Boro V Millwall 1-2

[Guest Changing Times]

Its not like they were a good team either which is the annoying thing. They had a huge striker with no footballing ability, he was about as much of a footballer as i am, he was just someone they could hoof the ball to, without looking i guess they are the only goals he scored all season.

---

Welcome to the forum ttt

 

The thing is we aren't a good team ourselves, not yet anyway. I think people have gotten a touch carried away because we'd won four in a row and against some decent sides. It had maybe been forgotten that we'd only won one in twelve before that. Of our wins, against Birmingham we were fairly poor and Burnley we were totally second best, we just defended like lions.

 

We know we're in a work in progress, we know that the summer is likely to bring some significant changes and hopefully by changes we actually mean improvements. That doesn't change how disappointing a performance it was today nor does it remove the question marks about some of the decisions Karanka made but it does put it into a little bit of context at least.

[ham_chop 36]

Truly woeful performance. Not for a long time have i left the riverside feeling so depresed

[andrewparkes 12]

Awful and shambolic, especially in the first half. Thought the line up and formation was a bit odd and seemed to take us an age to get going, even then we were slow and lethargic with most passes going sideways at best. Second half was a slight improvement but not much, you would have though with yesterdays results, we would have been well up for it as could have gave us the bit of hope especially with reading to play next, but thats typical of the boro really.

 

Milwall offered very little, we offered even less. Their big striker was nothing more than a carthorse. Dimi probably MoM as he made a few saves that kept the score from being a bigger embarrassment. We simply never turned up

[p_mards 1,365]

It was clear within 2 minutes that the 3-5-2 formation standing off left us sitting ducks for Millwall to pile pressure on which everyone could see except Karanka, he should have been far more decisive as there was no other real choice but to change things. He should have acted much quicker and it took us to concede the first for him to instantly decide to switch back to the normal 4-2-3-1. But even when we switched to that though we lacked sharpness, dedication and basically the basics which you need to win scrappy matches in the Championship. It's clear that the lack of proper options down the left flank massively effected us(Ledesma at LB, Tomlin LW) which is usually the flank where the majority of our chances are created by Friend and Carayol building up play. Ledesma at LB, he is not a LB but done a very good job and it was good to see he realised at LB that he cant get away with flopping himself to the ground at every given opportunity. Chalobah looked petrified and totally unsettled with Maierhofer's height(?) to the point where at times he looked like he had never played CB in his life(I know he has). We could easily have conceded 4 or 5 and it wouldn't have been unfair. The only players of ours that had good games were Dimi, Ledesma, Adomah and Butterfield. Our two holding midfielders(after switching after we went 1-0 down) Leadbitter and Whitehead were shockingly bad and had no control of the game. I will post some ratings in the morning if I remember.

 

I'm not one to be bitter and give the opposition no credit when they deserve some but Millwall were less than average and only won after our abysmal starting tactics, playing players out of position and the lack of cohesion which ensued. It's easy to accept a defeat when we were so poor as we were today so I wont dwell on it too much as that performance today wasn't a true reflection of what we are about as a team under Karanka. Roll on Tuesday to start building for next season.

 

Turning a negative into a positive Karanka will not get a better opportunity to drop either of Whitehead or Leadbitter(plus Chalobah even though he played CB) after their horrible performances and put Bryn Morris into the team against Reading on Tuesday night. Even watching him warm up before(and half time) the game it was evident how quick his feet and speed of though where in he drills the 6 outfield subs where doing passing drills in tight areas, his finishing was good too in one-on-one drills. For a 17 year old lad(turning 18 in about a week) he looked a great player, albeit it wasn't in a match situation.

[Brunners 7,982]

Id do player ratings but most were awful today. Butterfield and Tomlin played some good stuff for the first hour or so but then Butterfield came off, Williams came on and Tomlin vanished. Adomah put in an appearance for the last 20.

 

Very disappointed that once again we can't seem to deal with a player just cause he's big. No one wanted to mark maierhofer and no one did. Free header for his second was criminal. Very disappointed with the defence. Ledesma and Adomah can escape a bit of criticism as they were played out of position and looked horribly uncomfortable. The 3 centre backs were missing headers and tackles galore. We were static and thoroughly deserved to lose today. We looked half decent going forwards in the first half but that went as soon as Butterfield went off. We had no one who wanted the ball, no one making runs and the ball inevitably got lumped up to graham who put himself about a lot and looked decent for the first 10, but to be fair he was never going to have any kind of chance alone against millwall's back line. Disappointed to see us hurl away 3 points by just not turning up. I have to say that I'm a lot more comfortable with omeruo or woodgate partnering up with ayala or Gibson as they can actually win a header.

 

Credit to millwall they put in the effort we didn't and got their reward. They were first to every loose ball and header and really should have had a few more were it not for the offside flag and some good saves by Dimi

 

One positive of the day was that ledesma's free kick was very nice!

 

Interesting. I wonder if that's due to Butterfields chemistry building with Tomlin, when Butterfield went off, Tomlin has less to work with and so disappears.

 

Can anyone confirm if that seemed to be the case? If it is, possibly bodes well for next year when hopefully both are consistent starters?

 

The 2 of them work well together. The bulk of the decent football in the first half involved them combining and so did our goal against burnley.

 

That pleases me.

[Downsouth 6,326]

All in all a pity the hope died today but no one should be surprised.

 

Next season must do.........beat Millwall at home

[ASDFC101 9]

All in all a pity the hope died today but no one should be surprised.

 

Next season must do.........beat Millwall at home

 

If they're still in the Championship.:)

[Barticus 29]

My take on yesterday,I'm not sure if Karanka's hand was forced through injuries or he just got it plain wrong, playing 3 at the back nullified our biggest threats ie Adomah/Ldesma by playing them as wingbacks, both in the first half didn't seem to want to get forward and we just seem to surrender the middle of midfield, 2nd half both Adomah & Ledesma got more forward and we looked more potent, things were looking more promising but not one substitution made us any better, in fact I think they made us worse, positives Tomlin/Butterfield seem to coming to a good partnership, Dimi is worth signing, Negatives Curtis Main is not Championship quality, Woodgate looked passed his best Summary, we played well in patches but the formation was just plain wrong by the time we changed it was too late, still looking forward to next season

[Armster 29]

All if's and butts but after todays results, IF we had turned up against a poor millwall team, we would today be 5 points adrift of the top 6 with a game in hand...and a hell of a chance to creap in there.