4 minutes ago, osvaldo said:

Fans were amazing tonight. Some players (mostly Engel & barlaser) showed they are miles off premier league quality tonight. Hopefully lessons are learnt and we use it to push on for the playoffs. Thought Rogers looked very good

Rogers never stopped running, cracking attitude

I hope we hold onto Rogers for next season. I think we are a top 6-8 team in the championship this yr but if we can keep building we can be a force next. 

Shame we had so many injuries esp Jones. He was missed for sure. In a way I'm glad we can concentrate on the league now. 

Hard to single players out. There were a lot of players looking stunned tonight. As Osvaldo said there were a couple of fairly established players who looked miles away from being a Premier League player, which is ultimately where we want to be.

 

Credit where it's due to Chelsea, they worked unbelievably hard to get the ball back off us. They took advantage of our casual passing and nicked it when we were taking too long on the ball. 

Disappointing but we go again. Up the Boro

Rodgers shop window performance will have a few other teams looking £££££££

53 minutes ago, DevKWat said:

Sell our only good players and start all over again, great plan 

Who are our only good players ? No VDB, Forss, Coburn ? Dieng is decent, we have ok championship centrebacks. How about Brynn, 5 clean sheets in a row for Orient ? Is Jones going ? We have some good players , we will lose some but we have lost some great players before and we will survive.

5 minutes ago, pokeyjoe said:

Rodgers shop window performance will have a few other teams looking £££££££

Agreed. £10mil a bargain going by tonight. Tall, Athletic, physical, good on the ball and can finish(although he did scuff one in the first half)

We have seen players before when they wanted out give up the ghost - Ramirez, Yakubu. Rogers certainly didnt tonight. 

1 hour ago, TheJew said:

I reiterate. A serious rebuild incoming.

Outs for £ - Hackney, Rogers and McGree

Outs for being not good enough - Crooks

Outs on loan to develop - Silvera

Outs for retirement/ loans ending/ contract ending - Howson, Greenwood, Ayling and McNair

Personally I would keep Silvera, pointless loaning him out if we are gonna spend on another project player anyway. That leaves -

GK Dieng/Glover/Jones 

DR Dijksteel/Smith

DC Rav/Clarke/Fry/Lenihan

DL Bangura/Engel

MC Barlaser

RW Jones/Forss

10 Azaz/Gilbert

LW Silvera 

ST Coburn/Latte Lath/Hoppe

 

At that point you're looking for 3 new CMs and another LW. 4 necessary players is hardly the rebuild of the century. 

Greenwood available at a knockdown fee if we wanted so could be kept also for the #10, which would allow Gilbert to go on loan. Alternatively they may explore other options for that role.

I'd argue we should also get another CF if they dont see anything in Hoppe, and a young RB to start being blooded into the first team as Smoth isnt getting younger.

That's another 2/3 long term replacements or upgrades on what we already have. And for those positions we could have around 30m? Looks like the price is 10m for Rogers, Hackney I'd argue at least 15m, 5m for McGree. That's rough figures I think we could realistically charge. 

 

@RichAcklam2404I hope you are proud of yourself, almost guaranteed we would have progressed tonight if Poch didn't know our starting line up.

16 minutes ago, Pork Slops said:

@RichAcklam2404I hope you are proud of yourself, almost guaranteed we would have progressed tonight if Poch didn't know our starting line up.

I apologise to every Boro fan out there 😂

2 hours ago, Pork Slops said:

@RichAcklam2404I hope you are proud of yourself, almost guaranteed we would have progressed tonight if Poch didn't know our starting line up.

What utter rubbish. As if Chelsea would have relied on leaked info on a message board. The score was 6-1. We gifted goals and demonstrated we are a million miles away from having a competitive team/ squad to be able to compete in the Prem

Thats where concerns should lay

Edited January 24, 20242 yr by Robin Johnson

Well my doomer prediction wasn't too far off. At least I had a tenner on Rogers anytime goalscorer, a tiny consolation.

We were our own worst enemy, watched the (low)lights and we basically giftwrapped Chelsea's route to Wembley. Playing risky balls out from the back like that is enough of a gamble against Championship teams, doing it against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge is practically suicide.

Some of the blame has to go to Carrick as well for that formation, what on earth was he thinking asking Howson to play a position he absolutely does not have the legs to do? 

Finally a big *** you to Sky for absolutely rimming Chelsea for the majority of the build up and during the game. Yes they destroyed us, you absolutely would expect a billion pound squad to beat a mid-table Championship team easily, especially when our best attacking players are out injured.

9 hours ago, thomas said:

If Carrick wants to be in prem he has to address that defence, I accept playing out from back is his style its going to cause errors but does look great when works but man marking and closing down players is about displine we just don't have that at back. We don't have the squad to outscore teams every week like last season, Carrick needs to realise that.

I think at home against Chelsea was outstanding level of endeavour was very difficult to replicate in second without that home crowd and want to remind everyone of that they were incredible in that way in first leg. This leg we needed to realise Chelsea were always going to score we needed to turn their fans by scoring ourselves before they got far ahead.

Listen they should have won, 1 billion vs what 40 million or around that? But doesn't mean we can't learn lessons for next time.

I reckon everybody I know over 60 is screaming at the tv, when teams are tip-tapping about in their own area, to launch the bloody thing up the field. Especially when the skill of the culprits is not all that great. At times Boro's short passing game was actually pretty slick, but after 10 minutes lack.of class was evident. Howson looked really good early on, but he must have beaten up Gary Neville's sister, given GN's slating of him.

22 minutes ago, Johnny A said:

I reckon everybody I know over 60 is screaming at the tv, when teams are tip-tapping about in their own area, to launch the bloody thing up the field. Especially when the skill of the culprits is not all that great. At times Boro's short passing game was actually pretty slick, but after 10 minutes lack.of class was evident. Howson looked really good early on, but he must have beaten up Gary Neville's sister, given GN's slating of him.

He was class first 10, but after that he was our worst player, maybe tied with crooks and engel. Though there's a fair amount of competition.

5 hours ago, Robin Johnson said:

What utter rubbish. As if Chelsea would have relied on leaked info on a message board. The score was 6-1. We gifted goals and demonstrated we are a million miles away from having a competitive team/ squad to be able to compete in the Prem

Thats where concerns should lay