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RiseAgainst

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Everything posted by RiseAgainst

  1. Just on the subject of Mogga, this line from BBC Sport caught my eye: "Birmingham chief executive Garry Cook said Mowbray's temporary replacements will be "given all the support they need" to continue the work started by the former Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Coventry City, West Bromwich Albion and Celtic boss." I know you can't name every club a manager Mogga's age has worked for, but do you notice anyone they've forgotten in that list of teams? Like the most recent one?
  2. It would certainly send a statement if the South emptied after half an hour. It'd also make the news, of that I have no doubt. Whether it achieves anything is another matter entirely, but I'm generally supportive of fans protesting about price increases amid a cost of living crisis, especially if their club is underperforming.
  3. I agree he has great potential, but so have other players who ultimately flattered to deceive. I'm not getting on his back - I really hope we keep him and he flourishes in our system - but he hasn't shown a great deal as yet. Hence why I suggested some people wouldn't be sad if he departed. Again, agree that we do have a few first-choice starters out, but I was commenting specifically on last night's 18. Even with the four players you mention - and I personally reserve judgement on LL who shows sporadic promise but hasn't done anything to suggest he's going to become a key playe
  4. If we sold last night's entire starting XI, how many of them would actually be missed? Clarke and vdB in defence, Hackney and McGree, probably Forss despite his Stuani-like misfortune to endlessly be played out of position. On the bench, only Dieng would be a miss for me. That's six valuable players out of 18, rising to seven if you give Azaz the benefit of some fairly sizeable doubt. That's why we're bottom half. We have too many not-good-enoughs in the squad. I don't expect a Championship side adhering to FFP to have a squad like Man City's, bursting with talent in every area. But hones
  5. My bad, I put weekend instead of week. The excuse still stands (phew). Will edit the post so I don't look quite as idiotic, though it's damage limitation at this point.
  6. CBA with this one, to be honest. I'm away in Aberdeen this week, so will probably check the result, say "FFS Boro" out loud in a restaurant to general bemusement, and then get on with my evening. Between the missed opportunity of the transfer window, the Chelsea humiliation, selling Crooks, the ST pricing news and the weak-as-a-used-teabag performances in recent weeks, I'm scunnered with the club right now. Sorry if that makes me sound fickle, but I'm finding it hard to generate any enthusiasm for upcoming games when it seems like the club has already checked out for the season. Roll
  7. Classy message from a genuine guy. He's the antithesis of Djed Spence. I know haters gonna hate, but I'll miss the big fella. He had a habit of redeeming s*** performances with vital goals, whereas some of our other players forgo the second part and just have s*** performances.
  8. I'm the same. From Carlisle, it's exactly 100 minutes from my front door to the Premier Inn car park where I tend to park. Going to a match takes me away from the family for an entire afternoon and much of the evening, it costs about as much in petrol as the matchday ticket, and that's before I'm seduced by the retro shirts in the club shop or the (always slightly disappointing) chips and curry sauce from the burger vans. That's a big outlay and undertaking for scant reward when we play as we did against Sunderland or Rotherham. I'm honestly not inclined to attend another match this season - I
  9. Yeah, what this game has really needed is a series of five-minute interruptions in play, while the referee stares into the distance and the players cramp up.
  10. Crooks isn't a great player, but somehow that makes him all the more endearing. If he goes, I'll miss his enthusiastic lumberings, which remind me of a Great Dane trying to ice skate. And he does score quite a lot of goals, all things considered. Agree that we can't be letting Crooks go without at least one unattached player incoming. We'd have three natural holding mids (Howson, Barlaser and Hackney) but only five players suited to playing further forwards - Izzy (injured), Azaz (rusty), Greenwood (superfluous), O'Brien (just back from injury and possibly more of a DCM) and McGree (just
  11. Unless Rudy Gestede was playing, in which case, I tended to think "how will he miss that?"
  12. 1) Score and lineup predictions? I predicted a score draw against Sunderland, and I foresee the same result against the Robins. Yes, they'll be tired, but we're effectively trying to rebuild our team with new players in every week, and it takes time for everyone to get on the same wavelength. 2) Where do you think we will finish in the league? Probably 12th. We'll technically be a top-half team, but in reality we'll be miles off the play-off pack. 3) After Keiron Scott's interview, are you expecting any free transfer signings? Who would you recommend? I think we will s
  13. God, don't. I remember watching Match of the Day that night with a Rangers fan, neither of us knowing the score, and his volcanic laughter as it got to 4-4. Arguably our worst capitulation of the Riverside era.
  14. I wouldn't expect any match officials to get a good reception from football fans, but I certainly hope they don't get a bad one. Personally, I couldn't care less if the game is officiated by three Martians and a Hungarian plasterer, as long as they don't blow for a foul every three seconds.
  15. I remember a press conference just after Carrick joined with Scott in attendance, and I got the impression Carrick's arrival was enabling him to do the job he'd been recruited to do for the first time. Scott clearly feels he's part of a long term project at Boro, and God knows there are few clubs with a solid strategy for management and recruitment. He did something similar at Norwich, and now he's repeating it here. It won't let us replicate our glory years, but we should remain financially stable, and there'll be no more wild pivots from largesse to penury and back. Good times. (Though
  16. Do you know what the last ten minutes of yesterday's match needed? Matt Clarke. Instead of bringing Silvera on, we should have deployed Clarke as a third CB. Then the fullbacks could have continued bombing on for as long as they had the energy, and we'd have had an extra body to defend (with some flair) when Sunderland came at us, as everyone knew they would. Carrick has already done what many of us demanded by switching to a five at the back in certain starting lineups. If he starts switching from a four to a five when we're defending a lead, it could be worth quite a few points over the
  17. I haven't seen it back, but I was watching it roughly in line from the West Stand, and in real time, it looked like a late, tired challenge. Perhaps replays paint a different picture. I thought Howson was extremely poor all game, but I'm not trying to throw him under a bus because I've seen him do a lot of underappreciated leg work in the past. Today, I didn't see that.
  18. A curious mix of positives and negatives today. I was at the game with a friend who was watching as a neutral, and we both thought Azaz looked poor from the first minute onwards, giving the ball away and having rushes of blood that resulted in bad decision making. Glover made an absolute howler, but if the team hadn't been so passive in the first half, it wouldn't have mattered. Howson looked utterly lost - endless sideways passes killing the momentum, and the one and only time he snapped into a tackle, he mistimed it and got booked. Quite what Hackney was doing so far forward, even he didn't
  19. That was rather my point. It's a level of subterfuge and spying I would never have associated with a supposedly sporting-focused body like the Premier League. It also makes me wonder who else they're spying on, what channels they're surveilling us through, and for what alleged reasons. If this level of covert surveillance exists within the football authorities, I guarantee it will be used more widely than we realise, and it's very easy for mission creep to take it into far more insidious areas.
  20. Yes, a football club can legally ban anyone it wants. Do you honestly think NUFC have been reasonable here, though? It's a very, very slippery slope they and the PL are on. What next - ban people who admit they support a second club on social media? How many pages of private information could a spying team amass on you, or me, or anyone else who offends the sensibilities of the moment (which are far from universally agreed, lest we forget). Disagree with her sentiments by all means, I'm not asking anyone to do otherwise. But do tell me why personal opinions expressed on a personal social
  21. Apparently this is what we're missing out on by not being in the Premier League. Regardless of your politics, this kind of appalling witch-hunt does nobody any good. A female football fan was banned from matches over social media posts that were deemed transphobic after a “Stasi” spying investigation by the Premier League. A special unit set up to root out racism in the game was used to comb through comments made by Linzi Smith, a gender-critical Newcastle United supporter, even though the posts had nothing to do with football. Gender-critical people believe transgender women
  22. 1. Choose your 11 Honestly not sure who's fit enough to play. Is O'Brien ready to resume action? Is Coburn? Will McGree be back? 2: Result and Boro scorers? I predict a riot. Sorry, a score draw. Let's say a Desmond. As for scorers, see above. 3: Are you happy with our January Transfer Window? Not at all. Two short term loans to plug long term injuries and a young prospect best described as having potential, while selling one of our few players with real talent after just five months of competitive action. That does not even come close to tackling our squad's injuries
  23. He's a proven goalscorer (yes, at a lower level) and we have 0 fit strikers as things stand. If all Langstaff can do is finish, hopefully the likes of Azaz, McGree, Forss et al can serve up chances for him to bang away. Let's face it, Assombalonga didn't contribute much outside the box either, and we probably paid ten times more for him to just score goals than we'd pay for Langstaff to do the same today. Let's just hope he's got a lovely smile.
  24. It's all going to come down to next season, isn't it? Deep down, most of us know this season's a bit of a write-off given our awful start, patchy form and the players we haven't replaced from last season. We're likely to be in a stronger position regarding FFP and the relegated PL teams next season, plus Carrick will have had another season to build 'his' squad rather than a squad he largely inherited, while refining all the promising but unproven potential across the team. I'd like to think the vast majority of Boro fans (excluding the vocal minority and most Tees callers) will be patien
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