The 3 points debacle

Anyone who thinks we dodged a bullet by being relagated and not signing more world class players to add to what we already had is frankly bonkers 🤣 it was a catastrophic decision not to play the Blackburn game that cost the club dearly. Our stock was high at that time and i really think Robbo could have got just about anyone to sign at that point.
 
The Disciple said:
Anyone who thinks we dodged a bullet by being relagated and not signing more world class players to add to what we already had is frankly bonkers 🤣 it was a catastrophic decision not to play the Blackburn game that cost the club dearly. Our stock was high at that time and i really think Robbo could have got just about anyone to sign at that point.
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It would have been followed by more catastrophic decisions, in my opinion. Lamby and the coaching lads weren't ready to 'manage' those kind of players.

Its largely myth that we could have signed some of the players touted, especially after we had spent the season still struggling and ultimately unsuccessful in the cups/European qualification. Has Batistuta ever done an interview in the last 25 years where he says how gutted he was Boro went down as he was ready to sign on the dotted line?

Juninho was the only world class player we signed during that era, in my opinion. I don't know how many more we'd have got realistically. We would have unquestionably signed a few more overpaid charlatans that they didn't know how to manage, though.
 
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Had we stayed up we’d have had the benefit of Festa and Schwarzer from the get go the next season. Juninho would have stayed. Emerson would have settled in. We’d have signed several top class players and probably won the league the following season. And the cup most likely.
 
Otto42 said:
Didn't Coventry's win send Sunderland down rather than us as it turned out? Cementing Coventry's place as everyone's second club on Wearside!
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It was another surprise Coventry win I remember that season
Leaving Wembley after Heskey's equaliser and hearing that Coventry had won at Anfield was like another punch in the gut.
It put us back in the bottom 3 after we had done so well to pull ourselves out of there. It felt like the writing was on the wall even with our games in hand.
The League Cup Final(s) and FA Cup semi(s) really sidetracked our survival. We were on such a good run before them.
 
Rofesleg said:
It was another surprise Coventry win I remember that season
Leaving Wembley after Heskey's equaliser and hearing that Coventry had won at Anfield was like another punch in the gut.
It put us back in the bottom 3 after we had done so well to pull ourselves out of there. It felt like the writing was on the wall even with our games in hand.
The League Cup Final(s) and FA Cup semi(s) really sidetracked our survival. We were on such a good run before them.
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Coventry we’re aweful that year.. they should have went down. Their manager was dreadful and a big voice in calling for our 3 point deduction. Pure asrehole!
 
Rofesleg said:
It was another surprise Coventry win I remember that season
Leaving Wembley after Heskey's equaliser and hearing that Coventry had won at Anfield was like another punch in the gut.
It put us back in the bottom 3 after we had done so well to pull ourselves out of there. It felt like the writing was on the wall even with our games in hand.
The League Cup Final(s) and FA Cup semi(s) really sidetracked our survival. We were on such a good run before them.
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We had. But always worth remembering that the run we were on which had seen us take 17 points in the nine league games immediately preceding that league cup final (almost title winning form) started the Saturday after the three point deduction was announced on January 15 with the home win over Sheffield Wednesday. Before that, the one off on boxing day success apart, we could barely buy a point.

Would a more lenient punishment have had the same galvanising effect? Or would we just have carried on being hopeless and been relegated by March?
 
We got what we deserved, frankly.

And it worked out in the end, didn't it? 97/98 was an incredible season - promotion and another Wembley date where we forced Chelsea into extra time.

I loved seeing Merson at Boro, and let's be honest, we were never really close to signing Roberto Carlos.

Juninho found his way back to the club (twice!) and eventually helped us win the trophy that meant more to him than winning the World Cup with Brazil.

Beautiful stuff.
 
atypical_boro said:
It would have been followed by more catastrophic decisions, in my opinion. Lamby and the coaching lads weren't ready to 'manage' those kind of players.

Its largely myth that we could have signed some of the players touted, especially after we had spent the season still struggling and ultimately unsuccessful in the cups/European qualification. Has Batistuta ever done an interview in the last 25 years where he says how gutted he was Boro went down as he was ready to sign on the dotted line?

Juninho was the only world class player we signed during that era, in my opinion. I don't know how many more we'd have got realistically. We would have unquestionably signed a few more overpaid charlatans that they didn't know how to manage, though.
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Maybe we would have signed some defenders. Good job we didn't sign any overpaid charlatans after we went down. Gazza added so much.
 
Juninhoburger said:
We got what we deserved, frankly.

And it worked out in the end, didn't it? 97/98 was an incredible season - promotion and another Wembley date where we forced Chelsea into extra time.

I loved seeing Merson at Boro, and let's be honest, we were never really close to signing Roberto Carlos.

Juninho found his way back to the club (twice!) and eventually helped us win the trophy that meant more to him than winning the World Cup with Brazil.

Beautiful stuff.
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Exactly. The 3 points punishment was unfair, but I’ve started to see the bigger picture all these years later, and am not bitter about it anymore.

And as you say, the R Carlos thing was delusional when you really think about it. He was always going to Real Madrid.
 
atypical_boro said:
Exactly. The 3 points punishment was unfair, but I’ve started to see the bigger picture all these years later, and am not bitter about it anymore.

And as you say, the R Carlos thing was delusional when you really think about it. He was always going to Real Madrid.
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Like Juninho was always going to Arsenal?
 
BobendBert said:
Like Juninho was always going to Arsenal?
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For starters, Arsenal are not Real Madrid. When we signed Juninho, Arsenal had just finished 12th in the Premier League under Stewart Houston, who they replaced with Bruce Rioch (the George Graham era was long gone and the Wenger era hadn't started). Plus, I don't believe Arsenal ever made a concrete offer for him, and Juni was clearly keen to get to Europe.

For seconds, we were paying way more (over the odds) in wages than Arsenal at that time, which is how we managed to sign Merson the summer after. I cannot imagine we could have blown Real Madrid out of the water like that, not forgetting Roberto Carlos was already at Inter Milan, who'd paid a reasonable fee for him. We made a club record bid for Roberto Carlos in February 1996 which failed, hence why we signed Branco instead.

Yet people still think he was all set to sign in the summer of 1997, after we'd spent the season battling relegation and failing to qualify for Europe via the cups. I've no doubt there'll always be stories about how we *wanted* to sign these players, but lets face it, the club was a shambles off the pitch at that time, and it all fed into the much more stable 1998-2006 era. I do think we could have maybe signed Romario, whose career was on the rocks, by paying him way more than he was currently on. Batigol was never happening.

Listen to any of our ex-players talk about Keith Lamb though (there are countless podcasts out there, of which I've listened to close to 100%), and its not hard to see why we weren't ready for those kind of players in 1996-1997. I'm sure Lamby was a decent bloke, but he was not popular with the 'famous' players.
 
atypical_boro said:
For starters, Arsenal are not Real Madrid. When we signed Juninho, Arsenal had just finished 12th in the Premier League under Stewart Houston, who they replaced with Bruce Rioch (the George Graham era was long gone and the Wenger era hadn't started). Plus, I don't believe Arsenal ever made a concrete offer for him, and Juni was clearly keen to get to Europe.

For seconds, we were paying way more (over the odds) in wages than Arsenal at that time, which is how we managed to sign Merson the summer after. I cannot imagine we could have blown Real Madrid out of the water like that, not forgetting Roberto Carlos was already at Inter Milan, who'd paid a reasonable fee for him. We made a club record bid for Roberto Carlos in February 1996 which failed, hence why we signed Branco instead.

Yet people still think he was all set to sign in the summer of 1997, after we'd spent the season battling relegation and failing to qualify for Europe via the cups. I've no doubt there'll always be stories about how we *wanted* to sign these players, but lets face it, the club was a shambles off the pitch at that time, and it all fed into the much more stable 1998-2006 era. I do think we could have maybe signed Romario, whose career was on the rocks, by paying him way more than he was currently on. Batigol was never happening.

Listen to any of our ex-players talk about Keith Lamb though (there are countless podcasts out there, of which I've listened to close to 100%), and its not hard to see why we weren't ready for those kind of players in 1996-1997. I'm sure Lamby was a decent bloke, but he was not popular with the 'famous' players.
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Y wasn't he popular?
 
Juninhoburger said:
We got what we deserved, frankly.
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That’s spot-on in the end.

I remember holding forth down the pub about the injustice just after the decision was announced with fellow football supporters whose views I had some time for. Only one of them was still playing even back then (I’m an old git). Even he, only in a Sunday pub league. He pointed out they would expect a three point deduction for not turning up, and they would, and it would’ve been fair. We were not cheated. It was Mickey Mouse beyond belief.
 
Archiestephens_elbow said:
Y wasn't he popular?
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Well its difficult to remember every separate account, and summarise them all in one post, but when it came to dealing with players he seemed to have a tendency to treat them very much like commodities. It was probably a symptom of the changes in football, the spiralling wages etc, the foreign influx, and I'm not saying he had an easy job, but the thing is - we were at the forefront of a lot of those changes in England, and yet we had someone at the helm who didn't really have any experience of dealing with those kind of 'stars'.

In hindsight, we should have maybe been looking at someone from the continent to run that side of the club, or as a bridge between Lamb/Gibson and the players. But they employed that Italian bloke who couldn't speak Portuguese as a 'translator' for Juninho and he eventually went on to part-own QPR. Maybe there were better options out there, and maybe we should have given them proper job titles.

As I say, I've no doubt we'd have brought in more players of the overpaid/'get them in if they're famous' ilk in the summer of 1997, and we'd have struggled to manage them as a club, but my personal opinion is that it wouldn't have been Roberto Carlos. The signing of Branco is a pretty good example of how we did things back then, as well as the 3 points debacle.
 
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On the latest episode of The Rest is Football podcast, Lineker and Shearer are discussing the Everton points deduction with some football finance expert. The Boro's 3 points deduction comes up briefly during the conversation and Lineker said he remembers thinking at the time that the deduction was incredibly harsh.

Having thought about it I agree with others we needed to be punished as it was a stupid decision. The most frustrating thing is they dealt with it relatively swiftly so the sanction applied the same season and had the biggest impact on us. Now any infringement seems to drag on for months meaning clubs rarely get punished the same season, meaning they have chance to minimise the impact. Look at Everton, deduction should have applied last season but they powers that be have dragged it out and now Everton have a great opportunity to stay up despite the deduction.
 
theredrooster said:
On the latest episode of The Rest is Football podcast, Lineker and Shearer are discussing the Everton points deduction with some football finance expert. The Boro's 3 points deduction comes up briefly during the conversation and Lineker said he remembers thinking at the time that the deduction was incredibly harsh.

Having thought about it I agree with others we needed to be punished as it was a stupid decision. The most frustrating thing is they dealt with it relatively swiftly so the sanction applied the same season and had the biggest impact on us. Now any infringement seems to drag on for months meaning clubs rarely get punished the same season, meaning they have chance to minimise the impact. Look at Everton, deduction should have applied last season but they powers that be have dragged it out and now Everton have a great opportunity to stay up despite the deduction.
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Punished, yes.

Not sure a points deduction was fair mind.

If we deserved a points deduction for every stupid decision, we should've had a 20 point deduction just for signing Phil Whelan.
 
festa5 said:
Punished, yes.

Not sure a points deduction was fair mind.

If we deserved a points deduction for every stupid decision, we should've had a 20 point deduction just for signing Phil Whelan.
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At the time I thought the points deduction was unfair but looking back it had to be a sanction that put others off from repeating it. If it was just a fine with the millions on offer for finishing one place higher up the league then I'm sure clubs would have thought it worth putting off games when perhaps they had key players injured as it might have made a big financial difference even accounting for a hefty fine. It could even mean the difference between a club getting into Europe or saving themselves from relegation if it were a key match, again meaning potentially millions more in revenue.
 
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