Promotion Comparison

Which is why some suggesting dropping Lath is madness. We need goalscorers and finishers on the pitch as much as possible. Carrick seems to understand this and it's why I think you'll see Lath and Conway both on the pitch together more often than not.

Lath is in a bit of sticky patch but he's still more likely to grab a goal than pretty much anyone also.

McGree is a miss, not just because of his link up play but because he's a good finisher and the most capable of scoring from distance, which sometimes you need against a side sitting deep.

Get those 3 on the pitch most games and I can't believe we'll continue to miss some of the chances we have been. Even better if Forss ever comes back.
We'll look better as a team if Conway plays up top. From what I've seen of him I'd say he's also more likely to get us a goal than Lath.

I think Conway will end this season as our first choice no9.
 
We'll look better as a team if Conway plays up top. From what I've seen of him I'd say he's also more likely to get us a goal than Lath.

I think Conway will end this season as our first choice no9.
I think I agree because he's more consistent/reliable.

I hope I'm wrong but I think rejecting whatever was offered for Lath will be used as a stick to beat the club with in the future. I am not saying we should have accepted any bid because the timing was all wrong but I think he is very much a hit and miss sort of player and that bid was at the peak of what he will achieve for us. He could as easily go on a run of not scoring that lasts for months as he can a run scoring every week. His technique is very erratic. He's had two shots on target this season and one of them was a penalty.

We don't know what was offered for him but my impression is that he isn't a top level player so if it was a top level fee it's more than he is worth. I still think he'll be a decent championship goal scorer but probably a £6/7m one and not a £15m one.
 
I hope I'm wrong but I think rejecting whatever was offered for Lath will be used as a stick to beat the club with in the future.
I've always held the view that lath isn't good technically to be a PL player and I thought £15m+ would be good money for him.
But given the timing it was impossible to accept so there should never be any stick beating.

If the offer had come a week earlier I think he'd have gone.
 
True, but my main concern is we have played 5 teams that will struggle to be anything other than bottom 8
This has been our problem for years though. Always do well against the better teams, as they also want to play football. We tend to struggle against the teams who sit deep, stop us from playing and hit us on the counter.

Under Carrick we don't seem to be able to find a way of playing against it and we don't have a plan B.
 
This has been our problem for years though. Always do well against the better teams, as they also want to play football. We tend to struggle against the teams who sit deep, stop us from playing and hit us on the counter.

Under Carrick we don't seem to be able to find a way of playing against it and we don't have a plan B.
As I've said on other threads, its not so much the we need more of a plan B in an attacking sense. It's that plan A needs to include us defending FAR, FAR better than we have done
 
This has been our problem for years though. Always do well against the better teams, as they also want to play football. We tend to struggle against the teams who sit deep, stop us from playing and hit us on the counter.

Under Carrick we don't seem to be able to find a way of playing against it and we don't have a plan B.

Push them full backs further up the pitch?

------------------Seny---------------------
Dijksteel--Edmundson--Clarke--Borges
------------Morris--Hackney------------
--------Ayling--McGree--Engel---------
---------------Burgzorg-----------------

Burgzorg is not a fan favourite at the moment.. but with his aggression and unpredictability I think he would be really tough to 'do a number on. Ayling can assist for days and is smart enough not to get wiped out by unscrupulous defenders. Engel is an absolute workhorse and he has a canny shot on him from long range.

I mentioned something similar YEARS ago when we were struggling under Strachan I remember it involved pushing Hoyte and Bennett further forward and having project Emnes who was completely underrated at the time. Looks a little less extreme now these days.. now we see a lot more of that sort of stuff.

I'm not going to say I was a revolutionary thinker at the time in terms of football tactics.. that's for other to say.
 
I hope I'm wrong but I think rejecting whatever was offered for Lath will be used as a stick to beat the club with in the future.
If we had have sold him, the stick would have been a lot bigger.

People still complain about the Morsy sale despite him being bang average for us.

Selling our top scorer from last season would have resulted in a meltdown of epic proportions.

I don’t think you’ll find many Boro fans who wanted us to sell. So anybody coming out and using the stick you mention, would be purely doing so on hindsight.
 
We'll look better as a team if Conway plays up top. From what I've seen of him I'd say he's also more likely to get us a goal than Lath.

I think Conway will end this season as our first choice no9.
I think he's been brought into to primarily play behind Lath as a 10.

Which doesn't necessarily mean he'll be less of a goal threat. Chuba scored plenty from there and I think Carrick sees him playing the role in the same way as Chuba did. I don't think its an either/or situation.
 
If we had have sold him, the stick would have been a lot bigger.

People still complain about the Morsy sale despite him being bang average for us.

Selling our top scorer from last season would have resulted in a meltdown of epic proportions.

I don’t think you’ll find many Boro fans who wanted us to sell. So anybody coming out and using the stick you mention, would be purely doing so on hindsight.
I completely agree. I definitely meant "with hindsight" as in at some point people will be saying things like "can you believe we once turned down £15m for him?!". People looking back won't appreciate the timing or the situation.
 
I think he's been brought into to primarily play behind Lath as a 10.

Which doesn't necessarily mean he'll be less of a goal threat. Chuba scored plenty from there and I think Carrick sees him playing the role in the same way as Chuba did. I don't think its an either/or situation.
I just think his movement and skillset is more suited to a no9.
The heat map actually shows that he did play slightly more advanced that LL did on Saturday.

I also think the team will benefit hugely from having a better technical footballer at no9 who can hold the ball up better.

It would be strange if we have brought him in to play primarily as a no10 and then let Coburn go. You would think it would go without saying that we need someone to play as no9 off the bench. Especially the way Lath plays pressing hard from the front.

Unless we think Burgzorg is our second no9?
 
Our passing just isn't quite quick or crisp enough in the final third and a bit too measured at the moment. You would think we would get better at this as the season got going, but not showing signs of it yet. We missed Morris on Saturday as Barlaser is a totally different player. Tough test on Saturday against Sunderland.
 
I still don't think there is much in this league, Burnley are looking decent but the rest are nothing special, given our play-off record we need automatic as top 6 will almost certainly mean more disappointment.
 
I just think his movement and skillset is more suited to a no9.
The heat map actually shows that he did play slightly more advanced that LL did on Saturday.

I also think the team will benefit hugely from having a better technical footballer at no9 who can hold the ball up better.

It would be strange if we have brought him in to play primarily as a no10 and then let Coburn go. You would think it would go without saying that we need someone to play as no9 off the bench. Especially the way Lath plays pressing hard from the front.

Unless we think Burgzorg is our second no9?
Wouldn't it be equally strange to spend the significant fee we did on Conway and not intend to play him or intend for him to replace the £20m striker?

I think Carrick sees it has having multiple options off the bench, but yeah I think Burgzorg is our 3rd choice striker. Conway is deputy number 9 to Lath but will play as the 10 if Lath is fit.

Of course injury/form etc may play a part but in the short term there is no chance we're dropping Lath and playing Conway instead.
 
Wouldn't it be equally strange to spend the significant fee we did on Conway and not intend to play him or intend for him to replace the £20m striker?

I think Carrick sees it has having multiple options off the bench, but yeah I think Burgzorg is our 3rd choice striker. Conway is deputy number 9 to Lath but will play as the 10 if Lath is fit.

Of course injury/form etc may play a part but in the short term there is no chance we're dropping Lath and playing Conway instead.
I don't think Carrick will or should pick his team based on price tags. He should pick his team that will get results.

I've said further up that I don't think Carrick will drop Lath, at least not yet but I think through the season that it could happen and maybe very shortly if he doesnt start putting it away.

Last season it took 6 matches before he dropped Rogers, Lath and Silvera for McGree, Coburn and Crooks. Similar to this season Lath had only scored 1 in his first 5 matches. Those changes brought us 25 points in our next 10 matches. This season he's under less pressure as we have more points on the board but similar to last season, it's not quite working up top. Maybe that sort of change is what is required here to bring some goals.

Lath certainly isn't undroppable. Our win percentage and PPG are crap when he starts.
We've won 10 out of 27 matches he's started in the Championship and our PPG is 1.37 when he starts.
 
With the current Boro team we get better results against the better teams - last season we took 6 points off Leicester and 1 point off Rotherham.

People always thinks it a big advantage playing at home - it isn't for us we got more points away from home last season.

The promising thing for me is we didn't get the results we deserved in 3 of the 5 league games we have played this season and that with a lot of players missing for various reasons. With decent new players arriving at the end of August and some of the injured returning this month the available squad looks to be stronger than in August.

Also the league cup will not drag us back this season - in the intensive late November to late January period last season we had to play 4 mid week League Cup games which other teams generally did not - these 4 games were taken very seriously by the Club.
 
Back
Top