Gary Monk's Hit & Misses

Jedi boro said:
Agnew wasn’t a mistake he was a cry for help.

It’s was simply ridiculous we’d hand our reigns over in the prem to the bloke who still to this day hands out the cones for Steve Bruce.
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The appointment was a disgrace to the fans and the club. Even if we had appointed Pulis or Allardyce, gone down and had a go we could have held our heads up.

It still leaves a bitter taste and seems like planning to go down in order to come straight back up. How did that one go then.
 
When you look back at our more decent Manager's and the transfers made, it's a complete disaster.
The money wasted is hard to comprehend, the mistakes, unbelievable.
I sincerely hope Scott and Co can introduce a sustainable development model which will put the club on a better footing.
I'm struggling to take in all the mistakes and money burned.....
Absolutely staggering.
Obviously I'm aware of all that's gone on over recent years but to read it all again just saddens me to be honest.
 
I think Paylor got it wrong about Braithwaite. He was very much wanting to be here until Pulis took over...not that his "heart wasn't in it".
 
Yesterdays_Jam said:
I think Paylor got it wrong about Braithwaite. He was very much wanting to be here until Pulis took over...not that his "heart wasn't in it".
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Know a fella who worked on the Braithwaite transfer. The way he tells it is that the wheels were in motion on Braithwaite to Bournemouth, but his agent jumped in, set up the Boro move and pushed him to come here cos that meant the agent got a higher cut of the fee. Having said that, once he was here he always said he liked everything about the club except for Pulis
 
I always thought Monk brought McNair in but it was Pulis, and he didn't fancy him that much really.

Colin Warnek said:
The appointment was a disgrace to the fans and the club. Even if we had appointed Pulis or Allardyce, gone down and had a go we could have held our heads up.

It still leaves a bitter taste and seems like planning to go down in order to come straight back up. How did that one go then.
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As soon as he was confirmed you knew it was game over for us that season.
 
Yesterdays_Jam said:
I think Paylor got it wrong about Braithwaite. He was very much wanting to be here until Pulis took over...not that his "heart wasn't in it".
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I can't blame a technical player for not wanting to play lump ball, but equally, I don't blame Pulis for playing lump ball to get the most out of that side, once slightly adjusted.

I could tell he was a good player, even from his first few games when he was passing to our players quickly, and it was bouncing off some of them, as they couldn't control the ball well enough.

Why we sold him for half his value I'll never know, and god knows what we got for Stuani, but I bet that was low as well.
 
This article must have been a hard write as in my mind the only good hit the Monk had was the door hitting his @r$e on the way out.
 
Still don't blame Britt or think that was a bad signing, not for the first couple of years at least, his supply was all over the place (or none existent), as was the running of the club and its tactics. He was maybe a bit expensive, but we had just come out of the Prem, so everyone saw us as rich and desperate, and we had our pants pulled down a bit, albeit that was only because we had to sell (or give back) a load of our better players.

The team we went down with was bad, for Prem level, very bad even, and even then it got significantly weakened for what we lost in loans and sales, and what we could buy to replace. I don't really blame Gibbo too much for this mind, Karanka had zero chance of defending our way out of trouble in that league. It probably didn't make much sense to sack him in March like, should have been before the window when we had only won at home against poor teams (and Sunderland away who were muck), or kept him. Can't imagine we could have got anyone better in December mind, or attracted good enough players who wanted to be here in Jan. Our style going up sort of sealed our fate for the year after.

Changing from that defensive style, with loads of new players was never going to be easy, but maybe we got rid of Monk a bit early considering the new guy wanted to play a style which a few key players wouldn't fancy (or many other players who we could have been looking at).
 
Andy_W said:
Our style going up sort of sealed our fate for the year after.
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Not at all.
Spending pitifully lowly and on poor players was what sealed our fate.
Karanka was backed for promotion, but not for the PL.

That you still defend Assombolonga is remarkable. He was a catastrophically bad buy.
 
indeedido said:
Not at all.
Spending pitifully lowly and on poor players was what sealed our fate.
Karanka was backed for promotion, but not for the PL.

That you still defend Assombolonga is remarkable. He was a catastrophically bad buy.
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Yup, for 16/17 that recriutment as a whole certainly didn't help matters either.

As for Britt:
He was scoring at 1 in 2 for a **** Forest side, which is a fact (atually better than that, it was ~ 1 in 145 mins, so call that 1 in 1.6)
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We had next to zero creativity, or made little use of what we did have, which is a fact.
We changed from trying to play football (for a short time under Monk, albeit not very effectively) to playing lump ball, which is a fact.
Lump ball doesn't often work to 5'10" strikers, especially if they're playing alongisde Gestede (who was ****), or on their own, which is a fact.
We had 4 managers in 4 years, which is a fact

He was still scoring a goal every 190-200 minutes for two seasons, despite that, which isn't bad, that rate was good enough last year for 15/20 of the top 20 scorers in the league last year.

I'd take a goal every 190 minutes from any Striker this year, but would expect manybe one or two to do better, considering what creativity we have, and that we would hopefully be playing to their strengths.

Like I said though, we overpaid (on fee and wages) and managed his contract badly, as well as his departure for when we could have probably cashed in for some sort of return. He was the wrong type of player for the team we ended up having for a lot of his time here, but I suppose we were not thinking about that at the time.
 
Andy_W said:
Yup, for 16/17 that recriutment as a whole certainly didn't help matters either.

As for Britt:
He was scoring at 1 in 2 for a **** Forest side, which is a fact (atually better than that, it was ~ 1 in 145 mins, so call that 1 in 1.6)
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We had next to zero creativity, or made little use of what we did have, which is a fact.
We changed from trying to play football (for a short time under Monk, albeit not very effectively) to playing lump ball, which is a fact.
Lump ball doesn't often work to 5'10" strikers, especially if they're playing alongisde Gestede (who was ****), or on their own, which is a fact.
We had 4 managers in 4 years, which is a fact

He was still scoring a goal every 190-200 minutes for two seasons, despite that, which isn't bad, that rate was good enough last year for 15/20 of the top 20 scorers in the league last year.

I'd take a goal every 190 minutes from any Striker this year, but would expect manybe one or two to do better, considering what creativity we have, and that we would hopefully be playing to their strengths.

Like I said though, we overpaid (on fee and wages) and managed his contract badly, as well as his departure for when we could have probably cashed in for some sort of return. He was the wrong type of player for the team we ended up having for a lot of his time here, but I suppose we were not thinking about that at the time.
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regardless of that, he had poor technique and his knee injury meant that he didn't have physical quality to his game anymore. He was a terrible player and a duff buy. He was worth whatever we payed for Scott McDonald, was it 3.5m. He was a similar quality, bottom half champ player, at least the version we bought was.

In 48 games against top 6 championship sides he failed to score in 46 of them. You spend 15m on a striker to make a difference in those big games, not to be anonymous in them.
 
BoroMart said:
regardless of that, he had poor technique and his knee injury meant that he didn't have physical quality to his game anymore. He was a terrible player and a duff buy. He was worth whatever we payed for Scott McDonald, was it 3.5m. He was a similar quality, bottom half champ player, at least the version we bought was.

In 48 games against top 6 championship sides he failed to score in 46 of them. You spend 15m on a striker to make a difference in those big games, not to be anonymous in them.
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He never had a great technique, I never said he did (nor did we need that), but he knew where the goal was, and would get in the right place at the right time, unlike any striker we've had since Stuani (who we didn't play up front). We never played well enough to put the ball in the right place/ right time enough. Or the "chances" we did create were in years of lump ball, not exactly suited to a short striker (we knew that when we bought him).

He scored at a goal every 130 mins for Forest, after his knee injury, were all those against bad sides?

Most players score less against good sides, generally as they get less chances, it's not like he's gonna pick up the ball on the edge of our box and then run up the pitch and score.

McDonald scored at ~ 1 goal every 270 mins for his first few years, but we were **** then too, he'd have scored more in a better side.
 
Andy_W said:
He never had a great technique, I never said he did (nor did we need that), but he knew where the goal was, and would get in the right place at the right time, unlike any striker we've had since Stuani (who we didn't play up front). We never played well enough to put the ball in the right place/ right time enough. Or the "chances" we did create were in years of lump ball, not exactly suited to a short striker (we knew that when we bought him).

He scored at a goal every 130 mins for Forest, after his knee injury, were all those against bad sides?

Most players score less against good sides, generally as they get less chances, it's not like he's gonna pick up the ball on the edge of our box and then run up the pitch and score.

McDonald scored at ~ 1 goal every 270 mins for his first few years, but we were **** then too, he'd have scored more in a better side.
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Most of those goals were, against bottom half teams for forest yes. I think because of his poor technique he hit a bit of a glass ceiling and became more of a burden than a help against good defenders. Kris Boyd was the same.

Agreed most players score less against good sides, but his record was stark, far worse than comparable players, I did a comparison a couple of years ago. It even included Bamford with some of his games and goals in our team and some at Leeds and his record was much better.

Britt couldn't create space for himself, he needed the ball on a plate for him, and within 8 yards, you only get so many of those balls a season. A good striker will create some chances themselves, some for others through passing or creating space, will score a few goals from 15 yards and the odd one from 20. He scored 1 goal in 4 years outside the box and almost every goal was within 10 yards. Not a lot of real variety. Headers and tap in between the post and within 8 yards. Good defenders don't give you space within 8 yards, that's we couldn't score against them.

I'm not sure McDonald would have scored many more, he had limited ability.
 
BoroMart said:
Most of those goals were, against bottom half teams for forest yes. I think because of his poor technique he hit a bit of a glass ceiling and became more of a burden than a help against good defenders. Kris Boyd was the same.

Agreed most players score less against good sides, but his record was stark, far worse than comparable players, I did a comparison a couple of years ago. It even included Bamford with some of his games and goals in our team and some at Leeds and his record was much better.

Britt couldn't create space for himself, he needed the ball on a plate for him, and within 8 yards, you only get so many of those balls a season. A good striker will create some chances themselves, some for others through passing or creating space, will score a few goals from 15 yards and the odd one from 20. He scored 1 goal in 4 years outside the box and almost every goal was within 10 yards. Not a lot of real variety. Headers and tap in between the post and within 8 yards. Good defenders don't give you space within 8 yards, that's we couldn't score against them.

I'm not sure McDonald would have scored many more, he had limited ability.
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It wasn't like we were creating loads against the bottom teams either, and you still need to put the ball in the net. I don't recall him missing any glaring chances.

Comparing him to Boyd is a bit unfair :LOL:

All goals are worth the same, keep that in mind.

Anyway, like I say, I think he was a good goalscorer for around 4 seasons, and we certainly didn't make the most of it. He'd have a field day in this side, especially if we played two up top and he was up there with Muniz.

Yes, we overpaid, on the fee and wages, but that's not his fault, we were a pushover. But this doesn't influence my feeling about what he could do, like it does with most on here. He was like the opposite of Bamford, who was clearly better technically but didn't get in the right place often enough (not that we supplied him better mind), horses for courses I suppose.
 
Bar Randolph, I don't think a single signing under Monk was worth the money, and even with Randolph we significantly overpaid and were fortunate to get the money back.

Not that I wanted us to sell him, he was excellent for us, but £5m for a goalkeeper who West Ham had signed for free was daft money.

If we had a time machine, I'm sure basically everything that happened from December 2016 onwards would be handled differently.
A lot of missteps.
 
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