We are not a well run club, we have literally lurched from strategy to strategy, manager to manager, recruited a squad of players who are less than average roundedness for this league.
When Woodgate was manager, Gibson talked of the golden thread and we recruited for the league below. We seem to have gone full circle. No quality, no fight. This division is unforgiving. The way we concede goals is deplorable. P4 GF3 GA9 PTS1 is not just due to bad luck, it is down to a lack of real quality.
The club (and I am being kind to the owner at present) has been asleep at the wheel once more, naive in its outlook and been patting its back on last season while others have quietly recruited efficiently. Clearly Woodgates reign is back, the Ajax lite is being tried again, so far cheap potential from the lower grade football has been applied with so far, similar consequences, similar outlook and frankly similar comments from the wishful thinking fans. Reality sets in late for far too many, blind eyes and blind alleys abound. The club has days to resolve it. We are heading for a difficult year and potentially worse if we aren’t careful. No amount of hope will improve the situation. Quality recruitment is key. How many years have i banged on about shoddy recruitment since 2006? Everyone bar 2, 2015/16 and 2022/23. We have replaced quality with potential, expectation with hope.
The number of fans willing to accept mediocrity is staggering. As far as the Boro are concerned, it is like walking in the Yorkshire Dales, sheep everywhere you look, bleating on about patience, give it time, I can see the potential, baah, baah, baah.
We are a naive squad, a naive fanbase, no backbone, the second goal summed us up yesterday, asleep in plain sight. Days to wake up and smell the coffee. If someone on the inside doesn’t see it, and reading this thread is like going back to the future, we are in trouble. I am a Carrick fan, but I found his after match BBC Tees interview worrying. Howson (captain sent out) spoke in similar vein too. Clearly a message was given beforehand as the rhetoric was too similar to be coincidence. The words were chilling, I saw a different game to both. Howson at times had to stop himself laughing at his own comments. Carrick gives nothing away, but yesterday he lied. He did everything but say the league is lying at present. The season is far from over, but the club has days to find the missing pieces to the jigsaw, not months and no, accepting mediocrity is the first step toward failure and decline.
