Carrick tactically set us up badly

Sorry, but for me its not a time to point fingers - should have, would have.

Realistically, on paper Chelsea easily could have won that tie with 6 goals in each leg lets be honest, in terms of budgets, squads etc.

We got a win at home against all expectations/ odds, and I would say natural justice was restored in the second leg.

We shouldn't be competing with Chelsea - yet we managed to make a 2 legged tie interesting at least.

Reality check.

Onwards and upwards.
 
We had a old guy playing in Howson, not fit enough to play against those lads. He almost gave it all away at home. But I've a feeling they will give him another contract!
 
Boro4life said:
I'm sorry but all we had to do tonight was park the bus but we played so fluid attacking. It's a shame after he got it so spot on in the home leg. I know we didn't have Jones tonight but we made it so easy for Chelsea.
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Park the bus is what you do out of possession. What about when we have the ball, what should we have done?
 
Nano said:
It's not about changing players. The players we picked could have played a different way. It didn't need a huge change of personnel to be better, just do less dangerous things with it. Be sensible with the ball, leave fewer gaps at the back.

It probably wouldn't have worked, they are a much better team than us, but we might not have gifted them the tie in the way that we did. We were only going to beat Chelsea if we had a great day and they had a bad one but we had a terrible day. Sometimes it is better to just minimise the potential to make mistakes.
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Yup
 
Carrick probably was naïve. He is an inexperienced young manager who stuck to his principles when he should've compromised on them. As he gets older and more hardened, he won't do that as much, and his teams won't be as entertaining to watch as a result. It's both the blessing and the curse of employing exciting young talent.
That said, my perception of the game was that until they scored we were mixing it up more and looked ok. After that point we tried to chase the game, and with the players we had available the only way we were realistically going to score a goal was by playing our football.
Chelsea were set up much better this game though, and after the goal with their confidence up we were on a hiding to nothing regardless of tactics IMO.
 
I have never worked within professional football but I think it would be very tricky to dramatically change our style of play in what, two training sessions max? between Rotherham and Chelsea.
 
AytonMews said:
Think it was like one of those games on footy manager where you restart it about 50 times, try every tactic and lineup, and still can’t get the 0-0 draw that you need.




Not that I ever do that of course.
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& eventually get sick of trying to make minor tweeks with the tactics and players so you play a stupid formation and a totally random side including youth players and end up winning because the system recognises you're at your wits end.
 
alanmoodysdog said:
chelsea too quick for the play out the back plan
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Not sure it was they are too quick, the big issue is we had no pace up top because Lathe, Jones and even Bangura were out. It gave no jeopardy to the Chelsea defence who were particularly troubled by Jones in the first leg. So without that, Chelsea could sit high, push midfield and forwards up and be aggressive in the press. It boxed us in and gave us a massive challenge to play around it.

It didn't work, but we didn't help ourselves with at least 3 of the 6 goals being massive individual errors on our part. That wasn't tactical failure, it was individual errors. Chelsea punished us ruthlessly, 6 shots on target 6 goals. When we did play more direct, we had 1 forward and support surrounded by 3 players, so we lost it and it came back. Launching didn't work either.

With more fit players we could have made a better fist of it, but this was a hurdle too far.

At any point during the game we probably had 3-6 players on the pitch who were either not match fit or over worked in recent weeks compared to their rehabilitation schedule. Forss is a good example, was only supposed to play 20 at the weekend after 3 months out, played 80 mins, then asked to play another 45 today. Clarke, Has been a fixture for recent games, despite being eased back in for 18 months. Howson, in an ideal world wouldn't have been on the pitch due to injury but had to play because O'Brien isn't match fit after 4 months injured.

Too many players not quite at their peak being forced to play hurt us too.
 
I'm not sure he did get it that wrong really, rather the players didn't have the belief and confidence to make it work.

They obviously played a very high press and we couldn't beat it - maybe thats simply because they are better and quicker than us, but at least some of that fact was due to us being nervy and getting caught in possession or poor passing.

The goal where Hackney passed back to Barlaser for example, it was a ridiculous pass to make, he could have turned given he had a little space, Barlaser should never have been given it back.

No disgrace though, it was always a massive task and I didn't genuinely think we would go through, but it's still a little disappointing to know we didn't make more of a game of it
 
BoroMart said:
Not sure it was they are too quick, the big issue is we had no pace up top because Lathe, Jones and even Bangura were out. It gave no jeopardy to the Chelsea defence who were particularly troubled by Jones in the first leg. So without that, Chelsea could sit high, push midfield and forwards up and be aggressive in the press. It boxed us in and gave us a massive challenge to play around it.

It didn't work, but we didn't help ourselves with at least 3 of the 6 goals being massive individual errors on our part. That wasn't tactical failure, it was individual errors. Chelsea punished us ruthlessly, 6 shots on target 6 goals. When we did play more direct, we had 1 forward and support surrounded by 3 players, so we lost it and it came back. Launching didn't work either.

With more fit players we could have made a better fist of it, but this was a hurdle too far.

At any point during the game we probably had 3-6 players on the pitch who were either not match fit or over worked in recent weeks compared to their rehabilitation schedule. Forss is a good example, was only supposed to play 20 at the weekend after 3 months out, played 80 mins, then asked to play another 45 today. Clarke, Has been a fixture for recent games, despite being eased back in for 18 months. Howson, in an ideal world wouldn't have been on the pitch due to injury but had to play because O'Brien isn't match fit after 4 months injured.

Too many players not quite at their peak being forced to play hurt us too.
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Individual errors caused by tactical failure though. If the tactic is to play it out from the back with massively inferior players then of course they are going to individually make mistakes under pressure. You don't have to go long, the forwards need to drop deep, play to the middle of the pitch. If you misplace a pass to the halfway line and you still have your players behind that in a shape it's not them through on goal. Minimise the potential for mistakes.

Don't forget that we were winning. We didn't need to score a goal so we didn't need to have men forwards to get a goal. It needed to be about not conceding, not trying to outplay them.
 
For me I don't think A prime Alex Ferguson with Pep as assistant could of got a win last night with the players available. Chelsea are a very good team and although at the minute they are underachieving they are still a full league above us.
Us as fans should just appreciate how well the manager and the players did to get us into the Semi finals and gave us the dream of a final going into the second leg last night. I watched it on sky and the support of the Boro fans at the stadium was amazing and could be heard throughout the game even getting beat 6-0.
The club, the players, the management and the fans did the club proud in this cup run, and this is the reason we support Boro as for us that was a big occasion and creating memories, being the underdog who gave one of the big boys a bloody nose in the first leg. A win would of been nice last night but with our injury ravaged squad against A very good but overall underachieving Chelsea it wasn't realistic. On the positive side we could still get to Wembley this season!
 
Nano said:
Individual errors caused by tactical failure though.
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I'm not sure that many were. Individual error is a failure to do the basics, that's not tactical. I'd argue the one where Barlaser didn't control an errant pass, could b classed partly as tactical as the precision and weight of pass for him is more demanding tactically.

But largely I don't think anything we did would have stopped us getting comfortably beat. I've seen no tactical suggestion what we should do with the ball. Kick it out of the goalkeepers hands long? It's just going to come back more often, we had to try and get possession somehow. We saw in teh first leg that they ripped us open 4 or 5 times, but failed to finish. If they played better and we just kept giving them the ball they'll rip us open even more.

Nano said:
the forwards need to drop deep, play to the middle of the pitch.
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Where chelseas biggest strengths are. If we drop deep then Chelsea have the intellegience to push the high line, because there was no pace to go in behind them.

We were on a hiding to nothing, and to be honest a billion pound prem team, SHOULD create 15 chances and score 7, 8 or 9 against what was effectively a scratch mid table championship side. They created about 8 and scored 6.
 
BoroMart said:
Not sure it was they are too quick, the big issue is we had no pace up top because Lathe, Jones and even Bangura were out. It gave no jeopardy to the Chelsea defence who were particularly troubled by Jones in the first leg. So without that, Chelsea could sit high, push midfield and forwards up and be aggressive in the press. It boxed us in and gave us a massive challenge to play around it.

It didn't work, but we didn't help ourselves with at least 3 of the 6 goals being massive individual errors on our part. That wasn't tactical failure, it was individual errors. Chelsea punished us ruthlessly, 6 shots on target 6 goals. When we did play more direct, we had 1 forward and support surrounded by 3 players, so we lost it and it came back. Launching didn't work either.

With more fit players we could have made a better fist of it, but this was a hurdle too far.

At any point during the game we probably had 3-6 players on the pitch who were either not match fit or over worked in recent weeks compared to their rehabilitation schedule. Forss is a good example, was only supposed to play 20 at the weekend after 3 months out, played 80 mins, then asked to play another 45 today. Clarke, Has been a fixture for recent games, despite being eased back in for 18 months. Howson, in an ideal world wouldn't have been on the pitch due to injury but had to play because O'Brien isn't match fit after 4 months injured.

Too many players not quite at their peak being forced to play hurt us too.
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Agree ... thought there FB had the legs over our FB (Engel and Van )
 
alanmoodysdog said:
Agree ... thought there FB had the legs over our FB (Engel and Van )
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I thought RVDB did OK, but yes, they targeted our left side, was it 5 goals originated that side?

The loss of Bangura was crucial for us, his pace was vital to nullify Sterling. We nullified him in the first leg largely doubling up with a back 5 once Bangura went off.

Last night: Engel-Sterling that is a mismatch of pace, but we had no other option and didn't have enough fit players to play a back 5
 
BoroMart said:
I thought RVDB did OK, but yes, they targeted our left side, was it 5 goals originated that side?

The loss of Bangura was crucial for us, his pace was vital to nullify Sterling. We nullified him in the first leg largely doubling up with a back 5 once Bangura went off.

Last night: Engel-Sterling that is a mismatch of pace, but we had no other option and didn't have enough fit players to play a back 5
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it was crying out for a 5 ... damage was done tho 20 mins in
 
We had so few options. I would have played the goal kicks long towards Crooks which would have at least saved us a goal.

Playing short against Chelsea and Rotherham were different propositions.

Chelsea basically had much more quality all over the pitch - it was a bit like watching Boro play Whitby Town as far as resources were concerned.
 
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