uptheboro

Gaston Ramirez? Mmm you never can tell with Boro. Nothing would surprise me. The only ones i could think of who we have supposedly been linked with are Austin and Vokes and of course Gibson going in the other direction to Southampton. Vokes of course is now at Burnley but i can't see it being him as he played in the Europa league the other night and i don't see him dropping down to the championship.

I'm not usually one for posting rumours but i did hear that we were in talks this evening with someone and if it comes off it would be a massive deal but i couldn't make out who they were talking about. But thinking about the people i was out with this must have links either past or present to Bournemouth or Southampton.

7m fair? I don't think it is. Ipswich want 9m for Waghorn, we paid 7m for Fletcher, 16m for Britt, Leicester want 90m for Maguire. The going rate for a good Championship goalscorer has got to be 10m minimum. I think £7m is fair if you base it on the situation. It seems that he is not our first choice striker and as far as the club is concerned he is more likely to start on the bench. So if you are not going to play him and you can recover what you paid for him then fair enough.

In some ways i will be disappointed that Bamford is leaving, even more so that it is to Leeds, but if the fee of £7m is correct then i suppose that is pretty fair as i think we only paid around £6m. What does concern me is that we are supposedly considering paying £10m for Ojo. Just my opinion of course but like last season with Britt, Fletcher and co, we seem prepared to pay way over the odds for players who have done nothing to warrant that kind of price tag.

Anyone seen Ben Gibsons tweet this evening. Are people reading too much into it. My first thought before i read the replies was that it looks like he is leaving.

In some ways i am kind of glad i couldn't get a ticket for tonight because i would have been fuming at that performance and probably got myself arrested. It was almost as if they learned nothing from the first game and went with the same predictable tactics. So much possession but not a clue what to do with it. Should the keeper have been sent off. Absolutely. The ball was goal bound and i am sure under those circumstances it only matters whether the referee thinks it was deliberate or not, which of course it was. Would it have made a difference, yes of course it would. They would have been do

Well firstly, i don't think we bottled it. We simply weren't good enough to break down their defence and on the few occasions we had a chance, we didn't take it. Before the game i was very pessimistic about our chances of beating them. Having watched todays game though i'm actually a bit more positive about getting a result at Villa Park. Yes they were very well organised but for me it was their physical presence that won it for them. But that was partly our own fault. It looked to me that we played too narrow and too often went straight down the middle which in my opinion was how they had set

Well i just got back home and a 5 hour drive is always better following a win. Haven't a clue what formation that was today but we had a much better shape than we have had all season imo. I thought it was a decent performance especially from Bamford who i thought seemed to take on the role Braithwaite had been playing in recent weeks and did it very well. Braithwaite himself looked far more effective a little wider out on the left. I do think that Ipswich were very poor although you could argue that we made them look that way. We just need to find that level of consistency to turn in performan

Just stopped off on my way back home and had to vent my anger and frustration here. First half i dont think either side were that great and at half time i thought we had every chance of getting the three points. i thought we just had to be a bit more adventurous and put a bit more pressure on them and the points would be in the bag. My god how wrong was I. Dismal Dismal Dismal performance second half. What annoyed me most was when we were gifted the chance to get back into the game, you would have expected us to throw the KITCHEN SINK at them. The only thing we threw was a effing DISHCLOTH!!!

Before the game i posted that this game would tell us where we stand at the moment and i thought it would be a real pointer as for the rest of the season. I thought it would be a close game, possibly even a draw but always hoping for a win. What i wasn't expecting was a 3-0 drubbing and from what i have seen and heard there were some individual performances that would not look out of place in the Conference. Not sure where we go from here really. Before today i was still confident of automatic promotion and even if we had picked up a point whilst playing well my confidence wouldn't have taken

I think this is our biggest game to date. Reason being i think this will show us where we are really at. If i was to take off my Boro hat and scarf and be a neutral, i would have this game down for a draw. Derby played pretty well the other against QPR and i think they will come to ours fancying their chances of getting a result. Im hoping we will win today because although i think Villa will beat Ipswich, i would not be surprised if the others above us drop points, even Wolves!. so it may turn out to be a great opportunity to close the gap a little. UTB

From what i hear Howson is having a good game.

A pretty good night financially for me. I just hope we can take advantage of this tomorrow UTB

What worries me is ive lost count of the number of times we have come up against teams with a similar record and got our ***s kicked. What i will say is that if Birmingham play to the same level as they did at the weekend then we will have to put in our best performance of the season to beat them.

Well i quite fancy Sheffield Utd and Bristol City to drop points tomorrow night so i think this is a big chance to close the gap a little on those two. Unfortunately by all accounts Birmingham played better than they have in a long time at the weekend so we certainly have to improve on our dismal effort at Leeds. From what ive seen of Birmingham, their main problem lies in central midfield. They tend to depend on getting the ball out wide but leave huge gaps in central midfield where you need binoculars to see anyone in a blue shirt. I hate to use that old cliche but i do think this is a must