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Boro v Birmingham City (A) 1-2 (Ayala)


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57 minutes ago, Borodane said:

Tbh I’ve lost any interest I’ve had. I just don’t care anymore. It came almost as a surprise that I had to check the score last night as someone asked how boro was doing. We’re just bad at every aspect of the game. 

I think we need to look at the 5 stages of the grieving process here:

1. Denial - if you look at this board last summer most posters were in this stage. The thought that this appointment was a good one and the club were entering a bright new era. 

2. Anger - The current stage for many fans, as the masking effects of denial are wearing off people are looking for someone else to blame. Gibson and Woodgate are common targets. 

3. Bargaining - Another common occurrence on this board and another example of people being unable to accept reality. We are starting to hear statements like: "If only we'd backed Karanka in the January window" "If we could have kept Pulis". This stage usually involves the individual making deals with God or another higher power.

4. Depression - As reality is setting in I see certain fans now entering this stage. 

5. Acceptance - I'd say you may be entering this stage BoroDane, now you have come to terms with the sorry state of the Boro life should start to get easier for you. 

For all you other posters remember, we can move backwards and forwards through the stages of grief. Things are really bad now but it will get better. I'm here for you. 

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It was just talk as our first choice was Pulis, not Woodgate, in which case the new style etc wouldn't have happened anyway. Final post before returning to self imposed exile.  We seem to have co

im in the same camp as BD .  ive gone through plenty of bad times in the past as well as wonderful times .  ive seen players ranging from  absolute top quality down to rank bad .  right now what i see

I don't think it's all bad. We just need a few players in the  January window. Two centre backs. Two fullbacks. Two centre midfielders and two wingers. And two forwards. 

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I mean Gibson's problem, I think, is he cares too much he got absolutely crucified after that Prem summer he maintained a 'haha foolish fans it was a perfect summer' until around December panicked splurged 15 million on Bamford, Gestede and Guedioura we go down he's appointed STEVE AGNEW so he is getting sprayed from all angles cue PR campaign, spend spend spend Garry and I'll be loved again... Tits up by Christmas fans think Monk's a clueless loon so Gibson pays PL wages to Pulis for the 'guarantee' cashes in a little that summer does everything in his power to sign Yannick Bolasie and Besic for 20 million then that puts the riverside to sleep now he's given the job in house let Woodgate keep the 60 MILLION POUND squad together expiring contracts or not for what? To not get criticised for 'asset stripping'?

We're about to write 8 figures in assets off next summer because our chairman's a soft touch for people who were told by Mowbray in 2012/13 that the club needs every last bit of matchday revenue to survive from the family zone to pints I'm not buying it's the 'fans' fault at all I think it's a joke the mess we're in but the coaching we've seen on the pitch is more amateur than Agnew or Southgate that's a seperate mess of Woodgate's own making he's responsible for the way we're setting up and playing individuals aren't our problem when we're giving so much possession and shots up every game...

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4 hours ago, Denzel Zanzibar said:

lmao Gibson took on Woodgate because he was the cheapest option. That's literally it.

Yes I am aware of this. I'm just literally quoting what they put on the website to highlight the hypocrisy and bullshit of it all.

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3 hours ago, Randy Sandwich said:

I blame Gibson 100%, like I blamed him for Southgate and Mowbray except he's hamstrung Woodgate even more

 Woodgate has been given the chance to be head coach at his home town club, which player wouldn't want to do that. This is 100% Gibson's fault nobody else.

 

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You look at the squad, 1st class keeper in Randolph, Fry, Ayala in defense Howson, McNair, Clayton, Tav and Wing in midfield, Britt and Fletcher up front, you'd couldn't say these are *** players by any stretch of the imagination. I haven't mentioned any of the new signings because to be honest they' all need to improve by about a million percent. What I am finding alarming is Lewis Wing's total  loss of form could  this be down to poor coaching.

 

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im in the same camp as BD .  ive gone through plenty of bad times in the past as well as wonderful times .  ive seen players ranging from  absolute top quality down to rank bad .  right now what i see is  arguably  the worst its been  since  i started following  the club i love.  its not an over reaction  as ive thought it through ,  many will point to the years  immediately prior to our  lowest ebb in 1986 as the  worst  time , but i was around  and  witnessed it , it was very low but  i still felt a tinge of optomism that with each managerial change or incoming player we might turn things round  , admittedly  in that era pre social media and internet forums  we had less access to the bigger issue of  the state of finances other than  reading gazette  reports about  problems with Amer and  other higher associates, but player and management wise  there was always  a  degree of hope.  Then some will point to the  Strachan days , but  my main  discontent about that era was the terrible signings from north of the border that  we made.  dispise him as much as you like but Strachan was a  guy that at least had some experience  to fall back on .  Right now  where are we ?   We have a  owner that is  now dividing opinion  and thats being  kind.  Sothgate was a huge mistake,  Agnew was a  similar mistake and still he  follwed suit with this appointment.   Gibson strikes me as someone who  likes and is too used to getting his own way in life.   maybe sorry and i was wrong are not in his reprtoire but  unless he  has an epithany  and  makes his own adjustments  in the first place , youve got to worry for our immediate future.

Then theres the already lambasted Merry Melodies recruitment team and grinmeister himself ,Bauser whose  most positive  aspect on his MFC  cv  is that hes managed to make Keith Lamb look effective.   another stick to beat the decision maker with.

The Manager,   hes obviously not ready or experienced enough to deal with the issues  which lie in front of him and too naive to see those behind him,  its not his fault  , he means well and  had the best intentions but  wont be able to carry them out  for many reasons and now is starting to  doubt and  dabble with the  intentions  that  won the  percentage of fans willing to  give him the benefit of doubt , over. 

Finally the players,  ive read numerous times how they cant adjust to this new style of play.  WHY? .  These are the  ones deemed to be  the players that stood out from the many thousands of  young lads dreaming of making a living of playing professional football  .  Surely theyre  capable of  adapting  having  reached this level .  

hate to say it but were horribly broken  at this point in time  and a lot of parts need fixing.

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Early in the season when we deserved a bit of luck - we didn't get it - we've squandered points on the table, not gained the confidence+belief those wins would've brought, and now put ourselves under huge pressure.

Hopefully with the break we can get George fit and have him back into LB, just to give the side balance and another leader on the park. I'd probably drop Fry or move him to RB, as it stands he's too lightweight to play CB.

Has anyone seen Howson have a stand out game in midfield?

Where did the high-press go?

What happened to youth getting a chance? Gestede on the bench over Ste Walker? Gestede can't be fit and literally does nothing. If you want to go long for the last 5-10 you may as well stick Ayala up there. The midfield is dross, why can't Malley get into the squad over the likes of Saville?

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4 minutes ago, mendieta420 said:

Early in the season when we deserved a bit of luck - we didn't get it - we've squandered points on the table, not gained the confidence+belief those wins would've brought, and now put ourselves under huge pressure.

Hopefully with the break we can get George fit and have him back into LB, just to give the side balance and another leader on the park. I'd probably drop Fry or move him to RB, as it stands he's too lightweight to play CB.

Has anyone seen Howson have a stand out game in midfield?

Where did the high-press go?

What happened to youth getting a chance? Gestede on the bench over Ste Walker? Gestede can't be fit and literally does nothing. If you want to go long for the last 5-10 you may as well stick Ayala up there. The midfield is dross, why can't Malley get into the squad over the likes of Saville?

I agree with most of that, it's almost like the preseason talk about a new style, introducing young players and exciting the fans was just talk.

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Sat just above the relegation zone with the team at our disposal is absolutely disgraceful. We're simply awfully coached. Woodgate is out of his depth and should never have been appointed in the first place. The majority of fans didn't want him but Gibson just didn't care as he wanted to give his mate a chance which no other Championship club would have - most likely as he was too high of a risk based upon his coaching CV. Now we're having to pay the price for Gibson's reckless decision. We have awful defensive organisation and we're equally as awful attempting to play any decent sort of decent football, so there is no mitigation of the mess that we're in. Any new manager deserves time but our start has been that bad that we're already in danger of losing any sort of chance of even getting the play offs. Our fixtures have been among the easiest too and have some very tough games coming up after the international break, which is especially concerning as we could very easy find ourselves deep within the relegation fight. I'm consistently embarrassed about the standard of performances that we put it. Things have absolutely fallen apart since January 2017, and with Gibson in charge still making terrible decisions there's no end in sight of the decline. Them 2014/15 & 2015/16 seasons seem a million miles away now.

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There has been a lot said about the club and it’s dreadful state, and I agree with most of the intelligent arguments that have been posted, especially those indicating the manager as the weak link. I support the theory because the selected players have been chosen on merit, and they are more than capable of performing there role, therefore the manager is lacking the ability to communicate. 

Woodgate is the weak link. 

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You look at Brighton, Burnley and Bournemouth and how they've taken their chance in the PL, we've a bigger fan base than all 3, you think how the *** could we blow our opportunity so badly, its absolutely criminal, poor decisions from a man whose been running a football club for over 30 years. I've always supported Gibson but he's lost the plot big time, I feel he now believes in he's untouchable god like status on Teesside.

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1 hour ago, Duvel said:

I agree with most of that, it's almost like the preseason talk about a new style, introducing young players and exciting the fans was just talk.

It was just talk as our first choice was Pulis, not Woodgate, in which case the new style etc wouldn't have happened anyway.

Final post before returning to self imposed exile.  We seem to have completely moved away from whatever it was he intended to do at the beginning of the season.  If it was leading to us to some improvement then you could understand it but it clearly isn't so I'm confused as to what his thinking is about anything and everything at the moment.   We seem to be mostly stuck with this 4-3-3 formation, which I assumed was introduced because of the pressing game, but we aren't doing that now and yet we are still stuck with the same basic formation anyway.  If we aren't pressing then we need to change formation in my opinion.

There's all kinds of things being discussed on here, which is understandable when nothing seems to be working (Randolph excepted).  I don't think that either of the new fullbacks have looked all that good.  Dijksteel is the better of the two but even he hasn't been that good so far.  Bola hasn't looked like a Championship level player at all to the extent that Shotton looks like a better left back than he does (only just mind).  I don't agree with the assessment above that Fry is too weak to play at the moment.  He's fine but he's playing in a team that are struggling badly.  Ayala is the best partner for him but he has a tendency to do his own thing and that's not ideal.  They need to get on the same page but with weak fullbacks and and a midfield like a sieve it's going to be difficult for them.

In midfield things aren't any better.  Clayton has been garbage in my opinion and I've been a fan of his for ages.  I was paying close attention to him during the Preston game and again last night and he always seems to be yards away from his man and then looking around for someone else to mark or just marking space.  If that's part of our strategy then it's absolutely mental.  McNair is obviously the best of the lot so far but there are times when he's not helping either (without the ball more than with I'd say).  He's also been helped by tending to play on the right hand side, where we've at least had slightly better fullbacks.   Over on the other side we've tried just about every bugger.  Wing isn't playing well but he's also being asked to be a fairly deep lying kinda left sided midfielder and I don't get how that is meant to suit him?  He needs to be in and around the opposition penalty area or there's no point in him being on the field.  The further forward for him the better or just don't pick him.  Out of the rest, Howson never influences a game and Saville is like a less 'dynamic' version of Howson.  Not that Howson is dynamic!  But none of them, with the possible exception of McNair, are being helped with the way we are set up at the moment.

Up front we are stuffed because we didn't make any improvements.  Browne is a League One player like the other two signings we've made.  If we're lucky he'll kick on but at the moment he just seems to have a few clever touches and not much else going for him.  Fletcher is a striker who is being played out wide.  Assombalonga to me looks like he's heavier/bigger than he was last season.  This might be completely untrue, it's just what I see when I look at him, and he has no explosiveness at at all now.  Coupled with him being a ball greedy sod at times and the fact that he isn't some big lump of a target man, it's not exactly a way of playing built for him.  I think he's working hard enough, which is the usual dig at him, but he's not playing particularly smart at times and we certainly aren't helping with that.  Johnson is another League One player/bottom half of the Championship type but we knew that before the season began.  Tavernier did a few ok bits and bobs in the previous two games but no more than that. 

I think if we're playing Assombalonga up front then we either need another striker with him or a player playing just behind him, which means abandoning 4-3-3.   However, if Woodgate wants to keep playing like that then he needs to go back to the constant pressing otherwise we are just cannon fodder half the time.  I think if you're doing that then the three in midfield need to be high energy players, which rules out Clayton, Wing and Saville.  Clayton doesn't have the legs to do it, Wing isn't athletic enough to run around all over the place and Saville is really one paced.  I might even consider playing Dijksteel in there because you need more attacking fullbacks and that's not him but he does seem like someone who could get around the middle of the park breaking up play and that.   I'm probably clutching at straws though.

We're a mess, I think everyone agrees with that basic point.  I think the football we're playing is as bad as the stuff from last season, primarily because we don't seem to really know what to do.  We cede possession but don't really have a counter attack, we stopped the pressing but play a formation that I'd say is designed for pressing,  We play direct to a forward who isn't really adept at that type of play.  We want our fullbacks to attack but they aren't very good at it but we still play the same 4-3-3 anyway.  If Woodgate believes in the pressing stuff then we should be doing it every game and the players should be improving at fulfilling their roles in that type of system.  Abandoning it seems daft when you aren't replacing it with something better.  Abandoning it when you don't really have a clue what to replace it with just feels like outright panic to me.

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