Boro v Everton (h) 0-0

[Dynamo Kev 1,556]

I WAS WELL HAPPY AFTER THAT SECOND HALF.

 

gaston coming back and the other new lad guediora, he looks okay, probably not a long term starter but he is exactly the type of midfielder we'll been needing. bit more physical, has a bit about him. once hes fully match fit he'll hopefully cut out the sloppy errors.

 

never commented on bernardo before but my hell, hes making me nervous. bit like steve vickers used to. always seems to make errors with his passing. he'll hopefully get out of that. apart from the odd silly foul and error he looks a good defender. pleased with him overall.

[Prowler 197]

Bernardo... Good in the air and can actually tackle. However, his passing always seems a yard or two short and he has that lunge. But like Ayala when he first came.

 

Also, Fabio, what a guy. Bloke just has everything you want in a full back. That ball he played in near the end was excellent. Just slightly too high for Negredo.

 

De Roon... The tank on that bloke is endless. He was everywhere. His passing and tackling is getting better too. He's also getting into the whole Clayton/Friend business of getting the crowd going. Fast becoming a favourite.

 

That run by Traore in the first half where it looked like he lost it, went to de Roon and then Forshaw ***ed it up... Still fuming about that. All he need to do was play Traore in and it would have been magical. What the *** has happened to Forshaw?

 

Everything he done today was bad. Sloppy in possession, wasted two good chances and just contributed very little. Adlene is definitely gonna be a starter ahead of him.

 

Onto Adlene, bar those two wayward shots, the second I don't quite know how it went so far over.... He looked good. He was strong and set up a few counters. Aye, he lost the ball a few times but he'll get there. He's like a midfielf Nugent. Just looks thrilled to be playing :D

 

That Gestede header... The power. Could hear the connection. An inch or two to the side and that would be a belting goal, no stopping in. Cracking save though.

[Middlesborough 12]

Surely Forshaw and Espinosa have to be dropped after that performance. I think the 3 chances they had came from ridiculously poor passes from Espinosa.

[CurtisFleming 86]

Like I've commented on another thread I was unable to attend or watch the match today due to work. So I've generally just caught up with the comments on here and looked at the stats. A few have mentioned Bernardo being not so good or at least worrying them. Anyway here is some cold hard Bernardo stats from today. Make of them what you will....

 

Joint highest for us in interceptions with 2

 

Highest number of clearances with 9. Four more than second place Gibson.

 

Highest number of aerial duals won with 5

 

Zero fouls

 

Highest number of passes with 76. That was 22 more than second place chambers.

 

Highest pass completion rate with 92.1%

 

Highest number of accurate long balls for an outfield player; Completing 6 out of 7.

 

Most touches in the team with 91. That's 13 more than second place Chambers.

 

Dispossessed zero times.

 

Lost ball due to bad touch zero times.

 

He didn't make any tackles like but Paolo Maldini famously said if ha has to make a tackle it's because he's already made a mistake :D

 

So basically Bernardo = Maldini confirmed :D

[thomas 501]

I watched the first of the match on a stream and got to say i was really impressed by the performance, unfortunately couldn't watch the second half but was told it was a really well balanced performance. Ive been critical of karanka recently but today it seemed like he got the balance right so well done to him and the players that carried out his game plan. Palace next we win that game and we are in very good position to survive again and it drags them further in the mire. What id like to see against palace is early intent we get an early goal i guarantee they'll crumble with their current form because their players will think not this again.

[Tom 2,492]

Admittedly I missed the first half an hour, but from what I did see, and from MOTD, it seems that Bernardo had a pretty solid game, but made two really sloppy passes which almost let Everton in. And that, for me, sums him up. He is a defender who will put his head through a brick wall, but has at least one howler in him per game. Karanka and the coaching team did a pretty good job of coaching that out of Ayala ad Gibson, so I have faith that they can do it with him too.

[Middlesborough 12]

Admittedly I missed the first half an hour, but from what I did see, and from MOTD, it seems that Bernardo had a pretty solid game, but made two really sloppy passes which almost let Everton in. And that, for me, sums him up. He is a defender who will put his head through a brick wall, but has at least one howler in him per game. Karanka and the coaching team did a pretty good job of coaching that out of Ayala ad Gibson, so I have faith that they can do it with him too.

 

I was thinking exactly the same thing during the match but it doesn't really matter how well he plays for the other 99% of the time, when he makes suicide passes like that - on more than one occasion today let it be known, it's just unforgiveable. The passes weren't even nearly letting Everton in, Lukaku was in on one occasion and he puts the chance in the back of the net 9 times out of 10. I mean yeah it was a good save from Valdes but for the life of me I don't know how he didn't score.

 

When you also take into account the penalty he gave away against Tottenham and the couple of challenges he was lucky to get away with in the box at Man United, not to mention IMO the generally poor performance he had against West Ham at home I think he shouldn't be in the team until the mistakes are ironed out.

 

I don't know why or how he's keeping Ayala out of the team (we all know what Ayala's capable of when he's on form, his performance at ***nal away is a prime example and personally I also like the threat Ayala offers from set pieces) but hopefully Friend and Barragan won't be injured for much longer and Chambers can move back to the middle.

[ManBearPig 1,853]

A much better performance and a thoroughly enjoyable game aswell. I think we surprise ourselves with what we can do when we have a go. Everton didn't really look like they had a clue how to handle Traore and then when Gaston came on they worked the space really well.

 

A better performance from all the players, bar Forshaw who had a poor game. Espinosa is like many have said, solid but prone to an error. But you can't fault him, with balls coming into the box he looks solid and didn't look like losing a header.

 

I'm waking up after a game and feeling good for a change. Even Karankas changes seemed to be spot on and at the right time. Maybe Gestede for Negredo a couple of mins earlier but I can't fault anything about yesterday really.

 

A better atmosphere on teesside this morning?

["KM" 1,656]

A much better performance and a thoroughly enjoyable game aswell. I think we surprise ourselves with what we can do when we have a go. Everton didn't really look like they had a clue how to handle Traore and then when Gaston came on they worked the space really well.

 

A better performance from all the players, bar Forshaw who had a poor game. Espinosa is like many have said, solid but prone to an error. But you can't fault him, with balls coming into the box he looks solid and didn't look like losing a header.

 

I'm waking up after a game and feeling good for a change. Even Karankas changes seemed to be spot on and at the right time. Maybe Gestede for Negredo a couple of mins earlier but I can't fault anything about yesterday really.

 

A better atmosphere on teesside this morning?

 

Aye, I'm feeling very positive myself this morning. Even stayed up to watch MOTD last night! It was probably the most entertaining 0-0 we've played all season. Feel a bit more confident of survival, we've shown we can compete and we are ready for the fight. I'm beginning to think our defensive record will be the key factor. And the 3 worst teams in the division are normally the ones to go down, I don't think we're a bad side.

[Jimmy 140]

A good point really and I agree felt a lot more positive driving home last night than I have been last few weeks. Palace in 2 weeks is absolutely massive, I really hope we have a go like we did today, if we do we can score against them. If we win that and then beat Sunderland at home we give ourselves a real chance.

["KM" 1,656]

A good point really and I agree felt a lot more positive driving home last night than I have been last few weeks. Palace in 2 weeks is absolutely massive, I really hope we have a go like we did today, if we do we can score against them. If we win that and then beat Sunderland at home we give ourselves a real chance.

 

We play Stoke away before we play Sunderland don't we? The pressure will be on Crystal Palace. If we get the first goal they will crumble. I think Ramirez will be back in the team for that one, he looked a class act yesterday. Adlene was pretty entertaining to watch too. We looked a much better side going forward with these two in the team yesterday. Only a matter of time before the goals start to come. ;)

[mj south 612]

Our next 3 PL games are HUGE but such a good opportunity to wriggle away from the bottom 3 and today's performance has given me the belief we can survive and compete in this league!

I'm going out on a bit of a limb here but if we get 7 points from our next 3 games which I think is possible that could set us up well for the final run in

[Dan_Boro_Till_I_Die 1,181]

First time in a while I've come away from a game being happy , if we can get the goals then I can't see why we can't stay up, we played well I thought. I sit near the dugout in the west stand and when we go backwards or sideways it really annoys Karanka. I think Fawshaw needs dropping

[DanFromDownSouth 1,706]

I think we could see us finish quite strongly (I hope). The next 3 games are very important and also arguably very winnable. But looking beyond those 3 we have United (home), but then we have to play Swansea, Hull (both away) and Burnley (home). We could put some real distance between us and the bottom 4/5.

 

But knowing Boro instead of picking up points and making life easy. We will do it the hard way and have to pick up points at the better sides in the final stretch.

[wilsoncgp 9,276]

I think ideally we need to aim for 6 points out of the next 9. Palace are rubbish at home, Sunderland are entirely beatable if we once again keep Defoe quiet. Stoke will be tough sandwiched between those 2. A point there would probably be an achievement if we can get the right results around it.

 

The 3 games at the start of April are the last 3 entirely winnable games and they're all in the space of a week. Our season could be almost done and dusted by the end of the Burnley home game. Our last 6 games are tough, even Bournemouth away.

 

It is quite worrying that I think we may have to get the maximum 15 points out of Palace away, Sunderland home, Swansea away, Hull away and Burnley home, all just to have a chance of staying up.

 

I'm not so sure 37 points will be enough. I found an article by the Mirror which worked out from 95/96 that 38.4 is the average 17th place finish, with most teams seeming to consider 40 points as the safe point. Though one season a team finished with 42 and still got relegated.