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The Greatest Squad - Boro Edition (#24+)


The Greatest Squad - Boro Edition (#24+)  

27 members have voted

  1. 1. Boro's Best of the Rest?

    • Victor Valdes
      0
    • Bolo Zenden
      12
    • Albert Adomah
      2
    • Adama Traoré
      13

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  • Poll closed on 05/22/2020 at 12:00 PM

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18 minutes ago, smogsterking the Inspirati said:

I must have a damn good eye for a player as I saw the potential this useless player had especially in the last 6 months for us😉. I think you could see things were start to click and he was becoming much more reliable and it's no surprise to me what is happening at Wolves.

Dont forget the Zenden chant "used to be sh*te but now hes alright" and if its about loyalty he left pretty soon after bigger clubs came calling. 

That said Zenden was a brilliant player for us but thought I would put a bit of balance into the debate.

 

Traore had half a good season in the Championship for Boro.  That's the reality even if it's one that people choose to ignore.  Whatever his potential is, it wasn't realised at Boro, which is what a vote like this is about.  The Zenden chant was what it was, we could have sang the same about Traore quite easily and with more justification.  Traore started almost 50 games for Boro with another 20 or so sub appearances and he scored 5 goals in that time.  For an out and out attacking player that's not particularly good.  He contributed more assists, which is the only thing that makes his stats for us look respectable.  Finally, both players were here the same amount of time. Zenden left when his contract ran out to join the European champs, which seems fair enough to me.  Traore leaving to go to a decent football team seems fair enough to me as well, as he wasn't going to get anywhere staying here unfortunately.  Ziege leaving to join Liverpool also seemed fair enough to me at the time, his release fee getting leaked to them is something that happens all the time now.  It's not like we wouldn't have sold him either, we just wanted a bit more money for him, which is what we went to court for.

But in terms of what they did on the pitch for Boro, Zenden was by far the better player, it's not even close.  He was a good quality player who played well against Premier League opposition for us, helped us win our first major trophy and was integral in our highest league placing in about 25 years or so.  Traore did well for us for 6 months in the Championship.

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I have voted on each of the positions without any comments but I want to thank @Snowblind for the entertainment provided.  Well done mate, an enjoyable experience getting the feedback on people’s

I voted Zenden over Adama for the simple fact he did it in the Premier League for us. As exciting as Adama was, it wasn't at the top level (in a Boro shirt, at least) - so Zenden is the clear winner f

Traore had half a good season in the Championship for Boro.  That's the reality even if it's one that people choose to ignore.  Whatever his potential is, it wasn't realised at Boro, which is what a v

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On 5/22/2020 at 4:56 PM, Changing Times said:

Traore had half a good season in the Championship for Boro.  That's the reality even if it's one that people choose to ignore.  Whatever his potential is, it wasn't realised at Boro, which is what a vote like this is about.  The Zenden chant was what it was, we could have sang the same about Traore quite easily and with more justification.  Traore started almost 50 games for Boro with another 20 or so sub appearances and he scored 5 goals in that time.  For an out and out attacking player that's not particularly good.  He contributed more assists, which is the only thing that makes his stats for us look respectable.  Finally, both players were here the same amount of time. Zenden left when his contract ran out to join the European champs, which seems fair enough to me.  Traore leaving to go to a decent football team seems fair enough to me as well, as he wasn't going to get anywhere staying here unfortunately.  Ziege leaving to join Liverpool also seemed fair enough to me at the time, his release fee getting leaked to them is something that happens all the time now.  It's not like we wouldn't have sold him either, we just wanted a bit more money for him, which is what we went to court for.

But in terms of what they did on the pitch for Boro, Zenden was by far the better player, it's not even close.  He was a good quality player who played well against Premier League opposition for us, helped us win our first major trophy and was integral in our highest league placing in about 25 years or so.  Traore did well for us for 6 months in the Championship.

Spot on, I think people are judging Traore on his potential rather than what he actually produced. 

Also Zenden was arguably our most important player in the season we finished 7th, we suffered a few bad injuries in that season and without those injuries I think we would have been challenging Everton for 4th. 

He has performed at a much higher level than Traore throughout his career, if people are judging him on excitement then fair enough. As a player theres no way he was better than Zenden here. 

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1 minute ago, Duvel said:

Spot on, I think people are judging Traore on his potential rather than what he actually produced. 

Also Zenden was arguably our most important player in the season we finished 7th, we suffered a few bad injuries in that season and without those injuries I think we would have been challenging Everton for 4th

He has performed at a much higher level than Traore throughout his career, if people are judging him on excitement then fair enough. As a player theres no way he was better than Zenden here. 

Spot on, there. Looking at the Sporting Lisbon games, we started with Danny Graham up front in the first leg, with Nemeth and Job starting up front in the second leg, Graham and J***son coming on as the subs before Barbosa scored the absolute killer goal and those were literally our best options. No Reiziger, Ehiogu, Boateng, Christie, Mendieta, Parlour, Hasselbaink, Morrison or Viduka.

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7 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

Spot on, there. Looking at the Sporting Lisbon games, we started with Danny Graham up front in the first leg, with Nemeth and Job starting up front in the second leg, Graham and J***son coming on as the subs before Barbosa scored the absolute killer goal and those were literally our best options. No Reiziger, Ehiogu, Boateng, Christie, Mendieta, Parlour, Hasselbaink, Morrison or Viduka.

From memory Boateng and Viduka missed a lot of games after Christmas which is when our form dipped and we got knocked out of europe. 

They were big losses but Zenden was superb that season as well. 

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1 minute ago, Duvel said:

From memory Boateng and Viduka missed a lot of games after Christmas which is when our form dipped and we got knocked out of europe. 

They were big losses but Zenden was superb that season as well. 

Yep, Mendieta out for season against Pompey in October, Viduka made one appearance in April after an injury at Birmingham on Boxing Day, Boateng was out from 18th December to 2nd of April. That's 3 massive players we were missing for so much of a season where we still finished 7th, never mind the intermittent injuries of other key players like Hasselbaink.

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29 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

Yep, Mendieta out for season against Pompey in October, Viduka made one appearance in April after an injury at Birmingham on Boxing Day, Boateng was out from 18th December to 2nd of April. That's 3 massive players we were missing for so much of a season where we still finished 7th, never mind the intermittent injuries of other key players like Hasselbaink.

I remember our injury situation being bad, but not that bad! Just checked the table from that season we finished 6 points behind Everton, I think we would have finished above them without all those injuries. 

I think that team was better than the team that got to the UEFA cup final. 

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4 hours ago, Duvel said:

I remember our injury situation being bad, but not that bad! Just checked the table from that season we finished 6 points behind Everton, I think we would have finished above them without all those injuries. 

I think that team was better than the team that got to the UEFA cup final. 

I would definitely say it was better.  It was a good side and probably was good enough to finish another 10 or so points higher without a few of the injuries and maybe even the UEFA Cup games.  Mendieta played only 7 games and Viduka 15 games.  I think we also had issues at both full back positions as well that year.  I'm pretty sure McMahon made his full league debut at Old Trafford earlyish in the season with Morrison ahead of him on the right hand side also making his full league debut perhaps?  Drew 1-1 as well, Morrison setting up the goal for Downing.  McMahon looked really good early on but then he also got injured after a handful of games if I remember rightly.  Yeah a good side 👍

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9 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

I would definitely say it was better.  It was a good side and probably was good enough to finish another 10 or so points higher without a few of the injuries and maybe even the UEFA Cup games.  Mendieta played only 7 games and Viduka 15 games.  I think we also had issues at both full back positions as well that year.  I'm pretty sure McMahon made his full league debut at Old Trafford earlyish in the season with Morrison ahead of him on the right hand side also making his full league debut perhaps?  Drew 1-1 as well, Morrison setting up the goal for Downing.  McMahon looked really good early on but then he also got injured after a handful of games if I remember rightly.  Yeah a good side 👍

Aye Reiziger was in and out of the team and I'm pretty sure Zenden had to play left-back at one point. Which meant the likes of Parnaby and McMahon were seen more often in the team. McMahon won Young Player of the Year too.

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6 hours ago, Brunners said:

Adama made watching football in the Tony Pulis era bearable. That's a huge feat by itself.

Of course it is, it's virtually miracle work.  It doesn't make him a better player for Boro than Zenden was though.  I suppose it's the difference between a good player and a player that looks good.  Zenden was the former for us and Traore was the latter.  It's understandable that as a more recent player with a more spectacular playing style, he would get votes on that basis, but I think it's only fair to remember the older players and how good they were.  Zenden in that same team as Traore would have looked head and shoulders better than everyone, he'd have been the best player in the Championship by a mile, although Pulis would have probably had him defending most of the time 🤦‍♂️

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5 hours ago, Changing Times said:

I'm pretty sure McMahon made his full league debut at Old Trafford earlyish in the season with Morrison ahead of him on the right hand side also making his full league debut perhaps?  Drew 1-1 as well,

Yes, that's right. We played Man United away on the Sunday after we'd played Banik Ostrava away on the Thursday night. 

We had Morrison, McMahon and Downing all starting the game, I thought we were going to get hammered but we were superb. 

Thinking back to Tony McMahon in that season, he looked really good. At one point i think he was keeping Reiziger out of the team. Looking back now I wonder how much of an impact the likes of Southgate and Ugo had on his game. When McMahon had poor players around him in later years he never looked the same player although injuries might have taken a toll as well. 

They were unbelievable times as a Boro fan, I hardly missed a game in those seasons and that trip to Ostrava a few days before was the best away day I've had. 

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Yeah that was probably the case.

It's a shame, I remember watching him and thinking he was going to play for England one day he was that good as a young player. 

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