* The Unofficial "Official" Middlesbrough v Luton Town [11/24] Match-Day Thread *

r00fie1

Well-known member
It's that time again>>>>>>

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Saturday 9th November 2024. EFL Championship. Middlesbrough v Luton Town. The Riverside Stadium. TS1 1EH. KO: 12:30 hrs.

“It was nice to spend a moment with the supporters at the end. They've made a massive effort to come down mid-week, so we're delighted for that as much as anything”. [Michael Carrick].

What a difference 90 minutes made! Was it all a dream, or did we really score four goals? Carrick said prior to the game, his players would take the positives from those wins over Sheffield United and Norwich, and take that energy to Loftus Road. What a pleasure then, on a Tuesday night in London, with the home fans looking miserable [all night] and the packed tier of Boro fans making a hell of a racket non-stop. We started a bit edgy, like we sometimes do, you know. But we made up for some sloppy passing in the first half, with a bit more pace and determination up front. It was obvious from the start that QPR were up for the challenge. Having not won a league game at home so far, they were desperate to break their duck.

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"Manny" leaves the "R"s defence looking like a battlefield after
he scores that spectacular third goal!
[Screenshot:Skysports]

Riley McGree`s goal was a pearler from the ball to the near stick. It was a great start and our passing appeared to improve after that. Tommy Conway looks like a runaway steam train when he's on fire, and put us two up before half-time. Let's not forget the contribution of Finn Azaz! Brilliant! But this was the Boro and that unfortunate and unavoidable Anfernee OG [not XG!] gave a lifeline to QPR. But they hadn't the fight or confidence, and we out-played them for much of the second half. We upped our game. Either watching on the box or at Loftus Road, our fans had everything crossed – in anticipation and fearing the worst. Would Boro let another lead slip?! Surely not? Thankfully not, as it turned out(y)

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Ben Doak skinned their defence all night. What a player!
[photo:Screenshot.Skysports]

Carrick's subs were just what the doctor ordered [cliché alert!]. What can you say about Emmanuel Latte Lath? From a beautifully flighted ball from McGree, the QPR defender couldn’t put him off his stride as he thundered towards their goalie. Up goes the fan's anticipation and excitement, then a feeling of “oh dear”, as he takes it out wide, only to swivel ninety degrees, see the goalie sliding on his backside [come on!] and he knocks it into the net, like there was no one there! [YEEAAHH!!!!]. He does nowt from open play for the first ten games, then scores a Maccaroniesque header against the Blades and creates chaos with an anarchic piece of play at QPR! There can't be a training manual befitting our unique striker! That's the highlight moment of the season so far!

3-1 up and three minutes of normal time remaining. That's it then, lads. Too late to make a mess of it now. Just blow the whistle, ref! We want the three points. What then?

A Geordie midfielder, who seems to have spent most of this season coming off the bench, tries a move to the right, then one to the left, where their defender tries to retrieve the ball, but he gets it back off him, heads towards goal and fires a beautiful curling ball past the goalie into the bottom right-hand corner!


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The lads celebrate Barlasers first for the club, and the fourth on the night at Loftus road.
[Screengrab:Skysports]

Dan Barlaser, thumbs up, pointing to his chest, a smile like a Cheshire cat and a perfect end to a job well done. Barlaser scored one of the goals of the season so far [or at least in the last three games!]. His first for the club. He made it look like he could do it for a living.

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He deserves a photo for the sheer joy at scoring his first Boro goal!

[photo: MFC. Edited]]


Carrick was "delighted with the win".
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Michael Carrick watches on.

With a big grin after the final whistle, he commented:

“It was nice to spend a moment with the supporters at the end. They've made a massive effort to come down mid-week, so we're delighted for that as much as anything”. Carrick stressed our support “drove the lads on”. “You can see the boys celebrating goals in front of them in the second half [and] what that means to the lads”.

“[I`m] Happy with the lads, the attitude, the character, the work rate was great. Some of the quality of the football.....it's been a really good night for us. Coming in at half-time with that two-nil scoreline, we aimed to come out and control more of the second half.”

“I was really happy with the boys coming off the bench and getting the goals. For both of them, it was fully deserved and finished the game off well for us”.


Carrick was especially pleased they “finished the game off” rather than just seeing the game out.

As for Dieng`s performance: “Big saves. Big moments” said Carrick. “Really pleased with him. Certainly needed a bit of that tonight”. “ It was all round a really good night tonight”.

And so it was, and now we prepare for the visit of Luton. The last game before yet another International Break (!). Luton have been struggling, but they are a physical side, with plenty of experience and wanting to bag all three points. Nothing new there. We can't afford to rest on our laurels. Our bonfire night in London certainly went with a bang, but it's just another game. Saturday, last week, we fluffed it against Coventry. Let's hope we push on and bag the three points. Results have been kind to us this week, but a win could see us consolidating a position in the top six going into the break. It's in our own hands. Let's get the job done!

Come On Boro!


@r00fie1
 
MICHAEL CARRICK

"Fans know they're on a high one week, then suddenly everything's gone wrong the next when there's a defeat".

Screenshot 2024-11-08 at 14-20-34 Michael Carrick 'delighted' with Middlesbrough's win at QPR ...png
Michael Carrick was quick to praise the travelling fans immediately after the game on Wednesday night before departing QPR, and repeated his praise at his most recent media conference. [Screengrab: QPR 1 Middlesbrough 4]

[From his recent Media Conference v Luton]:

Carrick
remains calm, despite the emotions stirred by that game on Wednesday. The first time we've scored four goals in a single league game all season. We didn't keep a clean sheet, but we did the job up front. For our Head Coach, it's about managing the emotions of the players, not getting carried away, but not getting too down when things don't always go to plan:

You're going up and down: we got to perform every day and every week and [with] the players especially........you're getting caught up emotionally, so much extreme [emotion] every week. It's a roller coaster, it just saps your energy and takes it out of you. We've got a lot of months ahead, to have to perform and win games, so we feel [staying calm] it's the best way of going about it.

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"Everywhere we go, people wanna know, we're Middlesbro....."
[Photo.Edited. Football Away Days]

The Play-offs:

Every week now, there is one reporter or another asking about our current league position and what the boss thinks of our chances of this and that. Carrick, as we know, always bats away speculation and focuses on the here and now. So was Carrick happy with "where you are at the moment (?)":

I think I'm pleased with where we're playing, where we are at this stage. It's about collecting points to give ourselves a chance, really. I'm not jumping in, if we win this week, what it's going to look like if we don't win......that ain't going to get you anywhere, it's just a waste of energy to be honest at this stage. It's consistency trying to put performances together over a long period of time and that's not changing whether we've won in midweek or not! We believe we're trying to do things in a certain way, that we want to work for us, and really that's the important part.

Does just being outside the play-offs make a psychological difference to the players?

We've not talked about it at all, and I've not heard the players talking about it. Listen(!). This goes without saying: if you're winning games, and you're picking up points, and you're scoring goals, then this gives you a good feeling, but we don't get het up about it.

Luton:

They were competing fantastically well in the Premier League only a few months ago with a very similar team, and a very similar way, so we've got to respect that a lot for the type of game it's going to be. The threat [and] the quality that they possess in certain areas. We're fully aware of the test that's coming for us.

As I said, they were competing fantastically well in the Premier League not long ago and individuals that done themselves a lot of credit in that league and still playing, so we know what we're up against.


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Ten years ago, Luton had just won the Conference Premier League.
Nine years later, they were in The Premiership, playing the top teams in the land. A remarkable feat.

[Photo:.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Luton_Town]

Dan Barlaser, his contribution behind the scenes and opportunities for more game time:

He's one of the Personalities in the group. Every day in training, there is his personality: he's smiling, he trains well, his attitude, his quality is there. It's pretty obvious what quality he has. He's a big part of the group and has a massive influence, and I'm really pleased with everything he's doing at the moment. He probably wants to play a little bit more........... so that's part of the challenge of being in a good squad with good players. But with him [its] the way he goes about [training] every day and the way he handles himself with his character and his personality, he's absolutely spot on.

Carrick`s thought on Mark Robins, given his sacking from Coventry City earlier this week:


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Time is up for Robins at Coventry.
[Screengrab:OK football.youtube]

I think it's really unfortunate and quite sad to hear, really, for me. Listen, I know when we've come up against him, we haven't had a great record over the last couple of years, but I have to say the way he's gone about it and the the the kind of contact I've had with him and spoke to him [he's] really he's been fantastic with me. I've been really impressed with him and so really, really sorry to see him go. I think he's done an unbelievable job to take them, I think seven years there, to go through and to carry them through the experiences, and the highs that they've had. So, a sad day to be honest because I liked him a lot and still do. But I'm sure he'll be back and successful somewhere in the future.

Compiled and edited by @r00fie1 08/11/2024
 
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Big game tomorrow and really important we win it.
About time we put together 3 or 4 wins on the bounce and go on an unbeaten run. That would put us right in the mix, on the up and serious contenders.
No more of this 'win one, lose one' - we're a stronger team than that.
 
Fixtures and Stats



Weekend Fixtures:

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(*)


Championship Table:
[Includes tonight's Watford victory over Oxford]

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(*)
[Screen grab BBC football]


Championship Form Table:
[Last four]

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[www.soccerstats.com]


Boro / Luton League Trends:

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[fussball.wettpoint.com]


Luton - Last Five Matches:

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[UK.Soccerway]
 
Rob Edwards

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[photo: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Serenthia]
Extracts from "Luton Today" on Manager Robert Edwards take on their trip to The Riverside.
By Mike Simmonds:


On the challenge ahead, Edwards said: “The Championship is difficult isn’t it, there’s always inconsistencies in results. You might lose games where you don’t deserve to, there’s fine margins, but they’re consistent in how they perform. They’re a good team, well coached, good individuals as they were a couple of years ago when we were in this division, so a really difficult game, as I say every single time.

"We’re clear with how we want to try and go about it, aware of what they try and do. We’ve got to try and stop that but then make sure we can have a threat and be clear in how we want to win the games as well as that’s our aim, so a big challenge. A good team and good to watch as well, but like everyone, there’s always areas that we can try and exploit.”

"They get into your final third, they’ve got really good combinations, corner runs, cut-backs, numbers in the right areas, lots of stuff going on. Good one v one specialist as well, so we’re going to need to defend properly with good numbers and make sure we’re very diligent with that. Wednesday was another step forward for us where we were able to be aggressive with our pressing, but we were still solid behind that and on the opposite side of the pitch as well. So a couple of positives over the last few games, and it will be a real test tomorrow to see if we can continue that.”


Full Article:

 
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Agreed.
Conceding seven goals in the last four games is a bit of a pizzer
(n)
I think there is some context in those goals roofie. 3 goals was when we had ten men and we were pushing to get back into the game when we were a goal down against QPR. 3 were against Norwich, one was a flook OG and 2 were worldies. You might argue that one of those rockets should have been stopped at source, I suppose.

We gift daft goals but don't really concede much in the way of big chances. I havent looked, but I would guess about 5 or so of the goals we have conceded would be from dumb errors at the back.

it's annoying to watch at times and we probably should mix it up a bit more and go long sometimes. Carrick won't change much though, he wants his team to play in a certain way and believes, I guess, that they are good enough to do that.

On the subject of we don't do well against a low block. I know it seems that way, however we create a boat load of chances against the low block but earlier in the season we weren't converting them. That seems to be trending back to what you would expect and will probably, continue to do so.

Not sure we are good enough for top two from where we are starting today, but we will be solidly top 6. Of that I have no doubt. We will have an outside squeak of top 2 as well.

We will win by 2 clear goals today, 2-0 would be nice, 3-1 a bit more likely.

Right I have to carry on taking a rabbit run down. One of our rabbits died and we rehomed the other so he wasn't alone. Took 2 weekends to build the thing and 2 weekends to take it down because I want to save the wood.

Back for 12 to watch us cement our top 6 place going into the international break.
 
i just dont like him we can all see when changes need to be made but he sits on the fence & hopes for the best when we have a good squad of players to use.
 
They have played 4 of their last 5 at Home, its a long trip for them and its an early kick-off , and looks very meh outside , lots of misty rain hanging in the air , proper greasy surface down at the Riverside probably. IF we don't gift , then I'm quite hopeful, considering the dressing room good feel after mid week.
 
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