Stewy D on Undr The Cosh

The most troubling part of the interview was how Gibson twice went back on his word over contract and contract extension.
A lot of players have left Boro with a bad taste in the mouth and have nothing good to say about the club hierarchy (plenty good about the fans and ex teammates) Schwarzer, Viduka, Mills, Southgate.
Of course there is always another side to the argument, but there is a thread here, there is substance.

For my part, I still thank Karanka for his time here. He gave Gibson a £170m opportunity.
I also still love Downing - a local lad who made the club a fortune in fees and was one of the best players to pull our shirt on.
 
indeedido said:
The most troubling part of the interview was how Gibson twice went back on his word over contract and contract extension.
A lot of players have left Boro with a bad taste in the mouth and have nothing good to say about the club hierarchy (plenty good about the fans and ex teammates) Schwarzer, Viduka, Mills, Southgate.
Of course there is always another side to the argument, but there is a thread here, there is substance.

For my part, I still thank Karanka for his time here. He gave Gibson a £170m opportunity.
I also still love Downing - a local lad who made the club a fortune in fees and was one of the best players to pull our shirt on.
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That's a really good point about players leaving, didn't Mills say something similar about being promised a permanent move from Leeds and then that turned sour
 
Pak_Doo_Ik said:
That's a really good point about players leaving, didn't Mills say something similar about being promised a permanent move from Leeds and then that turned sour
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Keith Lamb was the one who he mentioned by name there.

Somehow I don't think the club will be happy with this stuff being out in the open.
 
Humpty said:
Of course you do and no one is disputing that. The point raised was that we didn't falter and stutter when Karanka lost it. We were 10 points clear of Burnley at the new year and we ended up finishing 4 points behind them.
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Burnley were 7 points above Middlesbrough at the point Karanka walked out.

Burnley didn't lose a single match in the second half of the season, we lost 4, one of those being the Charlton match which Karanka wasn't in charge for, that's why the gap flipped.

This is the form table from Karanka's return:

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If we limped over the line, then surely so did Burnley.
 
It is a bit weird because what Downing describes at the time isn't how most fans felt. The wobble and circumstances around Charlton was pretty strange but I always felt the team spirit under Karanka in 14/15 & 15/16 was amazing - I thought it was one of the main reasons for the relative success. Also not sure we limped over the line to promotion. That run in was one of the most exciting following boro.

Having said all that Karanka was clearly a complex character and certainly prone to a falling out.
 
I remember many times, the crowd singing Karanka's name, shame it went sour. I feel contributing factors were created by a manager not being backed by the club to the extent he wished and player power/losing the dressing room.
 
SE4 Red said:
It is a bit weird because what Downing describes at the time isn't how most fans felt. The wobble and circumstances around Charlton was pretty strange but I always felt the team spirit under Karanka in 14/15 & 15/16 was amazing - I thought it was one of the main reasons for the relative success. Also not sure we limped over the line to promotion. That run in was one of the most exciting following boro.

Having said all that Karanka was clearly a complex character and certainly prone to a falling out.
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Would agree about the spirit in 14/15 & 15/16 probably the best since the 86 team. But it definitely changed the season downing came maybe he is an innocent party and the pressure just got too much for AK or maybe not
 
Just finished watching part 2 (its late, intended on only watching a bit of it, but it was so interesting ended up watching it all).

I'm left now with an overwhelming feeling of sadness that it ended like it did for one of the best players to ever play for us. Also, massive disappointment in the dodgy promises and the contract waiver shenanigans, honestly thought we'd have been better than that.

As others have commented earlier in the thread, a number of players have now left the club and have criticised how the club hierarchy dealt with things off the pitch. You hear it too often from too many different sources for it to be sour grapes/cobblers and really makes us sound unprofessional and small time.

Really disappointing, as football people will talk to one another and word gets around. It's a hard enough job to attract players to come to the North East anyway without bad press or stories circulating amongst players of us not behaving professionally and treating people with the respect they deserve off the pitch. I obviously don't know for certain, but I suspect these sort of stories could have potentially cost us some signings over the years. Not classy behaviour from the club in any way shape or form.
 
That was an interesting listen, insiders perspective on his career and dressing room issues, I am 100% sure he is not lying, the signing of the waver to stop a 1 year extension on the promise / possibility of a new 1 year contract on reduced wages and then not delivering is a shocker and shows a lack of honesty and respect.... who wouldnt be bitter about that....
 
Same, it’s a cracking listen and my main feeling is sadness that he hated it here through his whole second spell. I’ve been as critical as anyone of Downing’s performances in his second spell but we are his hometown club, and on balance he’s given the club far more than he’s taken away throughout his career. Just sad really, he deserved to enjoy it at that stage of his career.

The Gibson / contract stuff was a big surprise. For all the criticisms you can level at Gibbo, we all think of him as a gentleman, a man of honour and one of the few good guys in football - was a real surprise that he’d treat a homegrown player with 440 appearances so shabbily at the end. I wonder if there were other things happening and he just took his eye off the ball.

I’m a massive Karanka fan but the stuff about his little black book of times players had annoyed him was mental!

Downing and Karanka just had a massive personality clash didn’t they. I think we’d have to wait for the Grant Leadbitter or Ben Gibson or Adam Clayton episode to find out the real truth.

It’s interesting in the first episode when Downing is very clear that he’s a confidence player, and only played well when he had the maximum support of everyone around him (like O’Neill, who would tell him he was the best winger in the league). I think being the quiet lad personality-wise that he is, who obviously doesn’t like confrontation and all that, having a manager who didn’t really like him probably affected his performances more than most.

I’ve always slagged Downing for not showing enough personality on the pitch, especially when he was supposed to be coming in as a Premier League-quality number 10 like Merson, but you start to understand it when you think about how much it would have affected a lad like that whose manager just didn’t like him.

Didn’t realise Victor Valdes was such a knob. That part about how Man United’s GK coach Eric Steele walked out after a month because he couldn’t work with him was interesting.
 
I still don't know what to make of the Downing/Karanka saga. It's clear after watching the podcast that Downing hates Karanka.

Downing mentioned several times that he's a quiet lad, who tried to get his head down but Downing didn't necessarily have to be having bust-ups with Karanka, for a toxic atmosphere to develop. We don't know what Downing was saying to other players in training for example. He could have been regularly slagging Karanka off. Equally, many of the players may have been slagging Karanka off.

I'd be really interested to know what the atmosphere was like the previous season, from the perspective of those who were in the squad. From the outside looking in it seemed we had a great team spirit, but we don't know what was going on behind the scenes.

I think another interesting thing I picked up on was Downings' comment about Rhodes not being loved by Karanka. We know Karanka was a control freak and I wonder if he resented Downing and Rhodes due to them not being his signings. The story about the book suggests to me that he may have a personality disorder/mental health issues.
 
Very interesting listen.
I loved Stewie when he was here first time.

I loved the Karanka Championship seasons.

I was critical of Downing and wrongly thought he was a big part of the problem under Karanka. Now, I just feel sorry for him. Is it any wonder that he didn’t show his best second time round, having listened to that?
It‘s sad that he’s had a few years of gossip following him around and a little ill feeling among some Boro fans (including myself) when it’s clear he’s been portrayed unfairly.
Comes across as a decent lad and let’s face it, his spells with the Makems, us (first time) Villa, Liverpool, West Ham and England were all trouble free and without incident so I think he’s being honest and I’ve a lot of sympathy for the lad and the way things played out under Karanka. The club did not treat him well at the end, at all.

I still love the Karanka championship years but it’s clear the bloke has some serious issues.
And I hated, absolutely hated his premiership season and cannot get my head around how such toxic characters, like Valdes and Ramirez, were allowed to add to the shame of that season when we had decent pros there who would have at least tried their arses off, whether they were good enough or not. (Kept Nsue instead of Barragan, Stuani up front, Dimi given a chance and the Valdes wages spent elsewhere, Leadbitter and Clayton getting more game time and Traore utilised better and who knows?)

Still a Boro legend for me and I’m glad he’s had the opportunity to put his side across. Must have been hurting him to hear all the criticism and gossip and blame laid at his door, knowing there was a very different story in reality. I‘m pretty confident that his version will be corroborated by others in time.
 
1. Everyone taking Downing's word as gospel without hearing the other side of the story from a player like Grant (who I'd trust to tell it entirely as it is) is ridiculous.

SD as a bloke can be a bit of a n0b. I'm on the other side of the world and I socialise weekly with a lad who went through school with him and mixed circles with him in their younger years and he's not the most complimentary of his character. Not to say people don't grow up but he's no shrinking violet of a lad. I loved him as a player and I think he was harshly treated in his 2nd spell here, the contract situation with the club is embarrassing and unfair but I'm not having this poor little stewey narrative.

Karanka as suggested seems to have been an obsessive character. The book was, also as mentioned, likely a notebook on a multitude of player behaviours. To suggest he has mental health issues or a personality distorder for keeping a notebook is absolutely barmy.


Those defending Southgate as manager have short memories. We were gash under him as soon as the big players from the previous regime left and the players he brought in had absolutely no bottle in them whatsoever.

Are people honestly forgetting letting Cattermole and Morisson leave for pennies. Persevering with Jones and Turnbull. Hoyte and Alliadiere with hearts the size of pees.

As soon as we let out decent players go at the start of the championship season we looked **** under him. The 5-0 at home to West Brom showed the team weren't playing for him and we were well off the pace.

Lovely bloke. Good manager that learnt his lessons because he's an intelligent guy but job was too early for him and he was protected by the quality of the previous squads. Useless in the transfer market and he DID have money to spend.
 
I've not listened to it but I'd be careful not to judge a situation on the perspective of one person. I think it's fair to say the Karanka Premier League season went wrong (several people have alluded to the dressing room split), but I wouldn't judge the promotion season just on Downing's opinion.

After all, he states Boro limped over the line when they clearly didn't. 10 games unbeaten with 6 wins to finish second ahead of a quality Brighton team. It's his perspective on the limping but others wouldn't see it that way. I suspect others would have a different view on much of what he says.
 
Laughing said:
I think time and history will prove we had one of the best managers of a generation and we let him go because of fan pressure from the Riverside generation.

The Jonny come latelys felt entitled to PL football and spat their dummies when it was taken away.

In my opinion an opportunity missed for a Boro legacy that could have lasted decades.
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Hindsight is a terrible thing. He's being lauded now for some fortuitous draws and results in two tournaments, when he performs in the league over the course of 3 or 4 seasons you might have a valid argument. The truth about southgate as boro manager lies somewhere between the two extremes, he might not have signed all the players that came in but he let some decent ones go because he couldnt manage them and he dithered between two vastly inferior goalkeepers to the one the club allowed to leave. He was entirely the wrong appointment in the first place considering where we were at the time it was a huge backwards step
 
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