We aren’t far away from getting this right

6th placed hasn't reached the final since Blackpool did it in 2010.

It's clutching at straws to think a sub 70 point season has any chance of promotion. Finishing 6th with 68 points would not be an achievement.

This supports your argument, unfortunately it’s completely untrue.

Sheff Wed reached the final in 2016 after finishing 6th. Derby reached the final in 2019 after finishing 6th.
 
He clearly said reached the final, to support his previous argument that if you finish 6th you’ll almost certainly lose in the Sem Final. Which isn’t true.
I did and you are correct. This is what happens when you rely on AI instead of doing your own research. It's still not many though. That's only 3 in 14 seasons and none of those were when a team scraped in with a low points total. Derby and Sheff Wed both got 74 points.
Total bull****. Only weeks before the Coventry Semi Final Boro were probably the best team in the league.
It's not. You're looking at a single anecdote for one point but secondly over the season Boro weren't significantly better than Coventry. There was 5 points between us and they had a similar dreadful start to the season as we did. We were 16 points off 2nd placed Sheff Utd. You can't pick and choose a magical date and time where we were the best.

There are some fallacies being mooted. Our spend if talked about but not net spend, which is the correct metric to use.
Disagree. The correct metric to use is probably squad value. It's irrelevant what we spent on them or how much we have recuperated from sales. We have a load of players on loan. Is it better to have Doak valued at £10-20m but no transfer fee or Barlaser for £1m? Doak, Iling-Junior, Ihenaecho, Travers and Giles are costing us a lot of money but in the net spend category they are not included. We have a squad that is capable of challenging at the top. We are 14 points behind 4th placed Sunderland. We are on course for 67 points which is lower than last season which wasn't very good, lower than Wilder's first season, lower than all of Pulis' seasons. We are massively under-performing given the quality we have in the squad.

The new manager bounce. There have been several articles published that bust this particular myth.
Don't think anything really proves or disproves it. Each situation is different. A rubbish team getting relegated will probably continue to be rubbish and get relegated with a new manager. A team performing below expectations might be more likely to see a big improvement as we have seen with our last 3 changes (Warnock replacing Woodgate, Wilder replacing Warnock, Carrick replacing Wilder). It's obviously not a guarantee but there's a much bigger chance of seeing an improvement if the manager is under-achieving as we are currently.
 
While I would stick with Carrick for now, getting in a new head coach would not mean 'ripping it up and starting again' as the reason Scott was brought in was to put a model in place that would allow for the people to change but the philosophy to remain the same. I could see us going for a Rob Edwards type if our hand was forced.

Carrick (and Woodgate, Leadbitter and the rest of them on the bench) is really missing that wily old voice of experience who can sense when a game is turning - a Brian Kidd type next to them.
 
Carrick's football has been decent to watch for most part.
However "We aren't far off" statement, I did think that in the early part of the season.
Unless these new signing have an extraordinary effect on us by out scoring the opposition in most of the games I don't hold up much hope of promotion through the play offs.

I don't think I'm being negative, but more honest with myself, I cant see how Adi can make that claim, it feels like he's sounding like myself and others in past tough times, more in hope and positivity than any real evidence.

We lack players who have strength and resilience at the back and in the squad we have too many who give in easily or have a month or 2 on the sick. They don't seem bothered by losing or giving up their team spot at all.
I also think he's dropped a blob and got himself in a corner with Edmundson in favour instead of Fry, one he may regret.
I'm not sure if it was Edmundson's signing interview that swung it, but it was a daft idea, even George didnt think he would step straight back in.



I genuinely feel as if they are much like Swansea City were under Russel Martin, not bad on the eye at times but tip tap kings and always came off with decent display but nothing to show for it.
I've heard the Winston Churchill saying bandied about lately "soft underbelly" I used to hate it, I think there is a lot of truth in this.

There`s no shame in supporting an average championship club, I've/ We have been doing this most of my life/lives and always will.
The Sunderland game hasnt brought this on, as I felt we competed as best we could that night and beaten by another horrendous own goal by Giles.
I really do hope I have egg on my face with this post and Adi`s statement comes right.
 
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Best football I have seen at the club for a long time even though we may make mistakes so I would definitely stick with MC.
I think its wise we keep him, if someone fails at least have the evidence of why and how. He and the club wont learn anything otherwise.

We are no were near relegation, but I think maybe now he realises, its deadly serious and we want it taking so.
 
I think this is where and why there's a lot of frustration.

Because on the whole, it looks like we're getting closer to building something. We're signing good players and turning over very nice profit on these players, whilst playing decent football, so the recruitment side is positive.

However, some of the problems that we have, have been there for well over a year now and nothing has been done to rectify them.

It feels like we're close to getting it right, but then we aren't fixing the glaring issues that aren't allowing us to take that next step forward.
 
I did and you are correct. This is what happens when you rely on AI instead of doing your own research. It's still not many though. That's only 3 in 14 seasons and none of those were when a team scraped in with a low points total. Derby and Sheff Wed both got 74 points.

It's not. You're looking at a single anecdote for one point but secondly over the season Boro weren't significantly better than Coventry. There was 5 points between us and they had a similar dreadful start to the season as we did. We were 16 points off 2nd placed Sheff Utd. You can't pick and choose a magical date and time where we were the best.


Disagree. The correct metric to use is probably squad value. It's irrelevant what we spent on them or how much we have recuperated from sales. We have a load of players on loan. Is it better to have Doak valued at £10-20m but no transfer fee or Barlaser for £1m? Doak, Iling-Junior, Ihenaecho, Travers and Giles are costing us a lot of money but in the net spend category they are not included. We have a squad that is capable of challenging at the top. We are 14 points behind 4th placed Sunderland. We are on course for 67 points which is lower than last season which wasn't very good, lower than Wilder's first season, lower than all of Pulis' seasons. We are massively under-performing given the quality we have in the squad.


Don't think anything really proves or disproves it. Each situation is different. A rubbish team getting relegated will probably continue to be rubbish and get relegated with a new manager. A team performing below expectations might be more likely to see a big improvement as we have seen with our last 3 changes (Warnock replacing Woodgate, Wilder replacing Warnock, Carrick replacing Wilder). It's obviously not a guarantee but there's a much bigger chance of seeing an improvement if the manager is under-achieving as we are currently.
You are right squad value is the correct metric. It's just difficult to assess so net spend is a hard number. Squad value is subjective.

On the subject of manager bounce, both studies I read recently concluded the same thing, essentially. Managers get sacked after a run of poor form,usually. The studies concluded, with evidence, that the poor form is often clustering and teams will revert back to their normal standard with or without a change of manager.

Opinion didn't really come into the articles.

Take Carrick as an example, given it's relevant to the current discussion. At the start of last season he went 7 games in the league without a win. 2 draws and 2 points from 21. He then went and won 6 on the bounce in the league. It's statistical clustering. We didn't suddenly get better.

That same pattern happens all over the championship. Later in the season, mid January, as I recall we went another 7 games with 1 win and 1 draw. 4 points from 21. Straight after that we went on a 9 game unbeaten run winning 5 and drawing 4, 19 points from a possible 27.

Unless you have a squad that is much better than the rest of the division, which we don't, this will happen.

There are some reasons to sack a manager, current form isn't generally one of them, particularly if the manager has shown he is capable of turning things around.
 
Later in the season, mid January, as I recall we went another 7 games with 1 win and 1 draw. 4 points from 21. Straight after that we went on a 9 game unbeaten run winning 5 and drawing 4, 19 points from a possible 27.
What's our two longest streaks without a win and a loss this season?
 
What's our two longest streaks without a win and a loss this season?

Think without a loss was 6 games.
Without a win was during that same six game unbeaten run when we drew three in a row!
Apart from that, surprisingly we’ve never gone more than two games without a win.
(Only counting league games)

Also last two games were the first time we’ve lost two in a row. We’ve not had a terrible run yet, but nor a great one. We’ve just been a bit average.
 
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xGD/90:
Leeds +1.21
Coventry +0.58
'Boro +0.52
Sheff Utd +0.41
Sunderland +0.32

xGD
Leeds +36.3
Coventry +17.3
'Boro +15.5
Sheff Utd +12.3
Sunderland +9.5
 
I think we are looking longer term than this season, hence mainly loan signings to fill some squad gaps. I would expect whoever finishes third to win the playoffs and the prize of trying to get double figure points in 2025/26! I think we will reassess in the summer, how we finish this season will probably determine whether Carrick gets another go at it.
 
Maybe I’m wrong but with all the outgoings as well as incomings I get the feeling we’re already planning for next season in the championship. Ok there’s still enough games to stake our claim for the playoffs but does anyone believe we can make it with so much uncertainty with injuries and lack of depth in midfield?

Personally I feel the LL situation should have been handled better in the summer transfer window and now we have a mess of loaners in our squad.
 
You are right squad value is the correct metric. It's just difficult to assess so net spend is a hard number. Squad value is subjective.

On the subject of manager bounce, both studies I read recently concluded the same thing, essentially. Managers get sacked after a run of poor form,usually. The studies concluded, with evidence, that the poor form is often clustering and teams will revert back to their normal standard with or without a change of manager.

Opinion didn't really come into the articles.

Take Carrick as an example, given it's relevant to the current discussion. At the start of last season he went 7 games in the league without a win. 2 draws and 2 points from 21. He then went and won 6 on the bounce in the league. It's statistical clustering. We didn't suddenly get better.

That same pattern happens all over the championship. Later in the season, mid January, as I recall we went another 7 games with 1 win and 1 draw. 4 points from 21. Straight after that we went on a 9 game unbeaten run winning 5 and drawing 4, 19 points from a possible 27.

Unless you have a squad that is much better than the rest of the division, which we don't, this will happen.

There are some reasons to sack a manager, current form isn't generally one of them, particularly if the manager has shown he is capable of turning things around.
I don't think anyone is saying that Carrick should be changed based on current form. It's because over his time we have seen no progress and we are still making the same mistakes (gifting goals from mistakes at the back) and suffering with the same problems (unable to defend as a team, inability to cope with any sort of pressure, weak mentality).

It appears to me that we have a system/plan that when it works it works and we look great but when it doesn't we look silly. Carrick seems to be happy that in any given match any outcome can happen which means we roughly win one, lose one and draw one and that doesn't even account for the strength of the opposition. We're as likely to put in a performance against Leeds as we are Plymouth. It doesn't seem like anything is going to change significantly. We had obvious frailties and they haven't been addressed whilst simultaneously addressing problems we didn't really have so we had the resources available but have made poor decisions.

The only solution seems to be that we defend our weaknesses better rather than just relying on our strengths. It's an impossible task expecting our attackers to score 3 goals every game because we concede 2. That's not even always enough. We've had 5 occasions this season where we've scored 2 or more goals and not won, 3 of those occasions we scored 3 and didn't win. I think we've dropped the most points.

If there is a solution and Carrick isn't going to change anything then the only change left to make is Carrick himself. I don't necessarily agree that he is unable to change but it doesn't seem like he's going to and I don't find the notion of someone else coming in and making the changes that far fetched. Basically I've moved from being worried that someone else coming in would be a step down from Carrick to thinking the chances of it being a step down and not a step up, or at least sideways, is minimal.
 
I’m very curious about this ‘model’ that keeps getting mentioned.
Can someone tell me where this has come from?

I was aware of a ‘plan’ which was for Carrick to get us promoted.
 
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