Boro v Preston North End 1-0

[Downsouth 6,327]

Know what you mean CF, anyways this is moving to the m/d threads but still open for comments of course

[BoroDave4 1,025]

Thank *** for that, those walls of text were doing my head in :D

 

Be nice, I've been here a long time and this is my first offense I promise! :D

[Guest Changing Times]

Karanka gets a lot of criticism for poor performances and him not being able to change the flow of the game but it's worth noting that with his tactics, even when we're playing badly and can't get hold of the ball, we're generally organised and resilient enough to not concede. We don't have to play well to win games. Maybe if he tries to make a positive change in order to try to wrestle back possession it could leave us more open and vulnerable to conceding. At home this season we've had many poor performances/halves but our home record speaks for itself - 20 games; 15 wins, 3 draw and 2 defeats. Which is best in the league. We've only conceded 6 goals in them games, which is staggering really, so clearly he's doing something right despite the poor performances and inability to change the flow of a game. I agree that we're capable of a lot better performances, but surely people can see that when we're so good at holding onto leads it would be naive to try something different.

 

There's certainly some sense there mate but we weren't playing badly before half time.  We were actually playing well.  Then after half time we were basically having to try and hold on.  I think we've become so accustomed to watching Boro sides sit on leads that people aren't questioning why it's happening sometimes.  I'm not even sure it is down to Karanka because I can't believe he told us to simply defend the lead like that at half time.

[p_mards 1,365]

We only had a spell for 20 minutes where we clicked as the players seemed to realise where each other were and passed the ball to good effect but other than that we were very poor in possession. The biggest problem on Saturday was that the link up play down the both wings was shocking. It's usually where we initially build up attacks with our full backs pushing on and the nearest holding midfielder linking up play but keeping behind the ball. The movement from the forward 3 was different to the previous few games as Stuani was coming central for crosses, like earlier in the season, and Ramirez was drifting around, sometimes dropping deeper to get a few touches and even once or twice sitting on the CB's shoulder as if he was looking for a ball over the top. It seemed that Karanka was using the game as an opportunity to try not to become too predictable. It certainly worked as the players didn't even know what to do :P For the majority of home games this season we've had a poor first 15/20 minutes at the start of the second half too so I wasn't surprised to see that poor start to the second half(and all of it). The half time whistle came at a very good time for Preston as a second goal was looking very likely as we had found our stride. Yeah obviously Karanka will want us to perform better but it doesn't happen for some reason so I think he just keeps to the proven successful formula of digging in and grinding out a narrow win. It's certainly a weakness of our but it doesn't get exposed at this level, but I'm sure it will if we get promoted and don't improve on it then it will get exposed regularly. We've shown glimpses of what we're capable of in games, like Derby at home, where we were very impressive for the majority of the game. Hopefully Karanka can start to get more performances like that out of them.