Right then, where does the blame lie?

Nano said:
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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Spot on again. I'd at the commercial department to that.
 
All of them reasons, recruitment was terrible.
Coaching has been awful we make way too many mistakes.
Carrick has been very stubborn this year.
Injuries have been horrific.
Selling players without replacing them.
Think last season papered over the cracks slightly, looking at our team at start of season I was thinking relegation battle , then we went on that run of 7 wins I thought oh no I'm totally wrong, now I'm right as always and we are in free fall.
 

'Right then, where does the blame lie?'​

Can I have a go please.
For me top 3 are lady luck, injuries, and, obviously, no striker brought in. So the Devil, The Devil and The Recruitment team

I think we play nice football very often, I also think we have brought on those new summer signings well and improved them since the beginning of the season.
But so many times we don't seem to get the rub of the green when the opposition do. I know that's football but it just seems to be happening to us so much more this season than usual. And the obvious issue is scoring goals, and we needed to address that in Jan.

Personally I always thought this was a year of transition after losing so many key players last summer (no sht Sherlock). However if we can keep Hackney, McGree and VDB, (and Jones, Forrs,) next season should see a real improvement, not another rebuild. If we don't then we'll just be back where we are now

Whatever, win, lose or draw, I think the football we've been watching over the last two seasons with Carrick has been much more fun than the three before
 
Jedi boro said:
The denial optimists are not doing this club any favours at all.
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Season ticket prices aside, which I think are ridiculous, I pretty much agree with what the club has done in the transfer market.

I wouldn't have brought in a striker in the jan window, unless they had been identified, scouted and the deal was right. It isn't sustainable to finance a club on a 4 month plan.

People have complained about the recruitement too. I am not sure they are getting that wrong. Spence, Akpom and Rogers all suggest that the recruitment is, at least reasonably sound. We could add McGree into that too. He is worth a fai bit of money whether we sell this summer or not.

Ultimately the single biggest factor is our injuries. We have had 5 regular starters out for most of the season. That level would effect any team.

I would factor in Carrick as part of the problem too. He is learning his trade and will make mistakes, but he has, probably, cost us quite a few points this season. His selections at the begining of the season were a bit hopeful. His refusal to move Forss, temporarily, from the right to central, may or may not be a poor decision, but he could have tried it against Preston when he brought Silvera on and seen how forss performed there in a competitive match.

In short I think our recruitment is the least of our problems.
 
Laughing said:
In short I think our recruitment is the least of our problems.
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I don't think I've ever disagreed with a statement more. You can't just use the few successes when the quantity of failures far outweigh them. Also, how far back do you go because some of those signings were made before the current recruitment setup was here. The only real measure is whether or not our current line-up is getting better or worse and it's difficult to argue that it is better. You also have to include loan players because needing to loan a player is either because we don't have someone good enough in the squad or it's a temporary solution, neither of which should be needed if recruitment is effective. Last season we had multiple loan players sitting on our bench, or not even making the bench. That's a colossal waste of money and development opportunities.

Some of the recruitment decisions are really hard to justify. Hoppe and Payero are two players we have bought recently, for significant money for us these days. They have both been deemed not good enough by multiple managers. How does a recruitment team misjudge a player so badly to the point that we don't have a striker in the squad, we're a goal down and still the manager won't bring him on?

I agree with the model that we are using. It is more sustainable and I think it gives us more chance of success in the long term of being promoted than the constant big gambles. The model allows us to bring in several players with the hope that we will get big money for some of them to fund the next wave. Signings should gradually get more expensive so their minimum level of performance raises. We should never be signing a player that isn't good enough for our current level though. That can only be seen as a complete failure. I have a feeling though that we are too late to the party. There are better recruitment setups identifying players and we're left scrabbling around for the cast-offs because it's taken us far too long to realise that just spending big might be the wrong approach.

The most blame that the recruitment team has to shoulder though is that for the last 2 seasons we have started the season with gaping holes in our squad and essentially stopped the season before it has even got started. That is unforgivable. It's not like we were hanging on to sign some superstar. We're buying cheap development players. They should be in the squad and the squad should be mostly settled for the first game of the season with any additional that could significantly improve things if they come up rather than relying on the last days to do all our business.
 
Nano said:
I don't think I've ever disagreed with a statement more. You can't just use the few successes when the quantity of failures far outweigh them. Also, how far back do you go because some of those signings were made before the current recruitment setup was here. The only real measure is whether or not our current line-up is getting better or worse and it's difficult to argue that it is better. You also have to include loan players because needing to loan a player is either because we don't have someone good enough in the squad or it's a temporary solution, neither of which should be needed if recruitment is effective. Last season we had multiple loan players sitting on our bench, or not even making the bench. That's a colossal waste of money and development opportunities.

Some of the recruitment decisions are really hard to justify. Hoppe and Payero are two players we have bought recently, for significant money for us these days. They have both been deemed not good enough by multiple managers. How does a recruitment team misjudge a player so badly to the point that we don't have a striker in the squad, we're a goal down and still the manager won't bring him on?

I agree with the model that we are using. It is more sustainable and I think it gives us more chance of success in the long term of being promoted than the constant big gambles. The model allows us to bring in several players with the hope that we will get big money for some of them to fund the next wave. Signings should gradually get more expensive so their minimum level of performance raises. We should never be signing a player that isn't good enough for our current level though. That can only be seen as a complete failure. I have a feeling though that we are too late to the party. There are better recruitment setups identifying players and we're left scrabbling around for the cast-offs because it's taken us far too long to realise that just spending big might be the wrong approach.

The most blame that the recruitment team has to shoulder though is that for the last 2 seasons we have started the season with gaping holes in our squad and essentially stopped the season before it has even got started. That is unforgivable. It's not like we were hanging on to sign some superstar. We're buying cheap development players. They should be in the squad and the squad should be mostly settled for the first game of the season with any additional that could significantly improve things if they come up rather than relying on the last days to do all our business.
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This might be an interesting debate nano.

I mentioned 3 successess, I could also list Lenihan, VDB, Forss, Jones and Dieng. Thats almost an excellent first 11.

Yes we have had some stinkers, you are right, and you always will. It's perhaps not too surprising that the 2 failures you mentioned have come from different countries. Whether a player will settle in a new environment is always a risk and the more different the culture, the harder it is to know. Now I don't know if the issue with these two is the player settling, or they just weren't (aren't) good enough and I don't think that matters too much, as long as the recruitment team are getting more right than wrong. You could go on and argue Lath, Silvera, Bangura and Engel are all not good enough. Bit early to say I would suggest and none of them would be written off, I don't think. Whether they make it or not, the jury is out, I think it fair to say.

You go on and mention that the recruitment team should be judged on whether the team is getting better or not. That's a fair assessment, but when making that you have to discount loans who returned to their parent clubs. So comparing this years team with the back end of last year, you would have to discount Archer and Ramsey when comparing. We coudn't afford those players.

In addition the recruitment team are not responsible for Crooks and Rogers going, which undoubtedly weakened us, but not the recruitment teams doing.

Our biggest single factor this season in our mediocrity is our injuries. No team could have sustained that level of crockedness (maddo would be proud of that word).
 
Jedi boro said:
The denial optimists are not doing this club any favours at all.
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I am not sure what this actually means "denial optimists". Who are you referring to? I am certainly not denying we are in a difficult situation in terms of transfer buying power, in terms of attracting footballers to the North East, lack of strikers. but balanced out by having a progressive young manager who is respected and with some of the best training facilities in the country. If one was an optimist somehow denying there are issues how are they not doing the Club any favours? Do you really think believe that the Club thinks everything is rosy because of continued support? Really it's a throw away line which is meaningless. The Club are very aware of the issues but are boxed in by circumstances.
 
Laughing said:
This might be an interesting debate nano.

I mentioned 3 successess, I could also list Lenihan, VDB, Forss, Jones and Dieng. Thats almost an excellent first 11.

Yes we have had some stinkers, you are right, and you always will. It's perhaps not too surprising that the 2 failures you mentioned have come from different countries. Whether a player will settle in a new environment is always a risk and the more different the culture, the harder it is to know. Now I don't know if the issue with these two is the player settling, or they just weren't (aren't) good enough and I don't think that matters too much, as long as the recruitment team are getting more right than wrong. You could go on and argue Lath, Silvera, Bangura and Engel are all not good enough. Bit early to say I would suggest and none of them would be written off, I don't think. Whether they make it or not, the jury is out, I think it fair to say.

You go on and mention that the recruitment team should be judged on whether the team is getting better or not. That's a fair assessment, but when making that you have to discount loans who returned to their parent clubs. So comparing this years team with the back end of last year, you would have to discount Archer and Ramsey when comparing. We coudn't afford those players.

In addition the recruitment team are not responsible for Crooks and Rogers going, which undoubtedly weakened us, but not the recruitment teams doing.

Our biggest single factor this season in our mediocrity is our injuries. No team could have sustained that level of crockedness (maddo would be proud of that word).
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It's a long term thing and you can't just look at individual things in isolation. Our squad isn't getting better and you have to include the loans because that is money we are spending. We are as weak now as any time since relegation.

Forss is a weird one because I assume the recruitment team were recruiting a striker and not a winger so is him not being good enough as a striker but being good enough as a winger a win or a loss for the recruitment team?

Nearly having a good 11 isn't a ringing endorsement. Especially when 2 of them play in the same position.

I agree Dieng is a good keeper but we have signed 7 keepers in the last 3 years so that's a lot of trial and error to get there.

We don't have a good enough fullback on either side. Smith was a weak link last season and needed improving but we had too many other holes to fill that he wasn't a priority and we have no real back-up because Dijksteel isn't trusted. We still need 2 new quality fullbacks (maybe Ayling and Thomas are them long term but for now we don't know). We also started the season with Coulson! as our full back.

We have been trying, and failing, to replace Howson for at least 3 years. That can only be classed as a failure. We still haven't done it and if we lose Hackney as well then we are down to just a 36 year old Howson (if he gets another contract) and Barlaser.

We have 2 strikers in our squad and one of them we were trying to send to Plymouth. The other one wasn't even there when we started the season. It was unbelievably risky to but all our eggs in that one belated basket.
 
LeeMiller said:
I think we can all agree that we aren’t getting into the play offs this season. Which was surely the minimum aim at the start of the season. Truth be told we my be pushing our luck to finish top half.

So is it, the recruitment team for not providing the coaching team with a squad capable of a top six finish?

The coaching team for not getting the best out of the players? Team selection and in game tactics?

Or the players for being unable to shoot straight and pass to red shirt.

What a dismal season this will fizzle out to be
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Does there have to be any blame put anywhere??

A League Cup semi final dreaming of Wembley and a Top 10 finish in the toughest Championship in years, is no mean feat.
 
I was an optimist at the start of the season, and now, obviously, things haven't gone as I'd hoped.

However, in the long term we are in a better place than we've been for a while. Every key player in the squad is ours, we have a squad that - even in the worst injury crisis - can rank in the middle of the Championship. We have money in the bank for transfers and FFP headroom for wages. Out wage structure means we're no longer saddles with expensive flops.

We went for it last year with loans and failed. This year we haven't been close. That shows you the folly of trying to do it with loans, as it's all of nothing the hard hats on for a rebuild. All the talk about the recruitment team being at fault - they'll actually have money to spend this summer and not half a squad to replace. We need a RB, a CM and CF.
 
FatFrank said:
Does there have to be any blame put anywhere??

A League Cup semi final dreaming of Wembley and a Top 10 finish in the toughest Championship in years, is no mean feat.
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Yep, as mentioned earlier saying blame was a bit childish, but feel free to swap that for responsibility
 
FatFrank said:
Does there have to be any blame put anywhere??

A League Cup semi final dreaming of Wembley and a Top 10 finish in the toughest Championship in years, is no mean feat.
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We're probably not even going to finish top 10. We're 13th and 6 points off 10th at the moment and we play the runaway leaders tomorrow.
 
Even if you change it from blame to responsibility, it’s still a bit daft because when we were winning last season nobody was signing Kieron Scott’s name or the name of the chief European scout. It was Carrick’s name being sung. Now we’re not doing so well it’s Scott’s fault, or the chairman’s fault, or Woodgate’s.

What happened to winning as a team, losing as a team. When Boro win people just point to 1, 2 or 3 people and say they’re the reason, likewise when we lose. Personally I think they’re all culpable for both.

But as I’ve said a few times this week, people just can’t really handle it when their team doesn’t win a game of football.
 
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