Boro vs Norwich 0-1

[Duvel 2,446]

Its easier said than done to make minimum changes when you've been relegated mate. Making 2 or 3 changes a season is all good and well if you're Southamption, but if you get relegated you can guarentee 6 or 7 players will want out = squad overhaul required.

 

We didn't need an overhaul last summer that was half the problem, we could have kept the same squad that took us up and not done any worse.

 

It's pointless going over last season anyway my point was that the club needs to decide on its identity from top to bottom and stick with it long term. When one manager goes another comes in and only needs to tweak things.

 

When you go from Karanka's reign to Monks it's too big a change in one summer, It was the same from Southgate to Strachan and this feels similar to me.

[BillyWoofs_shinpad 1,884]

Let's not get too disheartened, we've made a lot of changes, the manager doesn't know his best 11 yet. I reckon 90% of boro fans would have chosen tonight's starting 11. It didn't work out, more changes will be made.

 

Monk will work it out in the end, it's a long old season, no head to panic.

[Baresi 7]

Norwich defended very well and retain a great shape to keep us at bay. They took there chance after Frye waited for the ball to go out, instead of taking charge. Got robbedo. But we were shire and boring at brraking through. Traore was very good, great spark in a dull game. First game I have been at this season, was ***e. Still got faith, though.

[Baresi 7]

UTB!!!!!!

[Denzel Zanzibar 6,972]

Monk took over a squad which included Fabio, Friend, Ayala, Gibson, Clayton, Leadbitter, Forshaw, Traore, Downing, Bamford and Gestede. That's two thirds of a team capable of being near the top of the table.

 

He's spent 40m + adding to that group of players and still we don't look good enough.

 

No pattern, no shape, doesn't know his best team or formation. I'm sorry to say but it looks to me like the job is too big for Monk.

 

I'm not judging him on today because we were the better team for the majority of the game, I'm judging him on the season so far. We've all seen what it takes in recent years to build a promotion winning side. This squad and manager ain't good enough.

 

Wet the bed much? Jesus Christ you make sanddancer look like a positive ray of sunshine.

[ManBearPig 1,853]

Not the end of the world last night (from the highlights admittedly)

 

We still created chances and unfortunately Britt needs 4 chances before he scores at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I think he is a great player, but that's two games now (Forest and Norwich) where we could look back at 6 points gained if he could finish.

 

Fry won't make another mistake like that this season either.

 

And great to see Traore dribbling the ball through two players at once and getting a shot on target! Also he did a good pass after dribbling last people aswell.. maybe, just maybe that training work stuff is paying off.

 

A game to forget but hardly a game to question Monk or the team for me.

[Barnaby 957]

Well done Norwich! Poor poor performance Boro

Well we used to be the experts at smash & grab,You watch teams use this as a blueprint against us

[gephind 7]

Inevitably players have to come and go especially with relegation, a new manager, new ideas, and the game was lost by a personal mistake. It is far from the end of the world. First defeat in 8 games.

[Barnaby 957]

I can't disagree with that Duvel. I also thought we made a big mistake last year by bringing in too many new players and we repeated it this year. The slight difference this year is that we look like having a squad that is capable of scoring goals and we still have a solid defence (odd individual errors aside). I still think we'll be there or thereabouts come the end of the season

Spot on Blanco It was also a mistake from a young defender Fry will learn from it im sure

[Snowblind 1,734]

Let's not get carried away, eh? I do hope we're not going to have this loss of composure after every defeat we suffer this season. Suddenly the excellent performances against Bolton and Villa (cup), plus the characterful displays against Fulham, QPR and Villa (league) are suddenly forgotten, eh?

 

It's not even October. We're still within a win of the Top 6. I doubt many would've selected a different line up to the one we saw last night, but the consistency of the execution was lacking from a side which featured 6 new signings this season. It's nothing dramatic. It's football. And it's to be expected.

 

One thing which highlights to me an element of progression is that, even in the 85th minute, I had a belief that we could still get an equaliser with this side. I haven't felt like that as a Boro fan for years... not even in our promotion season. When it clicks, we're nigh on unstoppable against any team at this level. The challenge is to make it click more and more often, and more and more consistently as the season progresses and the system develops.

[Betamaxman 14]

Monk took over a squad which included Fabio, Friend, Ayala, Gibson, Clayton, Leadbitter, Forshaw, Traore, Downing, Bamford and Gestede. That's two thirds of a team capable of being near the top of the table.

 

He's spent 40m + adding to that group of players and still we don't look good enough.

 

No pattern, no shape, doesn't know his best team or formation. I'm sorry to say but it looks to me like the job is too big for Monk.

 

I'm not judging him on today because we were the better team for the majority of the game, I'm judging him on the season so far. We've all seen what it takes in recent years to build a promotion winning side. This squad and manager ain't good enough.

 

Wet the bed much? Jesus Christ you make sanddancer look like a positive ray of sunshine.

 

Yeah. Bit of an over reaction there Duvel.

 

We actually had plenty of chances to win that game... so we were good enough. You can't really blame Garry Monk for the THREE Assombalonga headers that went straight in to Gunn's hands. Put a couple of those in, and it's a different story.

 

With 21 shots to Norwich's 5, and 13 corners to their 1.... it's not like we didn't give ourselves a chance. (Although I do accept that we ought to work on some better set piece routines, because I reckon 13 corners ought to be enough to score one)!

 

Ultimately though, once the players are on the pitch, they've got to put some of those chances away.

[Foogle 2,104]

Hopefully Braithwaite starts next game, feels like we need another goal scorer on the pitch. Assombalonga seems like a player who will be on fire one game and then flatters to deceive the next, need another predatory player to pick up the slack with the goals. Seems like Braithwaite is the perfect player to have opposite Traore.

 

We knew Norwich would be defending deep with 10 men behind the ball, but instead of playing our neat intricate players we used 2 pacey wingers with only one player to aim at and no space to run in behind. I doubt the lesser teams coming to the Riverside will be able to shut us out as effectively as Norwich did, fingers crossed it was just a blip...

[Borodane 6,299]

A lot can happen in a few weeks in the crazy league. Just a few weeks ago people were laughing at Villa claiming they were gone and Bruce up for the sack. Just a few games later they are above us. We dominated massively yesterday but couldn't get the ball in the net. Those games will happen but we need to make sure they don't happen too often. 6 games in a row with clean sheets for Norwich in the league. That's very impressive.

[HoyteForLeftBack 194]

Very frustrating game that.

 

Bad error by fry for the goal. No clue why he was trying to let it run out, the ball was running very slowly and parallel to the the line, so that was never going to happen.

 

Norwich then predictably sat back in a 5-5 formation and fell on the floor whenever they could.

 

If any of our shots had been slightly off centre, we'd have come away with at least a point. But no, just smack them straight at the keeper every time why don't we...

 

Should have had a pen at the end though for the holding round the neck of assomalonga (I think it was him anyway)

Yeah pretty much how I saw it. Have to commend Norwich on their performance too, very well organised.

Fry's made a couple of high profile errors now and looked unsure for a bit after the goal. Not saying he's suddenly become a bad player but perhaps taking him out of the spotlight on Saturday might be a good idea.

[Humpty 3,261]

Where to start.

 

We're 10 games in to the season and producing performances like that. Let me provide some context. We had £50 million worth of talent on the pitch not including £30 million rated Gibson, Fry or Baker. We had £24 million sat on the bench not including Leadbitter, Friend, Forshaw, Downing or Ayala. A large quantity of Premier League clubs don't have that luxury.

 

In the first half we created one chance of note. One chance. Credit to Norwich they did their home work but wasn't anything spectacular. We had 3 midfielders playing in no space, trying to find 1 man up front on his own who was being marked by two players with one in front or two wingers who played too deep. Howson was a waste of a position. He didn't link midfield to attack, he didn't win the all back, he didn't provide any forward impetus he purely rotated the ball back to the defence/Clayton or into the full backs a complete waste when Norwich had 10 men behind the ball.

 

Again without going into specifics were 10 games in to the season (that's nearly a third of the way through) and Monk doesn't know how to get the best out of his Championship galaticos. This is what worries me most. I said it after Fulham and I haven't seen anything to change my mind. We still aren't close to clicking and we're falling further and further behind with every game.

 

We needed 6 points from these two homes games were now going into a game against Brentford with more pressure on us than there should be. Frustration doesn't cover it.