Cardiff V Boro  Saturday 27th of April at 3.00 PM

Imagine a picture of the two team badges and some fancy letters describing a lot of *** ... 

The mighty Boro suffered a season ending defeat last time out v Leeds, but them *** were dirty and cheated the offside trap and even the ref and linesman .. Anfernee Dijksteel gave away a clumsy penalty as well and Dirty Leeds won  with 4 goals against 3 goals .. But we can be proud of the Boro as it was the first defeat in ten games straight .. You could say that Michael Carrick has gotten plenty out of the few players, who haven't been out with serious injuries for big parts of the season. Never have I witnessed that many injuries for one team in one season!  Where would we have been  if there were no injuries for Hackney, Forss, McGree, Dieng, Lenihan etc.?

Imagine a GIF of a long queue of players being carried out on stretchers as 25000 fans cry a sea of salty tears!

Like our season, it's all over for Cardiff as well and it might show on the pitch for both teams .. Hopefully we can have a really exciting game just like the 7 goal pearl of a game v Dirty Leeds! 

Q's

1: Guess the result and Boro scorers?

2: Where would we actually have been in the table, if we hadn't had all those damn injuries to key players?

3: Are you traveling to Wales for this game?

4: How much do you miss pictures and GIFs?

5: Team and formation? Is it time to do a little experimenting with fringe players .. I know they are all in use, but the fringe players to the real fringe players?

6. If you had 100 £ to use at the bookie's, would you put them on a home victory 7/2 or away victory 2/1?

4-0 to the boro

I live half a mile from the stadium - any hints or tips then please ask. 
UTB

Hope to see a little bit of experimenting with the younger lads, though there's a case for finishing the season strong too.

1: Guess the result and Boro scorers?
3-1 Boro. Latte Lath x2 Gilbert.

2: Where would we actually have been in the table, if we hadn't had all those damn injuries to key players?

5th

3: Are you traveling to Wales for this game?

Already here, so yes! £11 a ticket too.. bargain!

4: How much do you miss pictures and GIFs?
More than you will ever know. I can't do a matchday thread without them! 

5: Team and formation? Is it time to do a little experimenting with fringe players .. I know they are all in use, but the fringe players to the real fringe players?

Dieng

Ayling Rav Clarke Bangura

O'brien Howson

Jones Azaz Gilbert

Latte Lath

6. If you had 100 £ to use at the bookie's, would you put them on a home victory 7/2 or away victory 2/1?

Away!

Thanks for posting the thread @SmogDane

Should be a good game and as Cardiff have not got the best of home records of late see no reason why Boro can not go back to winning ways, in fact we have not won for what 5 games?

Hope this is a well contributed thread as we need to have 500 plus posts added into the 2 remaining games to reach a record total of contributions.

Currently on 29.7 with 30.1 to surpass to get the record.

Know it will be hard to achieve but hey I am willing to add 200posts per thread just to make sure we get a record😁

1: Guess the result and Boro scorers?

Don't really care tbh. Stick money on ELL anytime goalscorer though

2: Where would we actually have been in the table, if we hadn't had all those damn injuries to key players?

Hard to say. You'd think playoffs comfortably at least

3: Are you traveling to Wales for this game?

No

4: How much do you miss pictures and GIFs?

Massively. One of the reasons I don't post as much (no doubt to the delight of some of you!)

5: Team and formation? Is it time to do a little experimenting with fringe players .. I know they are all in use, but the fringe players to the real fringe players?

                   Dieng

Ayling  VdB  Clarke  Bangura

          Howson   O'Brien

  Jones       Gilbert       Azaz

                     Lath

6. If you had 100 £ to use at the bookie's, would you put them on a home victory 7/2 or away victory 2/1?n't

Is it my money? If so, away victory. If not then of course i'll take the outside bet

1 hour ago, BearSmog said:

1: Guess the result and Boro scorers?
3-1 Boro. Latte Lath x2 Gilbert.

2: Where would we actually have been in the table, if we hadn't had all those damn injuries to key players?

5th

3: Are you traveling to Wales for this game?

Already here, so yes! £11 a ticket too.. bargain!

4: How much do you miss pictures and GIFs?
More than you will ever know. I can't do a matchday thread without them! 

5: Team and formation? Is it time to do a little experimenting with fringe players .. I know they are all in use, but the fringe players to the real fringe players?

Dieng

Ayling Rav Clarke Bangura

O'brien Howson

Jones Azaz Gilbert

Latte Lath

6. If you had 100 £ to use at the bookie's, would you put them on a home victory 7/2 or away victory 2/1?

Away!

Agree with all this except I'm not going to the game and I'd give Gitau a start at RB. As we ideally need a younger player in there even if we are keeping Ayling and Smith who can learn from them next year.

Given we know we need fresh blood in CM, will be interesting to see if O'Brien starts. If we weren't interested, you'd think we would stop playing him but, on the other hand, you'd think if we were interested we'd have already spoken to Forest regarding a figure and probs O'Brien himself about his wages, so I think if he does play it's because we want to see more of him now he's getting back to full speed.

I reckon Matthews gets a longer cameo from the bench, 30 mins or so.

22 minutes ago, OldManGravz said:

Agree with all this except I'm not going to the game and I'd give Gitau a start at RB. As we ideally need a younger player in there even if we are keeping Ayling and Smith who can learn from them next year.

Given we know we need fresh blood in CM, will be interesting to see if O'Brien starts. If we weren't interested, you'd think we would stop playing him but, on the other hand, you'd think if we were interested we'd have already spoken to Forest regarding a figure and probs O'Brien himself about his wages, so I think if he does play it's because we want to see more of him now he's getting back to full speed.

I reckon Matthews gets a longer cameo from the bench, 30 mins or so.

I don't think if O'brien plays or not indicates anything agreed or not, I think forest would likley wait until the window to judge that, they don't even know which league they are playing in next season and he could be useful if they come down. it sounds like a similar situation to what Scott described in his interview when talking about greenwood

I think he is happy to be sold to us, but big stumbling block will be his premier league wages, if they go down and they want to sell him still that would make a deal so much likely, most of the things I read online have him around 40k a week, forrest would likely want plenty of their transfer fee back, and they did knock back decent offers for him from sheff united, just to not strengthen a rival. They could sell him a little less this season if they wanted and not have it impact on their ffp allowance with part of the fee already wrote off now, but if they don't go down its a massive contract for us to commit to for 3/4 years. Either us or forrest would need to cover that money, otherwise he will either goto a prem team (if one is interested) or go back out on loan and keep that wage.

If hackney went tho for a good value it might be one way that makes it happen. but when you raise the ceiling of the top earner, then others get their eye on that money too - epically others you sign after the deal (who's agents see them on a similar level), so can cost you a lot more in the long run

Edited April 25, 20241 yr by Rob

1: Guess the result and Boro scorers?

Cardiff 2 - 1 Middlesbrough

(whoever is scoring for Cardiff at the moment and Latte Lath)

 

Saying that, Cardiff's recent run of results has been L W L W L W...so this game should be a loss for them. In which case I'd go Cardiff 1 - 2 Middlesbrough, with ELL getting a brace.

But they did recently beat Southampton, so are perfectly capable of doing the same to Boro. Don't ask me...I know nothing! 🤷‍♂️🤔😖

2: Where would we actually have been in the table, if we hadn't had all those damn injuries to key players?

Somewhere in the top 6

3: Are you traveling to Wales for this game?

Heck no! Got better things to do for a dead rubber of a game.

4: How much do you miss pictures and GIFs?

Insert gif here of a person holding their arms outstretched, with the caption "THIS MUCH!"

5: Team and formation? Is it time to do a little experimenting with fringe players .. I know they are all in use, but the fringe players to the real fringe players?

Last 2 games of the season...why the hell not?

Don't think there is much value in putting the U-18s in, but I'd definitely start the likes of Gilbert & Bangura in just to give them some game time...even if you have to sub them after 60 minutes or whatever. Don't think Hoppe is staying so maybe put a couple of U-21s in? Cardiff are a decent team so we need to show them some respect.

.............Finch / Nkrumah.....

......Gilbert...Azaz...Jones......

.........Traore...O'Brien............

Bangura...Clarke...VDB...Gitau

....................Dieng....................

6. If you had 100 £ to use at the bookie's, would you put them on a home victory 7/2 or away victory 2/1?

Since defeat is...um...quite likely...I'd put it on a home win.

 

I'd go

Dieng

Ayling VDB Clarke Bangura

Howson O'Brien

Jones Azaz Gilbert

Latte Lath

 

Gilbert deserves an opportunity.

I'd give some youth players a decent amount of time in the second half but I'm not particularly fussed about starting them atm.

4 hours ago, Rob said:

I don't think if O'brien plays or not indicates anything agreed or not, I think forest would likley wait until the window to judge that, they don't even know which league they are playing in next season and he could be useful if they come down. it sounds like a similar situation to what Scott described in his interview when talking about greenwood

I think he is happy to be sold to us, but big stumbling block will be his premier league wages, if they go down and they want to sell him still that would make a deal so much likely, most of the things I read online have him around 40k a week, forrest would likely want plenty of their transfer fee back, and they did knock back decent offers for him from sheff united, just to not strengthen a rival. They could sell him a little less this season if they wanted and not have it impact on their ffp allowance with part of the fee already wrote off now, but if they don't go down its a massive contract for us to commit to for 3/4 years. Either us or forrest would need to cover that money, otherwise he will either goto a prem team (if one is interested) or go back out on loan and keep that wage.

If hackney went tho for a good value it might be one way that makes it happen. but when you raise the ceiling of the top earner, then others get their eye on that money too - epically others you sign after the deal (who's agents see them on a similar level), so can cost you a lot more in the long run

I didn't mean agreed, more upon the lines of we have probably asked how much they are looking at roughly without sitting down with them properly.

I think we would maybe experiment with youth more if we didn't want to keep him, or if we had spoke to them and they were asking for something that completely ruled him out

31 minute press conference, surely got to be some interesting parts in that.

I wanna see Gilbert and Bangura starting this one 

5 hours ago, LinoJo3 said:

I wanna see Gilbert and Bangura starting this one 

me 2, bangura needs the game time with us and gilberts done enough in his subs for us to give him these last games to see if he can step up next season.