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Boro vs. Bristol City 2-1 (Friend, Ayala)


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The direct play works better at home when teams are less likely to press and pick up loose balls. Away from home it just gives possession away to easily.

 

It doesn’t work when the striker is isolated like Saturday.

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It drives me round the bend when I see the back four punting a long ball upfield when we’ve got three centre midfielders on the park.

 

Well possibly they know that under most game circumstances when we had Clayton/Leadbitter/Forshaw that the ball had more chance of going forward than it would through midfield.

 

Always has been our downfall and real bone of contention!

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It drives me round the bend when I see the back four punting a long ball upfield when we’ve got three centre midfielders on the park.

 

Well possibly they know that under most game circumstances when we had Clayton/Leadbitter/Forshaw that the ball had more chance of going forward than it would through midfield.

 

Always has been our downfall and real bone of contention!

Besic and Howson can play football though and surely they know when they are on the pitch rather than leadboots and co?

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It drives me round the bend when I see the back four punting a long ball upfield when we’ve got three centre midfielders on the park.

 

Well possibly they know that under most game circumstances when we had Clayton/Leadbitter/Forshaw that the ball had more chance of going forward than it would through midfield.

 

Always has been our downfall and real bone of contention!

Besic and Howson can play football though and surely they know when they are on the pitch rather than leadboots and co?

 

Clayton is a decent footballer too IMO. He's got a decent long pass on him as well. He did used to get forwards and score a few more goals at previous clubs, but he's been given a different role at Boro.

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There is a happy medium surely... while sometimes frustrating to see an aimless hoof, we can't play like Man City and I would rather Ayala gets rid if he doesn't feel comfortable than gives the ball away like at Wolves and loses us a game.

 

If Ayala and Gibson were great passers as well as centre halves they wouldn't be playing in the Championship. We don't really have technical full backs either... so I would guess they have had a very safety first approach drilled into them by Pulis when they can't see an obvious pass on.

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It drives me round the bend when I see the back four punting a long ball upfield when we’ve got three centre midfielders on the park.

 

Ha, yes I've been wondering about that too. One of the reasons you play three central midfielders should be to create more outlets to the defenders when in possession. There should be at least two midfielders ready to recieve a pass and a third midfielder available for the next pass. Enter Tony Pulis :liar:

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There is a happy medium surely... while sometimes frustrating to see an aimless hoof, we can't play like Man City and I would rather Ayala gets rid if he doesn't feel comfortable than gives the ball away like at Wolves and loses us a game.

 

If Ayala and Gibson were great passers as well as centre halves they wouldn't be playing in the Championship. We don't really have technical full backs either... so I would guess they have had a very safety first approach drilled into them by Pulis when they can't see an obvious pass on.

 

Ive no problem with defenders playing long when they’re last man and under pressure. What I’m talking about is the preference to go long in favour of finding one of the three centre midfielders.

 

It drives me round the bend when I see the back four punting a long ball upfield when we’ve got three centre midfielders on the park.

 

Ha, yes I've been wondering about that too. One of the reasons you play three central midfielders should be to create more outlets to the defenders when in possession. There should be at least two midfielders ready to recieve a pass and a third midfielder available for the next pass. Enter Tony Pulis :liar:

 

What I don’t understand is that Besic drops in between the centre halves to pick up the ball almost everytime the centre halves have the ball. Leadbitter does this too when he’s on the park as does Clayton. Howson drops deeper and always tries to at least show for the ball. We have midfielders dropping deep for the ball and then any of the back four pumping the ball forward. There’s no surprise Bamford is isolated so often when we’re operating like this.

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It's that elusive 'missing link' between attack and defensive midfield that I think many of us hoped Howson would be. Not blaming the player, he is probably just doing what he is told.

 

We always seem to end up with a pretty hefty exclusion zone around our striker though, be it Bamford, Britt, or Gestede.

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It drives me round the bend when I see the back four punting a long ball upfield when we’ve got three centre midfielders on the park.

 

Ha, yes I've been wondering about that too. One of the reasons you play three central midfielders should be to create more outlets to the defenders when in possession. There should be at least two midfielders ready to recieve a pass and a third midfielder available for the next pass. Enter Tony Pulis :liar:

 

This isn’t a new thing that started since pulis joined us. We’ve been doing it for over 3 seasons. CM passes sideways to another CM who then passes it backwards to one of our CB who then hits a aimless long ball when under no pressure.

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It's that elusive 'missing link' between attack and defensive midfield that I think many of us hoped Howson would be. Not blaming the player, he is probably just doing what he is told.

 

We always seem to end up with a pretty hefty exclusion zone around our striker though, be it Bamford, Britt, or Gestede.

 

I don't think Howson has ever been a strong #10 if that's what you mean by the missing link. I think Howson's strongest position is that ahead of the defensive mids but behind the attacking mids, so he's not a great link between defenders/defensive mids and attack, he's a step behind that level.

 

He tries to break out of midfield and head towards the attacking end but neither his passing or dribbling are good enough to break open a defence the way you'd expect a number #10 to do, the way Downing and Ramirez were capable of doing the last time we went up. You probably want Clayton/Besic and a #10 alongside Howson in midfield to get the best out of him.

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It drives me round the bend when I see the back four punting a long ball upfield when we’ve got three centre midfielders on the park.

 

Ha, yes I've been wondering about that too. One of the reasons you play three central midfielders should be to create more outlets to the defenders when in possession. There should be at least two midfielders ready to recieve a pass and a third midfielder available for the next pass. Enter Tony Pulis :liar:

 

This isn’t a new thing that started since pulis joined us. We’ve been doing it for over 3 seasons. CM passes sideways to another CM who then passes it backwards to one of our CB who then hits a aimless long ball when under no pressure.

 

That's why I put the long nose emoticon in there. New manager and it gets even worse.

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It drives me round the bend when I see the back four punting a long ball upfield when we’ve got three centre midfielders on the park.

 

Ha, yes I've been wondering about that too. One of the reasons you play three central midfielders should be to create more outlets to the defenders when in possession. There should be at least two midfielders ready to recieve a pass and a third midfielder available for the next pass. Enter Tony Pulis :liar:

 

This isn’t a new thing that started since pulis joined us. We’ve been doing it for over 3 seasons. CM passes sideways to another CM who then passes it backwards to one of our CB who then hits a aimless long ball when under no pressure.

 

The ball isn’t even making it to the midfield mate.

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It's that elusive 'missing link' between attack and defensive midfield that I think many of us hoped Howson would be. Not blaming the player, he is probably just doing what he is told.

 

We always seem to end up with a pretty hefty exclusion zone around our striker though, be it Bamford, Britt, or Gestede.

 

I don't think Howson has ever been a strong #10 if that's what you mean by the missing link. I think Howson's strongest position is that ahead of the defensive mids but behind the attacking mids, so he's not a great link between defenders/defensive mids and attack, he's a step behind that level.

 

He tries to break out of midfield and head towards the attacking end but neither his passing or dribbling are good enough to break open a defence the way you'd expect a number #10 to do, the way Downing and Ramirez were capable of doing the last time we went up. You probably want Clayton/Besic and a #10 alongside Howson in midfield to get the best out of him.

 

Spot on

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It's that elusive 'missing link' between attack and defensive midfield that I think many of us hoped Howson would be. Not blaming the player, he is probably just doing what he is told.

 

We always seem to end up with a pretty hefty exclusion zone around our striker though, be it Bamford, Britt, or Gestede.

 

I don't think Howson has ever been a strong #10 if that's what you mean by the missing link.  I think Howson's strongest position is that ahead of the defensive mids but behind the attacking mids, so he's not a great link between defenders/defensive mids and attack, he's a step behind that level.

 

He tries to break out of midfield and head towards the attacking end but neither his passing or dribbling are good enough to break open a defence the way you'd expect a number #10 to do, the way Downing and Ramirez were capable of doing the last time we went up. You probably want Clayton/Besic and a #10 alongside Howson in midfield to get the best out of him.

 

This is why I think Downing should be played in the number 10 role till the end of the season, he doesn't have the pace to compete as an orthodox Winger anymore, since he's come back to the Boro there's only a handful of games he's been good operating from the left. Most of his good performances this season have been off the right or through the middle when he can cut in where pace counts for less and he can better utilise his intelligent touches and passes.

 

The problem is we don't have any options for that left sided spot, as he clearly doesn't fancy Harrison or Marvin Johnson... I'm hoping for a complete overhaul in Midfield for next season, but everyone has been calling for more creativity in Midfield for a few seasons now and it has still not been addressed...

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Downing as a 10 gives me shivers. Hes far to cautious nowadays to play the 10 role.

 

To me its just rank bad management that we let Braithwaite go without getting an adequate replacement. Yes he was off form but I'd have him playing over Downing on the left every time.

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