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The Greatest Squad - Boro Edition (#Manager)


The Greatest Squad - Boro Edition (#Manager)  

25 members have voted

  1. 1. Boro's Best Boss?

    • Bryan Robson
      7
    • Steve McClaren
      15
    • Aitor Karanka
      3

This poll is closed to new votes

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  • Poll closed on 05/23/2020 at 11:00 AM

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#24+ Winner - Adams Traoré

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Your final vote is for the greatest manager to take the reigns at Boro. Only 3 candidates for this one:

Bryan Robson
The catalyst for our times in the Premier League. Robbo came with a phenomenal reputation from a glittering career with Manchester United; a reputation which played a huge role in Boro attracting World Class players to Teesside. Robson was in the dugout as he lead us to our 3 Wembley cup finals, and his tireless work and dedication to the club gave us a strong foundation to build from in the years that followed.

Steve McClaren
Will forever go down in Boro history as the first manager to bring a major trophy to Teesside. Much in the same vein as Robbo, McClaren came from Old Trafford having learnt his trade working under Fergie, and brought with him a plethora of contacts from that time. Stevie Mac lead the club through our first tastes of European football, all the way up to that hallowed night in Eindhoven before taking the reigns of England. Could he have build yet more if he'd stayed?

Aitor Karanka
Many forget the abject position we were in before AK took over. Languishing toward the relegation zone of the Championship, Karanka guided us to safety and continued to build us towards Premiership football from the moment he arrived. Having learnt his trade at Real Madrid - most closely from José Mourinho - his Boro side produced the most exciting football we'd seen at the club since the glory days of big names and trips across Europe.
 

This final vote closes at 12pm tomorrow. Thanks for all your kind words in the other thread - all very much appreciated, and glad you've all enjoyed the ride. UTB!

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96/97 and 97/98 were my 2 favourite seasons being a Boro fan for sheer entertainment we were great to watch. I therefore went for Robbo although on paper you would have to say McLaren due to Europe and our first cup. Theres many what ifs but I think had we didnt get the points deduction and sorted out our defence earlier in the season, I think we would have really built a very special and successful team.

Robbo was the catalyst for the next few years where we were able to attract some of the very best players in the world. 

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12 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Maybe Southgate should be in here instead of Karanka?  He at least had us in the Premier League for more than two thirds of a season 😏

Aye, but there's kids on this forum. 😉

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11 minutes ago, smogsterking the Inspirati said:

96/97 and 97/98 were my 2 favourite seasons being a Boro fan for sheer entertainment we were great to watch. I therefore went for Robbo although on paper you would have to say McLaren due to Europe and our first cup. Theres many what ifs but I think had we didnt get the points deduction and sorted out our defence earlier in the season, I think we would have really built a very special and successful team.

Robbo was the catalyst for the next few years where we were able to attract some of the very best players in the world. 

Similar thinking to you mate - the McClaren successes wouldn't have been possible without the Robson era. He put our club on the map nationally and internationally. Without Robbi's influence, Cardiff and Eindhoven would've been pipe dreams. 

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Got to be Schteve for me. Most successful position in the Prem which could have been higher without injuries, won us the cup, 2 relatively successful seasons in Europe. Not without his own controversy given the way he left and certainly had his critics. Also overseen some of the most successful young players we've seen come out of the club during his tenure.

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1 hour ago, smogsterking the Inspirati said:

96/97 and 97/98 were my 2 favourite seasons being a Boro fan for sheer entertainment we were great to watch. I therefore went for Robbo although on paper you would have to say McLaren due to Europe and our first cup. Theres many what ifs but I think had we didnt get the points deduction and sorted out our defence earlier in the season, I think we would have really built a very special and successful team.

Robbo was the catalyst for the next few years where we were able to attract some of the very best players in the world. 

Yeah they were exciting seasons and I'd also add in 1998/99 as well, which was less exciting, but we were a decent solid side despite losing Merson early on.  I had to vote for McClaren though, despite him being a git.  Finishing 7th in 2004/05 was the best season we've had in years and we were only 6 points from the Champions League spots, albeit it wasn't a great Premier League that year.  Won our only trophy in 2003/04, a European final in 2005/06 and we had a good season at home in 2002/03 where we only lost a couple of games.  Overall I think McClaren takes it, although if I could select anyone from that era, it would be Venables, as I think he was better than any of them, and by a sizeable margin.

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AK was my favourite, robbo was the most exciting, McClaren was the most successful.

 

In the end you have to go with results. 7th place finish, UEFA cup final and a trophy in the bag is hard to argue with. He was immensely dislikable though which is probably the reason theres even a debate.

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7 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Yeah they were exciting seasons and I'd also add in 1998/99 as well, which was less exciting, but we were a decent solid side despite losing Merson early on.  I had to vote for McClaren though, despite him being a git.  Finishing 7th in 2004/05 was the best season we've had in years and we were only 6 points from the Champions League spots, albeit it wasn't a great Premier League that year.  Won our only trophy in 2003/04, a European final in 2005/06 and we had a good season at home in 2002/03 where we only lost a couple of games.  Overall I think McClaren takes it, although if I could select anyone from that era, it would be Venables as I think he was better than any of them by a sizeable margin.

Yes i cant really argue with what you said and with Venables i wonder if he regrets taking on Leeds instead of us. 

I think I went down the route of what made me love the club although in years to come people will see McClaren will be remembered in the history books as the most successful manager but as I said I have never enjoyed football as much as those 2 seasons.

It's amazing how much football changed in such a short space of time with Wenger coming into English football. Managers like Robbo and Keegan didnt seem to adapt greatly after the 90s era. 

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16 minutes ago, smogsterking the Inspirati said:

Yes i cant really argue with what you said and with Venables i wonder if he regrets taking on Leeds instead of us. 

I think I went down the route of what made me love the club although in years to come people will see McClaren will be remembered in the history books as the most successful manager but as I said I have never enjoyed football as much as those 2 seasons.

It's amazing how much football changed in such a short space of time with Wenger coming into English football. Managers like Robbo and Keegan didnt seem to adapt greatly after the 90s era. 

There's no question that the Robson era was exciting.  If you think about it all, we won the First Division at the first attempt, moved into the Riverside and finished midtable in the second season as well as adding one of the best young English players around at the time and the Brazilian footballer of the year.  That's just two seasons and they were before the two seasons you actually mentioned!  96/97 was mental really but incredibly exciting and 97/98 some kind of redemption for the previous season.  Like I said, I enjoyed 98/99 as well but in a different way to those earlier seasons though.  I just felt that I had to go with McClaren overall because I think we went up to a different level with him as compared to Robson but I dare say there will be plenty of people who found that period less exciting at the same time.  It's a bit like the Traore and Zenden chat on the other thread.  Traore, for a period, was the only reason worth watching us play.  He was the only bit of excitement we had really and he stood out a mile because of how dull we were and because the way he plays makes him stand out obviously.  Zenden was a better player for us but with a less exciting style of play and he stood out less because he played in a better team.

Regarding Venables, Leeds were a bigger club to be fair and I reckon he wasn't really told the full situation there so he probably felt that in a couple of years he could have them challenging.  I wonder what things might have been different with us had he chosen to come here instead.  Would we have done better than we did under McClaren?  My gut says yes but it's impossible to say of course.

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Based on what they did for the club, Steve McClaren. It's not even close. Yes Robbo got us noticed and managed to pull off some incredible signings but look what ultimately happened. 

McClaren took over a middling side and got us to a major European Cup final, after winning our first and only major trophy.

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Steve McLaren, easily. We had the best times under him and I don't think we'll see anything like those times again at Boro.

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To echo the sentiments on the last thread, you've done a brilliant job with this whole event Snowblind. I've really enjoyed participating in the voting, even if I've slightly regretted some of my choices after refreshing my memory by reading people's facts and opinions on certain players.

I will miss this, so much so that I'd like to propose another one, which I think will be more challenging to select candidates. How about we do one for the worst Boro team?

I don't think it can work the same way, as first team squad numbers are earned by the better players. But perhaps if we did it by position?

I understand the work that has gone into this, and if you're looking forward to a break or don't fancy it, that's cool😎

Thanks again and good job 👍🏻👍🏻

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Ha! Cheers @Liquid - we also had proposals before for a pre-1995 squad. I'm up for running another Greatest Squad - just give me a few days to recover and reset. Happy to go with the concensus!

With that in mind, final graphics and results to be posted below in a few minutes.

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