Chris Wilder - All In?

[boro_fan_in_brum 320]

5 minutes ago, Denzel Zanzibar said:

32 forum members have voted in the poll, let the discussion flow I say.

Cool, personally this whole episode is something to forget about.  

[Denzel Zanzibar 4,175]

13 minutes ago, boro_fan_in_brum said:

Cool, personally this whole episode is something to forget about.  

Well I guess if the mods and admins agree with you then this thread will be closed soon eh.

Personally I think backseat modding is a bit pathetic, but to each their own.

[Essuuaitch 288]

I,LL Treat it as it was, a rumour, so hes still here it seems and personally i think hes got us moving in the right direction in general but we still have a knack of fluffing at the big stage when we get that far. thats not on Wilder persee so im putting a ton of faith on the summer revamp as i believe that with a trustworthy keeper, a couple of proactive midfielders and a striker that can and will test the netting consistantly ,we are a good shotfor promotion . wilder has been a godsend after the dark days of pulis,woody and warnock  but its lodged in my mind that he wont be totally comitted to the cause after the burnley stuff. strangely though, its my opinion that Alan Knill is the real inspirational force behind our upturn under Wilder and thats bizarre for me as im not usually keen on assistants taking the reins .

[Redcar Rioja 2,913]

I don't visit the Movies and TV thread on here because it's a Football forum and I'm not interested in Movies and TV or FIFA 25 but if others are then fair enough, same with the Primulavera or whatever it is thread. Self moderation, if you aren't interested then don't click but if you can't help yourself and you click then that is exactly what keeps this Forum alive. 

[Changing Times 8,031]

This thread sounds like something SmogDane would accidentally link on here from Pornhub.

[White Band 712]

8 hours ago, Denzel Zanzibar said:

Chris Wilder has said he is "all in" at Middlesbrough, but are you behind him after what's happened in the last week?

Do you think he is still the right man to take this club forward?

Your poll is missing an important option... undecided. 

Ignoring this week, I have had two concerns for a while:

1) ability to motivate the team. We are getting too many games where our players don't really turn up.  This is a longstanding problem which predates Wilder, but I had expected Wilder would be able to motivate the players enough to overcome the problem. 

2) the lack of a plan B.  Other teams have sussed us out and he seems to be struggling to adapt. 

[AnglianRed 4,050]

13 hours ago, Denzel Zanzibar said:

Chris Wilder has said he is "all in" at Middlesbrough, but are you behind him after what's happened in the last week?

Do you think he is still the right man to take this club forward?

I still have reservations regarding his lack of tactical flexibility and his policy of playing the same players until they're exhausted or injured (though maybe thats just due to our lightweight squad).

But I've always said you have to give a new manager at least 1 full season (and Summer & pre-season to build and mould the squad).

He's done a lot better than Warnock would have. Seems he may have been found out by other managers lately, but maybe once he gets more of his own players in, this will be less of a problem.

[Foxtrot Oscar Colin 529]

16 hours ago, Redcar Rioja said:

From Wilders comments yesterday:

"The boys have all done well, but it’s a cutthroat industry and we’ve all got different views and some difficult decisions to make in the summer to improve the group. The chairman knows how I roll and he’ll back me and do whatever he needs to do to get it looking as we all want it to look. We’re deep into that, deep into specifics of what we want - characteristics and positions - and we go from there.”

I take from that that some contracts may not be sentimentally renewed (Howson?) and indeed that there may even be some surprise outgoings, at least from some of our fans perspectives.

Our lack of goals lately is down to the the time it takes us to build an attack and pass the ball sideways and backwards waiting for that perfect moment that diminishes over time. Slick passing and through balls for Players to run onto in space doesn't seem to be something that fits Wilderball unless his charges are doing it all wrong and he is pulling his hair out over it. So I'm expecting that we will see a big change then over the last four games otherwise if we keep doing the same things then we know what results we will get (unless we are playing Peterborough of course).

Another major weakness is our set pieces, there aren't any set piece routines other than aim for the far post for Fry or Bamba to head back into the 6 yard box. How a modern Coach and his staff haven't been able to rehearse something with a few variations in 6 months I find baffling. Huddersfield use it as a major tactic with major gains, we use set pieces as just half ar5ed, can't be bothered inconveniences, give it to Tav, let him do his sexy shimmy before he sticks it to the far post and it goes out of play or easily read and defended against because that's all we do.

Add in the attacking "improvements" (whosevers idea or recommendation they were) in January and is it no bleedin wonder we aren't scoring goals. Let's hope come the Summer we see a recognition and acceptance of all that and many major "cutthroat" changes.

I was thinking a week or so ago about whether our long term squad members are now entrenched in a mentality of mediocrity and failure. Players like mcnair and howson probably can't remember what it's like to actually achieve anything other than disappointment and or failure its been that long. I reckon that might be what wilders getting at there. I was thinking if we might just be better off gutting the squad of any players we can get good money for who have been here for a few years and start again. 

The reservations I have is that I don't really trust wilders judgement in the transfer market and I also don't find it wise to rebuild a squad buying players for his specific tactic because it requires some specialist positions and could be a mess for a new manager to deal with should wilder leave before his contract ends which could happen given some of his recent comments. 

We have basically bottled it 3 out of the last 4 seasons so something needs to change. 

[Bruce 208]

6 hours ago, Foxtrot Oscar Colin said:

I was thinking a week or so ago about whether our long term squad members are now entrenched in a mentality of mediocrity and failure. Players like mcnair and howson probably can't remember what it's like to actually achieve anything other than disappointment and or failure its been that long...

We have basically bottled it 3 out of the last 4 seasons so something needs to change. 

I think this is very true. Since 2016 we have had an institutional culture of failure, disorganisation and underperformance. For our senior pros from Howson down, it's all they've ever known. Changing that is a mammoth task because players are embedded in an organisation that systemically fails at every turn.

It took Mowbray and AK 4 years between them to turn us around last time.  Wilder had an immediate impact but the last couple of months has seen a tailing off.  Then again, you look at Notts Forest who are more of a basket case of a club than us and somehow Cooper has worked a miracle. From the outside I don't know what he has done. Talking of basket cases, you can also look at what Howe has done with the Geordies; yes money was involved but it has been well-spent. 

We may sneak into the playoffs this season and, if we do, all bets are off but fundamentally it feels like we are nowhere near any kind of institutional culture of success. Without that we will always underperform.

[AnglianRed 4,050]

Think Foxtrot & Bruce definitely have a point.

Professional sport is as much a psychological thing as a physical and technical arena.

If the players' minds aren't in the right place then its not gonna work, no matter how good they are. This goes back to the whole team spirit and "everyone pulling together" mentality that we have seen so sorely lacking recently.

If Wilder and his staff can't the lads in the right frame of mind, then its probably better to let them go or sell them and bring new blood in.

 

[Duvel 1,912]

A lot of guesswork going on here about the mindset of players. 

Maybe we're just gonna finish where we deserve to finish because we lack a bit of quality. 

Professional players and teams go through good and bad spells, it doesn't mean that the mentality in the club is wrong. 

[Foxtrot Oscar Colin 529]

4 minutes ago, Duvel said:

A lot of guesswork going on here about the mindset of players. 

Maybe we're just gonna finish where we deserve to finish because we lack a bit of quality. 

Professional players and teams go through good and bad spells, it doesn't mean that the mentality in the club is wrong. 

We have more quality than Luton and Huddersfield. There's not many players in either of those sides I'd swap for any of ours. We have alot more quality than Millwall but we are performing on an even keel with them.

I will say that talent and quality doesn't always guarantee success but where 'on paper' your stronger than those sides above you there's got to be something else that's not right. We have had a few experienced managers who have failed to get consistency out of us and the only common denominator is the set up at the club and the players who have been here for the last 3 or 4 years. 

Your right it is a guess but it's definitely a possibility. That and the Teesside tap water that turns previously decent managers into complete imbeciles.

[Duvel 1,912]

26 minutes ago, Foxtrot Oscar Colin said:

We have more quality than Luton and Huddersfield. There's not many players in either of those sides I'd swap for any of ours. We have alot more quality than Millwall but we are performing on an even keel with them.

I will say that talent and quality doesn't always guarantee success but where 'on paper' your stronger than those sides above you there's got to be something else that's not right. We have had a few experienced managers who have failed to get consistency out of us and the only common denominator is the set up at the club and the players who have been here for the last 3 or 4 years. 

Your right it is a guess but it's definitely a possibility. That and the Teesside tap water that turns previously decent managers into complete imbeciles.

We've appointed bad managers such as Agnew, Monk and Woodgate. We've appointed managers who've wasted money on players, we've had no continuity between appointments so as a club we've switched between styles and the types of players we need. 

We've just been a poorly run club since we were last promoted. Even still, I dont think that means there is a problem with the mentality of the club. 

This season is the first time since Karanka where we've had a pretty settled team and formation. Prior to that we've had managers who don't have a clue what their best team or formation are, thats the reason for the clubs failure in my opinion. 

Pulis got the closest but teams figured him out and his negativity cost us. We should have made the playoffs under him in his last season but he cost us wins by treating the opposition like Man City every week. 

I'm not sure we have lots of great individuals, Fry could play in the Premier league, Tav and Jones would get into Premier league squads, apart from that where is our individual talent? 

We are massively lacking up front, don't have a keeper and the rest are just decent Championship players. I think our system is better than the sum of its parts, we've been really well drilled but I don't see our individual talent as being better than teams like Sheff United and Forest. 

The teams you mentioned are also probably overperforming based on their individual level of talent but we're not far off really. Win our game in hand and we're above Millwall. Then you can look at our start to the season, under Warnock we were poor and I think with Wilder all season we'd have a few more points. 

There's lots of reasons we've underperformed as a club. Instability, poor managerial appointments, changes in playing style, money wasted on transfers etc.. 

We've just had injuries to a few key players recently, teams have figured out how to stop our only real creative player and we're just on a bad run. 

What do people want to do? if there's a bad culture at the club we should probably dismantle things and rebuild. Thats what we've been doing every 2 years until recently. The alternative is to keep some continuity and build on what we've got. I know which I'd prefer. 

[estonpidge 884]

Expect Notes to make Crooks his new Fellaini 

[Foxtrot Oscar Colin 529]

19 hours ago, Duvel said:

We've appointed bad managers such as Agnew, Monk and Woodgate. We've appointed managers who've wasted money on players, we've had no continuity between appointments so as a club we've switched between styles and the types of players we need. 

We've just been a poorly run club since we were last promoted. Even still, I dont think that means there is a problem with the mentality of the club. 

This season is the first time since Karanka where we've had a pretty settled team and formation. Prior to that we've had managers who don't have a clue what their best team or formation are, thats the reason for the clubs failure in my opinion. 

Pulis got the closest but teams figured him out and his negativity cost us. We should have made the playoffs under him in his last season but he cost us wins by treating the opposition like Man City every week. 

I'm not sure we have lots of great individuals, Fry could play in the Premier league, Tav and Jones would get into Premier league squads, apart from that where is our individual talent? 

We are massively lacking up front, don't have a keeper and the rest are just decent Championship players. I think our system is better than the sum of its parts, we've been really well drilled but I don't see our individual talent as being better than teams like Sheff United and Forest. 

The teams you mentioned are also probably overperforming based on their individual level of talent but we're not far off really. Win our game in hand and we're above Millwall. Then you can look at our start to the season, under Warnock we were poor and I think with Wilder all season we'd have a few more points. 

There's lots of reasons we've underperformed as a club. Instability, poor managerial appointments, changes in playing style, money wasted on transfers etc.. 

We've just had injuries to a few key players recently, teams have figured out how to stop our only real creative player and we're just on a bad run. 

What do people want to do? if there's a bad culture at the club we should probably dismantle things and rebuild. Thats what we've been doing every 2 years until recently. The alternative is to keep some continuity and build on what we've got. I know which I'd prefer. 

Some good points raised but in fairness under warnock and wilder and pulis before them we have bottled the big games at the end of the season that we needed to win. You just know that when we really need to win we will wilt under the pressure and not turn up. 

Under karanka we usually won those games or at least got something. I mean do you think we would win a playoff semi now like we did under karanka? I really don't. There's got to be something there because we have good players and when there's not much pressure earlier in the season they play alot better. Like I said 3 out of 4 seasons bottling the playoffs and 4 or 5 first team regulars who are the core of the team have been there for all 3 of those seasons.