Boro V Millwall 3-0 (Watmore (2) Tavernier)

[SmogDane 4,055]

I just went back and listened to NW's presser before the Preston game.. 

Now in retrospect, it all brings meaning.

Quote: When I was at Cardiff, we were flying high, but then got stuffed 3-0 at Deep Dale ..

A little history repeating..

He also talked about why we looked poor v Stoke .. We thrive when teams want to play it out from the back.. Not stop and go lumping

[AnglianRed 6,320]

23 minutes ago, RiseAgainst said:

For many years, Boro fans have complained about underperforming strikers. And for many of those years, we've played one up front. Karanka did it, Pulis did it and both got pilloried for it. It never played to the strengths of players like Bamford, Hugill or Britt - making their weaknesses as strikers all the more glaring.

I fail to see why anyone (including Neil Warnock himself) would oppose us playing two up front in most games from now on, especially since the statistics quoted above show no improvement in our performance with one, two or three largely defensive midfielders in the starting XI. We have limited strikers who seem to play better with a partner alongside them. So why not make the most of what we've got, and start Britt and Akpom in every game til Fletcher returns or we sign someone next month?

Swap Akpom for Watmore and I'm all for it.

 

[BegSteeleOrBoro 55]

8 hours ago, Changing Times said:

It's pretty close tbh.  It's slightly complicated by the fact that a couple of times Morsy has either come on with a chunk of a game to play or come off with a chunk of the game to play.  Roughly it works out to 14 points in 9 games with 2 of them on, 12 points in 8 games with all 3 of them on, and 1 point from 1 game where we only had one of them on (Brentford).  So that would be 1.55 points per game with 2 and 1.5 points per game with all 3.  It's not massively different really but slightly favours 2. 

Interestingly (or not), with only 2 of them playing we've conceded 7 goals in 9 games, and with all 3 we've conceded 7 in 8 games, so there doesn't appear to be any difference to our defensive solidity with 2 or 3 playing.  However we've scored 12 with 2 of them on but only 7 with all 3 of them, and that's despite playing Watford, Bournemouth and Norwich with just 2 of them.  In fact, we've only won 1 game against a decent side when all 3 have played (Bristol City).  But to be fair, we've only beaten 2 decent sides this season - Bristol City and Swansea - so it's difficult to read too much into that.

Great win, good to see a response from the players - let’s hope our thin squad can survive xmas.

Just a quick point on these stats. I think you might have an issue with your conclusion. The reason you play 3 CMs is likely that you want to shore up a midfield against a better team. You would expect a lower points per game, lower goals scored and higher goals conceded - because you are playing a better team (whatever formation you play). You need to consider team strength (another variable in a regression) to see if the difference in formation is the underlying cause. Also your sample size is small, so it’s possible that a difference of 5 goals scored is not very significant statistically.

Generally, I know that Warnock is not an idiot, and he knows about how teams play in different formations (far better than I do anyway!), so it is probably fair to say that he has a technical/tactical reason for the approach he takes. I think fans (including me often) skip over trying to understand the manager’s decision and go straight to “he’s wrong!”. I’m sure he’d love to attack and try to score 3 every week - but it might not be the best approach to getting 3 points! I think the fairest way to judge Warnock is where we finish - however if we play bad football, I want to be sure that we get results. (This football is better than Pulis, so I’d give a little more credit - but I’d still want to see a push for playoffs if we are playing this negatively)

[Dan1234 1,056]

31 minutes ago, BegSteeleOrBoro said:

Great win, good to see a response from the players - let’s hope our thin squad can survive xmas.

Just a quick point on these stats. I think you might have an issue with your conclusion. The reason you play 3 CMs is likely that you want to shore up a midfield against a better team. You would expect a lower points per game, lower goals scored and higher goals conceded - because you are playing a better team (whatever formation you play). You need to consider team strength (another variable in a regression) to see if the difference in formation is the underlying cause. Also your sample size is small, so it’s possible that a difference of 5 goals scored is not very significant statistically.

Generally, I know that Warnock is not an idiot, and he knows about how teams play in different formations (far better than I do anyway!), so it is probably fair to say that he has a technical/tactical reason for the approach he takes. I think fans (including me often) skip over trying to understand the manager’s decision and go straight to “he’s wrong!”. I’m sure he’d love to attack and try to score 3 every week - but it might not be the best approach to getting 3 points! I think the fairest way to judge Warnock is where we finish - however if we play bad football, I want to be sure that we get results. (This football is better than Pulis, so I’d give a little more credit - but I’d still want to see a push for playoffs if we are playing this negatively)

We were playing Preston away. Preston who had one of the worst home records in the league and were below us in the table. Your argument kind of falls apart. He hasn't chosen to do 3 def midfielders against the best teams in the league only.

I think hes picked the 3 def midfielders every time hes had the oppurtunity to do so hasn't he? Which is what I see most people frustrated with. No doubt if Howson had been fit it would have been the 3 of them starting and probably no Watmore.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Dan1234

[Changing Times 12,339]

7 hours ago, Downsouth said:

I found that so amusing for anyone to call CT son, even I would not being my age!😄

It's all of the wisdom I have, it makes me seem older 🙂

[Changing Times 12,339]

3 hours ago, BegSteeleOrBoro said:

Great win, good to see a response from the players - let’s hope our thin squad can survive xmas.

Just a quick point on these stats. I think you might have an issue with your conclusion. The reason you play 3 CMs is likely that you want to shore up a midfield against a better team. You would expect a lower points per game, lower goals scored and higher goals conceded - because you are playing a better team (whatever formation you play). You need to consider team strength (another variable in a regression) to see if the difference in formation is the underlying cause. Also your sample size is small, so it’s possible that a difference of 5 goals scored is not very significant statistically.

Generally, I know that Warnock is not an idiot, and he knows about how teams play in different formations (far better than I do anyway!), so it is probably fair to say that he has a technical/tactical reason for the approach he takes. I think fans (including me often) skip over trying to understand the manager’s decision and go straight to “he’s wrong!”. I’m sure he’d love to attack and try to score 3 every week - but it might not be the best approach to getting 3 points! I think the fairest way to judge Warnock is where we finish - however if we play bad football, I want to be sure that we get results. (This football is better than Pulis, so I’d give a little more credit - but I’d still want to see a push for playoffs if we are playing this negatively)

I didn't actually reach a conclusion, I just gave the stats as sackrobson asked the question, so I thought I'd try and provide an answer for him.  The sample size is small but there's not much I can do about that as I used every game from this season so far. 

The strength of opposition looks roughly the same to me.  I did mention the fact that we played against Watford, Bournemouth, Norwich with only two of the three playing, and you can add Swansea and Blackburn to that list.   Against Brentford away we had only one of the three.  Bristol City, Cardiff, Stoke and Reading would be games where we started with all three.  That's everyone we've played in the top half of the table.  Only Luton left of those sides.

What I didn't look at, because it was 3 in the morning and I couldn't be arsed, was other things such as whether we still played with a three but someone else like Tavernier was in there, whether we had one or two up front, who was playing at the back in those games, and other variables like that, which will all have their own impacts of course.  

I don't think Warnock is an idiot either.  In fact I've said repeatedly that I think he's a decent manager.  I said it on here long before he was our manager.  It's just that his teams play lousy football, and I want to watch a team playing some decent stuff, especially after the last few years.  It's also worth pointing out that he isn't the guarantee of success some would have you believe.  He has the most promotions from this league is usually trotted out, and I believe that's true.  However, if I say that he's won 4 promotions in 28 seasons managing at this level, it's not quite as amazing, is it?  Either way, that's a side issue for me, because it's the style of play that I'm more interested in, hence why I'd be happy if he wasn't our manager.  It's nothing against him, it's just the football.  Every now and again, like yesterday or Blackburn away, we play some good stuff for a bit, so we are capable of it, it's there somewhere, but Warnock's teams rarely find it unfortunately, and the success that they have is usually very short lived.

[Changing Times 12,339]

6 hours ago, SmogDane said:

I just went back and listened to NW's presser before the Preston game.. 

Now in retrospect, it all brings meaning.

Quote: When I was at Cardiff, we were flying high, but then got stuffed 3-0 at Deep Dale ..

A little history repeating..

He also talked about why we looked poor v Stoke .. We thrive when teams want to play it out from the back.. Not stop and go lumping

Yeah, I said it the other day, we were playing a version of ourselves.  That's why it was also such a poor game of football.

[DanFromDownSouth 1,706]

The club have released the full 90 minutes as highlights again. Nice to be able to see the full 90 rather than a 2/3 minute highlight package.

I didn't watch this game, so it'll be good to actually watch what could be our best performance (by the sounds of it) of the season so far.