HOME SICK Boro went down to a third successive defeat at the Riverside to a limited but hard-working and effective Watford side. Didn’t they read the pre-match blog about cracking the Riverside riddle? Don’t they know what to expect from visiting sides? Did they nod off during Alan Smith’s powerpoint?
Shot-shy Boro squandered a string of good chances… there were two good saves, a disallowed goal, Lita nodded wide from close range, McMahon did a Geoff Hurst, there was one good penalty call and one dodgy one plus the usual quota of high, wide and handsome efforts from a side who are mentally fragile and really need to go on the couch with a good psychologist to get over this problem at home. It is now three games and 275 minutes since Aliadiere scored against Ipswich on September 12.
But we can’t just blame the strikers. Their goal was largely self inflicted. In a jittery spell Boro caused problems for themselves at the back by failing to clear their lines in routine situations. Yeates at one point appeared to be dribbling towards his own goal before being dispossessed by a Watford man, Wheater looked shaky and twice St Ledger dithered over the ball and almost got mugged before the fatal weak tap into space that was scooped up by a suprised but alert opponent for the goal.
The bottom line is that Boro don’t have the tactical nouse to unpick the massed defence of a well organised team that comes to the Riverside to park the bus, who pack the midfield, shackle Johnson and sit back and deny them the time or space to use their pace to get round behind them. Neither do they have either the brute force to batter a way through or the cutting edge from set-pieces… I lost count of the corners and free kicks we had and not once did their keeper have to make a save from one.
What is more worrying is that the home sickness will become a deep seated complex. After the Leicester game the gaffer growled at the crowd as he explained that the pressure of playing at the Riverside was becoming a noticeable debilitating factor. After this game he went on at greater length about it and the need of the players to overcome it but he did so with an with an air of helplessness. There is a danger here that we will talk ourselves into some kind of psychosomatic paralysis.
So three defeats in a row, three without a goal…. and yet amazingly we are still fourth after other results were relatively kind. And at least Danny Graham didn’t score. That would have been another stick to the club with when we are already spoilt for choice. Derby on Tuesday. If Boro don’t win it will be very, very difficult to hold back the wave of anger that will engulf the Riverside.
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DID any of the expats or part-timers outside the Tees broadcast area log in to the live blog from the match? If you did, did you find it useful? Entertaining? Confusing? A mildy diverting reason for not going to B&Q? Or Kaufhof for our Deutsche contingent (I don’t know any Middle-east High Street brands.) And what can we do to improve it… don’t say more frequent updates becuase our hands are tied legally on that one.
All feedback on this will be useful. I need to know if I am wasting my time.
untypicalboro 
p.s. AV….I couldn’t find your blow by blow account to follow so maybe a better link to advertise where to find it?
**AV writes: There was a button on the gazettelive.co.uk. I’ll stick one on the blog front page as well tomorrow.
Totally agree with Stockton Red questions!!
AV – I remember you saying Eric was down Hurworth asking them very questions (about Folan) and the report the following day was Boro are assessing the injury.
Please ask again.
I don’t care if Caleb has burnt his bridges with Hull and Phil Brown we need somebody else in now, get him off the wage bill and send him back.
Also AV to help relations and understanding with what is going on behind the scenes how about we the supporters put 2/3 questions a week to GS via the Gazette, would be good for both parties because the Gazette could then ask questions which they maybe to scared to? Could call it the the Fans BIG Q’s or something!
**AV writes: There is no problem in questions you may want (and we are ceryainly not scared of asking anything), it is the answers that get people’s backs up. I will ask if a regular fans question is something they will play ball with.
Again the excuses about Johnson having two men on him. That means there is another Boro player who is Unmarked. What is he doing, just standing there and watching?
Doesn’t the management know how to manage? Do the coaches know how to coach? Do the players know how to play? I think NOT.
**AV writes: But what if the player unmarked is Arca? Or Joe Bennett? With the best will in the world neither are the creative force that Johnson is, or they would be getting man-marked too. Your position only makes sense if the team are a Man U or Chelsea where every loose man is a potential match-winner.
Poor old GS must be banging his head in frustration. We have four prolific strikers with an outstanding strike rate record. A creative midfield that used to carve other teams wide open. Rock solid defenders who used to be impregnable and always kept opposing teams out. Plus a keeper with more clean sheets than a Chinese laundry.
He is probably having sleepless nights wondering how he can get them motivated. Perhaps it is time for him to reach into the bottomless transfer kitty.
Grove Hill wallah at 6.22pm – is that what we call irony?
Many of the supporters I have spoken to are almost hoping for a defeat against Derby. Not because they WANT the team to do badly – they want us to do well – but because they see a defeat as possibly resulting in a management change being made.
To summarise their views, if such a change is not made we will continue along the same path, with no discernible change in fortune. In other words, a short term piece of pain now in losing a fourth successive home game might result in long term gain for the club, with a motivational manager/coach put in position who can improve matters after that. While there is time to secure promotion this year rather than see our chances slip by.
Sometimes it might seem like politics. At the moment the Prime Minister is in charge, and although many of his backbenchers as well as cabinet colleagues have their reservations, at present there isn’t a critical mass of opinion sufficient to get rid of him.
However once enough cabinet members and backbench MP’s believe that in the forthcoming elections they are likely to lose their seats (and income) and that there would be a better chance of retaining those jewels under another leader, then suddenly cracks start to appear in the (cabinet) wall of unanimity. People start to become more openly critical.
Eventually the knives will be taken out from the drawers, to be carefully inserted between the shoulder blades of the man currently at the steering wheel. At that stage the end can come quickly.
The man in charge either sails onto the rocks or a mutiny takes place and the ship is either refloated or is steered away from danger. Of course if you wait too long, so it is no longer possible to avoid the rocks, the mutiny becomes pointless because you are all destined to drown with the ship.
At present there is a depression about the Riverside. We really need to go up this season, yet we know we are playing very poorly at home and that good away form cannot paper over cracks so large.
This might seem very odd to a spectator who is able to attend only away games in which we have been largely successful. But to those who see how we perform at the Riverside, it will not seem strange at all. If only I knew how to spell schizophrenic. We have GOT to get it right tomorrow. The Fat Lady is currently polishing her Sabatiers and it could get gory.
On a lighter note (!) I today met a lad who, whilst disgusted with the performance, at least benefitted from it as he got 8 to 1 odds for predicting a 0-1 win to Watford. He will hopefully be posting a prediction for the next game…..
Sounds a cool idea your live (delayed by 7 seconds)transmission AV.. great for ex pats. Remember they said Sky Sports Saturday or rather the Jeff Stelling show would never catch on, and look at the imitators now!
Still hurting from Saturday’s defeat at the hands of Watford, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Agree with most of the comments above. Wheater is so poor at the moment he really does need to be dropped, or stripped of captain role, it just isn’t working. Maybe Gareth will grow a spine and make some tough decisions.
Johnson isn’t the same player at home which leads me to believe that he isn’t the player he thinks he is. Just to be controversial – if we sold him for a fat fee in January, do you really think all our hopes of promotion will disappear? What if we had a replacement lined up? (Oh no, not another Southgate punt on an unknown player!).
The fans were superb on Saturday, much better than Southgate deserves, but he’s a lucky man (and so are we) that we are just four points off top … yet just three from mid table obscurity. If we don’t find that elusive win tomorrow, I know which way we are firmly heading….
The importance of tomorrow’s game should not be underestimated – also it’s probably worth noting that none of the top ten are playing against each other tomorrow.
So the worse case scenario is we could see Boro in 10th place and seven points adrift of automatic promotion by this time tomorrow.
However, the best case scenario is that we could be sitting in 3rd place one point behind the automatic promotion spots with a three point cushion below us.
I was also thinking about when I last remembered watching Boro lose three successive home games – It was at Ayresome Park back in the early eighties when we lost them all 4-1 and I think I even recall us being 4-0 down after 20 minutes in the third game against Grimsby (incidentally I looked up the attendance for that game in the old Div 2 and it was just 5,900).
Luckily education saved me from further punishment as I headed off to university to discover more interesting in the next few years to distract me from following Boro’s slow slide into oblivion.
So things have yet to sink to the depths reached shortly before the arrival of Steve Gibson, but we shouldn’t be complacent – Tomorrow may well decide Southgate’s fate as even SG must have tipping point.
**AV writes: Derby is as “must win” as they come. Four home defeats on the bounce would surely be completely unacceptable by any conceivable measure. It would be all but impossible to hold the crowd together after that.
Good grief chaps…! How many consecutive AWAY defeats to the end of last season? Thirteen was it? And if we then closely follow that up with four consecutive HOME defeats? Too horrible to contemplate.
Let’s hope it doesn’t happen (even if, for reasons posted earlier, some might prefer the defeat in order to bring the boil to a head that can be lanced).
Too nervous to go to bed.
Most derby fans would take a point if offered now. Their view is that they are not good enough defensively to park the bus and will tend to hold a relatively high line.
It may give us a chance to get at their back four but we will need to start quickly and play with width. Compress the play and allowing them to settle would suit the likes of Robbie Savage down to the ground. A midfield dogfight would be just his cup of earl grey.
One suspects a midfield of Digard and Williams flanked by O’Neill and Johnson. maybe a bit one paced in the middle.
And dont forget Derby havent won away from home yet. Now there is a thought.
AV, EVERY player in the team SHOULD be a potential match-winner, else why play them?
At the end of the day, the team is picked by Southgate, managed by Southgate, coached by him and the coaches HE has picked. If players do not have the basics skills, they shouldn’t be on the pitch.
You play the ball to the man in space, not someone who is marked up or has two men on him. Once he gets the ball, it’s up to him to utilise it effectively, either by moving it forward, or moving it to another Boro player.
We need people to give good movement off the ball, moving into space, away from their markers, and being in a position to receive the ball. Our passing needs to improve. We give too many balls away to the opposition, putting ourselves under too much pressure.
Ernest
Many a time I have praised Arsenal and their football even if their manager is myopic in the extreme.
Their passing is a joy to behold but most of it is short, simple balls into space. They ‘know’ their colleagues will be running into that space and so it goes on.
We are Arsenal Lite and the bit we are Lite on is the passing and movement!
Werdermouth –
Memory tells me that Grimsby game ended 5-1. I can still recall the hollow laughter at the fifth…
But I always thought it was the season opener not the third one in? Also was that our relegation year to the old old third division? Mostly my memory of that time is the filthy weather whenever we played Notts County at home. Happy days..
Ian Gill –
Surely Digard and GON would be a more combative midfield to counter Savage. And play pace on the wings to try and go around them. I doubt we have the attitude or muscle to go through them. We certainly don’t have the guile. Though I suspect Southgate will put Arca in there. Probably because there’s a ‘Y’ in the day. Or something.
**AV writes: The year playground wit alleged that Boro had changed the Ayresome Park phone number to 414141 was 1982/83 and the first three games were Burnley, Fulham and then Grimsby. They stayed up that year and went down the next.
Ernest Oglesb, I am afraid that you might be right! If the player next to Johnno is not good enough then our squad is poor. I mean we don’t have (or have had) money to improve. So the blame is not only on GS.
So I fear our problems are deeper than a change in management. I still wish Gs all the best and hope the PLAYERS respond – they are on their own after crossing the white line.
Today’s match is – as said earlier – a must win game. Up the Boro!
David – Re the concern over not being able to afford to sack GS, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Gibson could remove GS from his post and continue to pay his salary until he finds alternative employment or his contract expires, that way the club isn’t faced with forking out a lump sum, although it is effectively one more salary on the books. I believe this is what happened when Robbo was sacked.
So whether or not you believe he should be sacked I doubt money will be a deciding factor and lets face it if we loose tonight Gibson couldn’t afford NOT to sack GS as the backlash will be huge.
AV, Are you going to do the virtual reporting again?
If so being sat in Derby will be an intriguing evening listening to radio Tees and Derby whilst blogging at the same time.
**AV writes: Yes, I think I’ll give it another test run. There were 500 plus used the service last time. From little acorns…
John said:
“But one thing that strikes me is the luck we didn’t get on Saturday.”
The great Barry Venison once said (while he was wearing his intellectual glasses): “You don’t get luck purely by chance”. Lot of truth in that (I think).
As if I wasnĆĀ¢ĆĀĆĀt suicidal enough at the thought of losing to another East Midlands club. Powlininho goes and brings up another drubbing at the hands of Nottingham Bl@@dy Forest.
For the love of Juninho, please leave it out!
As for tonight, I canĆĀ¢ĆĀĆĀt make it but will be at Deepdale on Saturday, so I know which game I would prefer us to lose. Only joking, Six points and five goals and two clean sheets. Now hang on that sounds more like a joke.
CĆĀ¢ĆĀĆĀmon Boro. Last chance saloon time I think.
Croydon Boro
I agree with Digard and O’Neill with two players wide. We need Savage to be chasing shadows not charging about a congested midfield making a nuisance of himself. The line up I mentioned is what I think Gate may do not my preferred line up.
Derby will give us more of a chance than Leicester and Watford because they are not as strong defensively as those two teams, they also defend a higher line. Give them a chance by starting slowly, compressing the play and defending too deeply ourselves and Derby will grow into the task and give themselves something to hold on to.
Then you will see Boro’s nerves start showing.
Wow, this is like reading fiction. Boro win at home (at last) and Southgate is relieved of his position with immediate effect.
I came in from work (5 hours behind in the US) dreading looking up the result only to find the mighty Boro won 2-0. I read this on sportinglife.com before switching to mfc.co.uk.
Well you can imagine my surprise when sportinglife mentioned nothing, only to be greeted by a headline a plethora of Boro supporters have been hoping for, for a long time.
I do feel sorry for a certain Mr. Southgate, but was very dissapointed in him when he said “judge me on this season. This is my team”, only for BORO to get relegated and him not doing the honorable thing in resigning. That really turned me against him.
Well, now for a new start. Please Sir Steve, get us a manager that knows what he is doing, not someone on work experience. A manager that knows how to change a match with substitutions will be a start.
Fiction?, or just a good dream?
Come on Boro!