* The Unofficial “Official” Middlesbrough v Sunderland “TEES_WEAR DERBY” [02/25] Match-Day Thread *

Norman_Conquest said:
Have you never walked away from a game and thought we played well at times there and that was a good game?

It was fine margins and lady luck was against us.

Sunderland played us at the right time with players coming in and going out. We missed Doak running at Sunderland, who would have caused them all kinds of trouble, we never had a centre forward on the pitch and played two debutants and a third as sub out of position.

Truthfully, other than not getting the point we deserved, I can see positives in that game.

Maybe I should apologise to you for not being negative.
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Tbf I think we must have broken into her home on christmas day and collectively shat on her freshly cooked christmas dinner, the way Lady Luck is with us full stop for the last season and a half.
 
Kepler442b said:
Came to see what others thought, and I'm glad to see there's people on the same wave length as me with this one. I saw patches of it all coming together, and if we can play like that more regularly, I think we will do pretty well.
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Yes 16 game mini season coming up. 28 points could be enough.

Enough on the pitch to win plenty of points add in Iling-Junior, iheanacho, howson back, Conway fit, Dijksteel back and we can do it
 
BoroMart said:
Le Fee has basically just said what I noticed. He knew Ayling would come flying in to pressure him so he looked to first touch it past him. Ayling needs to shake his head, so obvious what he was doing
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Haha, did he say that, I wasn’t watching. I said the same thing, he’ll have to send him a telegram next time.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
@Kepler442b I've been quoted and quoted on here and had to defend that opinion. When I saw you had quoted me thought 'Oh ferk' here we go again.

It will click and someone will get a battering soon.
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Full agreement with you! I'm surprised so many see it differently. It's never going to feel good to lose to Sunderland but all in all there was quite a few positives to take from it, and great spells of play.
 
Archiestephens_elbow said:
Carrick has to go

Just cant defend at all
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He’s retired mate.

He knows how to defend, but he can’t stop the players making mistakes and can’t make all their decisions for them.

The way to avoid a lot of our mistakes would be to launch it long, but to who? The side is nowhere near geared up for that. All you emd up doing is swapping mistakes for insane pressure, and we would be bottom half playing long ball.
 
Just back and I enjoyed the game apart from the end which has gutted me. Dont blame Giles, it was just one of those things but I thought a draw was the correct result. Must admit we play some good attackig football at times but I cannot remember the last Boro team that made so many simple mistakes, everyone, all over the park, even the new players
 
290204 said:
Sunderland will go up automatically.

Le Fee = Ramirez (but better)
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They won’t go up automatically, they’re too fragile and don’t have any squad depth. They would need to be incredibly lucky with injuries and just just general luck (they seem to have this nailed like).

As for Le Fee, he looked better than the Hazard Real Madrid paid 130m for. Reminded me of when Grealish used to torture us for Villa.
 
Andy_W said:
Yeah, because we were too compact, there were blokes stood free, and players like Le Fee and Roberts will pick a pass out if there is nobody stood near them giving them pressure.

We just gave the ball away far too cheaply but didn’t get out fast enough to nullify the danger. I mentioned this after about 20-30 minutes, there was a massive gap, especially between our wide defenders and wide attackers. For the first half we still had the much better chances. 3-0 at HT would have been fairer at the break than 1-1.
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But if we can spot such things why can’t the coach? THAT is the whole crux of the Carrick argument. He is not learning and he is not able to change things mid game. I was going to write a whole heap of my thoughts but ultimately it boils down to the following:

Carrick and the coaches have shown no ability over the last 2 years to learn from mistakes or organise a team. He has shown no ability to be able to change a game in flight. We can play some lovely football going forward but there is no structure to us without the ball at all and we are too easy to score against as a result. Even during his first season where we flew up the league the signs of this were there as we conceded in a lot of games and lost games we should not have.

I don’t see him being able to improve / willing to change. I am not sure we’ll even get in the playoffs.
 
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El Guapo said:
But if we can spot such things why can’t the coach? THAT is the whole crux of the Carrick argument. He is not learning and he is not able to change things mid game. I was going to write a whole heap of my thoughts but ultimately it boils down to the following:

Carrick and the coaches have shown no ability over the last 2 years to learn from mistakes or organise a team. He has shown no ability to ba snle to change a game in flight. We can play some lovely football going forward but there is no structure to us without the ball at all and we are too easy to score against as a result. Even during his first season where we flew up the league the signs of this were there as we conceded in a lot of games and list games we should not have.

I don’t see him being able to improve. I am not sure we’ll even get in the playoffs.
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He did spot them, did you not see the 12 times he was shown on TV trying to get the players to get out? If you were there you would have seen it every minute if you looked. He shouldn’t need to be telling them this, but maybe they’re not fit enough as we’ve had loads of injuries and struggled for reliable depth?

What does he do about players dicking with the ball back to goal edge of box, or a 15 year pro who forgets to stand off the best player on the pitch?

They’re only thing I could whinge at was our high line, but that shouldn’t be a problem if we don’t give the ball away in stupid positions. We’re always going to have to play risky passes, it’s the nature of attacking football, today it didn’t work as we didn’t put our chances away and they wrestled the momentum from us.

He’s already improved us and various players, despite us selling on our best talent and continually bringing development players to fill the gap, which he keeps progressing with.

It’s tough losing your best striker, the best winger in the league and having more keepers and injuries than you’ve had hot dinners.

We’re playing the best football I can reliably remember, but it seems to go in phases, but we seem to fall to pieces when we don’t convert big chances.

I get you might want him to change things, but change to what, long ball? It would be 10 positions worse and far less good moments.
 
Couldn’t agree more, El Guapo. Carrick seems incapable of learning or evolving as a coach and that is worrying. I also think our injury record under him is beyond bizarre. Are we training at too high an intensity to mask tactical flexibility or competency? Our injury record is surely beyond bad luck, as is our ability to concede ‘unlucky’ or ‘soft’ goals.
 
Andy_W said:
He did spot them, did you not see the 12 times he was shown on TV trying to get the players to get out? If you were there you would have seen it every minute if you looked. He shouldn’t need to be telling them this, but maybe they’re not fit enough as we’ve had loads of injuries and struggled for reliable depth?

What does he do about players dicking with the ball back to goal edge of box, or a 15 year pro who forgets to stand off the best player on the pitch?

They’re only thing I could whinge at was our high line, but that shouldn’t be a problem if we don’t give the ball away in stupid positions. We’re always going to have to play risky passes, it’s the nature of attacking football, today it didn’t work as we didn’t put our chances away and they wrestled the momentum from us.

He’s already improved us and various players, despite us selling on our best talent and continually bringing development players to fill the gap, which he keeps progressing with.

It’s tough losing your best striker, the best winger in the league and having more keepers and injuries than you’ve had hot dinners.

We’re playing the best football I can reliably remember, but it seems to go in phases, but we seem to fall to pieces when we don’t convert big chances.
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I get what you are saying but I just feel these same patterns and weaknesses have been ongoing too long and are showing no signs of changing. We are fundamentally flawed as a team. That is on the coach to resolve. In 2 seasons he hasn’t shown any inkling or ability to resolve those flaws. If he is telling players to ‘get out’ and they are not doing so then why is that? Are they not listening? Is his message confused? I don’t know.

Edit “What does he do about players dicking with the ball back to goal edge of box, ”

That is how he has taught / directed us to play - play out from the back is his and has been his philosophy from day one and it has been at a no matter what level.
 
El Guapo said:
I get what you are saying but I just feel these same patterns and weaknesses have been ongoing too long and are showing no signs of changing. We are fundamentally flawed as a team. That is on the coach to resolve. In 2 seasons he hasn’t shown any inkling or ability to resolve those flaws. If he is telling players to ‘get out’ and they are not doing so then why is that? Are they not listening? Is his message confused? I don’t know.
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There are a number of issues. A personnel issue being a key one, the defence needs a bit of investment and overhaul. That back 4 was just 1m investment. Ok there are two loanees, but they’ve barely trained.

The second issue is the lack of consistency. Playing a regular back 4 and keeper will get more out them as they get to know each other
 
BoroMart said:
There are a number of issues. A personnel issue being a key one, the defence needs a bit of investment and overhaul. That back 4 was just 1m investment. Ok there are two loanees, but they’ve barely trained.

The second issue is the lack of consistency. Playing a regular back 4 and keeper will get more out them as they get to know each other
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I wouldn’t disagree with that. The transfer window is just closing and our dm / defensive weaknesses haven’t been addressed numberswise Or individual ability wise. However, as Sunderland showed tonight, and also many other teams in the past, a good coach can organise a team of lesser ability to be defensively sound, you don’t have to have Claude Makalele at dm and Fabio Cannavaro at cb to be organised.
 
Andy_W said:
He did spot them, did you not see the 12 times he was shown on TV trying to get the players to get out? If you were there you would have seen it every minute if you looked. He shouldn’t need to be telling them this, but maybe they’re not fit enough as we’ve had loads of injuries and struggled for reliable depth?

What does he do about players dicking with the ball back to goal edge of box, or a 15 year pro who forgets to stand off the best player on the pitch?

They’re only thing I could whinge at was our high line, but that shouldn’t be a problem if we don’t give the ball away in stupid positions. We’re always going to have to play risky passes, it’s the nature of attacking football, today it didn’t work as we didn’t put our chances away and they wrestled the momentum from us.

He’s already improved us and various players, despite us selling on our best talent and continually bringing development players to fill the gap, which he keeps progressing with.

It’s tough losing your best striker, the best winger in the league and having more keepers and injuries than you’ve had hot dinners.

We’re playing the best football I can reliably remember, but it seems to go in phases, but we seem to fall to pieces when we don’t convert big chances.

I get you might want him to change things, but change to what, long ball? It would be 10 positions worse and far less good moments.
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Yes we play good football usually for very short periods. Might just be me but these good spells are more than offset by the longer periods of poor passing, lack of intensity and stupid mistakes. Haven’t enjoyed this season.
 
El Guapo said:
I wouldn’t disagree with that. The transfer window is just closing and our dm / defensive weaknesses haven’t been addressed numberswise Or individual ability wise. However, as Sunderland showed tonight, and also many other teams in the past, a good coach can organise a team of lesser ability to be defensively sound, you don’t have to have Claude Makalele at dm and Fabio Cannavaro at cb to be organised.
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Maybe but silk purse and sows ear come into mind with some of these defenders
 
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