Right then, where does the blame lie?

Blame lies entirely with the club/recruitment. Losing Akpom, Archer, Ramsey and their 40 + goals from last season and replacing them with projects, kids and untested ‘potential’ players. Starting the season with only Lath and a developing youngster in Coburn to play up top, then allowing the January transfer window to pass without addressing it, was mental. Asking Carrick to do a job with one hand tied behind his back. I will not be surprised in the slightest if he is off this summer. Likewise RVDB and Hackney. Massive opportunity missed.

That said, I expect we’ll beat Leicester at the weekend and be talking about the playoffs again 😂
 
Looking at the coaching team MC and JW rarely discuss what's going on the pitch. JW appears to sit on the end of a row of coaches in his own world. Things are not right between them,
 
Learn the lessons. Yes. Make culprits and scapegoats. No.
Don't like the word BLAME.
I prefer where 'could we improve'. Including those things we do well.
 
Recruitment has been the no1 issue. It's OK saying we are in a better position now because we own most of our squad but the reality is most of those players aren't good enough to help us push towards promotion. The recruitment last summer has been really poor and to not find a proper striker in January is criminal.

I've said all season that I think Carrick is getting the best out of his squad, but I am starting to worry. We are making the same mistakes over and over again. We aren't changing the way we play. Pushing two full backs up the pitch simultaneously is killing us. Last night we'd just got ourselves back in the game, 3 minutes later both full backs are pushed right up and we got hit on the counter. Same thing happened 2 weeks ago against Sunderland. 1-0 up in the last 10 mins and both full backs pushed right up and get caught short and concede. It's bad game management. If one pushes up, the other full back needs to drop in and make a 3.
 
Depends on the aim at the start of the season. We made the playoffs last season with a better squad in a poorer division. It may have been the aim this season but I'm not sure it was an expectation?

Injuries have killed our season really - we did some excellent work in the summer bolstering the squad (quantity was an issue last season) but were quickly short in key positions again when injuries struck.

We've also been forced to adapt our style of play which probably isn't ideal.

I think recruitment has been OK - some wins (Rogers) and some potential losses (Thomas coming in suggests there may be question marks over the LBs, both signed in the Summer).
 
We're where we are because we gave everyone else a 7 game start on us. We had to replace the loanees with new signings, and despite the longer term benefits, there are short term drawbacks, as we saw. But if we'd won just 2 of those first 7 we'd be a point off 6th, which isn't bad considering we lost 2 players that scored us 40 goals last season.

I'm as frustrated as anyone as I don't think we've had an ounce of luck this season either, lost games we played well in, and injuries to key players have played their part too. But looking at the bigger picture I don't think we're in a bad place all things considered - we're miles ahead of where we were under Woody, Pulis, and Warnock. We're just not consistent enough to make the play offs this year, but I have high hopes that with a better start next season, signing a couple of strikers in the summer, and crucially not selling anymore of our better players, we'll be up there next season.

There is no one to blame imo because its hard for a manager to build a team in this day and age. As soon as any player shows an ounce of quality they're picked off by Premier League clubs to pad out their own squads. So its now down to the Boro hierarchy to make sure Carrick gets a fair crack at it next season, gets the strikers he needs, and crucially gets to keep the players he's been working with since he arrived.
 
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The injuries haven't helped at all, never known a season like it. We've never really had a settled 11 all season. Even in recent weeks losing Jones and Latte Lath has been a huge loss (especially Jones) and has shown the difference it makes when you have no pace in the team.

We massively shot ourselves in the foot by not getting a striker in on loan, even if it was a short term role here it might have made the difference in the last 2 games and also kept fans more happy while boosting morale going into the next season, especially with that ST renewal debacle.

Losing Rogers unexpectedly after he was starting to show promise was unfortunate and the cup run didn't really help us in the end, especially the 2 injuries against Chelsea.

In summary a very disruptive, unsettled transition season, the players staying next season will be more settled and experienced playing in this league, surely the injury situation won't continue? 🤞

We have one of the most important summers we've had in a long time, a lot of work for Scott, he has to get it spot on and bring in a lot of players to balance out the inevitable leavers, while also adding quality in the areas where we're lacking, annoyingly that possibly means another slow start to next season as the players get used to each other again.

I expect at least the PO next season, once the summer transfer window closes we'll know if those expectations are realistic, it might all look rosy then, might also prove to be a shrewd move holding off the spending in the rip off January window, we all know we have short term memories in football, if we have a good summer this will all be quickly forgotten (ST aside).

I still think Carrick is the right person to take us forward and it's not all as negative as some think, UTB!
 
Why do we have to pick out one person/entity to blame? There are lots of reason why we aren't good enough for promotion at present.

When the day comes that we do get it right, if its still Gibson at the helm, it will have been mainly down to luck because he isn't/doesn't have the resources to chuck at it to force the issue like many want (as he was able to do in 1995 and 1998). The whole thing is a big Rubik's cube, we cracked the puzzle in 2016 but we haven't managed it since.

This season isn't our time I don't think, but it will probably happen again one day.
 
We've taken far too long to replace players that have left or been injured long term. Right back, left back and most recently striker. We've just sat on our hands and hoped that we could paper over their absences and it just hasn't worked.
 
Following on from my thoughts earlier in the thread, I think we need to temper our expectations a lot.
Leaving aside any issues we have, think about the promotion race in the league overall. It would appear that the way to bounce back at the first attempt is to hang onto as much of your squad as possible by using the parachute payments to fund the wages. You see how Leicester and Southampton have done it despite losing some really big players. Established PL teams who come down really have no reason to worry.
On those lines, it's possible that at least 2 of the 3 relegated sides will be in the automatic or playoff places meaning that the rest of the league are scrabbling for 3 or 4 places at best.
All those saying we should avoid loans and develop our own players then need to factor in the reality that we will have to do so on a really tight budget and it'll depend hugely on luck as to how we do.
As I said earlier, we got close last year because of some brilliant loans and a superb season from Hackney and Akpom. That was the time to invest and the fact that we didn't, including letting go of Chuba, says to me that budget is always going to be an issue. Fans expecting all our incoming monies to finally be invested are in for a shock.
In essence, what I'm saying is that we need to hit the jackpot with loans like we did last season and hope that they add enough quality to get us up. Once up it'll transform our finances and we'll be able to raise the quality of the overall squad to a point where we'll be better able to adopt this new model.
I expect we'll be down in the championship for a good while yet unless we get lucky.
 
LessoftheLip said:
Because you are talking rubbish. Almost 12 months ago to the day we took Sheff. Utd. to the cleaners. Today you say we are two players away from completing the jigsaw. You're delusional man.
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I mean... put a good striker into the mix and we look like we could cook.. add in a right winger or right wing back and it's a different story all together!

Ali Al Hamadi & Manuel Benson or Ben Johnson..

Sure beats Matthew Hoppe and Luke Ayling
 
People seem to think it is a failure to find a striker who is going to come in and light up the league. every club in europe is scouting for this same person.
Our big problem, and this applies to english football in general, was that we relied on loans from the prem. We couldnt win because, lets face it, most of them were sh.ite and the ones that performed well when then sold for more money that we could afford.
There seems to be a more sensible, long term approach, at the moment. It is not designed to give short term immediate gains.
We just do not have the ability to pay for anything better and a lot of that seems to be down to FFP.

But above all else this season, I think the ridiculous amount of injuries we have suffered has to raise questions over the sports science and conditioning coaching.
 
MoggasDog said:
People seem to think it is a failure to find a striker who is going to come in and light up the league. every club in europe is scouting for this same person.
Our big problem, and this applies to english football in general, was that we relied on loans from the prem. We couldnt win because, lets face it, most of them were sh.ite and the ones that performed well when then sold for more money that we could afford.
There seems to be a more sensible, long term approach, at the moment. It is not designed to give short term immediate gains.
We just do not have the ability to pay for anything better and a lot of that seems to be down to FFP.

But above all else this season, I think the ridiculous amount of injuries we have suffered has to raise questions over the sports science and conditioning coaching.
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Less strikers playing more games = more injuries
 
HenryM said:
Why is everyone always trying to play the blame game. Blaming Gibson or individual players is ridiculous. Fans need a bit of realism. The 'glory' days have been and gone Gibson has done his deluded best but, in reality, we are never going to be a 'big' club and no Sheikh's are going to buy the club. The recent ploy of turning the clubs debts into shares does nothing other than make Bulkhaul a much poorer company but it does make the club easier to sell because potential buyers do not have to inherit the debt which goes back to the Bryan Robson days. Its a lousy business.
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They've just sent out season ticket renewals so I'd say knowing who is to blame for this season is very important because people have to decide whether it is worth spending their money. If it's the manager then we should change manager. If it's recruitment then we need to improve recruitment, if it's Gibson then we should be replacing Gibson.

If the management of the club is the problem and they aren't going to put right some of the things they are poor at and will continue to make the same repeat mistakes while asking fans for more and more money then people have more information to base their decision on renewing. We're all Boro fans and we want to be successful but we don't want to be exploited or have the **** taken out of us which is what appears to be happening when fans are being asked to stump up more money to cover the poor decision making of the club.

Gibson might see this season as a success. We've made a profit on player sales and our wages have been lower because we've replaced high earners with young players and we had no PL loan players. We've also achieved the same as last season because we'll be playing championship football next season. There was also a big money cup match to swell the coffers. If Gibson sees it as a success then his vision isn't aligned with the fans who are paying the most in the league to have to settle for midtable mediocrity. If midtable mediocrity is the ambition then the prices should reflect that.
 
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