represented on a Middlesbrough fans forum?