A year since Mogga left

[EstonSmog 129]

I was gutted to see him go, but knew it had to happen. In truth he probably should have gone in the summer. He has played a big part in where we are with this squad, and I hope that is something fans will remember.

 

In my opinion he was the right man at the right time. Our club felt like I was slipping away without a trace. Along came Mogga. Whether it was nostalgic, or people believed but he brought everyone together again. There seemed to be very few against his appointment at first and even those were willing him to do well. It was frustrating being so close to the playoffs a couple of times but on the budget he worked with was quite impressive.

 

All that said the last 12 months were a disaster, but he trimmed the wage bill whilst signing players who are still the backbone of our squad for relatively low fees. He gave Gibson the chance to gamble and with AK and that's something I will always be grateful to Mogga for.

[London_born_Boro_bred 29]

Mowbray is a club legend and will be remembered as such, the 'one Tony Mowbray' chant the game after he was sacked is testament to that.

 

As for his time as manager here it should be remembered for rebuilding restructuring and again resurrection because our whole club had been demolished by wgs.

 

I was gutted to see him go but his time had come you could see it in his face he just had no idea how to turn it around and it was hurting him. I would love him back at some point in some capacity but I dont think it will be as manager again.

 

Thanks again Mogga without you we wouldn't be where we are now.

[Humpty 3,261]

I've not heard anything regarding his supposed poor man management other than from posters on this board, so I'm reluctant to believe it. Looking back I think he was too focussed on stifling other teams than building on our own strengths.

 

One thing needs straightening out, without Mowbray none of the "success" we're enjoying now would be possible. As I said back at the time and as I'm saying now, he deserves more respect for his efforts in securing our clubs future and helping establish a platform from which we could build.

[jamesp 125]

Meh, dont buy all this he built the foundations for Karankas teams. Yes mogga did inherit a very poor squad but its not like he didnt have money either. He spent a decent amount on fees and wages.

 

The players he signed were poor on the whole, (filling the squad with players such as Richardson, Parnaby, Dyer plus a load of loans doesnt really set up a good long term plan). He did take over a bad squad but he was just as bad as strachen towards the end. lets be honest he got way more time from the fans because of who he was. I have no doubt he would have relegated us

 

Karanka has had to move on alot of Mowbrays failures the same way he moved on strachens failures. Karanka has slightly more money but not fortunes. You have to be wise with your money in this league!!

 

 

He did leave the club in a better state when he left but some of the praise for him is way over the top because of who he is.

[Neverbefore 10,940]

The three players you mentioned were on next to no wages and were free... Mogga really wasn't given cash to spend, apart from Juke and Adomah did he spend more than a mil any other time? And he had to deal with McDonald, Hoyte, McManus etc on ridiculous wages.

 

Look at the players he signed that are still important players - Leadbitter, Adomah and Friend are arguably our three most consistent players and they're all Mogga signings for a relatively small outlay.

 

Karanka has had FAR more freedom to bring players in because of the sheer amount of players out of contract, sold etc over the last 12 months and the extra cash made available to him.

[Birdie 83]

Humpty and Neverbefore - Spot on!

[jamesp 125]

The three players you mentioned were on next to no wages and were free... Mogga really wasn't given cash to spend, apart from Juke and Adomah did he spend more than a mil any other time? And he had to deal with McDonald, Hoyte, McManus etc on ridiculous wages.

 

Look at the players he signed that are still important players - Leadbitter, Adomah and Friend are arguably our three most consistent players and they're all Mogga signings for a relatively small outlay.

 

Karanka has had FAR more freedom to bring players in because of the sheer amount of players out of contract, sold etc over the last 12 months and the extra cash made available to him.

 

Yeah I do have to credit him for them signings especially friend, perhaps I am being a bit harsh on him. However when Karanka took over we were in free-fall. There were certainly very little foundations to build on. Remember that alot of the mowbray players who have now come good were being slated under Mowbray. He might have signed them but he certainly wasnt getting the best out of them.

 

He was working under restrictions but he still had the cash to buy Juke and Kamara for around 2.5 million combined. Thats probably less than Burnley spent getting promoted! Also his use of the loan market was dreadful compared to Karanka, dread to think of the wages we wasted on JM, Miller, Ameobi etc. He still had more freedom than most managers in this league

 

Mowbray did help the club out of a difficult spell post Strachen but doesnt deserve this much credit for what were doing now IMO

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Again I have nothing against Mowbray, didnt grow up in his era so I dont see him as a Boro legend personally. can understand why some will find it hard to criticise him though. Its just annoying that he seemed beyond criticism for the majority of his time here whereas if we loose on saturday people will be criticising Karanka on the back of 2 defeats

[p_mards 1,365]

I don't know how you can say when Karanka took over there was very little foundations to be built on as we had pretty much half a team of very promising/already good Championship players with the likes of Friend, Gibson, Leadbitter, Adomah and Carayol. Add to that the likes of Steele, R.Williams, Whitehead, Emnes, Juke etc that many other Championship and PL clubs would happily have. Also Mowbray specifically signed loads of players on short term deals as they were cheap and would give us flexibility for the future, which has turned out to massively help Karanka have such a quick transformation of the squad.

 

Strachan ACTUALLY left us in free-fall, with a bloated wage bill in excess of £30 million, full of overpaid and underperforming players on long-term deals, that no other club would have the sense to give them, which restricted us for many years. Joe Bennett was being sold to Bristol City for £150,000 before Mowbray came in and stopped the transfer. And we later sold him on for over £3,250,000(if I remember correctly). There was next to no foundations to build on long-term when Mowbray took over, as the actual few good players we had, had to be sold as the cost cutting has to begin with Wheater, O'Neil etc swiftly on their way out.

 

If we appointed another manager; like say Paul Ince, Paul Jewell who were touted in the press at the time if I believe correctly?, they could easily have mismanaged the cost cutting and low cost signings, as well as failing to turn around performances on the field, which Mowbray did very well in his first season, with an unbalanced squad, so we could easily have been relegated to league 1. For that Mowbray deserves credit for doing a good job at clearing up the initial mess, on and off the field.

 

I agree that towards the end of his reign he was starting to make his own mess, but it was nothing long-term compared to the state we were in, on and off the field when he took over. Mainly he was tactically naïve and his man management seemed to be a major issue as time progressed. If we do go up(big IF), Mowbray will deserve some credit for stopping the initial rot and leaving Karanka with a good foundation to build a (potentially!) promotion winning side from. Gibson was right to sack him when he did, as it was apparent that he couldn't turn the pretty good squad that he had into similar results on the pitch.

[Boro 86 517]

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Again I have nothing against Mowbray, didnt grow up in his era so I dont see him as a Boro legend personally. can understand why some will find it hard to criticise him though. Its just annoying that he seemed beyond criticism for the majority of his time here whereas if we loose on saturday people will be criticising Karanka on the back of 2 defeats

 

James - I think this sums up a lot of what this type of discussion is about as there are always going to be some who see anything other than promotion as failure. Not blaming you here by the way just stating a point.

 

Think we can probably all agree that Mowbray did a brilliant job steadying the ship but perhaps the closeness in his heart to Boro may have taken away his ability in that final stretch to push on. As an ardent Mogga supporter I now see it was right to let him go when we did , but still feel much of the crticism of him was unjustified. I respect the views those that feel differently but just don't agree with them.

 

Where Karanka is "lucky" is that he was left a decent base to build on and to suggest anything other than that is churlish , but he undoubtedly has very good contacts in the game in the likes of Mourinho and Pochettino. That said he has built on that luck and proven so far to be a very good manager and I am very happy with him

 

Where I take issue with anyone though is that if we lose on saturday Karanaka doesn't suddenly become a bad manager and we should judge him solely on where we finish this season - Anything top 6 is success for me and top 2 would be a bonus

[Humpty 3,261]

I wasn't around when Mowbray was in his pomp either I don't know what difference that makes? I can still recognise the importance of the role he played. He is still a club legend to me the same way Hardwick and Mannion are.

 

I think we should also recognise that Karanka has achieved nothing, much in the same way Mowbray achieved impressive starts to the first 6 months of the season yet ended with nothing to show. It works both ways.

[richmfc 41]

I've not heard anything regarding his supposed poor man management other than from posters on this board, so I'm reluctant to believe it. Looking back I think he was too focussed on stifling other teams than building on our own strengths.

 

One thing needs straightening out, without Mowbray none of the "success" we're enjoying now would be possible. As I said back at the time and as I'm saying now, he deserves more respect for his efforts in securing our clubs future and helping establish a platform from which we could build.

 

The trouble was i think sometimes when you arent as good man for man as the opposition you do tend to set up to stop them. If we played barca we wouldnt go to impose our game as it just wouldnt work

[MMC 1,000]

I've not heard anything regarding his supposed poor man management other than from posters on this board, so I'm reluctant to believe it. Looking back I think he was too focussed on stifling other teams than building on our own strengths.

 

One thing needs straightening out, without Mowbray none of the "success" we're enjoying now would be possible. As I said back at the time and as I'm saying now, he deserves more respect for his efforts in securing our clubs future and helping establish a platform from which we could build.

 

The trouble was i think sometimes when you arent as good man for man as the opposition you do tend to set up to stop them. If we played barca we wouldnt go to impose our game as it just wouldnt work

 

Mowbray was very stubborn though and set us up to stifle EVERY opponent, even those we were probably better than.

 

I wanted him to succeed desperately and think he really did a job considering what he inherited, but ultimately he wasn't the man to take us back up and left us with an abysmal record over the calendar year (when he left I think we had the worst record in English football by that point in the year).

 

He definitely doesn't deserve the abuse he gets from some of our fans, and I think that he cannot be compared to Karanka as they took over very different sides. I think both have their merits and Karanka is doing a job Mowbray couldn't do, but equally with Karanka's inexperience as a manager he could have never turned us around with no cash and no links to other clubs like Mowbray did.

 

It may be a bit soon to be saying this about Karanka, but certainly mowbray was the right man at the right time, just a shame about the way he left :(

[jamesp 125]

I wasn't around when Mowbray was in his pomp either I don't know what difference that makes? I can still recognise the importance of the role he played. He is still a club legend to me the same way Hardwick and Mannion are.

 

I think we should also recognise that Karanka has achieved nothing, much in the same way Mowbray achieved impressive starts to the first 6 months of the season yet ended with nothing to show. It works both ways.

 

Of course them three are massively important in the history of the club but I dont see them the same way as the likes of Juninho because I wasnt around at that time.

What I ment was that Mowbray was escaping criticism because he is a hero to many of our fans whereas because Karankas not been previously linked with the club the same people are first to jump on his back when mistakes are made

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I don't know how you can say when Karanka took over there was very little foundations to be built on as we had pretty much half a team of very promising/already good Championship players with the likes of Friend, Gibson, Leadbitter, Adomah and Carayol. Add to that the likes of Steele, R.Williams, Whitehead, Emnes, Juke etc that many other Championship and PL clubs would happily have. Also Mowbray specifically signed loads of players on short term deals as they were cheap and would give us flexibility for the future, which has turned out to massively help Karanka have such a quick transformation of the squad.

 

Strachan ACTUALLY left us in free-fall, with a bloated wage bill in excess of £30 million, full of overpaid and underperforming players on long-term deals, that no other club would have the sense to give them, which restricted us for many years. Joe Bennett was being sold to Bristol City for £150,000 before Mowbray came in and stopped the transfer. And we later sold him on for over £3,250,000(if I remember correctly). There was next to no foundations to build on long-term when Mowbray took over, as the actual few good players we had, had to be sold as the cost cutting has to begin with Wheater, O'Neil etc swiftly on their way out.

 

If we appointed another manager; like say Paul Ince, Paul Jewell who were touted in the press at the time if I believe correctly?, they could easily have mismanaged the cost cutting and low cost signings, as well as failing to turn around performances on the field, which Mowbray did very well in his first season, with an unbalanced squad, so we could easily have been relegated to league 1. For that Mowbray deserves credit for doing a good job at clearing up the initial mess, on and off the field.

 

I agree that towards the end of his reign he was starting to make his own mess, but it was nothing long-term compared to the state we were in, on and off the field when he took over. Mainly he was tactically naïve and his man management seemed to be a major issue as time progressed. If we do go up(big IF), Mowbray will deserve some credit for stopping the initial rot and leaving Karanka with a good foundation to build a (potentially!) promotion winning side from. Gibson was right to sack him when he did, as it was apparent that he couldn't turn the pretty good squad that he had into similar results on the pitch.

 

When he took over we were in an awful position and he saved us from relegation and started to rebuild the club which did help the club out of a very bad position. He was starting to go back to square one when he left though.

Karanka took over a group of players which clearly lacked discipline, couldnt defend and were heading for relegation. Karanka transformed this awful team into a winning team. Why does Mowbray get credit for this?????

 

 

Of course Mowbray did good things during his time in management and left us in a better position after the mess strachen caused but Karanka walked into a team that had huge problems and we certainly didnt have the foundations to make a push for promotion when he took over.

[p_mards 1,365]

I wasn't around when Mowbray was in his pomp either I don't know what difference that makes? I can still recognise the importance of the role he played. He is still a club legend to me the same way Hardwick and Mannion are.

 

I think we should also recognise that Karanka has achieved nothing, much in the same way Mowbray achieved impressive starts to the first 6 months of the season yet ended with nothing to show. It works both ways.

 

Of course them three are massively important in the history of the club but I dont see them the same way as the likes of Juninho because I wasnt around at that time.

What I ment was that Mowbray was escaping criticism because he is a hero to many of our fans whereas because Karankas not been previously linked with the club the same people are first to jump on his back when mistakes are made

---

I don't know how you can say when Karanka took over there was very little foundations to be built on as we had pretty much half a team of very promising/already good Championship players with the likes of Friend, Gibson, Leadbitter, Adomah and Carayol. Add to that the likes of Steele, R.Williams, Whitehead, Emnes, Juke etc that many other Championship and PL clubs would happily have. Also Mowbray specifically signed loads of players on short term deals as they were cheap and would give us flexibility for the future, which has turned out to massively help Karanka have such a quick transformation of the squad.

 

Strachan ACTUALLY left us in free-fall, with a bloated wage bill in excess of £30 million, full of overpaid and underperforming players on long-term deals, that no other club would have the sense to give them, which restricted us for many years. Joe Bennett was being sold to Bristol City for £150,000 before Mowbray came in and stopped the transfer. And we later sold him on for over £3,250,000(if I remember correctly). There was next to no foundations to build on long-term when Mowbray took over, as the actual few good players we had, had to be sold as the cost cutting has to begin with Wheater, O'Neil etc swiftly on their way out.

 

If we appointed another manager; like say Paul Ince, Paul Jewell who were touted in the press at the time if I believe correctly?, they could easily have mismanaged the cost cutting and low cost signings, as well as failing to turn around performances on the field, which Mowbray did very well in his first season, with an unbalanced squad, so we could easily have been relegated to league 1. For that Mowbray deserves credit for doing a good job at clearing up the initial mess, on and off the field.

 

I agree that towards the end of his reign he was starting to make his own mess, but it was nothing long-term compared to the state we were in, on and off the field when he took over. Mainly he was tactically naïve and his man management seemed to be a major issue as time progressed. If we do go up(big IF), Mowbray will deserve some credit for stopping the initial rot and leaving Karanka with a good foundation to build a (potentially!) promotion winning side from. Gibson was right to sack him when he did, as it was apparent that he couldn't turn the pretty good squad that he had into similar results on the pitch.

 

When he took over we were in an awful position and he saved us from relegation and started to rebuild the club which did help the club out of a very bad position. He was starting to go back to square one when he left though.

Karanka took over a group of players which clearly lacked discipline, couldnt defend and were heading for relegation. Karanka transformed this awful team into a winning team. Why does Mowbray get credit for this?????

 

 

Of course Mowbray did good things during his time in management and left us in a better position after the mess strachen caused but Karanka walked into a team that had huge problems and we certainly didnt have the foundations to make a push for promotion when he took over.

 

By foundations to a good squad, I mean that there were some very good quality players, albeit in an underperforming(couldn't defend in particular) and undisciplined team, that gave Karanka good foundations to build a squad from.

[jamesp 125]

Depends which way you look at it really, he has got influences on this current squad as he signed Friend, Leadbitter and Adomah who are core players but none of these were performing to the level they currently are when Mowbray signed them