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STOKE VERSUS MIDDLESBROUGH Details Teams – Stoek v Middlesbrough Location – The Bet365 Stadium Competition – The Championship (only just) Date – Sat 27th June 2020 Kick off – 15:00 Introduction A quick foreword (if only he had a quick forward...) from our new manager. https://voca.ro/cV9kHJ2vrpW The Last Games Boro: Boro 0 – 3 Swansea. Boro were comprehensively tonked by Swansea in a desolate Riverside. The Swans had two close misses before twisting the knife and scoring three goals in the first half. Luckily, they took their webbed feet off our necks in the second half and didn’t completely ruin our goal difference. Stoke: Stoke 1 – 1 Reading Stoke drew with Reading. You could probably have worked that out yourself from the scoreline though… Form (League only - most recent last) Boro: L Stoke: D The View From The Other Side They’re all stoked to be playing the Boro… Their views on the new gaffer https://oatcakefanzine.proboards.com/thread/295117/woodgate-warnock The Un(ger)-Official Match Preview We may win. Graphs. If it’s graphs Mr Downsouth wants, it’s graphs Mr Downsouth will receive… Graph 1. Boro v Stoke attendances in the last game. As you can see, neither Middlesbrough or Stoke are well supported teams. Graph 2. People’s favourite gate. In a long term study, 2053.3 Boro fans were asked what their opinions were of different types of gate over time. Wrought iron has enjoyed the most sustained spell of popularity over time – with a brief dip just after the global financial crisis for unknown reasons. Graph 3. With news that Woody is going to be offered a role at the club, we asked 563.8 people what job they think he would be best suited to? Graph 4. With virtual fans all the rage nowadays, we asked 7,793,312,996 people what fan noises they thought should be introduced to the loudspeakers during the game. In retrospect, this survey should probably have been carried out with a smaller sample size. Enjoy the game folks

Hull v Boro Details Teams – Hull v Middlesbrough Location – The Tiger King Stadium Competition – The Championship (only just) Date – Thur 2nd July 2020 Kick off – 17:00 Introduction Hi. The Last Games Boro: Stoke 0 – 2 Boro Boro beat the toothless Stoke 2-0 with goals from Fletcher and a peach of a strike from Tavernier. Jack Butland could only jump up and down and have a strange little tantrum as he watched both goals fly past him. Warnock’s Boro looked a lot more confident and refused to give up their lead, despite several gilt-edged chances for the toothless stoke, who made Boro look clinical in comparison. Hull: Birmingham 3 – 3 Hull Hull had a high scoring draw with mid table Birmingham and twice let their lead slip. Hull were 2 up at half time thanks to early goals from ‘Reserve player 1’ and ‘Reserve player 2’. Birmingham’s Gary Gardner pruned the advantage to 1 soon after half time. After Crowley had equalised for Brum, the auto-generated football manager player Herbie Kane scored for Hull. Then Gardner weeded out a third goal. Form (League only - most recent last) Boro: LW Hull: LD The View From The Other Side Hull City don’t seem to have a forum so dunno… The Un(ger)-Official Match Preview Boro should be looking to take advantage of Hull-light for another 3 points on Thursday. Warnock will have had a few more days to work with the team and we will surely win 3-1! If the tigers go down this season, they are sure to never financially recover from this... Those still at work, be sure to start saying you feel a bit peaky at ~3pm, then get sent home ill at ~4pm so you can make it home in time to watch the match at 5pm. Graphs. Graph 1. The last 5 Boro manager’s win rates. As you can clearly see from this data, Warnock is twice as good a manager as Karanka and is on track to win the Champions league with Boro if he keeps up his win rate. Graph 2. This graph shows the number of remaining games over the season. As you can see, the number of remaining games tends to drop over the season. Graph 3. This graph explores what wavelengths of light Stoke player nick Powell could see throughout the game on Saturday. As you can see, Powell looked to the sky in despair each time the Boro scored. Farewell

Warnock. Retires (for the 473rd time). Signs 8 match contract with Boro. Keeps Boro up with 2 games to spare. Can't resist the allure of one more season in management, for a club and chairman he's always had a soft spot for. The Mrs is just happy to get rid of him for another year. Finishes 2nd in his first full season with Boro, 4 points behind recently relegated Villa. Cannot turn down the temptation of one final shot at PL management. Signs 1 year deal. Keeps Boro up on the final game of the season with a point at The Amex. Standing ovation from the Boro faithful, Warnock in a flood of tears. Forever inscribed in Boro folklore. Retires (for the 474th and final time). It's written in the stars.

Great quote from Kevin Blackwell in the Athletic today 🤣🤣🤣

Agree with those saying don’t get carried away etc. But when you say “on another day if stoke had scored there chances we’d have lost 3-2”, you also have to factor in that on another day we could/should have had a pen, Britt was inches away from tapping in, and Saville should have scored from 10 yards out. We earned the win.

Karanka didnt get money right away. He took over moggas team, signed ayala and brought us from relegation to top half of the table by the end of the season. He spent less than 5mil the following summer and has us in the play off final. People really underestimate the job karanka did here.

What a bloody mess. This season is everything wrong with this club encapsulated in 9 months. - Terribly Ran - Owner that refuses to accept any criticism - players on ridiculous inflated wages - players devoid of any creativity or talent - keeping hold of a manager who was clearly out of his depth - local media that are gagged I mean what more is there to say? Were an absolute shambles of a team. Every other team seems so well ran and professional yet were just sinking being ran like a Sunday league side. Gibson will get away with any criticism yet again, yet there's only one common factor in these last few seasons. Absolutely grim and depressing all around.

I love this interview clip from Warnock. After Gestede said he didn’t want to sign a contract extension, Warnock told him to clear off even before his contract expired 😂😂😂

when both tony pulis and neil warnock have manged your club within 1 year of each other, you know your clubs going through some serious ***.

If we do go down, the club has to be taken to town for it. Absolutely has to be. We were in the Premier League 3 years ago. Now we're looking more and more likely to be in League One. Owner has to own up and accept responsibility because since Karanka left in the Prem to Warnock now, across those 6 managers is one constant and it's the way this club has been run throughout. The way we spend, the way we recruit, the way we view managers, the way we want to direct the football at this club is pathetic and right now we're getting our just desserts.

@TAPOUT 1. He has not suddenly signed a new deal. Club been confident he would sign since around Jan and all the itk posters said the same. He would sign a new deal. 2. He hasn't played all sorts of positions. He played RB for us last season for about 10 games under Pulis when we had a crisis with injurys n suspenions. This is position he continued to play this season with a handful of games at CB. Dont recall him playing in all sorts of positions. 3. Endorsement about Howson has not come from JW alone. Pulis rated him. Monk rated him and Warnock does too as he praised him post match yesterday. Whilst at Norwich he was a mainstay in their team despite them having a number of managers so a number of managers there rated him. And a big part of the rift between Leeds fans and then Chairman Ken Bates was his decision to sell Howson to Norwich which angered they fans. Howson is not and never has been a world beater. But he is certainly worth his salt imo. Whichever club he has been at in his career, managers and majority of fans alile have recognised his footballing ability, his consistency and his professionalism. 3 key ingredients you want in any footballer regardless of what level you play at.

I would like to think that Steve Gibson can realise that the expense of a DOF is far cheaper than the disasters we have repeatedly witnessed by not having an experienced DOF. OK maybe its the equivalent of an expensive player that we will then not be able to invest into the squad but I'd rather sacrifice that one Player than witness the series of car crash signings that we have had to endure. Persistent failings have seen us gone from one extreme to the other. Paying highly inflated fees and wages for average journeymen footballers (some even worse than journeymen) at this level, awarded ludicrous contracts and wages meaning that we can't shift them and therefore stuck with them. To the the predictably ill fated knee jerk Golden Thread Committee buying cheap including a cheap Manager. Buy cheap you buy twice! Of the three players signed last summer, two of them went back to where they came from. One seemingly out of his depth and the other an ill disciplined loose cannon. The one who showed some potential is seemingly a Midfield player who only covered a few games as an emergency Right Back for Charlton but was signed as a Right Back. Trying to be open minded In time they may come good but they were signed for the present to fill gaps in the squad. The cost of those two extreme failed philosophies will amount to many, many millions and has almost (and still may yet) cost us our Championship status this season. The cost of a DOF would be a far cheaper investment than relying on the incompetent and unfit for purpose methodology that has failed MFC miserably and repeatedly.

Did you go from sober to drunk whilst writing this post? 🙂

Steve Gibson needs to look himself in the mirror and question whether he’s letting his personal loyalty towards Woodgate cloud his, apparent, objective judgement of an absolutely incompetent manager. Woodgate is absolutely useless. Gibson is seemingly lost in the modern world of football club ownership. I’m ashamed of the performances that we put in most weeks now. Them proud, promotion battling days under Karanka seem a million miles away now. We’ve lost any sort of purpose from the day we sacked him. We undoubtedly had shortcomings under a Karanka, however, we undoubtedly threw the baby out with the bath water. We had a cull and a power grab by the Englishmen kicking out anyone with a Spanish accent instead of a progression that was building upon the undoubted identifiable positives of the Karanka reign. Instead, Gibson is turned into a Tory politician promising the world and delivering absolutely nothing. He pumped out loads of headline grabbing lines like “smash the league” but it just turned into nothing more than a load of hot air and stinky worthless gas. Pass me the vodka. Sack Woodgate now please. The club is being run disgracefully from top to bottom.

Well I can claim absolutely zero inside knowledge and don't even make a habit of reading the Gazette any more, but even a blind person could see that things are rotten at the club from top to bottom, based on most of the things p-mards mentioned in his original post. Player recruitment - an absolute joke the last few seasons. No obvious plan with regard to building a competent, balanced team, with adequate cover in all areas. Always seems to be late rush-jobs, getting anyone who's cheap / free and available. Or occasionally splurging on a "big name" thats out of favour at their club. Hence the lamentable squad we're currently lumbered with. Also not helped by the frequent changes of management. Coaching - non-existent for quite some time, as far as I can tell. At least since Karanka left anyway. Players actually seem to get worse instead of better. Management - no stability for the last few seasons. None of the incumbents has had the chance to really put their stamp on the team. Major contributing factor to the state of the squad with lots of players leaving / coming in and changes in playing philosophy. Chairman / Board - well the buck ultimately stops with them (or maybe just Gibson). I would very much like to know just what the hell they've been doing since 2009. From the outside, it looks like they've spent most of their time faffing around at Rockliffe Park, playing golf, having saunas or whatever. They certainly haven't spent much time planning the club's future. We had 4 seasons of parachute payments after getting relegated, which gave us 1 season to have a crack at bouncing back, followed by 3 of consolidating in the Championship, if it didn't work out. Also sacked Southgate after just 13 games, while we were in a reasonable run of form. First knee-jerk sacking IMO. Since then, we've had periods of boom & bust (more bust though). They clearly didn't manage the transition from PL to Championship very well, as the club has had to undergo drastic cost-cutting. We've brought in managers on short term contracts to keep us afloat on a shoestring budget. Sacked our most capable manager in recent history...a guy who somehow managed to get us promoted, over...personality clashes? Infamously got Garry Monk in and loosened the purse strings so we could "smash the league" - then sacked him after just half a season. Okay we didn't look like getting promoted, but also smacks of idiotic, short-term thinking. Nowhere in all this can I see any evidence of simply getting a manager in on a reasonable (3 year) contract and simply giving them time, plus reasonable resources to just rebuild the club to a stable, healthy position...without the pressure of either keeping us up, or getting us promoted. No evidence of trying to recruit competent coaching staff, to go along with our top-class training facilities. No evidence of trying to build a scouting network, or appointing a director of football to help get our player recruitment on track. This collective of clowns (again - maybe mostly Gibson) has managed nothing over the last 11 years...except to make the club a laughing stock. And I haven't even mentioned Woodgate yet...oh bugger! On this evidence I can understand why Gibson wants to avoid scrutiny by the media. But even without that, its plain for all to see that he has horribly mis-managed the club for some time now.

I love how Boro fans on BBC Tees are saying that we should of stuck with Pulis. Comments like that just sum up our fans atm and how poor the club is getting run. Blinded fans that probably haven't been to a game since we got relegated. From giving zero hour contracts to all staff at the training ground, banning certain media outlets because they refuse to publish what Gibson wants them too, the club is a complete shambles and it's down to 1 man only and that's the 'messiah' Mr Gibson. It's nice to see that fans are finally seeing him for what he's worth. DOF is exactly what is required at the football to oversee all football decisions. A job that I thought was made for Tony Pulis because Gibson is completely inept. The club has been in declines since 2005 when we appointed Southgate. Yes, we had a couple of good seasons under Karanka but Gibson still made costly mistakes in that era which nearly cost us. Ultimately, I believe he is one the reasons we got relegated because he didn't back Karanka in the January transfer window and when he did sack him, he appointed him with another rookie manager. Every season from 2005 we could talk about a crucial point where MFC have something costly to jeopardize the club's position.

Maybe Woodgate was originally supposed to be something else as well, but by the time everyone else had switched around and decided what they were going to be, all that was left was manager.

It took Neil Warnock 45 minutes to demonstrate what an appalling appointment Woodgate was. He's already got the team playing more cohesively and positively, with stronger individual performances than his predecessor could manage in 40 games. Our squad is nowhere near bad enough to be League One standard. We've been almost criminally mismanaged for most of this season. There is simply no substitute for experience when it comes to appointing a manager. I really hope the penny will finally drop with Gibson after this, whether he appoints Warnock, Hughton, Jokanovic or anyone else for next season.

jonathanwoodgate39 Today was a day that I hoped would never come, but I’ve been in football long enough to know that these things happen. To be given the chance to manage my hometown club - the club that I love - is something I will never forget and I will always be grateful to Steve Gibson for the opportunity. There is no one more disappointed than me at how things have gone, and believe me, there hasn’t been one moment when I’ve ever stopped thinking about the job and how to improve and make things better. I’d like to thank the players for their efforts, in very difficult circumstances at times, and I’d like to thank all the staff at the football club, many of who will remain good friends. I’d like to thank the fans for your backing. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, but the support you have shown and the backing you have given is something I will never forget, and has meant so much to me. I’d also like to wish Neil Warnock every success. I’ll always be a Boro fan, it’s my football club, and I hope Neil and the players can finish the job this season and keep the club in the Championship. I have every belief that will happen. Thank you

Getting relegated to League 1 would've been pretty embarrassing too

I can see the argument for how they’ve played in training and for Woodgate basing their starting performances based on how they’ve played, but as we’ve seen that constant chopping and changes has yielded 4 wins all season. You’d have thought that we could have got some consistency in our game but the next game will also have a completely different team. I think Woodgate gambled on the “experienced” heads to get us through that game vs Swansea, but his problem is that the experienced players are past their sell by date or in Howson’s case, being played out of position. I don’t see how having both Nmecha and Gestede in the side could be beneficial? When we have no width, how are we hoping to deploy them? We literally kicked it long and gambled on set pieces. I worry about how we still have no identity to how we play and how we are neither a possession based team, counter attack team or as Woodgate wanted, a high pressing team. Added on to this, we have such a mix of players that I don’t even think you could find a style to suite everyone. I don’t know if it’s me but I look at how we play and it is very very worrying. That’s not the players, that is 100% the coaching that happens on the training pitch. Karanka drilled into people what their roles were and how they should play and made average players better because of it. He had a 4231 system which had roles and responsibilities for each player. Yes at times it was boring, but we had a structure and a strong foundation to build from. what have we got with Woodgate? An experimental manager and coaching staff who are winging it and taking us down like a lead balloon. Players look de motivated, lost and as a fan base, again I just have no connection with the club at the moment. No players who I feel really care and show it on the pitch. Our most hungry players, Roberts, was head and shoulders above ours on Saturday purely for wanting the ball and wanting to create things, and he is on loan and has no association with us! You could see him getting frustrated as the game went on because we were so bad. A couple of times with Spence and then with the attackers for their poor runs. i whole heartedly think that with a different manager, more would be extracted from these players for the remaining games. It’s not going to happen, and Gibson and the Gazette will not be hard on Woodgate as he’s passionate and a boro lad and wants to see it right. The propaganda machine will continue to roll over the summer and we’ll say how we’ll come back stronger and Woodgate will have learnt from his mistakes. Everyone connected to the club realises that appointing Woodgate was a bad decision. It’s an embarrassment that he is still here as at any other club he would be gone. This is been the worst post I’ve made while having a poo for a long time. I’m angry and *** off with boro and to top it off, there’s no loo roll left either.

Quick bit of maths if you put £3 on at 91/1 means .... .... You lose £3

If Gibson’s very vocal questioning into The breaking of FFP of other clubs leads to massive points deductions of some and they end up in the relegation spots the guy is a genius. It would mean that he himself single handily kept us up and should be knighted and have a statue erected of him. 👏👏👏

Had a complete change of mind we will be ok due to the mess others have got themselves into and that we are about to go on a five game unbeaten run. My time machine recently finished allowed me to go into the future and I am pleased to report that all will be well. I will not allow myself to tell you how next season finished

Well done to Steve Gibson 👏 killing the club one year at a time

A game closer to a gazette article talking about being one of the strongest teams financially in League 1 and a transfer war chest has been made available to get us out of League 1 at the first attempt.

I don't want to come across as negative but if Cardiff or Derby win today we can't mathematically reach the play offs and it looks like another near miss and midtable obscurity for us 😢

I reckon the best match I've seen since our promotion year was when we played Brighton away when they hadn't lost in the league yet and we trounced them. That was around 4 years ago and nothing has come close except maybe at home against Sheffield Utd last season - and look where they and we are now 😡.

I have no beef with managers giving it back to reporters as some of their questions and remarks are just plain stupid, but you need to be quick and with a sense of humour to do so and it doesn't seem that Woodgate posseses either of those traits. Strachan despite his failures has that and could make me laugh. My favourite is: Reporter "Gordon, a quick word?" Strachan "Velocity!" and he walks on.

When I say the phrase "Long term" for me it isn't just about the manager. More of a collective push/vision for a consistent strategy/identity over multiple years. For example a playing style that we want to have regardless of who comes in. Finding managers that suit that style of play, rather than jumping from one extreme to the other, with a huge player turnover and large financial cost for every new manager.

If there was one man you'd want to keep us in this league given the current circumstances it has to be Warnock doesn't it? Yes he's old school, but his record at this level speaks for itself. Long term? I'm not too sure but I actually feel a lot more confident going into the next two fixtures. I actually believe we can beat the drop now. Come on Boro

Six and half years service and contracts renewed in all that time including being offered a new one, something just doesn't sit right with me. I read the Gazette assassination piece and it was far to vitriolic and knee jerk to be remotely credible so I took from that very little other than a happy marriage ending in a messy divorce where there are usually two sides to the story. The club is skint and can't afford to offer him what he believes he is worth yet Ben Gibson is hanging around like a bad smell, what would you think in his shoes? To compound things he then he has to work for a Coach who is clueless and destroying the club. I doubt I would want to stick around any club under those circumstances. With regards to his "injury" his entire career has been littered with these which is precisely why we picked him up for £350K. It didn't start when he joined Boro and won't end now that he has left us, he is what he is and we knew that when we signed him.

Who could possibly have predicted this? One win in 14. We've been on relegation form for a long time now. Woodgate should have been sacked months ago, everyone knows it. This is a standard performance from this team and manager. Gibson stopped giving a s*** a long time ago, hes just gambling there are 3 worse sides than us. Spoiler alert... dont think there will be.

Could say the same about Woodgate.

Well then we’ll make something up about some other team 👍

Gibson sacked AK because he crapped himself when we went up and he realised how much it was going to cost to service a PL team. Gibson wanted to be relegated.

Club statement MFC can confirm that head coach Jonathan Woodgate has been relieved of his duties with immediate effect. Jonathan was relieved of his role on Tuesday morning and will be replaced by the experienced Neil Warnock. Warnock will assume responsibility immediately. The club would like to place on record its thanks to Jonathan for all his work in the role of head coach

I am absolutely delighted with the result... and performance, in terms of togetherness, determination and spirit... but I think there are a lot of people on here getting very carried away. On another day, McClean puts away 2 of the 3 sitters he missed, Fry doesn’t block the one on the line and we lose that game 3-2. We rode our luck today, especially in the second half. If that luck goes the other way on Thursday, we suddenly find ourselves right back in the middle of it again. Yes we will be 5 clear if we win, but we could also be 1 point inside the relegation zone if we lose. Don’t get me wrong, the performance was so so much better than the shambles we seen last week but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There is a hell of a lot of hard work ahead.

Tell you what, Britt has played well today, not the kind of anonymous performance we've been used to from him in his recent games. He's put himself about, backed in when he needed to, ran the channels when he needed to, shifted position when the press has required. Generally, his decision making today has been alright too.

Pulis didn't deliver anything. He surrendered against Villa as he was sat in the dugout with his head in the sand for 2x90 minutes thinking a 0-1 agreggate loss is much better than trying to win and maybe lose 0-2. It was horrific management. Next season he dulled us into a 7th place finish which was equally poor. I'd love to know what he actually did because all I see is he signed three average players for 20 million while we sold our three most sellable assets, one of them with a release clause we could do nothing about and Gibson was always going to go. Although I think 10 million for Bamford was decent business but I doubt that he negotiated that deal. On top of that he signed some expensive mercenaries like Mikel who did nothing. He spent 20 million that summer and made us worse. What wonders did he actually do, because I see a club deeply in the mire, partly because he spent 20 million and didn't adress a single problem the squad had. And on top of that he was reportedly by far our highest paid manager ever. If I'm not mistaken he took millions out of the club and delivered absolutely nothing. Not a dig at you, but I'd really know what he did.

Opening scene from your favourite porno??

Here it is

I think it's important that people realise that Woody was thrown under the bus by Gibson as well. We all agree it wasn't the right appointment but Gibson has made constant mistakes since the Southgate appointment and more blame should be pointed his way. I have no faith in Gibson to make any modern day football decisions, and this just highlights the fact we need a experienced DOF to help make those day to day football decisions. The club is rotten and needs a complete overhaul from bottom to top. Hopefully we survive relegation and then then in the break there is no better opportunity with the out of contract players leaving.

I've never been a fan of his but he's been completely stitched up by Gibson. Saying that he's probably been paid more for 9 months of failure than most of us get paid in years of work so I don't feel too sorry for him.

It's all fair and well blaming Ayala for not having professional integrity and not wanting to fight for the club etc. but where has the professional integrity and fight been from the club? The club have been treating fans like mushrooms with pitiful spin and hype that we are supposed to swallow without question. That's hardly acting with any definition I know of integrity. What then would make anyone think that internally the players aren't being fed the same garbage? Does anyone really think that players don't see and think the same as the fans? Do we think that the Players believe Woodgate and Keane have a great future in Management and all this is just a minor blip and that there's a bigger picture and a bright new future about to dawn? If the club aren't up for it, show no drive, no passion, no ambition and happy to put up with below par coaching and management why on earth would a professional want to remain in that type of environment or indeed have any desire to fight when the club seems flatter than a six month old bottle of Lowcock's lemonade with the top left off? What would motivate a professional athlete to get up and ready for the fight week after week, month after month? They can see the standard of players departing and the ones coming in to replace them. As a professional how can you be motivated to buy into that philosophy, so bereft of control that its now desperately anchored around nepotism as a last desperate act. Some times for your own sanity and peace of mind you have to just walk away and give it up as a bad job. Watching that shower this afternoon its pretty clear that maybe Ayala has actually shown more integrity and honesty by simply walking away. Heaven knows there are plenty of fans about to do the same thing if it continues much longer.

|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| | COME ON BORO! | |＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿| \ (•◡•) / ( . )( . ) --- | | And from the ladies.

That’s not true. Everyone but Ayala are in. Friend & Howson the only ones likely to stay. Johnson to be offered a deal but unlikely to take it

Will they play booing after 5 minutes when Clayton passes backwards?

Just so you are all aware the game was set up to get a feel for playing in an empty stadium. Players weren't allowed to be physical in certain situations etc