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https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/woodgate-issues-update-middlesbrough-contract-17582560 some good news this morning. Woody says that he thinks Spence will sign a new contract "in the next 10 days" with Pears and Tavernier to follow suit soon after.

Ridiculous comments from those criticising Liddle, he's a young kid making a debut away to a Premier league team. Not only that our shape was all over the place in the first half which left him and Wing totally outnumbered in the middle. In the second half we pushed our defence 10/15 yards further up the pitch which reduced Spurs' space to play and got ourselves back in the game.

I get very little about contracts but I would like to think 4.5yr deals for all 3 of them.

Just everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Lets just get it into the 10 day break and regroup.

If Fry moves to Burnley he will 100% ruin his career for the next 3 years. I mean, look at Gibson who played in my opinion at a higher standard than Fry and more consistently as well, who didnt even get a sniff in the Burnley first team. I dont think Fry is currently as good as Gibson so moving would make 0 sense to him. Unless hes about the money, which I dont think he is.

Woodgate’s subs or lack of them really annoy me. It’s going to be too late for them to have an impact soon

From an interview with him: You played three times for the Macedonian U21 national team, but lastly you were on the bench for Austria’s U19 national team and did not get a chance to play in the games. How is it currently, for which country do you want to play in the future and why? In a year, no one from the ÖFB has called me. For me that is a sign that Austria has no interest in me. Macedonia, on the other hand, wants me for the senior national team. Unfortunately, this is not possible right now since I have just Austrian citizenship.

What stands out as the most annoying frustrating thing, a catalyst for everything else to go bananas... We all knew, that Paddy McNair would place the ball exactly where he did.. Not in the area of .. but exactly where he did! I expect goalkeepers do some research of the opponents penalty takers so it was an easy save for Lee Camp... Britt for sure isn't the answer and we thought Paddy maybe was... But Boro really need to find a good penalty taker.. One who doesn't blast the ball sky high because it has to look fancy ... one who can place the ball in both sides of the goal, both high and low... I wonder who has the best tecnique for this... I would seriously work on this with one of the coaches if I had to find out...

I'm glad we don't have a game this weekend as we are absolutely desperate for a break. Not a great game but we looked knackered and the injuries just added to it.

He's the best striker we've had in the Championship in the entire decade we've been here, in my opinion. We've had a bunch of relatively high scoring strikers during the past decade, Emnes, McDonald, Bamford and Britt. I think Bamford sits at the top of that list.

Good words said. I agree SD made an error in judgement and I have no doubt at all there was no intent to offend. Unfortunately we live in a fragile environment with trigger happy intolerant snowflakes, therefore our choice of action and words need careful consideration. SD was good enough to apologize and we should all accept closure and move on.

Then she taped over the Bond film Gibbo was looking forward to watching with the Queen’s speech.

6mil buys you Ben apparently... pretty sure this will happen. Not sure we sell Fry though as Woody sees him as the next leader at the back.

I collected the motifs from the back of jam jars and had several lapel pins of the characters. I can remember the black and white minstrel shows as well. Today even sooty has been consigned to a locked cupboard for fear of offending someone about something.

Past 4 seasons the average 22nd places relegation mark is 41 points we get 3 more wins in the next 4 months and we're mathematically safe bar an anomaly hopefully that puts you at ease! To get up to the 60ish point mark Karanka hit in the 13/14 season would require 7-8 wins from now so pretty plausible we're set for a 10th-14th finish. To get relegated we'd have to lose 15 games and draw the rest I don't think even we are capable of being that naff.

Danish speaker just said Lukas Nmnmnmjecka

How gestede has lasted 77 minutes is a crime.

Anyone think this is embarrassing

Spence looks off it tonight. Perhaps too tired which is understandable. I’d think about subbing Nmecha on for him and pushing howson out there

iirc it was the adidas roteiro ball from euro 2004 when the big changes happened..

I can't say I've got a huge amount of confidence in our recruitment team based on recent history, which you might feel is unfair but I think it has some justification. That's no reason to think this signing won't work out of course. I don't know anything about the lad so I've got no opinion on it right now other than I'm happy that Mejias is no longer our back up keeper.

He'll be tearing his hair out.

Still all quiet on the transfer front then...

I thought so, but on the replays it looked awfully like it was Sanchez who actually flicked it on. EIther way, he did really well to get involved in the play there and either head it on or force Sanchez to do so.

noticeable that Saville's poorer games are often when Johnson is in team...spends more time trying to bail him out than winning the ball and pushing forward...then gets hammered for the mistake he is trying to put right....did well in the aggro at the end though..looked like he was trying to keep the Birmingham guy from losing it altogether

Watching the non-goal back, Jutkiewicz isn't offside I don't think so Woody got that bit wrong, pretty sure he's behind the ball as Maghoma touches it. Maghoma, however, is a tight one. He's definitely ahead of the Boro defence as the ball is played in. Question is whether the ball is played from in line with Maghoma to begin with as the lad on the left is beyond Spence and seems to be ahead of the entire Boro defensive line. It looks tight, if you take it from anything he can play the ball with, he's probably marginally offside at least.

Sums up the medical staff if anything, something tells me all these injuries aren’t just unlucky 🤔🤔🤔

No it doesn't, I totally agree that wasn't great player management by us.

The atmosphere is flat as a fart and I really don't think it's helping. This really has been one of those 'If it can go wrong, it will go wrong' nights. We're just lucky Birmingham are not very good. Great ball in for the goal aside, that is. But then we do just keep letting them have the run on us down the left side. Thoroughly blaming whoever is on the PA in place of Mark Page tonight, generated absolutely sod all in the build up. #FreeMarkPage

Problem with a back 5 highlighted there our best defender has to play LB out wide he's not in there to head away the cross just a horrible sequence of events here.

I wonder how much Ryan Shotton earns per week.

Not a fan then? 🙂

Why? I don't think we've seen enough of Nmecha or utilised his pace. I want to see more of what he can do, otherwise what was the point in loaning him? I suppose resting Tav and seeing what Nmecha and Roberts can do together is a good option as well, like!

I can't figure out, if you are joking, being very serious or a mix of both 😶 😅😉 But i'am polishing, Sir!

Past 4 seasons the average 22nd places relegation mark is 41 points we get 3 more wins in the next 4 months and we're mathematically safe bar an anomaly hopefully that puts you at ease! To get up to the 60ish point mark Karanka hit in the 13/14 season would require 7-8 wins from now so pretty plausible we're set for a 10th-14th finish. To get relegated we'd have to lose 15 games and draw the rest I don't think even we are capable of being that naff. I think we'll be fine now because there are teams who are clearly worse than us in the Championship. I suppose our form could completely fall off a cliff now but I don't see that happening. We're going to pick up wins along the way between now and the end of the season, I'd be fairly confident of that 👍

The problem Woodgate will have now after that run's put us clear of the drop is this next 4 months of essentially dead games, it will be awfully hard for a lot of fans because this period we're basically playing for nothing something unfamiliar for Boro fans for 7 years the play-off dream the past few weeks was nice but short of running the board with Ws in almost every remaining game that's dead and we aren't going down either. It's hard to switch focus to next season and building for it when typically we're counting points and biting nails in this period the signs I'm looking for is whether we compete with the top teams of this season that will be important next season it's almost back to Aitor's first season use and assess what you have add the missing pieces in the summer build the foundations on the training ground. All that sounds nice but the pressure Woodgate and the team will be under next season after taking this season off will be off the charts right now you just try to size up the squad and the system and hope the West Brom/Preston games were a sign of what happens when it clicks.

That was pretty awful tbh. For all of the praise that Woodgate has been given recently he's gotta take his share of criticism too. Today wasn't good enough and the tactics were all over the place. Were falling back in to the age old trap of not playing for 90 mins and instead playing for 45 or maybe at a push 30. Think tiredness defo played an impact on the younger lads tonight could tell Spence and Coulson were hanging by 40 mins. Onwards to Tuesday now back on home soil.

Yeah, the last few games but before that we weren't playing well. Tonight we've actually played better than in some of those games in my opinion but we're playing against a better side.

It’s not 100% his fault. We’ve been battered by a team far too good for us. On another day we could have been down 3-0 in 10 minutes

I’m actually embarrassed watching this, unbelievably bad. I’m baffled how they aren’t at least 4 or 5 up

Game of two halves has been a very common occurrence in our games this season, hopefully happens again

Better call Scotland Yard

That George friend article is a glitch on the website I think. I’m pretty sure that article is from November and it has accidentally been reposted

Seems to align with one half thinking the move to sell your stadium in effect to yourself to get around financial obligations isn't a sustainable way of doing things and the other half not giving a toss because the current laws don't say it isn't sustainable. The EFL are *** and have not helped themselves in this situation and if it comes down to Derby just having to prove the valuation they got was fair then they may be okay. A £20-30m difference suggests quite a significant difference and I heard that apparently they didn't even need to value it as high as that unless they were expecting even more losses this season. But whilst I quite like Derby, I sincerely hope we see some balls from the EFL in tackling the problems with their own profitability and sustainability rules. The loopholes have to be closed and in such a clear act of trying to skirt around the rules, I fully believe retrospective action should be taken against them if they amend the laws. Derby fans unfortunately need to see what Mel Morris has done as exactly what it is. Call it clever accounting if you wish, it's only been done for one reason; to spend more in an unsustainable way.

But that article also says: "What has changed are (1) the material from which the ball is made, and thus the ability of the ball to avoid weight gain during the game through water absorption, and (2) the aerodynamics of the ball i.e. the smoothness of the surface." Which does lead to the ball moving more so kind of backs up his point. Anyway getting off topic now, anyone spotted random cars at Rockcliffe lately?

As long he keeps the ball out of the onion bag I don't care if he uses his backside

Lars Kristian Eriksen for me. What a beast

Genuine competition. The shirt is currently pears to lose but he needs better competition than Mejias.

He arrives in lots of different pieces and you have to put him together?