wilsoncgp

As CT put it, one of the most convincing 1-0 wins I've ever seen. We had plenty of low scoring wins under AK which were just as convincing albeit in other ways, when we used to let teams come at us and have a go and beat off literally everything. You don't need to score bags of goals to have a convincing win.

Honestly, this feels like the most difficult man of the match to award all season and not because they were all dreadful. Might be a bit harsh but I thought Fry looked a bit shifty at times in the air so he's bottom of my list but the rest? Pears had nothing to do for so long then pulls off a terrific save at a time in the game which would have truly killed us. Ayala got his head on everything and was at his no-nonsense best. Howson was friggin' terrific at the back and his energy back there really helped us. Spence and Coulson were top class, what a league debut that was for Spence, barely put a foot wrong, he was stronger than he looks and he's really bloody quick. Coulson had the beating of his man so many times down the left, whether it was tactically winning free kicks from daft challenges or just being able to get the ball into the box time after time, it was like watching a young Stewart Downing in that respect. In midfield we just seemed to win everything, one way or another. The quick closing down from one player to the next kept seeing us win the ball back in tight situations. Clayton and Saville were both really good, Tav was outstanding. Britt and Fletch were right in the thick of it too, both put themselves about, Fletch was vital after Britt had to go off. Walker, oh man, he should score but I think the occasion maybe got to him a bit, his touch was a bit off. Second half alone, Britt hits the post with a header, Tav hits the bar from in front of goal, Walker has a couple of chances then a well worked move with Fletcher on the end of it nearly sealed the points, only stopped due to a great save from their keeper. Just a final point... the atmosphere reached by far the best it's been this season. Not difficult to win that contest but I thought the North Stand was really good and vocal towards the end, even when we couldn't quite finish them off, clapping the lads and cheering them on through the last 10 minutes or so, as connected to the game as I've felt all season. So many positives to take from it. So sure it's only 3 points, we've got 2 really tough games this week to come, we've almost certainly lost Britt to injury now as well... but today on its own was great, thoroughly enjoyed it, best match I've been to this season I think.

Oh no, the 'Copy of Leeds v Middlesbrough 30-Nov-2019' ratings! 😄

I'm gonna defer to DZ on this one 😀

Always about the other team... our defending from the front was absolutely fantastic today. It was more about us than them. It's not like it's asking much to be happy with a confident win. It's not about the long term today, it's one game and it was one of the most one-sided 1-0 wins you're gonna see. Sometimes I think you'd be happier if we lost so you got proven right and that's frankly a bit sad.

Even Saville played well today!

This comment is the first I saw coming on here, what a way to respond to that match. That was class, give over!

Aye, it'd be pointless if it was, ooooh say, Adrian Bevington...? Cannot be jobs for the boys otherwise nothing will change.

Not that anyone would give him the benefit of the doubt whether it's true or not.

It's not his inability to invest that bothers me. I'd still rather have him in charge than anyone else but for it to ever get better, he has to stand up and admit he can't continue making football decisions the way he has recently and he has to invest what money we have in someone who can direct the footballing operations of the club from top to bottom. He needs someone who can do a much better job of delivering a long-term future rather than being someone who doesn't know where or how to invest in delivering that, committing to promises he will fundamentally be incapable of fulfilling as he reverts to type and gets a man who he likes and trusts personally regardless of what they actually deliver regarding the promises he's made, scraping the bottom of the managerial barrel to push forward another scapegoat of his own failures. He needs someone who can not turn a blind eye to shoddy recruitment and overvalued buys and rectify those practices. He needs a good director of football and he needs them soon, otherwise he will be the sole culprit in my eyes of catastrophic failure since relegation.

That's very true. But I think when he left, that united, connected status had long since gone with a lot of people and you could tell it in his character. I think we can all pretty much guarantee he won't be given the time he had before by fans because as soon as things go wrong, it won't be the positivity and success that people remember. It will be the dark days of Charlton and the Premier League. This place is a bit of a hunting ground for managers right now, despite the problem not really being the managers. I said it a fair bit earlier this season but if things go wrong this year, people need to point the finger in the direction of Gibson and yet apart from maybe on here, it's all too often that the manager is the main cause of everything. Every time I go on Twitter and see that Woodgate is getting the brunt of everything that's going wrong, it makes me cringe. Managers like Pulis and Karanka won't even get any of the benefit of the doubt in that regard, we know they have the capabilities to get results out of teams and when it goes wrong, everyone will pile on them.

Charlton are in a worse run of form than us even if you look back as far as 10 games. Relatively compared to the rest of their season, this is as bad as runs get and suggests a pretty downward trend after a pretty positive start. If you're looking at teams we want to bring down into the general dogfight at the bottom of the division and prove there are worse teams than us, this is a game we really need to win. Winning comfortably would be nice but just a win will do.

I don't disagree with that, I'm not really pining for him to come back either. It really just seems to be people pining for the success that we not that long ago had. People have even considered how much better this season would be with Pulis in charge so we can all see how quickly people can forget how they once felt.

Sorry mate but that's just not true. We definitely had games where we did not do enough as an attacking force and we all remember the side to side stuff but we were a much more creative force than we ever were under Pulis overall in this division. It rarely felt like under Karanka that we won in spite of the tactics/performances (I can think of a couple maybe, Brentford away in the promotion year and Norwich away in the previous season), something that even during victories with Pulis felt like a common thing, especially once Adama left.

2-0 Boro, Britt and Fletch.