Maybe we were too optimistic...

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ewieb

Member
Any team is going to seriously struggle when you lose 5 of your best players. Steffen, Giles, Ramsay, Chuba & Archer.

We knew at least 4 of those were definitely leaving and almost irreplaceable.

Yes - we HAVE to bring in more quality signings however we won't get near the quality of those 5 above as we simply can't afford that quality of player.
 
Dieng looks to be a suitable replacement for Steffen. Steffen great distribution, goalkeeping fundamentals .....okay.

Giles couldn't defend, his assists dried up second half of the season. Our goals conceded needs sorting (!😆!). He wasn't the Messiah......

Ramsey showed what a good player he is, disappeared in a few games, injured. Jury's out whether any team can get 30+ games/season out of him. If he's a key player, that causes problems.

Archer, great player, love to see him back but unlikely. If Lath can hit double figures, may go towards replacing him.

Chuba - can't be replaced. Goals have to be shared out among the team and we need to tighten up (so far not working).

Still early days, hopefully the new players will click and .......let's see
 
h_m_boro said:
Dieng looks to be a suitable replacement for Steffen. Steffen great distribution, goalkeeping fundamentals .....okay.

Giles couldn't defend, his assists dried up second half of the season. Our goals conceded needs sorting (!😆!). He wasn't the Messiah......

Ramsey showed what a good player he is, disappeared in a few games, injured. Jury's out whether any team can get 30+ games/season out of him. If he's a key player, that causes problems.

Archer, great player, love to see him back but unlikely. If Lath can hit double figures, may go towards replacing him.

Chuba - can't be replaced. Goals have to be shared out among the team and we need to tighten up (so far not working).

Still early days, hopefully the new players will click and .......let's see
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Not denying the fact that Giles was poor defensively & Ramsay didn't have his faults but my point is is you'll struggle to find better players at championship level hence why both of them are now playing for Premier league teams.
 
When Carrick came in most weren't hoping for much beyond safety and a reset. Three things happened that made us go way beyond that - his ability to get improved performances from almost every player, the remarkable turnaround from Chuba and the excellent loan business in January.

One of those was always going to be temporary, losing Chuba is only a big deal because of the second thing. The unexpected windfall of cash that'll bring is a bonus.

Expectations have been understandably inflated, but the factors that ought to sustain those expectations aren't wholly in place any more, so we probably ought to be looking back to last October rather than February of this year for what is and isn't good enough.
 
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I said yesterday- historically Boro are somewhere between the 15th and 30th club in England.

I suspect we will finish somewhere in the 21st to 30th bracket again this year.

The championship is a form league - teams that are top after 5 games can go down (reading last year) and teams that are bottom can get promoted (Forest 2 years ago).

Hopefully we can turn our form around. If one of our players hits a hot streak like Chuba last year we could challenge for promotion.
 
I can’t really reconcile why we were able to sign players like Giles and Steffen last summer but not this summer. We didn’t suddenly become a less attractive proposition this summer.

As for Ramsey and Archer, they weren’t “big proven names” when we got them. Archer had done well at Preston and Ramsey had been a bit average at Norwich as I recall. To a degree, we should take some of the credit for them being so good, but we could/should be able to do it with other players.

As for Chuba, it was a sort of freak season. No one expected him to be that good (and it started under Wilder not Carrick), and no one should have expected him to stay. Yes he’ll be very hard to replace, but it’s not as if he was way above our level all along.
 
atypical_boro said:
I can’t really reconcile why we were able to sign players like Giles and Steffen last summer but not this summer. We didn’t suddenly become a less attractive proposition this summer.

As for Ramsey and Archer, they weren’t “big proven names” when we got them. Archer had done well at Preston and Ramsey had been a bit average at Norwich as I recall. To a degree, we should take some of the credit for them being so good, but we could/should be able to do it with other players.

As for Chuba, it was a sort of freak season. No one expected him to be that good (and it started under Wilder not Carrick), and no one should have expected him to stay. Yes he’ll be very hard to replace, but it’s not as if he was way above our level all along.
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Engels and Dieng are like Giles and Steffen.

Silvera and Latte Laff aren’t ’proven names’

As for Chuba.. maybe we’ll see Chris Willock have an amazing season too?
 
atypical_boro said:
I can’t really reconcile why we were able to sign players like Giles and Steffen last summer but not this summer. We didn’t suddenly become a less attractive proposition this summer.

As for Ramsey and Archer, they weren’t “big proven names” when we got them. Archer had done well at Preston and Ramsey had been a bit average at Norwich as I recall. To a degree, we should take some of the credit for them being so good, but we could/should be able to do it with other players.

As for Chuba, it was a sort of freak season. No one expected him to be that good (and it started under Wilder not Carrick), and no one should have expected him to stay. Yes he’ll be very hard to replace, but it’s not as if he was way above our level all along.
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As has been said on other threads I think the budget is for bulking out the squad with potential so we dont have to keep adding 10 new players every season. I think we still are as attractive a club as last season and sure lots of big clubs would be happy loaning us talent but maybe we feel we need to develop our own more. Chuba was the best player in the league and made us what we were. If you add him to the teams we put out this season we would have been far more potent.
 
Angus said:
Maybe we’re trying to make an assessment too early, it’s only been two league games.
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I think that it's easy for many to jump to these thoughts because under Warnock, Wilder and Woodgate we had these wobbly starts where you try to be rational and think things will get going... But they just don't.
 
starplayer said:
As has been said on other threads I think the budget is for bulking out the squad with potential so we dont have to keep adding 10 new players every season. I think we still are as attractive a club as last season and sure lots of big clubs would be happy loaning us talent but maybe we feel we need to develop our own more. Chuba was the best player in the league and made us what we were. If you add him to the teams we put out this season we would have been far more potent.
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Long term replacements for our fringe players the squad looks healthier and stronger.

Still room for some absolute game changers.
 
ewieb said:
Any team is going to seriously struggle when you lose 5 of your best players. Steffen, Giles, Ramsay, Chuba & Archer.

We knew at least 4 of those were definitely leaving and almost irreplaceable.

Yes - we HAVE to bring in more quality signings however we won't get near the quality of those 5 above as we simply can't afford that quality of player.
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In some ways we are a victim of our own success. We helped develop all those players to a a degrere than made them wanted by Premier League clubs - Villa, Burnley, Sheff United and Luton. Even Balogun to some degree.

We have to start again from a slightly higher base, year afater year.

Me I am a but cheeky - I would ring up Premier League clubs and say we want so/so young players and we want him without paying any wages etc. We will blood them for you, if they are good enough. We are good at our job look at Archer, Ramsay, Giles etc
 
I think it’s the size of yesterdays defeat that’s causing increased concern.

We all knew goals were going to be difficult to come by, but didn’t expect to be losing three nil at Coventry.

On balance though we missed two or three good chances yesterday, in fact we were more threatening and creative than against Millwall last week!
 
ewieb said:
Any team is going to seriously struggle when you lose 5 of your best players. Steffen, Giles, Ramsay, Chuba & Archer.

We knew at least 4 of those were definitely leaving and almost irreplaceable.

Yes - we HAVE to bring in more quality signings however we won't get near the quality of those 5 above as we simply can't afford that quality of player.
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Been saying exactly the same thing all summer.

We have lost 5 PL standard players in effect and it would take a minor miracle to replace their ability like for like.

But we've still got the bones of a good team, still got a good manager and by the end of the window we'll be a lot lot stronger.
 
Unfortunately the reality of not going up last season is coming home to roost. As many said at the time we couldn't afford to not go up as a unique set of circumstances had propelled us into the promotion picture and were goal scorer extrodinaires. There was something very un-Boro about us last season and you had to really pinch yourself to believe it was real. People said well Carrick can do it again and we'll go up as champions, yet that is very difficult to do when you're literally back at square one and most of what got us to where were has been ripped up and shredded in terms of players leaving and the situation with Chuba. I am sure we can built back, but it will take time.

Someone the other day compared it to the 1997 relegation which is very true. Thoughts exist of what might of been, but there is no going back. That defeat to Coventry signalled the end point of the journey, just like relegation did in 1997 where a new direction was needed to get back to where we were. That's why there is outrage, anger and tears after the start we have had. It's the realisation of all of this.
 
ewieb said:
Any team is going to seriously struggle when you lose 5 of your best players. Steffen, Giles, Ramsay, Chuba & Archer.

We knew at least 4 of those were definitely leaving and almost irreplaceable.

Yes - we HAVE to bring in more quality signings however we won't get near the quality of those 5 above as we simply can't afford that quality of player.
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The biggest problem with this recruitment strategy is that even with our best 5 players last season we weren't good enough to get promoted because the other players weren't good enough. We needed to upgrade some players but we can't afford to because we're spending all our money on backfilling the empty roles so we're stuck with those players.

Losing Akpom isn't as big a problem because we get money to do it (even though he's a player that will be difficult to replace in general). We knew we would be losing the loan players because they weren't ours so not having replacements by this point is poor. Even if we do manage to get replacements and they are good players we'll be back here again next season.
 
If we can get the loans in very cheaply there will be more cash for purchases.

We have to use Akpom's fee to the full if we want to challenge for top 6.

I think we are in a bit stronger position to take loans, because clubs can see how well we did with most of our loans particularly the younger ones.

I would keep an eye on Ramsey situation - if Burnley don't take him. I still think he would benefit for another season in the Championship. He's not going to get a look in at Villa this season.

I like to see another central midfielder in - Howson's age will probably affect him and Hackney will pick up yellows. Barlaser, the jury is still out.

Left wing - do we have a left footed attacking player?
 
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