'Other Boro stuff'

[TLF10 4,496]

Sorry to go off topic but just seen the game where we beat Utd at Old Trafford 3-2 which club has uploaded on to its you tube channel.

Just reminded me of what an absolute beast of a CB he was for us. Imo he is by far the best CB this club has had in my life time. Question is not if he would make an all time boro starting 11 but who partners him in there imo.

[Humpty 3,261]

2 minutes ago, TLF10 said:

Sorry to go off topic but just seen the game where we beat Utd at Old Trafford 3-2 which club has uploaded on to its you tube channel.

Just reminded me of what an absolute beast of a CB he was for us. Imo he is by far the best CB this club has had in my life time. Question is not if he would make an all time boro starting 11 but who partners him in there imo.

Give us a clue? I don't think Woodgate played in that game...

[Brunners 7,982]

23 minutes ago, Humpty said:

Give us a clue? I don't think Woodgate played in that game...

2004 has to be Southgate or Ehiogu

[Humpty 3,261]

or Riggott 👀

[Neverbefore 10,940]

37 minutes ago, Humpty said:

I'm not so sure he was doing all that well when he left. I seem to remember plenty of supporter discord.

It's further example of his poor man management skills. An inability to manage up. Like I said, he had great conditions here. Unfortunately for him, they don't exist everywhere else. 

Great conditions? He took over a relegation threatened team. He had players with talent but weren't achieving. He spent less than 5mil total in his first 3 transfer windows, relying on bargain championship players and young premier League loans and he got us into the play off final. 

From there, yes he was backed with a lot of money and he was able to get us promoted first time of asking after receiving that backing - how many managers have we seen fail to do this?

[Humpty 3,261]

He was also out of his depth in the Premier League. Whether that was due to his coaching ability, the pressure or his lack of management skills, I'm not sure. Probably a mixture of all three.

[TLF10 4,496]

44 minutes ago, Humpty said:

Give us a clue? I don't think Woodgate played in that game...

Schwarzer

Mills Gate Riggott Franck

Mendi Doriva Zenden Downing

TLF

Job 

p.s: Southgate was a better defender than Woodgate for me. Albeit for whats its worth them two best i seen in a boro shirt. We had some very good CBs over the years. Even Riggott was a very solid defender. Bargain at £1.5m

[LinoJo3 3,191]

16 minutes ago, Humpty said:

He was also out of his depth in the Premier League. Whether that was due to his coaching ability, the pressure or his lack of management skills, I'm not sure. Probably a mixture of all three.

I’m not sure he was out of his depth necessarily, up until the January window he wasn’t doing any worse than how other promoted teams generally do, you could say he was doing quite well given our awful recruitment that summer.

My opinion was he was overly cautious as he thought the team wasn’t good enough and lost his head when we didn’t improve the front 3 in January. His problems are all psychological going by the stories I’ve heard.

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

17 minutes ago, Humpty said:

It's just a theory. Like I said he got the perfect storm with us. He was very lucky in many respects. He's not replicated his success elsewhere in a couple of attempts so its not exactly an outlandish claim.

The things he got lucky with were not to do with the spine of the team though, which is something you mentioned above. He made those players individually and collectively the best they have ever been and the only one of those who even has a chance of threatening that reputation is Gibson.

He was in charge whilst a 4th choice, former League One keeper became one of the best in the league. He took a decent, £250k left-back and made him into one of the best in the league. He took the raw talent from Ayala and Gibson and turned them into the best centre-back partnership in the league. He completely changed Clayton's career trajectory of being an alright attacking midfielder into being one of the best holding midfielders in the league, again as part of one of the best midfield duos in the league. He turned Nsue's career a bit on its head too, from a bog standard attacking midfielder, he became a solid if unspectacular full-back. The only one of those players who would have walked into most teams in the Championship as they were when Karanka joined was Leadbitter.

You said maybe he's not that good a coach and needs conditions put on a plate for him with him being 'handed a spine by Mowbray' and that's just not true. He might have been given a squad with 5 of those players but by no means were they the players we had by the time we were promoted. He was given money and time by Gibson but talking about those 7 players (arguably the most important in terms of our push for promotion over those 2.5 years), he had £1.8m for Clayton vs. £600k Mogga was getting for Ayala and Friend, everyone else on either side of him being hired were free transfers so not really that significant.

[Humpty 3,261]

19 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

The things he got lucky with were not to do with the spine of the team though, which is something you mentioned above. He made those players individually and collectively the best they have ever been and the only one of those who even has a chance of threatening that reputation is Gibson.

He was in charge whilst a 4th choice, former League One keeper became one of the best in the league. He took a decent, £250k left-back and made him into one of the best in the league. He took the raw talent from Ayala and Gibson and turned them into the best centre-back partnership in the league. He completely changed Clayton's career trajectory of being an alright attacking midfielder into being one of the best holding midfielders in the league, again as part of one of the best midfield duos in the league. He turned Nsue's career a bit on its head too, from a bog standard attacking midfielder, he became a solid if unspectacular full-back. The only one of those players who would have walked into most teams in the Championship as they were when Karanka joined was Leadbitter.

You said maybe he's not that good a coach and needs conditions put on a plate for him with him being 'handed a spine by Mowbray' and that's just not true. He might have been given a squad with 5 of those players but by no means were they the players we had by the time we were promoted. He was given money and time by Gibson but talking about those 7 players (arguably the most important in terms of our push for promotion over those 2.5 years), he had £1.8m for Clayton vs. £600k Mogga was getting for Ayala and Friend, everyone else on either side of him being hired were free transfers so not really that significant.

Of course he benfitted from those players being in place. Silly to suggest otherwise.

[DanFromDownSouth 1,706]

I think Aitor is a decent coach, purely from a point of view of developing/improving the players he had at his disposal with us. Whether that is down to his coaching abilities, or creating a stable playing style/formation and then his attention to detail to refine that, it's probably a bit of them all.

But he does seem to struggle when the pressure is ramped up (in general the mental side of management) and I think as @Humpty said he has a big problem in managing upwards.

But at our level we will always be hiring managers/players that have faults. If they didn't they wouldn't be playing/managing at this level.

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

9 hours ago, Humpty said:

Of course he benfitted from those players being in place. Silly to suggest otherwise.

How substantial is it that a manager walks into a club with players who have neither individually nor collectively performed as promotion contenders and turns them into such? So he benefitted from not having to hire a completely new squad and that means we can gloss over the accomplishments in making those players better? Next you'll be telling me that Bielsa was fortunate to walk into a club with Liam Cooper, Kalvin Phillips and Luke Ayling.

[SmogDane 4,055]

7 hours ago, wilsoncgp said:

How substantial is it that a manager walks into a club with players who have neither individually nor collectively performed as promotion contenders and turns them into such? So he benefitted from not having to hire a completely new squad and that means we can gloss over the accomplishments in making those players better? Next you'll be telling me that Bielsa was fortunate to walk into a club with Liam Cooper, Kalvin Phillips and Luke Ayling.

Like walking into a pub with a little Sandra in the sun and a little Mary all night long!

[AnglianRed 6,320]

20 hours ago, Humpty said:

He was also out of his depth in the Premier League. Whether that was due to his coaching ability, the pressure or his lack of management skills, I'm not sure. Probably a mixture of all three.

I just read an interesting article on the BBC about Derby's 2007-08 campaign when they set the record for the lowest points tally in the PL. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55948890

Both Paul Jewell and a couple of ex-players talked about how they were out of their depth...and they knew it. Also talked about how they struggled to maintain team morale and cohesion when they were getting drubbed on a regular basis.

Maybe something similar happened with Karanka and our squad? The pressure of trying to compete in the PL, finding the tactics and players that were successful in the Championship not working and struggling to find another way.

 

[Humpty 3,261]

10 hours ago, wilsoncgp said:

How substantial is it that a manager walks into a club with players who have neither individually nor collectively performed as promotion contenders and turns them into such? So he benefitted from not having to hire a completely new squad and that means we can gloss over the accomplishments in making those players better? Next you'll be telling me that Bielsa was fortunate to walk into a club with Liam Cooper, Kalvin Phillips and Luke Ayling.

England international Kalvin Phillips?