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2 minutes ago, sanddancer said:

My brother the optimist just got back from the game and when pushed on the subject of playoffs simply said, the team is running on empty and although it’s feasible I think we are unlikely contenders from what I witnessed today. Fair assessment given he never miss a game but I just have this niggling we will make the playoffs. Don’t ask me why but I just think we will.  

We'll finish 10th if we play like that for the rest of the season, but we might well take it as a kick up the *** and put in a surprise performance on Friday.

Luton play Forest, so we could conceivably leapfrog them in the table with a win if they lose that match and to Huddersfield on Monday.

My confidence is shot right now, but Bournemouth were lucky to get a point today and you never know.

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Disappointing today, and another mark against Wilder in my book unfortunately.  Midweek was as well although I think he perhaps got more of a pass because of the opposition, and because we came close

You can tell from Howson's super secret pre-corner ball bounces what the routine is going to be...  1 bounce = hit the first man 2 bounces = straight to the keeper 3 bounces = out the f

First game in 3 years for me, haven't seen us win since 2015 so hopefully the curse has been lifted 

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Disappointing today, and another mark against Wilder in my book unfortunately.  Midweek was as well although I think he perhaps got more of a pass because of the opposition, and because we came close to not losing.  I'm not a fan of managers who are pretty much inflexible in their thinking.  Even the likes of Klopp, and Guardiola, who essentially have the best squads in world football, sometimes change their approach a bit.  When you don't have the best players in the world then it's more incumbent on managers/head coaches to get the best out of whatever they do have.  There's no way on earth that this means constantly playing the exact same shape, same tactics, no matter the situation, or the opposition.  Wilder seems intent on doing that though.

Today we were once again without Jones.  Forgetting what he brings in terms of his individual talent for a moment, what this essentially means is that we don't have an attacking right hand side.  Theoretically you could play McNair there perhaps, or Dijksteel possibly, but neither give you what Jones gives you, and neither concern the opposition like Jones does.  Moving your best midfielder to the right hand side so that you can keep the same shape is just dumb however.  Probably as dumb as refusing to recall a player who seems to be wanted by half the top clubs in Europe because 'we don't need him' or 'he wouldn't be playing'.  We do need him, he would be playing, just as long as we had a manager with a little flexibility, which unfortunately comes back to a cross against Wilder.

At this point someone, perhaps even Wilder, might say that we looked better in midweek when Tavernier went to right wing back.  Actually, no, we looked better when we replaced two fairly slow fullbacks with two players who could run and have a bit of pace, and looking better when you haven't really done much as an attacking side really isn't that difficult.  In midweek I think Wilder, realising Jones was out, played a weakened side in my opinion.  The two striker changes were part of it.  That we nearly got something after he replaced some of his changes isn't a tick for Wilder.  We wasted the best part of an hour doing nothing. 

The game today to me was crying out for four at the back from the start.  Why play wingbacks when you only have one available?  Bola, McNair, Fry, Dijksteel as a back four would have been fine.  That then allows you to keep Tavernier as a midfielder, and play another midfielder or attacking player against a team who were likely to sit back.  In fact, just playing four at the back would have allowed us to drop Crooks if we wanted to (I know some people do).  It would have given us options, and we didn't really have them with the way we set up.  Not to mention that every team out there knows in advance what we're going to do.  All of this is on Wilder.  He, or people on here, can complain about the squad if they want to, but we have enough players to play something other than 3-5-2 week after week.

We can definitely say that Lumley has again made a mistake, this one costing us a goal.  But without conceding that goal we were still only on for a goalless draw, which would be a poor result in itself.  We're a better team than we were under Warnock, which I am grateful for.  We play better football for the most part, which I am grateful for.  But Wilder is beginning to look like a one trick pony, and I would really like to see more from him, not the players.  Harsh possibly but that's where I'm at currently.

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I honestly can't believe we are thinking it would be a good idea to go up. We'd need a lot of new signings to hit the ground running and some old habits eliminating instantly or it would be a very tough slog. To go up and stay up you need to be more consistent and drilled in understanding and applying the managers ethos, and have backups with more in them than our (brilliant) veterans.

 

If we address keeper and striker issues then a lot of things will start coming together - we have defended very well and made tons and tons of chances a lot of the time - for now we are showing promise but are still a work in progress that I think would not stand the rigours of the PL. 

 

The mad thing is if we get in the playoffs then it's a mini cup and I think we'd be in with a solid chance. 

 

Haha, being a Boro fan

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3 minutes ago, HolgateHero said:

I honestly can't believe we are thinking it would be a good idea to go up. We'd need a lot of new signings to hit the ground running and some old habits eliminating instantly or it would be a very tough slog. To go up and stay up you need to be more consistent and drilled in understanding and applying the managers ethos, and have backups with more in them than our (brilliant) veterans.

 

If we address keeper and striker issues then a lot of things will start coming together - we have defended very well and made tons and tons of chances a lot of the time - for now we are showing promise but are still a work in progress that I think would not stand the rigours of the PL. 

 

The mad thing is if we get in the playoffs then it's a mini cup and I think we'd be in with a solid chance. 

 

Haha, being a Boro fan

It would be a great idea to go up.

We could go down with 0 wins and 38 losses and we'd still probably be in a much healthier place than we are now.

The financial benefits of promotion outweigh any downsides of struggling when we're up there.

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1 minute ago, TeaCider24 said:

It would be a great idea to go up.

We could go down with 0 wins and 38 losses and we'd still probably be in a much healthier place than we are now.

The financial benefits of promotion outweigh any downsides of struggling when we're up there.

Except everyone would turn on Wilder, we'd sack him halfway through the season, give the job to Knill, abandon the whole project and come down back to square one.

I swear I've seen this movie before...

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So poor all over the pitch today. Although Tav was still one of our better players, it showed that he needs to be in the centre - wasted at WB. Nothing like a player being out of the team to make them so popular - was looking forward to seeing McGree start but thought he was poor. Obviously it’s just one match but he didn’t live up to the hype and I wouldn’t want to move Tav to accommodate him. 
 

McNair looked off the pace, Howson didn’t have his best match, Lumley an absolute liability, Crooks has lost all his early season form. Connolly offers nothing as a striker, I never think he will score or create. Just poor all round. 
 

Diksteel continues to do well, was probably one of our best attacking outlets as well, I wish he would have a shot now and again, he gets into great positions.  Bola is the best crosser in the team but we didn’t get it to him enough.
 

Hopefully just a bad day at the office but we can’t have any more of them and Wilder needs to consider an occasional change of shape when certain players are out. no point playing wing backs when the best wing back isn’t playing. Back 4 today might have been an option. 
 

ETA: sorry Changing Times, didn’t read your post before I posted mine. Agree with you on the shape! 

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7 minutes ago, HolgateHero said:

I honestly can't believe we are thinking it would be a good idea to go up. We'd need a lot of new signings to hit the ground running and some old habits eliminating instantly or it would be a very tough slog. To go up and stay up you need to be more consistent and drilled in understanding and applying the managers ethos, and have backups with more in them than our (brilliant) veterans.

 

If we address keeper and striker issues then a lot of things will start coming together - we have defended very well and made tons and tons of chances a lot of the time - for now we are showing promise but are still a work in progress that I think would not stand the rigours of the PL. 

 

The mad thing is if we get in the playoffs then it's a mini cup and I think we'd be in with a solid chance. 

 

Haha, being a Boro fan

I'm fine with not going up this season but going up at all is a no-brainer for me, personally. I just don't think there's a huge difference between going up now or next season, whether we could win the playoffs or win the league, the jump is so big to the Prem that we will still need to be adequately reinforced and need new players to adapt to what the manager wants. It's gonna be a massive challenge either way so sooner or later, for me, doesn't make a difference.

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6 minutes ago, Smokedsalmon said:

Except everyone would turn on Wilder, we'd sack him halfway through the season, give the job to Knill, abandon the whole project and come down back to square one.

I swear I've seen this movie before...

It's not square one though.

We'd have hundreds of millions to work with and be in the same situation as we were in 2017.

I also don't think we'd lose 38 games, and I'd hope that Wilder would still be here for the third season whether we stayed up or went down.

It's academic though, we'll be lucky to get in the play-offs right now, let alone with them.

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5 minutes ago, TeaCider24 said:

It would be a great idea to go up.

We could go down with 0 wins and 38 losses and we'd still probably be in a much healthier place than we are now.

The financial benefits of promotion outweigh any downsides of struggling when we're up there.

Indeed. As long as we try and build a 'championship smashing' squad when we're in the prem, we'll likely have a great season when we go down. Being a yoyo club is better than what we've had for the past few years

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7 minutes ago, TeaCider24 said:

It would be a great idea to go up.

We could go down with 0 wins and 38 losses and we'd still probably be in a much healthier place than we are now.

The financial benefits of promotion outweigh any downsides of struggling when we're up there.

Yes, and the Boro fans would be well behind the team  after that debacle in your imagination I bet. Would Wilder still be in charge? Would the team completely shot of confidence? Would a total rebuild be required? Why wasn't it like in your imagination after relegation with Karanka? I get it's a theoretical idea but it makes no logical sense in the reality as things are a bit more complicated than that.

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13 minutes ago, TeaCider24 said:

It would be a great idea to go up.

We could go down with 0 wins and 38 losses and we'd still probably be in a much healthier place than we are now.

The financial benefits of promotion outweigh any downsides of struggling when we're up there.

I personally can’t think of anything worse than getting hammered every week. The last time we were in the PL was depressing, not enjoyable at all. And it certainly didn’t leave us in a better position once we got relegated. Only just getting over that now. 

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Just now, TeaCider24 said:

It's not square one though.

We'd have hundreds of millions to work with and be in the same situation as we were when we appointed Monk.

I also don't think we'd lose 38 games, and I'd hope that Wilder would still be here for the third season whether we stayed up or went down.

It's academic though, we'll be lucky to get in the play-offs right now, let alone with them.

Based on this season vs. any other in recent memory, I'd hope we'd not do the whole sack the manager without an idea of who to replace him with again. If you can get a better manager in when it's not going well, by all means, that's KS' remit. But this is the best football we've played in years and beggars can't be choosers, certainly in the Championship. You find something good, you hang onto it for dear life at this level or you'll end up with Steve Bruce.

With the right tools, I believe this manager will come good. At this moment in time, I'd go so far as to say I hope we at least get to see him here until the end of his current contract. If that means his third season is after relegation, so be it. Norwich might be struggling again but they still went straight back up with the same manager in charge who got them up the first time.

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2 minutes ago, HolgateHero said:

Yes, and the Boro fans would be well behind the team  after that debacle in your imagination I bet. Would Wilder still be in charge? Would the team completely shot of confidence? Would a total rebuild be required? Why wasn't it like in your imagination after relegation with Karanka? I get it's a theoretical idea but it makes no logical sense in the reality as things are a bit more complicated than that.

Because we appointed an absolute charlatan in Garry Monk.

We still made it to the play-offs in that season despite a farce of a summer window and despite the near non-event of that semi-final, if their keeper had rightly been sent off in the second leg or Downing's free-kick had been an inch lower, we could have snuck in to the final.

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1 minute ago, Skinemrippers said:

I personally can’t think of anything worse than getting hammered every week. The last time we were in the PL was depressing, not enjoyable at all. And it certainly didn’t leave us in a better position once we got relegated. Only just getting over that now. 

Thank you.

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2 minutes ago, HolgateHero said:

Yes, and the Boro fans would be well behind the team  after that debacle in your imagination I bet. Would Wilder still be in charge? Would the team completely shot of confidence? Would a total rebuild be required? Why wasn't it like in your imagination after relegation with Karanka? I get it's a theoretical idea but it makes no logical sense in the reality as things are a bit more complicated than that.

If we require a total rebuild upon Wilder leaving then Kieran Scott hasn't done his job properly when hiring the next man. After Karanka left, Orta was leaving too, there was no plan beyond Karanka, just that the man himself and his companions had to leave.

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