Who has been the Boro player who surprised you the most?

viv_andersons_nana

viv_andersons_nana

Well-known member
In terms of the sort of player who thought they'd be, or expected them to be.

This has just popped into my head after thinking about Mo Besic on the Pulis thread. I expected Besic to be a tough-tackling, nasty, aggressive sort of player but he didn't really show much of that. Didn't he have a poor disciplinary record before he played for Boro? I mentioned Parlour on that other thread as well. He was a right nasty b*stard at times, with incredible strength and skill. You could see why he'd spent so long playing for Arsenal. He was a superb footballer.

I also remember being absolutely blown away by Christian Ziege. We used to sit in the east lower when he was playing left wing-back and his touch was insane. And his power, running power as well. The accuracy in his left foot, pinpoint perfection. He had everything.
 
Nothing wrong with Alves, he was very one dimensional, reminded me a bit of Dean Saunders, but slip him in with a through ball or in the channels & he was up to the job, once we sold Rocky though, we had no one to play a forward pass, hence the abortive attempt to play Downing as a central midfielder!🤡🙈
 
Southgate springs immediately to mind.

Yes, I knew he was an England International so you'd expect him to be half decent, but until you watch him week in week out, I never really appreciated just how good he was. He was loads better than I expected, his positional sense and ability to be in the optimum position to deal with any threat at exactly the right time was unbelievable.

Quality player and a leader too. The sort who after a little while watching you can't quite believe how he signed for your club and not one of the top 6 instead.
 
Billy69_uk said:
Alves.

From all the hype, I though he might be half decent.

I was wrong, very, very wrong
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Remember seeing Alves playing for Brazil and thinking he's never a Brazilian. That said the worst thing that happened to Alves was Southgate getting rid of Rochemback and keeping Arca. The former played well with him the latter was a crab who was a one trick pony. He always go the ball and did that little turn every time. With that and the time he was out injured I cannot believe Southgate let Rocky go and extended Julio's contract.
 
SouthStandSY said:
Nothing wrong with Alves, he was very one dimensional, reminded me a bit of Dean Saunders, but slip him in with a through ball or in the channels & he was up to the job, once we sold Rocky though, we had no one to play a forward pass, hence the abortive attempt to play Downing as a central midfielder!🤡🙈
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Beat me to it SSSY
 
Christian Ziege, absolute class act. His crossing, corners and free kicks went exactly where he wanted them to go, pity he was just here to put himself in the shop window.

Michael Ricketts, I thought we would have an athletic, bustling goal scoring machine..he was a disaster.
 
asredastheycome said:
Remember seeing Alves playing for Brazil and thinking he's never a Brazilian. That said the worst thing that happened to Alves was Southgate getting rid of Rochemback and keeping Arca. The former played well with him the latter was a crab who was a one trick pony. He always go the ball and did that little turn every time. With that and the time he was out injured I cannot believe Southgate let Rocky go and extended Julio's contract.
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I agree with you about the decision to sell Rocky as he was the only one with the vision and ability to play through balls for Alves and this in effect starved him of the type of service he thrived on.

However, can't agree with the Arca bashing, he was a decent player for us who often unjustly became a target for the boo boys (see also Clayton, who also suffered the same fate). He did love a dragback though but if it works 9 times out of 10, don't knock it.
 
Would it be wrong to mention Adama Traore? I think I thought he was going to be a younger version of Adomah when we signed him but, jesus wept, that first time he came off the bench! Was it Tottenham? It was chaos. I've never seen a player like him, someone who can run and dribble and move past players like that, in the 30 years I've been watching us.
 
Johnny howson, I thought we were getting a strong running, forward thinking midfielder with the appetite to get in the box. A player who could score quite a few pile drivers!
Only seems to have played well first half of this season, a real disappointment.
 
Do you remember Merson's first few games for us? He looked well out of sorts. Nothing worked. He looked knackered after about half an hour of the opening game, was it Stoke? And then he scored at Stockport and never looked back. His first touch was impeccable. Like Barmby. Sensational players.

Edit - It was Charlton, then Stoke after that.
 
Viduka didnt expect him to be half as good as he was. Probably along with boksic the best striker we have had in the modern day. Still dont know how without any pace he went passed people soo easily.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
Do you remember Merson's first few games for us? He looked well out of sorts. Nothing worked. He looked knackered after about half an hour of the opening game, was it Stoke? And then he scored at Stockport and never looked back. His first touch was impeccable. Like Barmby. Sensational players.
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Nick barnaby another who was an excellent player his partnership with higgy and fjortoft was great to watch.
 
I went to a Supporters Club Q&A with Hignett when he was Aitor's assistant and someone asked him about Juninho. He said Juninho sort of disrupted the front-end of the team because Hignett, Barmby and Fjortoft had such a good understanding. But after a few training sessions he was obviously so good that Hignett and Barmby used to constantly pester Robbo to play the three of them up front together. Nobody was really doing that in England at the time and he reckoned they'd have caused mayhem. But Robbo liked his No9 and kept Fjortoft in the team instead.
 
TheWolfman said:
Johnny howson, I thought we were getting a strong running, forward thinking midfielder with the appetite to get in the box. A player who could score quite a few pile drivers!
Only seems to have played well first half of this season, a real disappointment.
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Absolutely agree. I thought he was a number 8 who would provide an engine room, make runs, drive us forward on attacks and maybe even smash in some goals from outside the box, or at least try to. I might be mistaken but I thought that was what he'd been known for at other clubs. Instead he's been much more defensive and barely ever shoots let alone scores. What happened to his shooting? When he gets the ball near the D he only ever seems to look to pass sideways.
 
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