Karanka

Markburke said:
I always felt it was Adomah being sold that was the biggest problem. If he’d stayed we’d have been a different proposition. We were so one dimensional with him gone.

If Adomah had stayed, as well as having a decent right hand side, Stuani could have played up front occasionally with Negredo. And with less reliance on a number 10 midfielder, De Roon could have played in his proper position. So we could have cashed in on Gaston when he started twisting and it wouldn’t have been abig a deal.

Adomah was right at the heart of that promotion side, he was absolutely fantastic and we never replaced him.

It was great to be a boro fan in those promotion years. The songs! everyone was on a massive collective up, there was a great togetherness at the grounds.
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Agree with this. The team we started with on the opening day vs Stoke had promise.

It seemed obvious to me Karanka signed De Roon to essentially be an upgrade on Leadbitter, and to partner Clayton as one of the two sitting midfielders. De Roon got injured against Stoke however, and by the time he'd returned, we were going with 3 midfielders, hence why he was used box-to-box and we never got to see the best of him. If it hadn't have been for him picking up that injury, I think it's more likely Karanka would have persevered with his favoured 4231, and we wouldn't have ended up in a situation where he felt the need to try something different. Ramirez would have kept his role as no 10 and we would have gotten more out of Negredo, who wouldn't have ended up so isolated.

Regarding Adomah, he would have had games where he'd have struggled but also games where he'd have made a big difference in an attacking sense. I remember him not exactly looking out of his depth against Stoke.

Traore was exciting to watch that season but at that time he literally had no end product.
 
Remains (probably) my favourite ever Boro manager.

Sacking him seemed a little desperate at the time (and completely mindless when we found out who was replacing him). I'd have given him until of the season personally and reassessed then.

I think control was Karanka's biggest issue. I've no doubt he was sold a vision of the club that was quickly reneged upon and whilst he probably wanted that control to swing to him, it ended up back with the traditional power structure of the club. The Kenyon, Atleti link up could have been genuinely game changing in my view but it just didn't seem to work out.

I think his subsequent appointments have been blighted by the same issues (lack of control) although to be fair his eyes should have been wide open walking into Forest and Brum and expecting anything else.
 
The frustrating bit is he might as well of seen the season out given what replaced him . I dare say they must if been more money due had he nit been sacked
 
I think Karanka's tenure had run its course by the time we went up. He's an intense character and I think he was burned out by then.

But what do you do if he doesn't see it that way? It's hard to deny him the shot at the big time that he had earned.
 
Parting ways with Aitor wasn't the wrong move to be fair. He had lost the dressing room and a change was needed.

But giving Agnew the reigns was.

How we gave Agnew that many games was astonishing. A complete car crash and we've been crashing ever since.
 
Given that Southgate, Strachan, Mowbray, Agnew, Monk, Pulis, Woodgate and Warnock have all been failures I think it's quite funny that people wanted to replace a bloke who has been our only success since McLaren right after we got promoted. :D

Everything is irrelevant other than time. If we get a couple of wins under wilder everyone will be kissing his ****. 2 years later the same people will be saying he's dog ****.
 
Marvanelli said:
Parting ways with Aitor wasn't the wrong move to be fair. He had lost the dressing room and a change was needed.

But giving Agnew the reigns was.

How we gave Agnew that many games was astonishing. A complete car crash and we've been crashing ever since.
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Absolutely mind boggling decision. The whole point of changing your manager in the midst of a relegation scrap is the hope someone new can do something different, bring new ideas and maybe just spark the team into some form. You don't go for the continuity option at that point to keep picking the same team with the same failing tactics. It's like appointing Robbie Keane after sacking Woodgate. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Then, at the end of the season when we should have been looking for a manager to build on what was largely a capable squad with promotion experience, we appoint someone who wanted to rip the whole thing apart and do something completely different.

Really muddled thinking from Gibson.
 
parmoboy said:
We were holding our own in the Premier League until Ramirez had his head turned.

Hindsight's a wonderful thing but if we'd have sold him and used the money to bring in just one of Karankas' signings, then I don't think he'd have lost his head, and we probably would have stayed up.
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Don’t think I can agree with that. Ramirez handed a transfer request in mid to late January. We had already lost 4 out of 5 in December and drawn the next 2 and lost the next one. That’s 1 win in 8 before his head was turned. I suspect he saw things weren’t good and decided he wanted to jump off the bus.
 
I think the players AK wanted to bring in in January were all turkeys.

You might say they couldn't have done any worse; I'd say they wouldn't have done any better.

Looking at the OP, I see no reason to believe AK would have taken us back up. Sir Bruce was better funded coming down than going up, and that almost ended in a second relegation
 
Absolutely not. Anything that had been built by his hand was destroyed by the same hand prior to the Charlton game.
 
Frozen Horse said:
think the players AK wanted to bring in in January were all turkeys.
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This is the big thing I don’t understand all those Karanka fans seem to forget how spectacularly awful his targets turned out to be esp Jesse his number one obsession. And how he treated Stoke.
 
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