Birmingham City v BORO 0-1 (McGree)

[LinoJo3 5,505 13.2k]

2 hours ago, p_mards said:

What a massive win that thankfully keeps our season alive. Our formation worked well yet again as we controlled the central areas incredibly well and looked comfortable sat into our incredibly effective low block. The current tactics and defensive mentality takes me back to the days of Karanka as we look a nightmare to break down. The quality of the game was obviously poor but we held our shape and had the moment of high quality in attack from McGree. It was clear that a few players standards had dropped after the tight turnaround of Wednesday, Saturday & Tuesday, with the latter two being long away days, so some of the less impressive performances like O'Brien need to be viewed in that context. The current style of play isn't attractive but it sure brings the best out of our team, especially from the likes of Ayling, Berg, McNair & Clarke. Considering our defensive performances under Carrick I can't believe that we've managed to keep back-to-back clean sheets. Hopefully we can now make the most of the break to recharge the batteries for Saturday as the starting 11 have played a lot of minutes in a short space of time.

While the current style of play and tactics isn't Carrick's first choice, I'd like to think that he's learnt a lot about the effectiveness of holding more of a solid structure behind the ball - certainly when injuries bite and the team isn't able to dominate possession as preferred. Hopefully it helps takes the edge off the bipolar nature of our form under him. At the moment we're akin to a team like Coventry City with the way we have a solid structure behind the ball but can counter-attack and grind out scrappy wins - seemingly in a consistent manner. If we can somehow scrape into the play-offs and get promoted then we'll look back at Howson's experienced reaction to Norwich's Sainz stray boot and view it as a massive sliding doors moment.

Your last paragraph is the reason I kinda liked this performance, I think Carrick will take a lot from these more ‘championship’ performances but more importantly it should give us a good platform to build off. It will be easier for the club to take that kind of system and improve it with better players and easier for Carrick to take that kind of system and tweak it to account for better players.

Even though it was a defensive system it was easy to see how it could have been more attacking with better decisions and ball control. We did put some good moves together but most of the time a player was a yard to slow, the pass was rushed or went to the wrong player. 
 

It was a frantic game and our players couldn’t quite control the ball at that pace so we ended up looking pretty ragged. With better players in certain positions we control the ball and possession a lot better. It was one of them games where we needed to knock the ball about a bit and let them chase and tire them out, but we kind of played into their hands and kept making the risky passes and often losing the ball.

[Downsouth 8,142 39k]

Good result but hard on the eye but not putting to bed by scoring more than one goal often results in a bite on the ass!

Had Brum levelled in injury time we would have been aghast about that but really we did not look like we would score again once subs were made and that in itself is a real area needed to improve.

Anyway a win is a win so enjoy watching Cor blimey O'Rileys goal once again

https://www.skysports.com/football/video/30998/13093594/birmingham-0-1-middlesbrough-championship-highlights

[Erimus74 5,259 5.4k]

40 minutes ago, Downsouth said:

Good result but hard on the eye but not putting to bed by scoring more than one goal often results in a bite on the ass!

Had Brum levelled in injury time we would have been aghast about that but really we did not look like we would score again once subs were made and that in itself is a real area needed to improve.

Anyway a win is a win so enjoy watching Cor blimey O'Rileys goal once again

https://www.skysports.com/football/video/30998/13093594/birmingham-0-1-middlesbrough-championship-highlights

The area we have to look to in the summer, IMO, a busy & interesting spending summer, with plenty of departures & incoming players 

[Blanco 5,581 7.2k]

I'm delighted with the new practical approach. It's yielding results and after all it's a results business. UTB

[AnglianRed 7,876 18.1k]

9 hours ago, p_mards said:

What a massive win that thankfully keeps our season alive. Our formation worked well yet again as we controlled the central areas incredibly well and looked comfortable sat into our incredibly effective low block. The current tactics and defensive mentality takes me back to the days of Karanka as we look a nightmare to break down. The quality of the game was obviously poor but we held our shape and had the moment of high quality in attack from McGree. It was clear that a few players standards had dropped after the tight turnaround of Wednesday, Saturday & Tuesday, with the latter two being long away days, so some of the less impressive performances like O'Brien need to be viewed in that context. The current style of play isn't attractive but it sure brings the best out of our team, especially from the likes of Ayling, Berg, McNair & Clarke. Considering our defensive performances under Carrick I can't believe that we've managed to keep back-to-back clean sheets. Hopefully we can now make the most of the break to recharge the batteries for Saturday as the starting 11 have played a lot of minutes in a short space of time.

While the current style of play and tactics isn't Carrick's first choice, I'd like to think that he's learnt a lot about the effectiveness of holding more of a solid structure behind the ball - certainly when injuries bite and the team isn't able to dominate possession as preferred. Hopefully it helps takes the edge off the bipolar nature of our form under him. At the moment we're akin to a team like Coventry City with the way we have a solid structure behind the ball but can counter-attack and grind out scrappy wins - seemingly in a consistent manner. If we can somehow scrape into the play-offs and get promoted then we'll look back at Howson's experienced reaction to Norwich's Sainz stray boot and view it as a massive sliding doors moment.

Couldn't agree more.

At this stage of the season, even though the play-offs are once more within reach (albeit still a long shot), I think its more important to build team cohesion and understanding of roles.

Playing 2 games a week will take it out of the players, so we can't expect brilliant football game after game. Think this was a perfect example of grinding out a result, even though we were below par. Keeps our momentum going and builds confidence & morale in the team. Play to our strengths, even if it isn't always pretty.

Does seem as though Carrick has had some sort of epiphany. Whatever, this run of results is giving us all reason to be hopeful for the rest of the season.

[MBG42 316 669]

I would probably only play with one striker in the next game as we lacked control in possession of the ball. Both of our strikers aren't great technically and don't really seem to have any chemistry with each other / don't compliment each other. Would prefer Azaz and McGree as the two AM's and choose one striker which would also give us a chance to swap them if it's not working or one of them is tiring.

[Erimus74 5,259 5.4k]

Considering the injuries we've the whole season & thecstriker situation it's amazing we're still in contention at all
IMO, Latte Lath has shown what a difference a recognised striker can make, I'm hoping, maybe, been naive, that we looked at signing a striker in January but the prices we were quoted were ridiculous & so along with the war chest available in the summer meant we'll go with who we have & go for it in the summer ready for next season

[Leesider 1,342 1.4k]

18 minutes ago, Blanco said:

I'm delighted with the new practical approach. It's yielding results and after all it's a results business. UTB

I thought you might be missing the "fannying around at the back"

[Smogzilla 9,172 6.9k]

6 minutes ago, Erimus74 said:

Considering the injuries we've the whole season & thecstriker situation it's amazing we're still in contention at all
IMO, Latte Lath has shown what a difference a recognised striker can make, I'm hoping, maybe, been naive, that we looked at signing a striker in January but the prices we were quoted were ridiculous & so along with the war chest available in the summer meant we'll go with who we have & go for it in the summer ready for next season

I'm sure thats exactly what happened. There wasn't much available at the right price so why waste money on a dwight gayle or someone of a similar ilk? 

Fingers crossed there's a target or 2 in mind for the summer.

[TeaCider24 17,814 22.9k]

We've had a couple of decent halves recently, that's about it at the moment.

The Norwich match was obviously only because of the wrongful sending off, but we were appalling before that.

Poor first half against QPR, good second half.

Decent first half against Birmingham, poor second half.

We've looked a bit better defensively, but have played a pair of relegation battlers and still needed last ditch tackles to prevent goals.

We've not looked particularly great going forwards.

Still a lot that needs to be improved on if we're to make a fist of it, this season or next.

[Blanco 5,581 7.2k]

7 minutes ago, Leesider said:

I thought you might be missing the "fannying around at the back"

Even @Neverbefore doesn't miss that 🙂 🙂 🙂 

[Bruce 2,974 2.3k]

Carrick is doing what most said he needed to: adjusting his tactics to his players. Pretty much the first rule of football is, if you can't score, don't concede. We had a massive stroke of luck against Norwich but we took advantage of it and have kept on doing so. We've also been able to name an unchanged team for 3 matches in a row which is possibly the first time this season. 

We're not playing "good" football but we are being effective and we know that once we can build an effective foundation that we can then add in the exciting stuff. Carrick does seem to be tweaking the formation a bit each time. I think Latte Lath played a lot deeper yesterday. It didn't really work but he did put a shift in defending. Part of the legacy of Wilder is that we have central defenders in McNair and Clarke who are comfortable playing high up the pitch. McNair in particular appeared to be reading from the overlapping centre-back book. He interchanged very effectively with Ayling. Ayling's presence on the ball, awareness and technique is still Premier league standard. Doesn't have the pace anymore but he's a lot more comfortable playing with 3 central defenders behind him.

It'll be interesting to see what Carrick does against Blackburn. Third relegation threatened team in a row, they are likely to sit back and hope to nick a draw or win. They've gone 6 games without a win but as long as they get a draw against us they'll feel that's a step towards safety for the season. We'll have a few sore players after three games in quick succession so it's likely that Carrick looks to freshen up a couple of positions if he can. Latte Lath in particular has put in a lot of minutes since returning from injury so we may see a reversion to 4-2-3-1 with Jones on the right and Forss in the middle.  Might also be a disguised 3-5-2 with Ayling as a RCB and Jones as a wing-back.

Nine matches left. No team wins all their matches but if we average 2ppg (e.g. 5 wins, 3 draws, 1 loss) then that sees us end the season with a promotion winning run of form on 71 points which probably sees us in 7th-8th.

1.5ppg (4 wins, 2 draws, 3 losses) is a respectable run, sees us end the season on 67 points which will probably end up around 8-9th. Given everything that has happened this season, that's a perfectly fine outcome and probably par for the course after this summer's rebuild and the January sales.

[mendieta420 1,215 2.5k]

18 minutes ago, Erimus74 said:

Considering the injuries we've the whole season & thecstriker situation it's amazing we're still in contention at all
IMO, Latte Lath has shown what a difference a recognised striker can make, I'm hoping, maybe, been naive, that we looked at signing a striker in January but the prices we were quoted were ridiculous & so along with the war chest available in the summer meant we'll go with who we have & go for it in the summer ready for next season

thought LL looked good until around 60ish minutes when he started to fade and was on his heels a lot

needed to be taken off, would've been a good time for silvera's pace/energy

[Erimus74 5,259 5.4k]

Yes we were lucky with the sending off, but following the dismissal we were so professional, how many times in the past have we struggled to overcome the one man advantage, against QPR we again rode our luck & good defending, players blocking shots resulting in going ingoaless at HT when in the not to distant past we'd have conceded goals in those situations & in the second half we just took control, last night we won ugly, lets just enjoy & give credit to Boro for turning around our awful run

Im over the moon we've taken 9 points from 3 games, including 2 cleansheets on the bounce & jumped from 6 points from 3rd bottom to 5 points from 6th top

Roll on Blackburn

Edited March 13, 2024 by Erimus74

[Erimus74 5,259 5.4k]

7 minutes ago, mendieta420 said:

thought LL looked good until around 60ish minutes when he started to fade and was on his heels a lot

needed to be taken off, would've been a good time for silvera's pace/energy

Yes, I thought he would have took him off, can see Silvera starting v Blackburn, ELL has out in a lot of minutes since returning from injury, he took a knock last night, around his lower back too