Danny Mills - Under The Cosh

What should McClaren have achieved though?

He won a League Cup, last 16 of the UEFA cup, a UEFA Cup final, highest-ever Premier League finish, two FA Cup semi-finals. All in five years. The last couple of years under him, we had a very strong 15 or 16 and then underneath that was academy graduates. The year we finished 7th, Everton got into the Champions League. They took four points off us that season. If we’d won the 1-0 defeat we’d have finished 4th and they’d have been 5th. That’s with us juggling European football for the first time as well.

That spell under McClaren was absolutely fantastic imo. I can’t really see what else he could’ve done? Won an FA Cup? Won the UEFA Cup? Also, as mentioned above, factor in the squad depth. In the two European seasons, especially the second one, he was running two teams, one for domestic games and one for the cups.

I think he was brilliant for us. I’d be astounded if we ever get anywhere near that spell ever again in my lifetime tbh.
 
You also factor in we were the much better team against Arsenal at Old Trafford with a rag-bag team that had Wilkshire, Marinelli, Debeve and Allan Johnston in it. We lost to a ridiculous own goal.

If we’d won the FA Cup that year would that mean he’d achieved what he ‘should’ have achieved with us?
 
ForssAwakens said:
You can say both McLaren was tremendous and magnificent for us whilst also acknowledging he underachieved with the team.
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But why did he under achieve - what else should he have won with the team (but also squad) he had at his disposal - highlight where you believe he should have done better.

Where did he under achieve, was it getting our highest ever PL finish, qualifying for Europe twice or winning a cup - what else should he have done ?
 
The_Lizards_Jumpers said:
I dont.

You're looking at it in isolation and just looking at the "big names" we had, and not looking at the opposition, not to mention it was his first managerial job where he was still learning how to manage a PL team.

Also look at the quality of the bench / squad as well, as simply looking at the first 11 doesn't tell the full story either.
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I'm looking at the money we spent and some of the talent we had. We had a very good season 04/05 but when you look at our 05/06 season we should have achieved a much better league position with that squad. When we actually went more attacking vs Basel, Steaua when we had nothing to lose we ripped them apart. I would've liked to have seen a more attacking approach in the league too. Finishing 14th with that squad wasn't great.
 
18MFC76 said:
I'm looking at the money we spent and some of the talent we had. We had a very good season 04/05 but when you look at our 05/06 season we should have achieved a much better league position with that squad. When we actually went more attacking vs Basel, Steaua when we had nothing to lose we ripped them apart. I would've liked to have seen a more attacking approach in the league too. Finishing 14th with that squad wasn't great.
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You're looking at our league position in isolation, and ignoring the cups runs we had in the same season (semi, quarter and final in the 3 cups we were competing in).

You talk about the squad but beyond the big names our squad was largely the Youth Cup winning team from a few years previously - you had Craddock, Walker, Graham. Turnbull, Knight etc as back up.

The money we spent delivered a European final and mid table in the PL, have you benchmarked it against what was spent by the teams finishing above us that season?
 
ForssAwakens said:
Unpopular opinion but McLaren underachieved with the talent he had at his disposal

He had viduka jfh and yakubu as striker choices too
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He came close to achieving the unthinkable dream, lost a UEFA Cup final, and if we had beaten Everton away in 04/05, instead of a narrow 1-0 defeat, then we would have qualified for the champions league. If we had managed to keep Viduka and/or Ehiogu fit, I think we would have done it anyway
 
The_Lizards_Jumpers said:
I dont.

You're looking at it in isolation and just looking at the "big names" we had, and not looking at the opposition, not to mention it was his first managerial job where he was still learning how to manage a PL team.

Also look at the quality of the bench / squad as well, as simply looking at the first 11 doesn't tell the full story either.
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We had a front 4 that could rival even the big boys of United and Arsenal, ability, and depth. Jimmy, Viduka, Yakubu and Massimo. We had top defence with Schwarzer, Southgate, Ugo, Frnech Frank, Mills/Reiziger, Boat. Quality in midfield with Mendi, Juninho, Zenden and Downing.

Possibly the most talented squad we have ever had? Plenty of strength in depth too, with Nemeth, Job, Christie, Riggott, Cooper, Doriva, Johnson, McMahon, Morrison, etc.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
What should McClaren have achieved though?

He won a League Cup, last 16 of the UEFA cup, a UEFA Cup final, highest-ever Premier League finish, two FA Cup semi-finals. All in five years. The last couple of years under him, we had a very strong 15 or 16 and then underneath that was academy graduates. The year we finished 7th, Everton got into the Champions League. They took four points off us that season. If we’d won the 1-0 defeat we’d have finished 4th and they’d have been 5th. That’s with us juggling European football for the first time as well.

That spell under McClaren was absolutely fantastic imo. I can’t really see what else he could’ve done? Won an FA Cup? Won the UEFA Cup? Also, as mentioned above, factor in the squad depth. In the two European seasons, especially the second one, he was running two teams, one for domestic games and one for the cups.

I think he was brilliant for us. I’d be astounded if we ever get anywhere near that spell ever again in my lifetime tbh.
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Some underachieving eh!
 
The_Lizards_Jumpers said:
You're looking at our league position in isolation, and ignoring the cups runs we had in the same season (semi, quarter and final in the 3 cups we were competing in).

You talk about the squad but beyond the big names our squad was largely the Youth Cup winning team from a few years previously - you had Craddock, Walker, Graham. Turnbull, Knight etc as back up.

The money we spent delivered a European final and mid table in the PL, have you benchmarked it against what was spent by the teams finishing above us that season?
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Unbelievable that Boro fans wax lyrical about Robbo cup finals and relegation, yet still slate McLaren. Without key injuries in 2004/5 we would have made Champions League.
 
Otto42 said:
Unbelievable that Boro fans wax lyrical about Robbo cup finals and relegation, yet still slate McLaren. Without key injuries in 2004/5 we would have made Champions League.
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I'm not slating McClaren. I just think we maybe slightly under achieved in the league. We were one of the big spenders in these years, especially wages wise. Cup runs were great during this period and I'm not knocking McClaren for that. He delivered our first trophy and we got to a European final so it's not all doom and gloom but our league form at times was poor, 04/05 we were great though.
 
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The_Lizards_Jumpers said:
You're looking at our league position in isolation, and ignoring the cups runs we had in the same season (semi, quarter and final in the 3 cups we were competing in).

You talk about the squad but beyond the big names our squad was largely the Youth Cup winning team from a few years previously - you had Craddock, Walker, Graham. Turnbull, Knight etc as back up.
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You've named fringe players there who didn't really feature. The youth cup winning squad also had players such as Morrison, Bates, Wheater, Taylor, McMahon, Johnson. All of whom played at a high level. Morrison (46 caps) and Johnson (12 caps) were International level and Wheater received an England call up. These players were no mugs and gave us great squad depth. The fact we won the youth cup shows what a good crop of youngsters we had.
 
The wage-bill under McClaren was surprisingly low.

The year we finished 7th we had the 11th highest wages in the league. We finished above Spurs, Villa, Newcastle, Blackburn, Manchester City, Fulham. They all spent more on wages than Boro.

The wage-bill that season was exactly the same as it was the season before, £29m, when we finished 11th and won a League Cup with the 11th highest wage bill in the league.

The year before that, 2002/03, finished 11th with the 14th highest wages.

The year before that, McClaren’s first season, we finished 12th with the 11th highest wages, though it was pretty much Robson’s squad at that time.

In his last season, we finished 14th with the joint 11th highest wages. The context there is that we reached a UEFA Cup final and an FA Cup semi-final so played 64 games.
 
We actually overachieved under McClaren if you use wages as the guide for where you’ll finish in the league. Save for his last year, we were always punching above our weight in the league or at least holding our ground while we chased the cups and Europe.

I find it very difficult to find where McClaren could’ve achieved anything more for us tbh.
 
One thing about that period under McClaren is how well we spent much of our money. We had some big-name players but we packed the quality rather than quantity. I think the club could learn a lot from that now. We spread the bulk of our cash across a very, very talented core of senior players and supplemented it with youth team graduates and the odd cheap deal here and there. We built an absolutely brilliant group and got absolute value for money across the whole piece imo.
 
BoroMart said:
He came close to achieving the unthinkable dream, lost a UEFA Cup final, and if we had beaten Everton away in 04/05, instead of a narrow 1-0 defeat, then we would have qualified for the champions league. If we had managed to keep Viduka and/or Ehiogu fit, I think we would have done it anyway
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We'd have actually come 5th, behind Liverpool on goal difference. Still would've been a great achievement
 
The thing is the club were actually being sensible. Mills had signed a big 5 year deal at Leeds and they actually did want him off the wage bill.

He signed on a free for Man City.
 
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