Assistant Manager

festa5 said:
The line up away to Preston was when we hit peak Pulis:

.......,.............Randolph;
Fry.....Batth........Flint......Ayala......Friend;
.........Saville......Clayton.....Wing;
...................Gestede......Hugill.......

Pace, mobility, dynamism. Who needs any of that when you can pack your side full of giants. There's been shorter NBA teams than that back line.

Those poor lads in midfield never stood a chance. Bet they all had neck ache from looking up afterwards 🤣

Anyone who think Pulis football wasn't that bad should really pick a different sport.
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Jesus you forget how bad it was.

As I said at the time anyone that likes or tolerated that isn’t a football fan as that’s not football.
 
atypical_boro said:
Did you watch us at Preston only last season? Forget about the lineup on paper (there’s more to it than that), we played worse, and hence, it was worse football.
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But that happens sides don’t perform players have off days pullis negative awful football was by design.

That is how he meant it to be. That was the plan.
 
Jedi boro said:
But that happens sides don’t perform players have off days pullis negative awful football was by design.

That is how he meant it to be. That was the plan.
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Yeah and it wasn’t successful. But that’s no worse than when managers have a “better plan” and can’t execute it. We’ve had loads of those too.

As for lying/arrogance etc, Wilder was every bit as bad. Spent his whole time here trying to get another job and acted like it was all beneath him. Football was pretty dreadful for the last 6 months too.
 
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atypical_boro said:
All good points newy but I’ll respectfully disagree with some. I think we reset expectation under Woody when we realised how bad it was gonna be. At the start of the season I don’t think it was widely accepted that 21st in the league would be acceptable otherwise we wouldn’t have sacked him.

As for Karanka’s style, it’s not just about tactics and selections for me, it’s also about spirit and attitude and (without taking away anything from those first two seasons which I thoroughly enjoyed) the “style” in his final season was unprecedentedly grim in my opinion.
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Under Pulis it felt like that season was the last roll of the dice. Project smash the league was well and truely over. Relegation under Woodgate would not be acceptable., in the end we flew too close.

With Karanka in the prem we changed to much, took too many risks and were left with an unbalanced squad. We had a few glimpses of hope.. but ultimately we were lacking enough quality to stave off the drop.
 
newyddion said:
With Karanka in the prem we changed to much, took too many risks and were left with an unbalanced squad.
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After promotion He killed that high morale feel good factor we all saw out side the dickens, stone dead bringing in basically mercenaries.

Don’t forget valdes was so committed to the cause he actually retired mid season I still can’t believe that happened.
 
Jedi boro said:
Jesus you forget how bad it was.

As I said at the time anyone that likes or tolerated that isn’t a football fan as that’s not football.
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Well I am very much a football fan thanks but I also appreciate the game being played in different ways, especially if it yields results (yes I know it didn’t work out under Pulis). If everyone played the coveted “high press” all the time that would be boring too.

Did you not enjoy any of Wimbledon’s exploits in the 80s/90s or Big Jack’s ROI?
 
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Couldn't care less what the style is. As long as we are decent at it. And I'm far more a Boro fan than a football fan. I watch the Boro, love the international tournaments and watch match of the day. Beyond that I'm not arsed. When I've had now TV sky subscriptions it's very rare for me to stick a premier League match on. Teams like man city bore the ***** out of me. I like well balanced matches with incident and bite, and you can get that with 2 non league teams playing direct.
 
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
Couldn't care less what the style is. As long as we are decent at it. And I'm far more a Boro fan than a football fan. I watch the Boro, love the international tournaments and watch match of the day. Beyond that I'm not arsed. When I've had now TV sky subscriptions it's very rare for me to stick a premier League match on. Teams like man city bore the ***** out of me. I like well balanced matches with incident and bite, and you can get that with 2 non league teams playing direct.
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Fully agree with this. No side bores me more than City. But the self-proclaimed connoisseurs will tell you you don’t like football if you don’t like watching them win 6-0 every week.
 
festa5 said:
The line up away to Preston was when we hit peak Pulis:

.......,.............Randolph;
Fry.....Batth........Flint......Ayala......Friend;
.........Saville......Clayton.....Wing;
...................Gestede......Hugill.......

Pace, mobility, dynamism. Who needs any of that when you can pack your side full of giants. There's been shorter NBA teams than that back line.

Those poor lads in midfield never stood a chance. Bet they all had neck ache from looking up afterwards 🤣

Anyone who think Pulis football wasn't that bad should really pick a different sport.
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But that's exactly my point - "bad/good" football is subjective and is actually of little or no importance when considering the objective of the sport - to gain more points/wins than your rivals.

I can completely understand why his methods might not be to some people's tastes but it can detract from objective measurement of his tenure.
 
changingman said:
But that's exactly my point - "bad/good" football is subjective and is actually of little or no importance when considering the objective of the sport - to gain more points/wins than your rivals.

I can completely understand why his methods might not be to some people's tastes but it can detract from objective measurement of his tenure.
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Pulis didn’t have success here but the way people talk about him as if he was way worse than our other managers will never make sense to me. Since Karanka, he’s part of a succession of managers who’ve failed here, and certainly not the only one you could say has been dishonest/flakey/untrustworthy or whatever else gets thrown at him.
 
festa5 said:
The line up away to Preston was when we hit peak Pulis:

.......,.............Randolph;
Fry.....Batth........Flint......Ayala......Friend;
.........Saville......Clayton.....Wing;
...................Gestede......Hugill.......

Pace, mobility, dynamism. Who needs any of that when you can pack your side full of giants. There's been shorter NBA teams than that back line.

Those poor lads in midfield never stood a chance. Bet they all had neck ache from looking up afterwards 🤣

Anyone who think Pulis football wasn't that bad should really pick a different sport.
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Look at the subs bench..

Assombalonga
Braithwaite
Howson
McNair
Fletcher
Tavernier
Lonergan

Howson on the bench over Saville!
Braithwaite over Gestede!
McNair on the bench after he’d bought him fur £5m!!
 
newyddion said:
Look at the subs bench..

Assombalonga
Braithwaite
Howson
McNair
Fletcher
Tavernier
Lonergan

Howson on the bench over Saville!
Braithwaite over Gestede!
McNair on the bench after he’d bought him fur £5m!!
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I know. It's incredible.

And don't forget one of his biggest regrets was "I wish I'd played Tav more" well why didn't you then!? 🤯

So full of **** it's almost comical.
 
changingman said:
But that's exactly my point - "bad/good" football is subjective and is actually of little or no importance when considering the objective of the sport - to gain more points/wins than your rivals.

I can completely understand why his methods might not be to some people's tastes but it can detract from objective measurement of his tenure.
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And what's the objective measure of his tenure?

A play-off place when he had a couple of elite players at his disposal (one of which he dropped for the play-offs and forced out of the club).

We were ok under Pulis while he had Traore and Bamford (and to an extent Braithwaite).

Once he'd spent the best part of £20m bringing his own players in, all while moaning he had to balance the books, we were absolutely dreadful both to watch and in terms of results.

I'm all for pragmatism. If he'd got us up I wouldn't care how he managed it. But he didn't did he?

In fact we were going backwards that's why he left. So not sure how anyone can defend his anti-football on the basis it got results because it didn't!
 
atypical_boro said:
Isn’t that the point of a regret?
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Sorry his exact quote was:

"If I've got a bit of a disappointment it's that Tav hasn't had as many games as he deserves," admits Pulis.

"He's going to be a top player. He'll eventually play in the Premier League."

If only the manager at the time could've done something about it eh? 🤦‍♂️
 
I can’t believe no one would have paid £5m for Britt.. that would have been a great bit of business.
 
festa5 said:
And what's the objective measure of his tenure?

A play-off place when he had a couple of elite players at his disposal (one of which he dropped for the play-offs and forced out of the club).

We were ok under Pulis while he had Traore and Bamford (and to an extent Braithwaite).

Once he'd spent the best part of £20m bringing his own players in, all while moaning he had to balance the books, we were absolutely dreadful both to watch and in terms of results.

I'm all for pragmatism. If he'd got us up I wouldn't care how he managed it. But he didn't did he?

In fact we were going backwards that's why he left. So not sure how anyone can defend his anti-football on the basis it got results because it didn't!
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I’m not defending him, personally, in any other way than that he has done no worse than anyone else whose had a bash. His “poor football” style has been matched by a fair few of our managers since McClaren left too.
 
festa5 said:
Sorry his exact quote was:

"If I've got a bit of a disappointment it's that Tav hasn't had as many games as he deserves," admits Pulis.

"He's going to be a top player. He'll eventually play in the Premier League."

If only the manager at the time could've done something about it eh? 🤦‍♂️
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Fair enough. They all talk rubbish though. As I say, Wilder is right up there on that front. Wait till he starts doing TV interviews etc again.
 
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