Boro v Plymouth 0-2

[SouthernSmoggie 5,315 7k]

3 hours ago, Hicktonpen10 said:

Have we played the same players in consecutive games this season yet?  Know injuries have killed us but don't get the unnecessary changes like Thomas for Engel.  

The team has been all over the place for various reasons. I can't remember us ever having such an unsettled XI. 

Honestly this season has been a shambles from the start. Without the 6 points v Leicester we'd be bang in trouble.

[sanddancer 2,099 6.2k]

No doubt in my mind the fans have spoken the data doesn’t lie and changes are required. 
I no longer believe the philosophy often touted about rebuilding the club is a shambles from top to bottom.

[Barnaby 1,164 2.3k]

3 hours ago, AnglianRed said:

Bet you got some stick from your relatives. 😁

Tell me about it 

[Old Codger 4,269 4.9k]

28 minutes ago, Barnaby said:

Tell me about it 

Your turn in the barrel? 🙂

 

[Plastic Goat 744 1.1k]

1 hour ago, SouthernSmoggie said:

The team has been all over the place for various reasons. I can't remember us ever having such an unsettled XI. 

Honestly this season has been a shambles from the start. Without the 6 points v Leicester we'd be bang in trouble.

An excellent point. It is almost relegation form.

[Blanco 5,637 7.2k]

5 hours ago, Dynamo Kev said:

their second goal, we were going to the ball closing the players down. barlaser just stood in space not marking their number 18 i think. he gets a simple 10 yard pass to feet turns and has free range to pass to their cf who is in miles of space. vdb is left pretty much stranded and he picks his spot and scores. absolute piece of *** goal for them. we have a team full of ball watchers. no defenders in midfield. barlaser has barely made a tackle all season. hes not suited to our team at all. him playing just exposes how weak we are in midfield more. whoever decided to sign him make a mistake. 

i personally think hes over coaching them. they are forgetting the basics all the time because they are struggling to carry out their instructions. sack carrick for me. hes not taking us anywhere.

Over coaching them? Ffs 🤦‍♂️ that is definitely not the case. They are not being coached at all 🤷‍♂️

[Dynamo Kev 1,819 6.4k]

2 hours ago, Blanco said:

Over coaching them? Ffs 🤦‍♂️ that is definitely not the case. They are not being coached at all 🤷‍♂️

it would appear like that. but its true. he has his players thinking about to much, preventing them doing the basics. football is a simple game made difficult by idiots. 

[Tarmo Kink Army 2,818 5.1k]

I honestly think we’ve relied so much on Lenihan defensively that without him we look lost for ages he’s a great leader and keeping the lads in shape, we need him back 

[RiseAgainst 5,004 4.1k]

24 minutes ago, Dynamo Kev said:

it would appear like that. but its true. he has his players thinking about to much, preventing them doing the basics. football is a simple game made difficult by idiots. 

Whatever Carrick may be, he's not an idiot. However, I do agree that the players seem thoroughly discombobulated with whatever he's teaching them on the training pitch.

Maybe Carrick needs to take a leaf out of Mike Bassett's book? At least everyone knows how to play 4-4-effing-2.

[Changing Times 16,078 23.1k]

27 minutes ago, Tarmo Kink Army said:

I honestly think we’ve relied so much on Lenihan defensively that without him we look lost for ages he’s a great leader and keeping the lads in shape, we need him back 

He played all of the first 8 league games, and we only won one of them.  I think what's been happening over the course of the season is that we've 'looked lost' without a number of players.  We were missing Forss, we were missing McGree, we were missing O'Brien, and so on.  Then we get the players back but nothing really improves.  For what it's worth we are clearly missing every player we have injured at the moment, and we missed all of the players who were injured throughout the season, but I don't actually think that there would be much difference if they were all available now.  I think we'd be better but not enough that people would be all that happy with how we were doing.  We've been poor for most of the season.  We've won 7 games since the end of October, and those 7 games represent every game won outside that run of 6 wins in a row that came out of nowhere.  I mean without that run we have got 26 points out of 27 games, that's a relegation team.  I know it's not fair to ignore sets of games but we'd be stuffed without that run, that's how bad we've been all season long.

[Dynamo Kev 1,819 6.4k]

12 minutes ago, RiseAgainst said:

Whatever Carrick may be, he's not an idiot. However, I do agree that the players seem thoroughly discombobulated with whatever he's teaching them on the training pitch.

Maybe Carrick needs to take a leaf out of Mike Bassett's book? At least everyone knows how to play 4-4-effing-2.

hes not an idiot, but hes overcomplicating things. which is a stupid thing to do. our biggest game in ages vs chelsea, he had howson dropping into defence and even the commentators were baffled by it. carrick overthinks everything. by trying to be tactically clever hes actually being tactically stupid. 

[HorsehaySmoggie 38 28]

Based on who we had available to play in the second leg against Chelsea, not sure who else he could have asked to pick up World Cup winner Enzo other than Howson. Presumably Pochettino had tactics that included Enzo cutting through the right of Boro's defence, which would have meant Howson trying to deal with that rather than leaving Rav to pick him up

[Redcar Rioja 9,086 8.8k]

5 hours ago, HorsehaySmoggie said:

Based on who we had available to play in the second leg against Chelsea, not sure who else he could have asked to pick up World Cup winner Enzo other than Howson. Presumably Pochettino had tactics that included Enzo cutting through the right of Boro's defence, which would have meant Howson trying to deal with that rather than leaving Rav to pick him up

Defensively (not for the first time) we were such an embarrassing shambolic mess that night it is impossible to try and figure out what on earth Carrick's tactics were supposed to be regarding Howson. Certainly all the expert pundits were baffled by it and almost being kind in their criticism it was that cringeworthy. If indeed it was some complex man marking job which I don't think it was considering how poor it was then it was a cluster&#ck of epic proportions and don't get me started on the passing it out from the back against a side who had subs that cost more than our entire squad. 

[Denzel Zanzibar 8,167 15.6k]

Yeah, i'm still completely baffled regarding Carrick's tactics for the 2nd leg against Chelsea. Even more annoyed after watching the match yesterday. I think we could have given that young Liverpool side a decent game.

[Skinemrippers 1,168 1.2k]

The Chelsea match was certainly interesting in what Neville in particular was saying. He could see straight away that asking Howson to drop into defence isolated Rav on the right and was creating gaping holes in our defence. He picked it out straight away - we got away with it a couple of times and still Carrick didn’t change it. Then the inevitable goals came and game over. 

The worrying thing for me was Carricks comments. We’re not playing this system or that, we’re being fluid with our formation. And he’s saying the same again now with the lack of playing a striker - oh it’s fluid, false 9, we’ve done it before etc etc. this is what he needs to learn and put right. This group of players (all players?) need a system and to be very clear on their roles. They look utterly lost.