Rioch's Braves

I can't stand Leeds and their fans, so it will give me great pleasure to watch us put a huge dent in their automatic promotion chances. We're definitely playing well enough to beat them and I think we will.

The squad has never looked like a promotion winning squad from the start of the season, a lack of quality in midfield, a strike force never good enough, and its coming home to roost. A disappointing season with the fans once again let down by the signing of poor to bog standard quality players, we're like a rudderless ship going nowhere.

The sending off obviously changed the game against Norwich, so I'm not getting carried away, beause we were poor up until then. I'll go for an optimistic 1-1 which considering our form of late wouldn't be a bad result.

Well that's the theory anyhow, you would assume Dieng would have enough football intelligence to know when not to pass the ball out, obviously not.

What a poor stat that is, but that's what you get when you fail to sign a striker or 2.

I voted Carrick to stay, any manager coming in will be told that Woodgate has to be part of the 1st team coaching staff and that for me isn't right. If Carrick left tomorrow rater than bring someone in, I would gamble Woodgate would be put in temporary charge till the end of the season.

Before kick off I was in a pub just outside the stadium, I told all my mates this is our day, this is meant to be, it was just that feeling I was in a pub outside the Millenium stadium, I remember telling all my mates, this is our day we're away from Wembley this is meant to be. It wasn't bravado it was a strange undescribable feeling that I'd never had on our trips to Wembley, I just knew. When that final whistle went I've never been prouder to be a Boro fan. What a day that was, will we ever see the likes again, who knows stranger things have happened.

You look at the players that have left this season and pre season and the signings we've made and the club unfortunately looks like it has no ambition, never ever thought I'd say that. We needed to bring in a striker in the January transfer market but apparently there was no striker available in Great Britain or Europe to fit that role.

I can't see anything other than a Leicester win, I'll go 3-0. The keeper has got to be dropped he goes down in instalments on his front post, he's made some decent saves in the last few weeks but he's goalkeeping basics are poor.

The keeper has cost us the game, its as simple as that.

We were always going to be up against it last night, but you can't gift goals to any team by losing possession time and time again and making error after error. Chelsea didn't need to work that hard last night to win the ball we gave it to them. We knew the injuries we had were going to play a significant part in the game, but there's no excuse for the mistakes, they're school boy errors, really poor, regardless of who the opposition is.

Merry Christmas have a great day.

I agree with you, given what Mogga has at to work with lack of funds and having to give 16 year olds debuts, he's done an excellent job.They were narrrowly beaten by the Play off winners last season and still not that far off top 6 at this stage of the season, its a poor sacking IMO.

Leicester best defence in the league, 2nd highest scorers in the league, and defensively we aren't that great, don't fancy us at all, hopefully I've got it wrong.

If you can't defend and you can't score goals then the league doesn't lie, our defending was poor last season we let 56 goals in, but we had the advantage in that we had attackers who hit a *** load of goals. The defensive issues from last season still haven't been addressed and that's one of the major problems, we all know our defending isn't good enough. and we haven't brought the players in who will improve it. If the fans can see it, you would assume Carrick/Woodgate would be able to, unless they're burying their head in the sand.

Its not rocket science, you replace the quality players from last season with inferior players, then it bites you in the ***,and thats exactly whats happening to us. When it comes to recruitment, for the most part nothing changes much, we're pretty crap.

The players who we've brought in will need to blend into our style of play, Carrick will know this more than anyone. Yes its a poor start but I'll wait to see what we're like when the new signings are in the starting line up, thats when we'll know what we're about.

What a weekend that was in Cardiff, matchday morning everything felt right, walking up to the ground I knew it was our day.

I think we'll edge this today I'm going for a 2-1 win, we must get our season on track, we can't afford to play catch up, even at this early stage.

Dreadfu performance,, we haven't come anywhere near to replacing the quality of the loan signings that we had from last season, and there lies the problem. The squad is a lot weaker its as simple as that.

I honestly can't see how we were playing for a draw in the 1st leg, 1st half for instance Akpom's effort deflected onto the post, Jones goal disallowed for offside, Coventry couldn't get the ball off us, both Giles and Jones were trying to create from both wings, and Akpom missed a great chance early on in the 2nd half with a header. Both sides were poor 1st leg, 2nd half, they cancelled each other out, and as the half progressed it petered out, but us playing for a draw not for me.

I'm not so sure it was the pressure of the big game, I'd argue we went into the play offs in our worst form of the season since Carrick took over, that was my take on it.The other 3 sides in the play offs were in good form.

It was Phil Jones, he's leaving Man U and apparently wants to take time to weigh up his options.

Yeh, so Carrick will know whether Jones sees his next move looking for another Premier club or playing in the championship, without a chat, fair enough.

The thought of playing under a young manager like Carrick and the amount of goals we scored and the style of football Carrick likes to play is very appealing to any player. I think the future looks very rosy indeed.