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19 hours ago, Blanco said:

I reckon @AnglianRed is going to do the elusive 10 in a row from last season 

Thanks for the vote of confidence! 😆

I guess we'll find out in a week or so. Will have the MD thread up some time tomorrow, so maybe someone can start a sweepstake?

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People are so quick to write players off these days. Sheff Utd are smashing it in the PL with a team full of league football journeymen. Vardy was in non-league a few years ago. Pukki couldn't hit a b

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Let me get this straight: we’re looking every bit the Sunderland team/club that went down and now we want to add their latest managerial failure from league 1. Will it be Simon Grayson for DoF!

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7 hours ago, mj south said:

Anyone know why Jack Ross was at the match yesterday?

He hasn't been sleeping properly since he got the boot at Sunderland so he thought he'd try and get 40 winks watching our lot.  It almost tragically backfired on him when he came close to falling into a coma midway through the second half 😴

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16 hours ago, wilsoncgp said:

Ponce mentioned this on Twitter too, anyone wondering why Dijksteel or Bola can't get in the team, can solve that one for you perhaps. Both, in particular Dijksteel, were absolutely void of effort in pre-match and half time drills. Dijksteel looked like he didn't want to be there. They were doing those long range passes together at one point, Bola spooned one miles away from Dijksteel and Dijksteel just stood still, didn't even look at the ball, just sort of slumped and gave up any idea of wanting to keep warmed up. Probably coldest day of the season at the Riverside and he just couldn't be bothered moving. If Spence was blitzing it in the U23s, I'd question whether he'd even be in the squad tbh. As for Bola, well Coulson has been injured, played for the U23s, then got a sub appearance and finally got back in the team with very little competition. It's clear he isn't doing enough either.

Notably, I felt similar about Britt in what I saw of him pre-match. He didn't look up to it and barring some of his pressing work, it showed in the game too.

And there was me thinking it's because they weren't very good.  Dijksteel isn't a wingback and I can't work out what Bola is because he can't defend or attack with a great deal of ability as far as I can see.  I can't remember him looking like a Championship calibre player since we signed him.  Dijksteel maybe as a right back or maybe even holding midfielder may end up being ok but as an attacking fullback or wingback he looks lost to me.  More great work in the summer from our stellar recruitment squad.

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I'd bin both  Fletcher and Britt in January and what ever money we salvage try and bring a couple of strikers in who are actually capable of hitting the target. Its pointless having a striker here who looks like he doesn't give a *** no matter how much he cost, and Fletcher I've jut ran out of patience with him, he's woeful. 

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10 hours ago, TeaCider24 said:

Bola and Dijksteel have never had a chance to properly establish themselves. Small wonder they're demoralised, they'll regret ever signing for us.

I don't kind Coulson coming back in, but I don't like Howson and Saville/Johnson playing as full backs.

It's why it's so frustrating we were knocked out of the cup so early by a rubbish team, it would have been a perfect route to give game time.

Dijksteel and Bola both got into the side around the same time, and while we were struggling for fit CDs. We ended up with a back 4 of Bola-Shotton-Fry-Dijksteel fairly early in their boro career. Fry Bola and Dijksteel just didn't have much experience and Shotton has played most of his career at RB. It was too much to ask for that collection of players to defend properly and build a platform for us to get our fullbacks forward.

 

I certainly wouldn't write either of them off, they will improve over the next couple of years and they clearly have ability.

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Bola and Dijksteel would massively benefit from us having a head coach who was a meticulous coach and had a set system that provided them with protection. That's why I think someone like Karanka would bring the best out of them. Woodgate is just out of his depth as he doesn't know what he is doing so how on earth can he tell players what they need to be doing.

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13 hours ago, BoroMart said:

Dijksteel and Bola both got into the side around the same time, and while we were struggling for fit CDs. We ended up with a back 4 of Bola-Shotton-Fry-Dijksteel fairly early in their boro career. Fry Bola and Dijksteel just didn't have much experience and Shotton has played most of his career at RB. It was too much to ask for that collection of players to defend properly and build a platform for us to get our fullbacks forward.

 

I certainly wouldn't write either of them off, they will improve over the next couple of years and they clearly have ability.

Frankly, I'd be amazed if half the squad is still here in a couple of years (along with Woodgate). Certainly if there are no signs of improvement by the end of the season, at any rate.

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People are so quick to write players off these days. Sheff Utd are smashing it in the PL with a team full of league football journeymen. Vardy was in non-league a few years ago. Pukki couldn't hit a barn door in Scotland. 

The manager is so much more important than individual players at our level where finances and therefore squad quality is more even.... yet we cheaped out on ours and are seeing the results. Does anyone honestly think if we had two slightly better full-backs we would be mid-table?

You could maybe argue if we had a better striker we would have a few extra points, but the issues are 90% tactical - blaming luck and individual player performances is a little head in the sand, in my honest opinion! 

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Well Sheffield United are a classic example of a team that was built by a good manager, who got promoted from the Championship and stuck to their ideals once promoted. Similar thing with Bournemouth and Brighton. They've been together for a while, trust their system, trust each other and trust the manager.

Vardy is an exceptional case...very few non-league players get to where he has. Pukki's gone fairly quiet as Norwich have started to struggle.

As far as I'm concerned, I do believe Boro's current squad could be a lot more effective with the right manager. However, new managers tend to want to build their own teams, so if we replaced Woody, the squad would likely end up looking quite different...even if we had to go down the "buy to sell" and free / loan signings route.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

Well Sheffield United are a classic example of a team that was built by a good manager, who got promoted from the Championship and stuck to their ideals once promoted. Similar thing with Bournemouth and Brighton. They've been together for a while, trust their system, trust each other and trust the manager.

Vardy is an exceptional case...very few non-league players get to where he has. Pukki's gone fairly quiet as Norwich have started to struggle.

As far as I'm concerned, I do believe Boro's current squad could be a lot more effective with the right manager. However, new managers tend to want to build their own teams, so if we replaced Woody, the squad would likely end up looking quite different...even if we had to go down the "buy to sell" and free / loan signings route.

 

 

Very good point, can also add Wolves and Burnley to that list. Teams that go up with a togetherness, a style of football that it embedded in the core of the club and a hierarchy/Manager to suit have seemed to do the best when entering the PL. 

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Bola and Dijksteel have different problems for me, Dijksteel switches off when we step up near halfway every single time it's a liability, he looks like bambi when he dribbles while Bola looks absolutely terrified half the time offensively and defensively BUT I think he's one of the better dribblers in the team so there's something in there I think. I'm loathe to judge many players right now we set up like a pub team most weeks there's no shape or pattern whatsoever to us.

We have a top 10 squad even without a flying winger the fact this manager's got us 3rd bottom is pretty incredible, I agree with the people saying manager > players at this level most people think Taverniers an incredible prospect and Wing's up to 10 league goals a season believing those things to be true and believing Woodgate's a good manager are hard to reconcile you could say the same about Britt failing this season potentially dropping millions off his pricetag all thanks to a manager failing at his job.

I said it in the summer all we needed was a manager with a track record in maximizing a goalscorer everything else is secondary if Britt doesn't get 20+ league goals we wont go up and if going up isn't the aim then we should have firesold every expensive asset we could instead we're 3rd bottom with a top 6 wage bill and 15+ million in assets contracts up next summer. The incompetence shown by us in the past 4 months blows my mind the Monk/Pulis/Victor Orta controversies pale in comparison to what we've just been through honestly it's infuriating I'm at the send us down to League 1 point maybe then heads will roll and the blase approach to not selling players/letting contracts run will bite his wallet.

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