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

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.
We played good football for half an hour, and could have easily been 2/3-0 up, we might have even played better if we had our two most effective forward players playing (Doak/ LL), or without other injuries etc. Their striker had literally not even touched the ball, but when they got that lucky goal and we realised what chances we had missed it clearly hurt the mentality of the team. I think that might be one of our main problems, it seems to be a mental thing, or some players are not great at carrying out instructions.

We could play bad football or long ball and we would still have bad periods, just there would be more of them with this side (it's not geared up to be direct), and we would be far lower in the table. It's very fine margins.

Poor Passing - Yeah, we will make some errors in a passing system in the champo, we're not Man City, and even Man City seem to struggle with this too.
Lack of intensity - Sure, but maybe the players are knackered, the injuries have killed us. Carrick is not telling them to not get out and close down etc, he's telling them the opposite 50 times a game.
Stupid Mistakes - Not much you can do about these, but we seem to be making more than what the supposed level of our players should. Maybe that's as they don't know the formation inside out, which is expected with a high turnover of players.

We've had quite a lot of bad luck too, and missed a lot of chances we should have really been putting away, that's killed us this year.

Overall I think we're having a pretty good season considering the player turnover, and all the injuries etc.
We're a point from 5th after a very unlucky start, and the highest we've finished in the last 8 years is 4th, and that relied heavily on loan players who are all now or were in the prem (and it was Carrick who bailed us out there).

We're still not good enough to go up mind, and the squad is nowhere near settled enough, but if we do make the pay offs and make it up then at least we would be doing it from a much better financial footing than previous years. This should give us more funds available from prem money to invest, to try and keep us up.

Key issues for me are Right Back and centre mid, we need a no 1 right back and need a solid backup for Hackney and Morris.

This, for me, has been more enjoyable than most other recent seasons, even seasons where we've been higher up the league, but it has been frustrating. Even when we went up with Karanka the football was not really enjoyable, loads complained (not me) about our style even though we were getting results. It's difficult to play well, dominate teams and also get the results, without your players being poached.

The key positive I see is we're going in the right direction with the squad as a whole, and not only that we're net positive on transfer fees. We've got a much better side and squad, and not had to break the bank to do it. But, with their being so many new faces and injuries we're going to have a lot of bad days/ periods in games, it's just reality.

I don't think our transfer model is really helping Carrick short term like, it's reliant on selling your best players to invest in your best players for 2-3 years time, eventually that will drag the quality up, but it will be rocky along the way.
 
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I'm a little surprised by your comments here, as I usually feel we have a similar opinion on football.

I’m also unsure how you can say my comment that the goals didn’t come from passing out from the back, as another poster suggested "are ridiculously one-sided.” All the goals we conceded last night resulted from midfield or forward players giving the ball away cheaply. I’ll go through each goal as it happened.

For our first goal, you mention that fans would be calling Azaz weak if he had done the same as Roberts. However, both the TV replays and expert analysts support my view that Roberts was fouled twice before losing the ball. If we had conceded a goal in the same manner, we’d all be screaming for a foul.

We were on top for most of the first half, though Sunderland had their moments of pressure. Just before they scored, we struggled to clear our lines, but the defense was standing firm, making crucial headers and blocks. Hackney blocked a shot from Rigg on the penalty spot, and the ball fell kindly to Burgzorg outside the box. Burgzorg tried to hold off Neil but was too weak. Neil then reached the edge of the box with no real options, so he took a hopeful shot. Edmundson did the right thing by putting his body on the line to block it, but the ball bounced cruelly off him, leaving Travers with no chance. If Edmundson hadn’t gone for the block and they scored, we’d all be questioning his effort.
Sunderland’s second goal was avoidable and came from Patterson’s long goal kick after we had pressed high. The ball dropped to Ayling, whose control was poor, though he managed to get it to Morris. However, Morris’s first touch was awful, allowing Cirkin to get a foot in and play the ball to Le Fée. Morris went down looking for a foul—on another day, he might have got it, but the ref had been letting things go, just as he did with the challenge on Roberts. Le Fée’s pass was equal to Hackney’s—he split our defense with a perfect slide-rule ball, and Isidor sat Travers down with ease. He was always going to score from there.

The only goal that came from passing out from the back was Hackney’s equalizer, which resulted from a poor ball by O’Nien under pressure from Azaz.

Sunderland’s winner started with a looping clearance that dropped to Le Fée, who sent Ayling for a taxi. His first touch was brilliant, taking him away from his marker before delivering a dangerous cross. The ball eluded every Sunderland player and cannoned off Giles, who couldn’t sort his feet in time.

As for your other comments - Yes, there was some poor defending at times, but not all the goals were the defenders' fault. Others need to hold their hands up too.

Were Sunderland awful? Far from it. They contributed to a good local game, which are usually drab affairs. I’ve seen far worse games between these two sides, even when they had better players.

Were Sunderland lucky? Very much so but sometimes, you create your own luck.

I agree with you on your other points. Illing-Junior was played out of position and looked lost at times. I’m not sure why Fry didn’t play. Hackney’s and Le Fée’s passes for the goals were sublime, and Hackney’s goal was top-drawer.

I feel Sunderland have been fortunate in both games against us this season. Last night, we were still bedding in new players and missed Doak and a natural forward. Forss is not the answer up front, and hopefully, Iheanacho can replace ELL and lead the line for us.
Hi Norman. I think you missed my point or I didn't communicate it very well.

My point was that Sunderland were, defensively awful. We tore them apart time and time again. Yes we were bad defensively, but so were Sunderland.

The unbalanced comments are those that praised Sunderland for being well organised off the ball. They simple weren't and couldn't live with us for the first 30 minutes.

Our second goal comes from them playing out from the back, badly, as it happens.

They really weren't any better than we were. Other than le fee who was brilliant and probably the best player in the division, they were much of a muchness and got a bit of luck.

All this whilst we were playing with players back from injury, not fully fit and some new additions who have been at the club hours not weeks.

We had no cf as well. Even a fit, firing forss isn't a cf.
 
Hi Norman. I think you missed my point or I didn't communicate it very well.

My point was that Sunderland were, defensively awful. We tore them apart time and time again. Yes we were bad defensively, but so were Sunderland.

The unbalanced comments are those that praised Sunderland for being well organised off the ball. They simple weren't and couldn't live with us for the first 30 minutes.

Our second goal comes from them playing out from the back, badly, as it happens.

They really weren't any better than we were. Other than le fee who was brilliant and probably the best player in the division, they were much of a muchness and got a bit of luck.

All this whilst we were playing with players back from injury, not fully fit and some new additions who have been at the club hours not weeks.

We had no cf as well. Even a fit, firing forss isn't a cf.
I must have misunderstood what you put at first because that makes more sense and what you have written is everything I've been saying on other posts.

Sunderland have been lucky when they played us in both games and if our finishing had been better, we would have done the double over them. The huge deflection gets them back into the game and they go in at half time with the ascendancy.

Edit: I did mention in my first reply to you that we normally see the game in the same way. Smiley, winky thing.
 
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