We are not a well run club

[Muttley]

The number of fans willing to accept mediocrity is staggering. As far as the Boro are concerned, it is like walking in the Yorkshire Dales, sheep everywhere you look, bleating on about patience, give it time, I can see the potential, baah, baah, baah.

We are a naive squad, a naive fanbase, no backbone, the second goal summed us up yesterday, asleep in plain sight. Days to wake up and smell the coffee.

Ah the lack of ambition nonsense rephrased

Then we have some amateur mind-reading

Howson at times had to stop himself laughing at his own comments. Carrick gives nothing away, but yesterday he lied. He did everything but say the league is lying at present.

Basically you say the club is lunging from one strategy to another and fail to offer an alternative other than hinting at doing exactly that and criticising every level of the club while showing little understanding of the complexity of running a Championship football club.

No one enjoyed that game yesterday but Corcoran's West Brom were always going to be a difficult game. At times I did see signs of improvement. Looking at the stats (always a poor measure of a game but I think interesting in this case) we had 5 shots on target to their 4 and 15 shots to their 7. You can't hope to beat a team when you gift them two goals with individual errors. The sending off was stupid and where he was on the pitch doubly so. But the first yellow card for Smith was a joke. The West Brom player got caught trying to block a clearance, never a foul at all. Home fan pressure?

I get the frustration but combining the results from the end of last season with beginning of this is pointless, we are, as we know, a much different team having lost multiple players and not yet completed our recruitment for this season. I don't see much indication that other teams around us have done much better other than the relegated teams who command riches that are beyond us. That is not naiveté that is simply me trying to look at the ambitions of our club and our resources in context of the division we are in.

 

[coluka]

Ah the lack of ambition nonsense rephrased

Then we have some amateur mind-reading

Basically you say the club is lunging from one strategy to another and fail to offer an alternative other than hinting at doing exactly that and criticising every level of the club while showing little understanding of the complexity of running a Championship football club.

No one enjoyed that game yesterday but Corcoran's West Brom were always going to be a difficult game. At times I did see signs of improvement. Looking at the stats (always a poor measure of a game but I think interesting in this case) we had 5 shots on target to their 4 and 15 shots to their 7. You can't hope to beat a team when you gift them two goals with individual errors. The sending off was stupid and where he was on the pitch doubly so. But the first yellow card for Smith was a joke. The West Brom player got caught trying to block a clearance, never a foul at all. Home fan pressure?

I get the frustration but combining the results from the end of last season with beginning of this is pointless, we are, as we know, a much different team having lost multiple players and not yet completed our recruitment for this season. I don't see much indication that other teams around us have done much better other than the relegated teams who command riches that are beyond us. That is not nativity that is simply me trying to look at the ambitions of our club and our resources in context of the division we are in.

 

[r00fie1]

I’m not jumping for joy.. just being realistic and un-geordie like.

We might not have replaced any of our best players yet? Imagine that!

Can we at least wait for the window to close before slagging off our new signings?

Can we wait 12 games before taking about how many games we’ve won in 12 games!!

Tend to agree Newy.
Its worth reminding fellow posters that those "best players" [other than Chuba] were`nt ours.
Archer, Giles, Ramsey, Steffen were all on loan from Premier League clubs.
What would it cost us to buy those players and pay their wages?
A decent guesstimate?
We were loaned quality players whome we cant afford - even in our dreams.
The club has leaked money in wages and fees for average players [generally speaking] over the years.
We do not have the same pull as much wealthier clubs - even the likes of Wolves, Brentford, Fulham or Southampton.
Our one ace is Michael Carrick and his staff - who have connections across the higher echelons of the game.
We didnt realise what a coup he had made against much bigger clubs - when we poached Ramsey and Archer from under bigger clubs noses.
Carrick said on Thursday, he realised the difficulty relying on loan players and was looking to build a team on "solid foundations" around home grown and talented imports.
He repeated that building takes "time".
We better reflect and understand that Rome wasnt built in a day.
It may not be to every fans liking, but the reality in football has shifted.
We have to support the boys and Carrick through thick and thin.
We did it in the dark days leading up to the car crash of 1986 and we`ve got to do it again.

 

[Glover_elbow]

Tend to agree Newy.
Its worth reminding fellow posters that those "best players" [other than Chuba] were`nt ours.
Archer, Giles, Ramsey, Steffen were all on loan from Premier League clubs.
What would it cost us to buy those players and pay their wages?
A decent guesstimate?
We were loaned quality players whome we cant afford - even in our dreams.
The club has leaked money in wages and fees for average players [generally speaking] over the years.
We do not have the same pull as much wealthier clubs - even the likes of Wolves, Brentford, Fulham or Southampton.
Our one ace is Michael Carrick and his staff - who have connections across the higher echelons of the game.
We didnt realise what a coup he had made against much bigger clubs - when we poached Ramsey and Archer from under bigger clubs noses.
Carrick said on Thursday, he realised the difficulty relying on loan players and was looking to build a team on "solid foundations" around home grown and talented imports.
He repeated that building takes "time".
We better reflect and understand that Rome wasnt built in a day.
It may not be to every fans liking, but the reality in football has shifted.
We have to support the boys and Carrick through thick and thin.
We did it in the dark days leading up to the car crash of 1986 and we`ve got to do it again.

In otherwords we have been so badly mismanaged for over a decade we can no longer afford to be competitive in the championship. I am sure carrick didnt sign up for that

 

[coluka]

Tend to agree Newy.
Its worth reminding fellow posters that those "best players" [other than Chuba] were`nt ours.
Archer, Giles, Ramsey, Steffen were all on loan from Premier League clubs.
What would it cost us to buy those players and pay their wages?
A decent guesstimate?
We were loaned quality players whome we cant afford - even in our dreams.
The club has leaked money in wages and fees for average players [generally speaking] over the years.
We do not have the same pull as much wealthier clubs - even the likes of Wolves, Brentford, Fulham or Southampton.
Our one ace is Michael Carrick and his staff - who have connections across the higher echelons of the game.
We didnt realise what a coup he had made against much bigger clubs - when we poached Ramsey and Archer from under bigger clubs noses.
Carrick said on Thursday, he realised the difficulty relying on loan players and was looking to build a team on "solid foundations" around home grown and talented imports.
He repeated that building takes "time".
We better reflect and understand that Rome wasnt built in a day.
It may not be to every fans liking, but the reality in football has shifted.
We have to support the boys and Carrick through thick and thin.
We did it in the dark days leading up to the car crash of 1986 and we`ve got to do it again.

r00fie1… Archer, Giles, Ramsey, Mowatt,Muniz, Steffen were ours, their services were purchased from their contracted owner for a period in time. People who rent houses, is that their home? People who buy cars on HP, is that not their car? If we buy a player for £10M on a 4 yr contract we are paying £2.5M a year for a 4 yr loan of his services, he is not ours forever, purchases are just a form of longer loan that on expiry the players are free to leave. There are positive and negatives with both systems.

Both systems are about purchasing services of footballers for a period of time. If recruitment is of a high quality it costs money either way. The better the quality the better the chances of success. Neither comes with guarantees, but as always in life the old adage of you get what you pay for generally applies.

Had we have gone up we could and likely would have then purchased that quality and had the funds to add to it. Trying to build and progress means utilising both systems efficiently and effectively. We still can, I hope we do as we can’t afford quality purchases alone, there is still time. Speaking out about the situation is not negativity it is reality. I am sure you want the club to address this, they can’t do it by pretending the garden is rosy when it isn’t as things stand. I hope the club address the deficiencies with enough quality to at least get us to mid table and some sort of football we can enjoy. There are teams that will be in bigger trouble than ours thankfully, but we can’t take it for granted.

 

[Muttley]

 

[newyddion]

r00fie1… Archer, Giles, Ramsey, Mowatt,Muniz, Steffen were ours, their services were purchased from their contracted owner for a period in time. People who rent houses, is that their home? People who buy cars on HP, is that not their car? If we buy a player for £10M on a 4 yr contract we are paying £2.5M a year for a 4 yr loan of his services, he is not ours forever, purchases are just a form of longer loan that on expiry the players are free to leave. There are positive and negatives with both systems.

Both systems are about purchasing services of footballers for a period of time. If recruitment is of a high quality it costs money either way. The better the quality the better the chances of success. Neither comes with guarantees, but as always in life the old adage of you get what you pay for generally applies.

Had we have gone up we could and likely would have then purchased that quality and had the funds to add to it. Trying to build and progress means utilising both systems efficiently and effectively. We still can, I hope we do as we can’t afford quality purchases alone, there is still time. Speaking out about the situation is not negativity it is reality. I am sure you want the club to address this, they can’t do it by pretending the garden is rosy when it isn’t as things stand. I hope the club address the deficiencies with enough quality to at least get us to mid table and some sort of football we can enjoy. There are teams that will be in bigger trouble than ours thankfully, but we can’t take it for granted.

We loaned in those players and they didn’t cut the mustard when it counted..

now we need to bring in players than do not conceed as many goals.. players that want to play for the club the full season.

 

[Dave Doriva]

I’ll be surprised if we don’t bring in 2/3 before the window shuts. I expect at least one will be on loan and one to have experience in the championship.

We could easily be on at least 4 points so far and it feels like we’ve not had the rub of the green yet. That doesn’t hide the fact that we’ve conceded some shocking goals but hopefully this will be addressed.

I think we’re doing the right thing in trying to build foundations with players we own. Hopefully we can then add 1/2 quality loans to push on. No need to wet the bed yet but if we don’t sign anyone I will be worried.

 

[newyddion]

In otherwords we have been so badly mismanaged for over a decade we can no longer afford to be competitive in the championship. I am sure carrick didnt sign up for that

we loaned in £40m, £50m worth of talent.. now we have to replace those players with maybe £6m

we’ve all seen where our money went.. Monk and Pulis threw it away!!

we’ve all seen where our money comes from.. Woodgate and Warnock pulled it back.

now we are tasked with as a championship club of buying better players for less money. we have to develop the squad.

Spence, Tavernier, Akpom and others will be used to buy the up and coming new generation.. and maybe some fixer uppers!

 

[locomansimon]

regularly I see this, we are a “ well ran” club we are “ stable” finishing in the championship every season bar the odd promotion push Is not stability is mediocrity we have had 1 top flight season in 15 years in heaps of debt, and the man has made continuous mistake after mistake when will fans take the rose tinted glasses off and realise he’s taking the club backwards?

How do you know we are not well run ? Where do you get this fact from or is it just your opinion?

 

[Mwelolo]

We are not a well run club, we have literally lurched from strategy to strategy, manager to manager, recruited a squad of players who are less than average roundedness for this league.

When Woodgate was manager, Gibson talked of the golden thread and we recruited for the league below. We seem to have gone full circle. No quality, no fight. This division is unforgiving. The way we concede goals is deplorable. P4 GF3 GA9 PTS1 is not just due to bad luck, it is down to a lack of real quality.

The club (and I am being kind to the owner at present) has been asleep at the wheel once more, naive in its outlook and been patting its back on last season while others have quietly recruited efficiently. Clearly Woodgates reign is back, the Ajax lite is being tried again, so far cheap potential from the lower grade football has been applied with so far, similar consequences, similar outlook and frankly similar comments from the wishful thinking fans. Reality sets in late for far too many, blind eyes and blind alleys abound. The club has days to resolve it. We are heading for a difficult year and potentially worse if we aren’t careful. No amount of hope will improve the situation. Quality recruitment is key. How many years have i banged on about shoddy recruitment since 2006? Everyone bar 2, 2015/16 and 2022/23. We have replaced quality with potential, expectation with hope.

The number of fans willing to accept mediocrity is staggering. As far as the Boro are concerned, it is like walking in the Yorkshire Dales, sheep everywhere you look, bleating on about patience, give it time, I can see the potential, baah, baah, baah.

We are a naive squad, a naive fanbase, no backbone, the second goal summed us up yesterday, asleep in plain sight. Days to wake up and smell the coffee. If someone on the inside doesn’t see it, and reading this thread is like going back to the future, we are in trouble. I am a Carrick fan, but I found his after match BBC Tees interview worrying. Howson (captain sent out) spoke in similar vein too. Clearly a message was given beforehand as the rhetoric was too similar to be coincidence. The words were chilling, I saw a different game to both. Howson at times had to stop himself laughing at his own comments. Carrick gives nothing away, but yesterday he lied. He did everything but say the league is lying at present. The season is far from over, but the club has days to find the missing pieces to the jigsaw, not months and no, accepting mediocrity is the first step toward failure and decline.

Absolutely spot on and Carrick is even starting to sound like Woodgate.

Carrick should have been given the experienced coach that was promised, not the proven parochial failure that is Woodgate.

The club couldn’t even get that right.

 

[Boroboyyo]

You’re right, we’re not a well run club . We’ve consistently had one of the highest budgets in the league and wage bills yet still can’t get out of this F***ing league

The dinosaur chairman is the issue . It’s getting to the point now we’ve had more bad seasons under Gibson than we have had good . About 16 years of consistent underachievement . We were never an established division 2 /championship side . We always yo-yoed between the top flight and 2nd division historically . Gibson has made us consistent 2nd division fodder

 

[Boro4life]

We should do a protest at the QPR game if we fail to sign more players as its disgraceful us fans are being taken for mugs

 

[Beverleyred]

I have to agree with the fact that losing our best players from last season (apart from Chuba) is mostly irrelevant, as they weren’t our players. The finances in play will dictate what happens next. How does the saying go? ‘You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear’, I think that is Boro in a nutshell as things stand.

 

[Laughing]

Some sour, entitled brats on this thread.

 

[r00fie1]

r00fie1… Archer, Giles, Ramsey, Mowatt,Muniz, Steffen were ours, their services were purchased from their contracted owner for a period in time. People who rent houses, is that their home? People who buy cars on HP, is that not their car? If we buy a player for £10M on a 4 yr contract we are paying £2.5M a year for a 4 yr loan of his services, he is not ours forever, purchases are just a form of longer loan that on expiry the players are free to leave. There are positive and negatives with both systems.

Both systems are about purchasing services of footballers for a period of time. If recruitment is of a high quality it costs money either way. The better the quality the better the chances of success. Neither comes with guarantees, but as always in life the old adage of you get what you pay for generally applies.

Had we have gone up we could and likely would have then purchased that quality and had the funds to add to it. Trying to build and progress means utilising both systems efficiently and effectively. We still can, I hope we do as we can’t afford quality purchases alone, there is still time. Speaking out about the situation is not negativity it is reality. I am sure you want the club to address this, they can’t do it by pretending the garden is rosy when it isn’t as things stand. I hope the club address the deficiencies with enough quality to at least get us to mid table and some sort of football we can enjoy. There are teams that will be in bigger trouble than ours thankfully, but we can’t take it for granted.

Morning flower.
Never mind Hire Purchase [we both remember that]
Those players were loaned to us and were going back to their parent clubs.
Whether or not we went up, what if, what if......we didnt and they went back to their owners - to whom they were under contract.
You cant build for tomorrow on what we had yesterday.

Carrick had this to say on Thursday:-

[Q from reporter]. After losing in the play-offs, did Carrick realise he had “a hell of a job” keeping the three loanees plus Chuba. Was Carrick “almost resigned immediately to losing them all?

I`m not saying “resigned”. This is about more the reality of what that is in the loans: how many we had and how important they ended up being how well they did and improved. They`ve all gone on, kind of up a level if you like. Jumping up a level in terms of their career...in terms of different leagues. From that side of things its a real positive. We`re capable of helping players and developing players, pushing them on and getting the best out of them. Now its about doing exactly the same with the group we`ve got now. We don’t [want to] lose them and make them better for someone else. That goes without saying and we don’t intend to do that. But, with the loans especially, that can be a bit of an issue. I feel we`ve got to wait to...enhance our chances this year and maybe going into next year. Thinking ahead with the bigger picture and thats why I`m calmer with how the season`s started.

I`m not knocking the loan players at all. If you have quite a lot that you rely on or are a big part of your team, then at some point, you`ve got to change your team a little bit and that brings its challenges. [That is] fine and you can adapt and deal with it. We`re just looking ahead a littler more, the bigger picture and trying to make that foundation of the group really strong.

​

 

[coluka]

We loaned in those players and they didn’t cut the mustard when it counted..

now we need to bring in players than do not conceed as many goals.. players that want to play for the club the full season.

Perhaps the contracted (owned) players didn’t cut the mustard that contributed to the weight being too much to bear on the team. The real truth is injuries to key players cost us too, to suggest the loan players didn’t cut the mustard is unfair.

However, I will concede Ramseys immature goal celebration v Norwich didn’t cut the mustard and did contribute toward our demise.

It is quality we need to bring in, players with ability not just the right attitude. The team needs improving not filling out. Everyone coming in needs to be a realistic starter. Another poster, can’t remember who, suggested we didn’t know what we were getting in Giles, Archer, Ramsey. That is far from the truth. I was wanting Giles and calling for Archer last summer, before they came and was fully aware of their qualities. I knew they would be good. Ramsey‘s brother Jacob is quality at Villa, Aaron was effective at Norwich till his injury, I’ll admit I was surprised we signed him, but his ability was no shock.
The signings this week need to be of equal quality.

I think we need a RB, CDM, AM and ST

This week will make or break our seasons direction, I don’t care if they are loans or purchases, so long as they are of sufficient quality to go straight into the 1st team, rather than cover to fill the squad out.

 

[r00fie1]

Some sour, entitled brats on this thread.

Morning Laughing.
Im certainly "soured" but too old to be a "brat"

 

[r00fie1]

Perhaps the contracted (owned) players didn’t cut the mustard that contributed to the weight being too much to bear on the team. The real truth is injuries to key players cost us too, to suggest the loan players didn’t cut the mustard is unfair.

However, I will concede Ramseys immature goal celebration v Norwich didn’t cut the mustard and did contribute toward our demise.

It is quality we need to bring in, players with ability not just the right attitude. The team needs improving not filling out. Everyone coming in needs to be a realistic starter. Another poster, can’t remember who, suggested we didn’t know what we were getting in Giles, Archer, Ramsey. Thati s far from the truth. I was wanting Giles and calling for Archer last summer, before they came and was fully aware of their qualities. I knew they would be good. Ramsey‘s brother Jacob is quality at Villa, Aaron was effective at Norwich till his injury, I’ll admit I was surprised we signed him, but his ability was no shock.
The signings this week need to be of equal quality.

I think we need a RB, CDM, AM and ST

This week will make or break our seasons direction, I don’t care if they are loans or purchases, so long as they are of sufficient quality to go straight into the 1st team, rather than cover to fill the squad out.

Granted we need players for some of those positions - but, in the end its down to brass tacks: where is the £££ coming from? You dont get quality by paying peanuts.

 

[JM14]

Of course we aren’t a well run club, not sure why it’s taken this long for anyone to realise.

Look at how the club was run since relegation, if the owner wasn’t from Middlesbrough we would see protests wanting him out

Gibson can’t run a successful club when he doesn’t have the funds to outspend the competition