New boss Chris Wilder must restore harmony at Middlesbrough [Echo]

Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
People will ask why he didn't play youth players in meaningless games. They will also ask why he gave up on the playoffs so early. They will also state our results have been terrible for X amount of time and include those "meaningless" games into the equation.
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Which would be a fair point if we had won all of those "meaningless games" we didn't so there was no need to exclude them from any analysis of Warnock's performance. For the whole of this year the results have been poor, you can exclude any periods you like there are no redeeming characteristics to be found.

It has been plain for some time that Payero and Lea-Siliki were not "Warnock" signings, that Crooks, Peltier and Bamba were (Ikpeazu I wouldn't have said). It couldn't go on. The manager was "retiring" at the end of the season and the results had been poor/bad, ideally his dismissal/replacement wouldn't have been so public but football is just as leaky as politics. If you recall the ITK thread from about a month ago I would guess that was when the decision had been made. ITK guy just didn't get the date right!

He's gone. Thanks Mr. Warnock.

I just hope that we give this set up a good go not abandon it if we fail to go up inside a couple of years because the set up needs to be sustainable not a desperate Derby-esque gamble on promotion to the PL.
 
I dont think anyones writing this season off Rob. The play offs are there for the taking and many believe this squad is good enough to achieve that. The manager wasn't getting consistency out of his players thats why they/I wanted rid.
 
Caesium137 said:
Not having a pop but why?

We had about 5 nothing games at the end of last season he could have tried some of the youths in, but didn't. Malley got MoM and was barely ever seen again. Warnock can be praised for a fair few things but championing youth players and bringing them through certainly isn't one of them.
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I think that's a very harsh view.

You can pick that example of Malley fine but remember Coburn got his debut goal in one of those meaningless games.

Since the start of this season Coburn and Jones have been introduced and will now be first team players.
 
Muttley said:
Which would be a fair point if we had won all of those "meaningless games" we didn't so there was no need to exclude them from any analysis of Warnock's performance. For the whole of this year the results have been poor, you can exclude any periods you like there are no redeeming characteristics to be found.
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I'm not making a point about whether Warnock was any good or not. It's a point about how we no longer provide an environment for young players to get established. McLaren was told by Gibson we are a cup team, and I assume he was also pushed to play kids. Some of the line ups he put out in our uefa cup season are stuffed with them. Our league form suffered as a consequence.
Whether we won or lost those "meaningless" games is neither here nor there, as the pressure still exists for the manager to provide success short term, rather than taking a gamble with kids which may benefit the club in the longer term. Remove that pressure, understand that it might take several transfer windows to get the team right and you'll get managers using the youth team more. Otherwise they're going to go with known quantities.
The reason we produced better players from our youth team under McLaren and Robson was because they were backed by Gibson. Robson survived a relegation. McLaren survived a team underperforming in the league.
Nowadays karanka has two and a bit wildly successful seasons. Minute he has a brush with the relegation zone bang! He's gone.
There is a direct correlation between the leeway given to managers and the standard of our youth players.
Downing, cattermole, Johnson, Morrison. Premier league regulars. How many since then? Ben Gibson sitting on someone's bench?
I mean I understand why Gibson has this must get promoted immediately mentality. It's the money. It's counter productive though. I hope with wilder that should results not be what we would like that we hold our nerve.
 
fmttmadmin said:
Interesting article. But who amongst us in the summer would have been prepared to write-off this season and instead concentrate on building for the future? It might be the right strategy long term for the club but it might have led to us being relegated. Wasn't the reason Warnock fell foul of online fans mainly because of results on the field?
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If we have to go through a strategic transition then the sooner you do it, the sooner you reap the rewards.

I'm on record as saying he should have gone last March, if not last summer, I'll take last week as better than the end of this season because that would make next season the transition season. Happy to write off the second half of this season, it's a free hit for Wilder.
 
Michael_Vronsky said:
It's a dig at fans. You know, this thing about 'if you don't go to games you can't have an opinion'.
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Doesn't matter what medium you use to observe a game, it matters what analysis tools you have learned to observe football in depth.

Watching as a fan is very very different to watching as a student of the sport or a coach. There are people that watch every game, but never sober, spend most of their time chanting and enjoying at a basic level and never really understanding tactics. There are also people who read online articles, watch videos about players, have read Inverting The Pyramid and The Mixer cover-to-cover three times, and only ever attend 4 matches a year.
 
BoroMart said:
Doesn't matter what medium you use to observe a game, it matters what analysis tools you have learned to observe football in depth.

Watching as a fan is very very different to watching as a student of the sport or a coach. There are people that watch every game, but never sober, spend most of their time chanting and enjoying at a basic level and never really understanding tactics. There are also people who read online articles, watch videos about players, have read Inverting The Pyramid and The Mixer cover-to-cover three times, and only ever attend 4 matches a year.
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I agree completely, but it's something that the superfans use to make their opinion seem more important, that someone they're more of a supporter because they go to matches, and in turn, it makes them more knowledgeable... in their own heads anyway.
 
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
People will ask why he didn't play youth players in meaningless games. They will also ask why he gave up on the playoffs so early. They will also state our results have been terrible for X amount of time and include those "meaningless" games into the equation.
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Is there such a thing as a meaningless game? There are 'opportunity' games, but they all have meaning. a league cup 2nd round tie against Rochdale isn't meaningless if you lose.

Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
I think that our strategy should be based around our academy.
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Agreed. We have four key players in our squad who are youth products (Tav, Fry, Jones and Coburn), plus another handful of fringe players. We have another 6 youth players loaned out. We have an U18 team that have just battered 4 past Liverpool and 3 past Man Utd. Prospects like Sonny Finch, Jack Stott and Calum Kavanagh looking real prospects.

We have to make sure these lads have a pathway. Our promotion teams in the past have had room for key breakthrough youth players:

91/92 - Nicky Mohan, Jamie Pollock,
94-95 -Alan Moore, Graham Kavanagh, Phil Stamp
97-98 - Craig Harrison, Mark Summerbell and Anthony Ormerod (Robson).

I think Karankas promotion side was the only one that didn't have a lot youth space, Fry played a handful of games and Gibson was established as a 23 year old.
 
The article captures what many have been hoping for for quite some time. A structure that thinks long-term and isn't just about who a particular Manager at the time wants. Boro have been seriously hammered by recruitment with Strachan and Monk in recent times. Only Mowbray left a positive in terms of recruitment.
 
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
It's a point about how we no longer provide an environment for young players to get established. McLaren was told by Gibson we are a cup team, and I assume he was also pushed to play kids. Some of the line ups he put out in our uefa cup season are stuffed with them. Our league form suffered as a consequence.
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Yeah, I think we're broadly agreeing there. My point was that at the end of last season we had several "dead" games. Our chance at the play offs had long gone, we were in no danger of relegation. There was no good reason NOT to try some of the kids. The only reason was to try to win those games, yet (without checking the actual results) we lost most of them any way. The chance to let some of the youth players "have a go" at the level we find ourselves at was thrown away for nothing.

But on the subject of our league form during our UEFA adventure I think that we got the balance pretty good in those two years, we also had a decent run in the domestic cups. (Again without checking the results just from memory!) And I think some of that was directly due to having "kids" who could step up and play in the PL.
 
Here's the line up from Charlton v Boro 2006. In the middle of our uefa cup tie with Roma.

Schwarzer, McMahon (Davies 13), Ehiogu, Pogatetz, Queudrue, Maccarone (Yakubu 76), Parlour (Cattermole 69), Doriva, Taylor, Johnson, Viduka.
Subs Not Used: Jones, Riggott.

Andrew Taylor gets a start. McMahon starts at right back (and picked up one of his terrible injuries) Johnson starts. Cattermole comes on. Andrew Davies comes on.

Could you imagine karanka putting out a team like that to prioritise the cups?
Nowadays we play the first team in the league. Get knocked out by Roma and McLaren is sacked after the villa game.
2 players for every position and the manager playing seasoned pro's because he is scared that the results will count against him, even if there's nowt riding on the game.

We lost 2 1 by the way. Played reasonably well and viduka scored what I rate as his best goal for us.
 
remember when we played all the kids vs Arsenal? People always want the new kids to play but there is a reason they need easing in
 
I think it was clear that Warnock was working against our new recruitment strategy. Lots of digs about the recruitment guys and scouts, disregarding players “after 30 seconds” when they had been scouted for months. We could all see (so its not a stretch to say it was played out publicly) that he didn’t think much of Payero or JLS, he said he didn’t want too many “foreigners” when we were clearly looking at the market overseas.
Yes he brought in a couple of old favourites who have been very good for us. This season. They’re not for the future and we need a combination. Warnock was only focussed on his men and didn’t show any care for Boro’s long term ambitions.
The things he’s said in the media this season and since he’s left have been poor and show us in a bad light (and him in a good one of course). I’m glad we have a positive future to look forward to now.
 
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