Aitor - I'd not do it again..

BobUpnDown

BobUpnDown

Well-known member
Good little read about his time, esp at Boro & just taking way too much on himself in his first role..

sportwitness.co.uk/i-wouldnt-manager-reveals-strain-taking-middlesbrough-job-much-pressure

For me he was an excellent coach - we played a distinctive style of football & built a great rapport between fans, team & club.. it all got too much & for me the Charlton game was the moment too far.. though nothing but respect for the guy himself, just as he says: took on too much..
 
BobUpnDown said:
Good little read about his time, esp at Boro & just taking way too much on himself in his first role..

sportwitness.co.uk/i-wouldnt-manager-reveals-strain-taking-middlesbrough-job-much-pressure

For me he was an excellent coach - we played a distinctive style of football & built a great rapport between fans, team & club.. it all got too much & for me the Charlton game was the moment too far.. though nothing but respect for the guy himself, just as he says: took on too much..
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Clickable link for the lazy people like me

sportwitness.co.uk

“I wouldn’t do it again” - Manager reveals strain of taking Middlesbrough job, ‘too much pressure’ - Sport Witness

To this day, Middlesbrough are by far the club where Aitor Karanka worked the most, as he spent three and a half years in charge of the English club. So as Marca today features a long interview to talk about the coach’s ten years on the job, they obviously had many mentions of Boro. Karanka
sportwitness.co.uk sportwitness.co.uk
 
atypical_boro said:
Strange that he regrets it. He’s had nothing elsewhere that resembles any kind of success whatsoever.

TBH, I loved him at the time like everyone else but with the passage of time and all the players’ accounts of him since, he comes across more and more as a kn0bend.
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Depends what players you listen too, George and a few others loved him but Gibbo's buys dont.
 
Ratedr69 said:
Depends what players you listen too, George and a few others loved him but Gibbo's buys dont.
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There are even some who were supposedly on “his” side of the dressing room who talk now about him quite apathetically and seem to know very well what his shortcomings were.

The fact the dressing room was so divided was a gallon of his management.

All that said, 2014, 2015 and most of 2016 were pretty enjoyable.
 
atypical_boro said:
Strange that he regrets it. He’s had nothing elsewhere that resembles any kind of success whatsoever.

TBH, I loved him at the time like everyone else but with the passage of time and all the players’ accounts of him since, he comes across more and more as a kn0bend.
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I'm pretty sure he's saying he wouldn't immediately say that the aim was promotion if he could go back, because of the pressure it put on him, not that he regrets managing us.
 
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iamborome said:
I think it was a mistake Gibbo bringing back Stewey Downing, as it undermined Karanka's authority. Its like Downling is doing the club a big favour by stepping down from the PL to help his hometown club and he has Gibbo on his side.
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Think there’s some truth in that. But at the same time Karanka wanted those kind of flair players. I guess we’ll never know the full story about who he did/didn’t want but it would have been a strange one to turn down at the time, after the season Downing had had. Everything is easier in hindsight.
 
iamborome said:
I think it was a mistake Gibbo bringing back Stewey Downing, as it undermined Karanka's authority. Its like Downling is doing the club a big favour by stepping down from the PL to help his hometown club and he has Gibbo on his side.
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I think Karanka made the mistake of not backing Downing and treating him like dog dirt.

I liked the way Karanka set up the team.. how he built on Tony Mowbray’s squad and some of the great moments we had in 2014/15 season.. however.. he was a dreadful man manager. Naughty steps and strops..

Never again as head coach I can more than believe. a strict professional number two
 
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Everyone is forgetting when we couldnt actually start Downing or a clause was triggered in his contract for an extra year which he later agreed to tear up
 
Karanka is the all or nothing manager where its win or meltdown. He got it from being at Real Madrid though. He really did rebuild this club though and I thank him for all the efforts. However his man managing was woeful as he just didn't support players when the going got tough he would publicity critics players if they did badly in a game etc that did create tension such as the Charlton meltdown weekend when he didnt even manage us.
 
TeaCider said:
What's that got to do with Karanka?

That became an issue in 2018/19, Karanka was sacked 2 years before.
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Just saying, agreed we should never have resigned him. Whats that saying about not looking back.

Im sure Karanka would rather have had the 6m to strengthen the team elsewhere
 
The club made a very strong commitment to me. I felt they were backing me even though I had no experience as a head coach. I remember after the fifth game, the owner called me and I thought, ‘This is as far as my first coaching experience goes’. But that day I understood what Steve Gibson is as a person and as a manager. He said, ‘You think I’m going to fire you? You don’t believe that yourself. We brought you in to get you to the Premiership and we’re going to get you there’. I ended up having dinner with his family that day, which multiplied my commitment to the club even more.”

Except when the club and Steve Gibson needed him, he walked out…

A strange manager, brilliant at times. Not done it anywhere else though. He was indulged here. I think he found his perfect storm at Boro. His method of management was clearly not sustainable. Certainly a marmite character.
 
AytonMews said:
At least someone on here can read! 😂
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In fairness the article is very clickbaity, but the quote “I wouldn’t do it again” is a strange one even in the context, because without having said that I don’t know if it would have worked out the same way, and he’d have got the Teesside public believing. And it was the only managerial success of his career, so surprising to say he’d have done it differently.

Anyway, I almost wish we’d never bothered going up either. 2016/2017 was harrowing to watch.
 
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