Is our squad ACTUALLY as good as people think?

atypical_boro said:
How many players do we have who have are good enough for the PL?
Click to expand...

I think Lath would score in that league, probably not into double digits. Hackney, Azaz and Morris would have some good games but struggle without the right support. Doak would hold his own, albeit unlikely that we'd be shelling out for him were we to go up.

I think with our current goalkeeper and defensive players, we'd be looking at complete hammerings at least once a month like Sheff Utd were taking last season.

That's my cloud inside the silver lining of a promotion: the entire defence would need to be upgraded, meaning we'd struggle for attackers and be a low scoring team like in the 2016-17 season.
 
No championship squad is perfect. Every team has players that are too good for them and others that aren't good enough. Our squad is good enough to be challenging for the autos but for a number of reasons it isn't happening.
 
I think our 1st choice attack is one of the best in the division.

I think our 1st choice midfield is also good enough for a playoff chasing team, although I do wish we could get some more consistency.

Defence is the issue. We concede far too many goals and many of them are just stupid goals and come from stupid mistakes. The fact that this has been happening for 2 years now makes me think the players are just not good enough to play the way they are being told. VDB is good enough, but I honestly have doubts about the rest. Individually they can all have good games but are just not consistent enough.

I also think Carrick needs to develop as well. We have no Plan B, so if Plan A is not working then we are pretty much screwed.

For the record, I’m still supporting Carrick and hope he develops more but if we didn’t make the playoffs this season then that must be considered a failure of a season. I would probably still give him one more shot at it next year though.
 
Posters from day one have insisted we have this superior squad - I have no idea why.
At the moment we have the 5th best squad in the league and 5th best coaching staff - simple.
 
Fully fit and in form, we've a match day 17 to comfortably make the top four.

Problem is it'd require an injury free season for both of the two actual strikers
And an inform, and match fit Forss and Mcgree.
And an available Morris and Howson.
And a fit and in form Lenihan , RVDB and fry most weeks.
And an available Dieng, as cover for Brynn, or vice versa.
And a fit and available, and in form Dijksteel and Ayling .

Could of added an in form Jones to that list last week as well.
And possibly Bangura.

We'd get away with the limitations of flexibility in formation and adaptability if that 17 -20 were fit , and in good form.
We'd be consistently better than the vast majority

For the vast vast majority of this season, there's been no option to really change things from the bench.
No option for Doak to switch wings and bring Forss on the right , to go a really aggressive 3 5 2 / 3 4 3 with subs etc

As it is, Today , with what we have , it feels we'll be in a scrap for 6th to the wire.
 
Man for man are sunderland better? Not a chance but they're pragmatic and hard to beat. I hate saying it but I'm leaning towards the manager being the problem
 
Going into the season I felt we had a squad good enough to finish in the play-offs and possibly challenge for automatic promotion. I do feel injuries have once again proven costly.

I felt VDB, Morris and McGree would be key players for us this season, but they haven't played enough games due to injuries and suspension. I felt the spine of our team would be VDB/Clarke/Morris/Hackney, but unfortuantely Clarke hasn't been able to replicate his form of last season, and VDB and Morris have missed a lot of games. Not having a strong spine has cost us.

We probably did get carried away by the Hamilton signing. He was an unknown quantity but I was hoping he'd develop in the same way as Rogers and would be putting in similar performances after a few months. That hasn't been the case.

Doak has huge potential but he was never going to be able to perform consistently throughout the season due to his age. I think he will continue to improve his game though as the season progresses, assuming we can keep him.

The Borges signing hasn't worked out and I feel the club should be aiming to sign an established Championship LB during this window.
 
In terms of clubs with better squads, I'd say Leeds, Burnley and Sheffield have for sure.

After that I think ours is as good as any and better, than the majority.

Sunderland have a good squad, but a a top quality centre forward or two away from having an excellent one.
 
Jonny Ingbar said:
In terms of clubs with better squads, I'd say Leeds, Burnley and Sheffield have for sure.

After that I think ours is as good as any and better, than the majority.

Sunderland have a good squad, but a a top quality centre forward or two away from having an excellent one.
Click to expand...

Did you think Sunderland had a good squad in August?
I certainly didn't think they'd be anywhere near us
 
Well the words coming from the club indicated a top 2 challenge was intended, we are well short of that and by no means nailed on for a top 6 finish if recent performances are to go by. Help is undoubtedly needed as we are about as consistent and reliable as the National Rail Network right now.
 
We have the potential to be top 2, but as said above, lots of external factors have got in the way. The biggest issue for me is that we concede far too many daft goals and it's teams that are good defensively that usually do well. That's not to say you can't go up scoring freely, but if you don't keep them out then you are always prone to dropping daft points.
Until we harden up the defence, either through improves form, organisation or incomings then we will remain inconsistent. Adequate cover for Morris is essential imho.
 
Haring back to the post by powerhouse that was just a lie that we were favourites for promotion at the beginning of the season.

Luton, Burnley and Leeds were all shorter than us and by a significant amount.
We were in a group of 4 clubs outside the top 3 favourites. Betfair markets are pretty accurate.

We weren't expected to challenge for the autos by anyone who makes a living from trading football.

Yes our first choice 13 or 14 are good enough to challenge for autos but have never been all available. And you wouldn't expect them to be. That's why we were in a group of clubs who could challenge for top 2 of everything fell in place.

Right now we have 1 striker and just 2 center mids who have played too many games over Christmas.

We are playing out 3rd choice keeper because our first and second choice are out injured.

We have 1 right winger who had also played too much football in his first season of men's football.

Our best center back has missed most of the season.

Are fans really confused why we have been inconsistent? I mean, really?

We are about where we should be with what we have had available all season.

Some of the trolls have gone from.... We won't make the playoffs.... To squeaking into 6th place wasn't the aim... To we should be challenging for autos.

The narrative has changed from them. If we do get promoted it will be despite Carrick not because. We have even had the odd post about how crap we will be in the prem under Carrick.

Who the **** would want to play for Boro. I am not even sure I would describe some of the dross on here as fairweather, more realistically they are not fans at all.
 
TS4Red said:
Man for man are sunderland better? Not a chance but they're pragmatic and hard to beat. I hate saying it but I'm leaning towards the manager being the problem
Click to expand...

Man for Man? As in first 11? I’d say they are stronger.

Patterson is a better keeper than Dieng, although I don’t think it’s fair to compare Brynn because he’s not had enough games yet.

Full backs - Hume and Cirkin are far better than what we have.

Mephem, Ballard and O’Nein - it depends who you’re matching up against but in terms of defending you’d have to say they’re at least on par with our CBs - Although I’d say that RVDB is the best of the lot.

Midfield - Bellingham, Neil vs Hackney and Morris? Well in current form you’d have to go with Neil over Hackney sadly but ability wise Hackney offers more. They’re different types of player so hard to judge but Hackney is out of sorts so you’d have to say Neil.

Bellingham has been outstanding for them this season and as much as I rate Morris, I don’t think anyone without Boro specs on can say Morris in this argument.

You’d take Browne over Barlaser any day of the week.

Wingers - Watson and Mundle offer more than Burgzorg and McGree currently however an in form McGree is a completely different story.

Roberts vs Doak - LOL.

#10/AMF - Rigg vs Azaz…..Azaz but Rigg ain’t a bad player is he?

Striker - even if we sell ELL Conway is still better than Isidor but he’s been a good signing for them. If we take current options then ELL and Conway are better than Isidor and Mayenda.

IMO we have a stronger squad but they have a better first 11, just. The difference is that they’ve the ability to grind out results, seemingly have the rub of the green in games and haven’t had the injuries issues we’ve had. Eg if Bellingham got a long term injury they’d suffer like we have with Morris. The suspension Bellingham got is proof of that.
 
I think it’s a good question and hard to prove one way or another.

Supporters can get caught in group think and stick to a line very easily. Our line is we have a great team and should be top two.

My view is that many Championship clubs are closer than you think in terms of quality. There will be a dozen players in the league who should be in the prem. Probably 20 - 30 that should be league one. The rest are a spectrum from lower to upper Championship.

When I look at Prem ready players we have then Doak is (probably) ready to go…though bottom end of the Prem at the moment.
LL…I’m not so sure.

Other than that, our players range from around 30-40% playoffs. 40-50% top ten. Rest are mid to lower.

I think we have a decent team but not good enough for automatic and would need good management and leadership to organise us to get us in to the playoffs.

Pre-season expectations make daft kids of us all. But they’re rarely correct.
 
I would expect that if we literally had no manager at the club the team is good enough and experienced enough to rock up and be there or there about a for the top 6.

The fact we have a highly paid manager who has been here for about 3 years and we’re still no better and seem to be lacking in confidence , ideas or momentum suggests to me where the problem is.
 
atypical_boro said:
How many players do we have who have are good enough for the PL?

I’m not suggesting Champ players need to be good enough for the PL but it’s a decent measure against other clubs and how many PL players they have.
Click to expand...
I'd say Rav and ELL. Maybe Hackney and Morris.
 
This is it. Our squad is nowhere near as good as most fans would believe.

How many of our starting XI or even usual squad get into the starting XI of the teams in the top 6/8 - Not many, if any.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top