Boro v Forest (A) 2-1

[typicalbrough 17]

Referee blowing the whistle and dishing yellow cards out for absolutly everything and then when Nsue clearly gets obstructed when he beats his man we get NOTHING!

 

Goes back to the ye old debate about what constitutes a yellow card. The thing that hacks me off is that at the moment almost every minor foul is deemed a yellow, like that baldy*** today. Some were definite, gibson, clayton, I think, the rest questionable.

The games not like it was when I were a lad!

 

By the way.. Were we lucky not to have Gibson sent off? I mean he had a yellow card and the penalty was a deliberate handball for sure. Last time I checked that's a yellow card.

 

Handball is not a yellow card offence. It's a sending off offence if you deliberately handle the ball to stop a goalscoring situation.

[Brunners 7,982]

Yeah but with the way that ref was handing out yellows to our players like candy I'd still consider Gibson lucky, even if a yellow would have been wrong.

[Naughty Boy 18]

Clayton's attempt at a rugby tackle was pretty funny.

 

Edit.. More like a NFL block than a rugby tackle.

[typicalbrough 17]

Other than maybe Ayala's I'm not sure there was anything wrong with the yellow cards he gave us (even Ayala's I suspect was persistent foul play). Although I am struggling to remember them as there were a lot.

[Brunners 7,982]

Clayton and gibsons yellows were both deserved. Nugent I'm not sure about replays showed he didn't actually make much contact. I don't think leadbitter made much contact on his either.

[Guest Changing Times]

Well that was a good win for us but in the end we probably didn't deserve it.

 

Defensively we don't look right at all, we didn't during the week either and I've said this after a few games already this season. I'm not sure quite what the problem is, whether it's down to individuals being well below their best, more of a collective thing or a bit of both. I thought Gibson was having a poor game even before the handball, which was about as dumb as it gets. Friend looks well short of his best defensively as well. I know he gets forward and does all of that but he's a defender and we need that side of his game to be a lot sharper. On the other side, as much as Nsue gives us going forward, I still don't rate him as a defender. They were getting in quite a lot down that channel and their were times when he didn't seem to either be in the right position or know quite what he was supposed to do.

 

In attack we kind of went between some very nice passing and movement, which teams find it hard to live with and then ridiculous sloppy play with basic errors - people not being able to pass the ball accurately over 15/20 yards or just picking the wrong option. I really thought that there were more goals in that game for us if we'd got things right but we couldn't quite do that and in the second half we basically seemed to stop playing at all, it's something that we continue to do and I can't for the life of me understand it. I thought the substitutions today were poor - Adomah I would have left on and moved him to the right to give us a counter attacking outlet, Kike offered nothing at all to us given how the game was going and it just didn't seem like the right kind of game for Fabbrini although I understand why Karanka brought him on.

 

For a game that I was concerned about, it seems strange having won to be unsatisfied with it but I just feel we should be capable of more than that. Actually, we know we're capable of more than that but right now it feels a lot like last season where we're just getting the job done but not really showing our quality.

 

There were some definite positives from the game aside from the obvious three points. Dimi was outstanding, even before the penalty save he was having a very good game. Ayala continues to look like such a strong presence for us at the back and even chipped in with a goal. Clayton I thought had a very good game and for me he is easily our best central midfielder out of the current two at the moment. Downing in the first half showed some of his class but disappeared unfortunately in the second half, which is a little disappointing. Nugent was very good, I'm not sure I'd have signed him but he has looked the part for us in fairness to him and posed a constant threat to them as well as getting his goal. Nsue as an attacking option does give us something more than Kalas but isn't the defender that Kalas is in my opinion. Goals - I think we're the top or joint top scorers in the league so far, which is a bit of a turn around from last season and another two away from home today is very welcome.

 

Negatives I guess would be the sloppy play in general and the defensive issues - playing out of defence at times when we really didn't need to and getting ourselves into trouble Friend wasn't great, Leadbitter wasn't great and neither was Gibson. Stuani didn't contribute a great deal and didn't really get into Forest's penalty area as much I'd like - if it's me I'd want him in the oppositions penalty area as often as possible because he just looks like he will score goals if you can give him the chances. Adomah on the left didn't quite work but Karanka is clearly trying to figure out the best way of getting as many of our 'weapons' in the side so you can't fault him for trying it.

 

All in all, a good result but not a great performance. I said it quite a lot last season but I'd really like to see our performances lifted to a higher level because I feel we have the players capable of doing that and if we can then we will be promoted, it's as simple as that for me. This was a banana skin though and we got through it and seventeen points from eight games is a really good start to a season. Goal difference keeps nudging up as well :)

[unclesmog 53]

Perfectly summed up CT, agree with every word.

[Brunners 7,982]

I know he could have brought someone else on and moved stuani up top but Kike coming on when he did was entirely influenced by the head injury suffered by nugent. Doubt he would have been on otherwise.

 

Hopefully David is OK because concussions can take a while to show symptoms!

[Naughty Boy 18]

Maybe we don't quite look as sold defensively because we have tweaked it a bit and are a bit more attack minded?.

[Guest Rise Sir Axl Rose]

Maybe we don't quite look as sold defensively because we have tweaked it a bit and are a bit more attack minded?.

 

Yeah I agree with that.

 

Just back from the game. I thought we played well first half but pretty average second. Forest deserved a point in truth. I was actually fairly impressed with them tbh.

 

Dimi 9 (credit where it's due, still don't rate him generally but he had a stand out game!)

Nsue 7

Friend 6

Gibson 6

Ayala 9

Ledbitter 7

Clayton 7

Stuani 6

Downing 7

Albert 7

Nugent 8

[Guest Changing Times]

Maybe we don't quite look as sold defensively because we have tweaked it a bit and are a bit more attack minded?.

 

I had thought about that but it's not like we're flooding forward in lots of numbers all the time.  We're still basically playing the same way as we did last season, we just have more quality in the attacking positions now.  We have chopped and changed the back four a bit so far and I wondered if that could have something to do with it but some individuals clearly aren't quite up to their usual standards for some reason.  We've still only conceded five goals like so it's not as if we're leaking like a sieve! I think it's just that we're used to seeing solidity and it's not quite there.

[Jimmy 140]

Ayala, Dimi, Nuge and Clayton all outstanding today. Ayala is outstanding every match, best defender in the championship by a mile.

 

Agree with most, wasn't a great performance, but what a win and break our Forest hoodoo! That's forest and hillsborough where we've won, all we need now is to win at Ipswich and we will have broken all our hoodoos!!

 

The fact we are winning these tough games where we usually struggle is really giving me great optimism that this is the year that we go up!!!

[Uwe 3,545]

Maybe we don't quite look as sold defensively because we have tweaked it a bit and are a bit more attack minded?.

 

I had thought about that but it's not like we're flooding forward in lots of numbers all the time.  We're still basically playing the same way as we did last season, we just have more quality in the attacking positions now.  We have chopped and changed the back four a bit so far and I wondered if that could have something to do with it but some individuals clearly aren't quite up to their usual standards for some reason.  We've still only conceded five goals like so it's not as if we're leaking like a sieve! I think it's just that we're used to seeing solidity and it's not quite there.

 

I agree about the defensive part  Kalas in and out, Gibbo in and out. And some of our old faithful (Friend) being a bit below par may have something to do with it. 

But going forward we are much better. The one thing I have been pleased that has changed is the red (or yellow) shirts are in the box on attacks now 100% improvement on last year and will get better as time goes on

[Brunners 7,982]

Yeah, changing around the back four won't help but people are right, Friend has been a bit off the boil lately - defensively at least.

 

Nsue is hit and miss, sometimes his positioning is perfect and sometimes it's incredibly wrong. Bit more consistency from him in that and I think we've got a winner because I think we need his forward thinking-ness.

 

Not sure what happened in the second half but we went from playing some really nice stuff in the first half to not even being able to string 10 yard passes without them going wayward.

[typicalbrough 17]

Maybe we don't quite look as sold defensively because we have tweaked it a bit and are a bit more attack minded?.

 

I had thought about that but it's not like we're flooding forward in lots of numbers all the time.  We're still basically playing the same way as we did last season, we just have more quality in the attacking positions now.  We have chopped and changed the back four a bit so far and I wondered if that could have something to do with it but some individuals clearly aren't quite up to their usual standards for some reason.  We've still only conceded five goals like so it's not as if we're leaking like a sieve! I think it's just that we're used to seeing solidity and it's not quite there.

 

One of the issues is Nsue's positional play. He often leaves himself in a no man's land between clays and Leadbitter but not aligned with the rest of the defence.

 

I was watching today and Ayala is having to come across to cover nearly every time which is stretching the distance between him and Gibbo. We are then leaving a lot of space between each other and meaning that each player has extra ground to make up when covering.

 

It's problematic because you really need Nsue in the team if you are playing Downing or Stuani on the right.we would have no width otherwise. Nsue would really be better suited to a wingback role.

 

I'm sure he will come good eventually at both aspects of the role and when this back four settle with each other we will hopefully become tighter. This will hopefully have a knockon effect across the team. I though Clayton lost his legs in about the 70th minute and could have done with being replaced as from here his touch and passing went. Prior to this oi thought he was epic today.

 

Kike sub was a waste we saw over and over again that he can't chase people down and so cb's have an east time and as a result pressure continues to build on us at the back. I like Kike but that's not his game.

 

It's nice to be disappointed with a win. Hopefully we can get the little things to gel and we could have a really great season.