wilsoncgp

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.

I thought similarly regarding that Saville chance, CT. When watching it back, my first thought was is there a defender blocking his view of that corner? I don't think there was, I think it was reasonable enough for him to pick that corner, the keeper was naturally closer to the near post which meant the shot would have had to been something special to beat him on that side. It was an alright effort but Johnstone had been having a strong game in goal, he wasn't letting one in on his near post.

It's his individual battles that I'm worried about when it comes to Fry. His general positioning and part in the shape is fine, his ability to come out on the ball once or twice a game is good. But it's the defensive battles he's not winning in 1-on-1s, the kind of situations Woody used to be one of the best at.

Yeah, I'm of the same mind. I couldn't wait to have him back in the team but defensively he has really struggled. I never thought I'd be putting Shotton in ahead of him because he's less of a liability right now.

Even Randolph? I think that's a tough one, his back-ups aren't close to his level and I suspect we wouldn't replace him very well, if at all. I'd be interested in seeing who else would agree to sacrifice him for a DoF if that was a choice we could make.

He could certainly have hit it worse than that, see the Sheffield Wednesday game. 😁

I don't think Woody would be against it either. My worry is that DoFs are suitably not cheap. For a good one, you're probably looking at more than our manager's wage for sure. Can the club afford that? I suppose a good question would be, if you could find and fund a good DoF by selling one of our better players, would you do that if we're still in this situation in January?

That's great but it completely ignores the context of how he received the ball and how little time he has to think about it. It's not like he's running onto the ball and can pick his spot, he's completely unaware of where the keeper is, he's purely focused on the ball and instinctively hitting it as sweet as he can from there towards the goal. Not to mention the keeper makes a very good save. If that was Randolph, people would be lapping it up.

Really? Split second decision, keeper in a good position, think quite a lot of good strikers would have struggled from there.

Just watched it back, yeah, I don't think he could have done much better there to be honest. He's got very little time to think about it, it comes to him off Johnson's shot and bounces quite fortunately for him, he just has to try hitting it from there and hope for the best. He hits the target, keeper makes a good save.

Oh yeah, that was in the first half wasn't it, I remember now. I've not seen it back and was at the other end, could he have done better? It looked like he did the best he could with it from our angle.

Did he actually have a chance on Saturday? I seem to recall him putting himself about and causing issues and apart from a couple of times needlessly pulling a defender to ground, his general play was alright.

Formation and team? I'm not sure of the opposition's threat but I'm a bit wary of sticking to the 5-3-1-1/3-5-1-1. I'd probably prefer it if we went back to 4-3-3 for this game. Randolph Howson Ayala Shotton Bola McNair Clayton Wing Johnson Britt Browne Score prediction? 3-1 to the Boro, come on. Will we win with a performance like v WBA? Maybe, but the best part of our performance against them was dealing with their threat for large periods. So God knows if we can do the same for Huddersfield. Is a draw an ok result? (why/why not?) Context might change during the game but for now, I'd say not. This is a good opportunity to pick up points before playing another team you'd suspect have a good chance of beating us. Does anyone remember Andy Booth, a very good striker according to FM 94? Doesn't ring a bell.

I had been to a home game against Bolton in the 90s at the Riverside which I only remember walking back from 'cause it was *** down. And I think I went to a 0-0 draw against Charlton in the early 2000s with a school trip. But I always think of the 5-3 against Brum after the Cup win as my first proper game, though.

If you want to solve being detached from your clubs owner, Mike Ashley is not the answer. Not to mention his thoroughly questionable business practices of which I'd want no association.