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Boro vs Norwich City (a) 0-1


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Having watched a Pulis coached team for a couple of seasons my belief is that with his own choice of players it would be a rarity that his team would be overrun and a big score rattled up by the opposition, he is too well organised for that. The problem is that all the energy and fight is aimed at stopping the opposition rather than taking the fight to them. Having said that, and it is not pretty to watch, then with his own squad he would be very difficult to beat in this league, It is just like Karanka all over again, but without the histrionics.

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We were a shambles under Monk and heading in one direction only, but we're not going to make the play-offs under Pulis either so it's immaterial really. What are we arguing about?

 

Whether or not we're more garbage, just as garbage, or slightly less garbage than we were earlier in the season.. its fun!

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We were a shambles under Monk and heading in one direction only, but we're not going to make the play-offs under Pulis either so it's immaterial really. What are we arguing about?

 

Whether or not we're more garbage, just as garbage, or slightly less garbage than we were earlier in the season.. its fun!

 

Can I vote for just as garbage please

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I always think that under Pulis we have the defensive stability to give us a platform to work with.

 

It's not Pulis' fault that the strikers aren't clinical. I'd be more concerned if we weren't creating chances, but apart from the game at the weekend, we are.

 

Britt, Rudy and Bamford have all not pulled their weight this season and as a result we are suffering. Britt is now quite rightly in the spot light for *** games of late. Rudy hasn't scored in the league since August v Sheff Utd and Bamford also hasn't produced the goods.

 

Our story for this season is missed chances rather than defensive frailties.

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That's my point though. I don't necessarily think Britt's form is down to simply being 'off' at the moment. Look at the way he's being asked to play; it's a Pulis style, and Britt isn't suited to playing it. A manager should look at what he has and adapt accordingly; that's not happening. Britt is being asked to play a role he's not suited to in any way, shape or form - just in the same way Braithwaite was.

 

Pulis needs to adapt the tactics to get the best out of the squad he has for the rest of the season - otherwise we'll achiever nothing. I don't see him doing that...

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It's not a Pulis style though, it's what we've always done. Hit the ball high to the striker. Don't think it's necessarily down to the manager here, look at Monk, Agnew, Karanka and even Mowbray, it happened with all of them. Our players just never seem to play the ball along the ground.

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TBF I don't think Monk was getting the best out of Braithwaite either. The team looked like it would be built around him in pre-season. When he got injured, that was abandoned. Not long after he came back there was that 3-game winning run against poor form sides that we had which he looked great in but from that moment on he looked a bit lost. Again, I put that down to the tactics which Monk chose to employ consistently.

 

I think the change that he made for the Reading away game was correct. We went back to basics because we were struggling for confidence. And that's fine against the sides who are struggling. Reading, Hull and Sunderland, we couldn't have picked a much better trio than that to get our confidence back. But after the Sunderland game IIRC it was an international break, a chance to use the confidence we had to re-instate the formation Monk wanted to play at the start.

 

Instead, we went to Leeds with the same team (barring Christie due to suspension), the same set-up and lost because of the same defensive issues we had gotten away with against poor teams. And we created very little. The penalty we got and scored wasn't even a penalty because Ayala had clearly committed a foul prior to it being given.

 

I'm not saying we would have won that game if we had gone back to the way we intended to play. But Monk made a rod for his own back by not using that 2 weeks away to re-introduce it. It slowly but surely made it clear that either he messed up in the transfer window by purchasing players he didn't even know if he could use effectively or he just flat-out lacked the conviction to follow through with his ideas. It's perhaps easy for me to say he should have done this or that in hindsight but there's no doubting that what Monk did do in the end didn't work and he was a dead man walking for the last week or two of his employment here.

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That's my point though. I don't necessarily think Britt's form is down to simply being 'off' at the moment. Look at the way he's being asked to play; it's a Pulis style, and Britt isn't suited to playing it. A manager should look at what he has and adapt accordingly; that's not happening. Britt is being asked to play a role he's not suited to in any way, shape or form - just in the same way Braithwaite was.

 

Pulis needs to adapt the tactics to get the best out of the squad he has for the rest of the season - otherwise we'll achiever nothing. I don't see him doing that...

 

Britt is massively out of form at the moment, in the last home game everything he touched went wrong, he cleared Ayalas goal bound header off the line and he had a touch like a baby elephant.

 

That's nothing to do with the instructions he's getting and it's nobodies fault he's just very low on confidence because he's not playing well.

 

I'd say his poor form started before Pulis came in as well.

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That's my point though. I don't necessarily think Britt's form is down to simply being 'off' at the moment. Look at the way he's being asked to play; it's a Pulis style, and Britt isn't suited to playing it. A manager should look at what he has and adapt accordingly; that's not happening. Britt is being asked to play a role he's not suited to in any way, shape or form - just in the same way Braithwaite was.

 

Pulis needs to adapt the tactics to get the best out of the squad he has for the rest of the season - otherwise we'll achiever nothing. I don't see him doing that...

 

Britt is massively out of form at the moment, in the last home game everything he touched went wrong, he cleared Ayalas goal bound header off the line and he had a touch like a baby elephant.

 

That's nothing to do with the instructions he's getting and it's nobodies fault he's just very low on confidence because he's not playing well.

 

I'd say his poor form started before Pulis came in as well.

 

Ye, I wouldn't agree that Britt isn't suited to a Tony Pulis style due to the amount of chances he squandered against Sheff Wed.

If he wasn't suited to the style of play he wouldn't be in a position to have the chances to start with. On a plus, if Gestede does serve a 3 match ban (fingers crossed) then it could give Britt a chance to play himself back into form which we desperately need him to do

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Whilst I don't think our play style helps Britt, or any other of our strikers (bar Gestede), they have all had chances to score but not taken them.

 

If they go in we all say that it's fine margins and percentage football which Pulis is renowned for.

 

Whilst I'd agree that it doesn't suit their preferred play style, they still have had chances to score and bury them.

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When watching Britt play he looks disillusioned, watching him earlier in the season he was not only scoring but he was hard to knock off the ball, and was chasing everything down, not so much now and if a player hasn't got that commitment and hunger then he's always going to struggle to get his form back. Britt may not be Pulis's type of forward, but on the other hand, Pulis's style of play may not be to Britt's liking, in which case we've got a problem.

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I mentioned in the transfer thread about a Boro singer in the late 80s/early 90s my dad used to sell insurance too. He was getting stick every week from the stands about the runs he was making and the manner of his game. The reality was, he was doing exactly what his manager wanted, and openly admitted that he wasn't comfortable with the role he'd been asked to play - but the second he tried to do what he/the fans wanted, he got hauled off the pitch.

 

A players confidence is shattered when they're asked to play out of their natural style / comfort zone simply because they know they're not being as effective as they could be. Watch Britt when he's off the ball now compared to earlier in the season - the difference is evident. Aye, there's been one or two unlucky moments for him - but they're moments. The role he's been asked to do in our overall shape has changed considerably, and it's not a role which plays to his strengths.

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