Phil Spencer "Journalist"

I think we are probably in agreement here, no where near as good as Fulham, Bournemouth, West Brom or Sheffield Utd, but should be a match for Luton, Huddersfield and Coventry. Par for us this season should be 5th to 10th at the moment we are under performing. I think we are all incredibly frustrated, because the last two games were more than winnable and with one win out of those we would be handily placed. I'm not expecting anything on Saturday at West Brom, so we'll go in to the international break well below par!
 
It isn’t even really about where we “should” or shouldn’t be in the table, it’s that this Boro team consistently fails to do even the most basic of stuff and conceded goals and points as a result. We are terrible at defending set pieces and don’t clear our lines properly. We don’t mark up properly at corners. You can excuse the odd mishap here and there across 46 games but this is pretty much every single week. An experienced manager like Warnock should be able to sort this out on the training field, surely, otherwise what’s he actually doing?

To go with those issues, we have no interest in keeping hold of the ball whatsoever which means we’re chasing it too much and running out of steam in the second half. Our second halves are generally appalling and I think other managers make tweaks and subs that Warnock doesn’t see and can’t/doesn’t think he needs to respond to.

These are things that can be worked out in training. That there is no discernible change in any of these things over 9 or 10 months, irrespective of playing personnel, suggests it’s the manager and his staff most at fault. It happens way, way too often for it to be anyone other than Warnock held responsible.

We need to move on ASAP.
 
Humpty said:
just have to look at the top 8, teams like Blackpool, Coventry and Luton
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I was just going to make this point, the top 3 are miles better than us but outside of that we should be competing with the other playoff contenders.
 
Humpty said:
Does this guy have the worst take of all the Boro journalists out there?

As a reminder this is the guy that said he also follows Liverpool because he supports a small club like Middlesbrough.

View attachment 27267
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He's right.

This squad isn't a top 6 squad.

Look at our keepers. They're both average at best for this division.

And we're relying on a 36 year old as a CB.

We don't have any cover in fullback areas.

Our squad is nowhere near a top 6 squad.

Looking at the squad we have now and the squad we had under Karanka - it's lightyears away.
 
Otto42 said:
I think we are probably in agreement here, no where near as good as Fulham, Bournemouth, West Brom or Sheffield Utd, but should be a match for Luton, Huddersfield and Coventry. Par for us this season should be 5th to 10th at the moment we are under performing. I think we are all incredibly frustrated, because the last two games were more than winnable and with one win out of those we would be handily placed. I'm not expecting anything on Saturday at West Brom, so we'll go in to the international break well below par!
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This Saturday's game could be an embarrassment if we play like we did in the second half last night. Hopefully it isn't.
 
I'm shocked that people disagree with him tbh. This squad is bang average at best. Our best player is a 36 yr old CB who was brought in last minute for cover which says it all IMO.

I think people are confused at the difference between expensive and quality.
 
BoroMart said:
I'd take Ayala, Besic, Randolph and maybe Hugill would be better as third choice CF than Ikpeazu in today's team.
But then I would take Bamba, Bola, Dijksteel, Crooks, Payero and Sporar into that Pulis team.

Pretty similar standard of player to be honest
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Similar standard of player?

How does he do without McQueen, Ayala, Fry, Friend & Batth?

Randolph - Lumley
Lonergan - Daniels
Dimi - Stojanovic
————————-
Friend - Bola
Ayala - Hall
Shotton - Peltier
McQueen - A.Dijksteel
Fry - Fry
Flint - Bamba
Wood - Wood
Batth - N/A
————————-
Leadbitter - Malley
Clayton - Crooks
De Sart - Siliki
Howson - Howson
McNair - McNair
Downing - Hernandez
Johnson - Jones
Wing - Payero
Chapman - M.Dijksteel
Tavernier - Tavernier
Besic - Sykes
Van la Parra - Olusanyo
————————-
Britt - Watmore
Braithwaite - Ameobi
Hugill - Coburn
Fletcher - Sporar
Gestede - Ikpeazu

I think the standard is lower overall
 
OK taking your comarisons:

Randolph - Lumley
Lonergan - Daniels **
Dimi - Stojanovic **
————————-
Friend - Bola
Ayala - Hall
Shotton - Peltier **
McQueen - A.Dijksteel **
Fry - Fry **
Flint - Bamba **
Wood - Wood **
Batth - N/A
————————-
Leadbitter - Malley
Clayton - Crooks **
De Sart - Siliki **
Howson - Howson
McNair - McNair **
Downing - Hernandez
Johnson - Jones **
Wing - Payero **
Chapman - M.Dijksteel
Tavernier - Tavernier **
Besic - Sykes
Van la Parra - Olusanyo **
————————-
Britt - Watmore **
Braithwaite - Ameobi
Hugill - Coburn
Fletcher - Sporar **
Gestede - Ikpeazu **

** I would prefer.

Plenty I would take from the current squad above the previous one, but as I've said I think the league this season is pretty week bar 4 squads. I mean when does a team manage to score 7 away goals to a midtable side
 
Humpty said:
@Jonny Ingbar summed it up nicely. This squad is less than the sum of its parts. You just have to look at the top 8, teams like Blackpool, Coventry and Luton simply do not have better individual players than we do. Collectively they’re squeezing so much more out of their players than Warnock has managed.
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Some might say Luton, Blackpool and Coventry are over achieving in a very tight league, below the top 3.

I would say we should be around 10th but we have suffered more than average from injuries and smaller squad (only 23 players).

I would guess we only have 23 players to keep costs down.

The squad was better and bigger under Woodgate than Warnock - Randolph, Ayala, Britt, Fletch, Friend, Clayton, Roberts, Saville, Shotton, Johnson, certainly a lot more expensive.
 
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
How many times have you seen Luton Coventry and Blackpool play?
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I went to the Blackpool home game and the Coventry away game.

I think Coventry were boosted slightly by return to Ricoh and Blackpool have a promotion bounce. Both played well. Horrendous mistake by Hall gave Blackpool the points, in evenish game. We deserved to lose at Coventry by the odd goal. Didn't a guy score against us at Coventry that we could not afford when he was at Derby, so Coventry will be paying decent Championship wages.
 
Boro Mart - you left out Obi Mikel (I would replace De Sart with him as DS never played a league game)

edit - Also you have left out George Saville.

I am not been critical just felt they needed adding to give a fairer reflection

My guess is the 2018/19 squad was on around double the wages of the current squad and a massive difference in transfer fees.
 
I genuinely think apart from a few players, the biggest one by far would be Randolph, that I would comfortably take this squad over that one, the first XI especially is way better.

And as someone else mentioned the league this season is garbage. Pulis finished 7th with that lot but the top 6 was really, really good. You had Lampards cheating Derby, a very good Villa side, Bielsa’s Leeds all missing out on automatic promotion.

It's actually laughable that we have so much more attacking potential now yet we are barely scoring above the rate that Pulis side was and everyone hated that side because it was dull.
 
Redwurzel said:
Boro Mart - you left out Obi Mikel (I would replace De Sart with him as DS never played a league game)

edit - Also you have left out George Saville.
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I didn't leave them out, it's newys list. But fair points although obv Mikel was only there for about 15 games.
Redwurzel said:
My guess is the 2018/19 squad was on around double the wages of the current squad and a massive difference in transfer fees.
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probably true, but I think that was more a reflection on poor recruitment than player ability. I mean Britt was 15mill and 40k/week but couldn't trap a bag of cement or finish his dinner.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
It isn’t even really about where we “should” or shouldn’t be in the table, it’s that this Boro team consistently fails to do even the most basic of stuff and conceded goals and points as a result. We are terrible at defending set pieces and don’t clear our lines properly. We don’t mark up properly at corners. You can excuse the odd mishap here and there across 46 games but this is pretty much every single week. An experienced manager like Warnock should be able to sort this out on the training field, surely, otherwise what’s he actually doing?

To go with those issues, we have no interest in keeping hold of the ball whatsoever which means we’re chasing it too much and running out of steam in the second half. Our second halves are generally appalling and I think other managers make tweaks and subs that Warnock doesn’t see and can’t/doesn’t think he needs to respond to.

These are things that can be worked out in training. That there is no discernible change in any of these things over 9 or 10 months, irrespective of playing personnel, suggests it’s the manager and his staff most at fault. It happens way, way too often for it to be anyone other than Warnock held responsible.

We need to move on ASAP.
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Exactly my thoughts.
 
Jonny Ingbar said:
Yep, we are a team that's less then the sum of our parts.

Same with Pulis and the only time we had a squad that was remotely poor enough to go down was under Woodgate
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You think Woodgate's squad was significantly worse than this one? You could argue we have a better keeper now than either Pears or Stejanovic but that's about it. And neither are better than Randolph.

We're up and down at the moment because we've had only one fit centre back and one fit full back. We've been limited to trying to play in a way which protects the weak areas of the team. We're mid table with an outside chance of pushing for the playoffs if everything falls in our favour, which it hasn't. If we can get other players back to fitness we'll be in with a shot again.
 
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