What is Steve Gibson’s biggest mistake?

What is Steve Gibson’s biggest mistake


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we needed a top drawer experienced manager to develop the team and make it premier league stalwarts every season....

In hindsight I just think it's a bit unfair to blame this not happening on Southgate. Would an experienced manager have done better? Yeah probably for a while. But if the reality is that Gibson needed us to cut costs then in all likelihood we'd have been flirting around with relegation whoever came in. Strachan was experienced but I don't think we'd have done much better having him 3 years earlier. 🤷‍♂️

and yes the Cardiff QF was the worst Boro performance ever given the games standing....

I agree it was dreadful. Worst is difficult to quantify though. Worse than conceding in the first 40 seconds in the FA cup final? Worse than the playoff final vs Norwich?
 
I'd add employing Gordon Strachan........ horrendous decision. I don't think employing Southgate was a mistake, sacking him when he did was. Southgate has proven his mantra of playing youth has worked for England, it was working for us at the time of his sacking too I believe. I still believe he would have taken us back up and learnt from it.
 
I'd add employing Gordon Strachan........ horrendous decision. I don't think employing Southgate was a mistake, sacking him when he did was. Southgate has proven his mantra of playing youth has worked for England, it was working for us at the time of his sacking too I believe. I still believe he would have taken us back up and learnt from it.
We weren't looking like serious promotion contenders at the point of his sacking. We'd lost a string of home games including a 5-0 defeat to WBA. Obviously we were still close to the top points wise in a very condensed league, but all the signs were that we were starting to struggle a bit.
 
Got to be appointing Southgate for me, we'd still be an established premier league team now had we not appointed him.

How can anyone say this with any certainty? There's no guarantees we wouldn't have been relegated some other season, under another manager.
 
3 points all day long. however if robbo had made subs in the cup final to waste time we would have likely won and avoided the fixture pile up and stayed up anyway :)

shout out for agnew though, "we are going with agnew" makes my toes curl watching him say that :poop::poop::poop:

and pulis. his football made us pack in our season tickets.
 
I'd add employing Gordon Strachan........ horrendous decision. I don't think employing Southgate was a mistake, sacking him when he did was. Southgate has proven his mantra of playing youth has worked for England, it was working for us at the time of his sacking too I believe. I still believe he would have taken us back up and learnt from it.
I would say appointing Gordon Strachan has to be the worst decision the club has ever made. Easily

1. Appointing Gordon Strachan
2. Summer 2008 Transfer Window - some truly dreadful decisions
3. January 2017 Transfer Window - shocking

The Blackburn decision was heart-breaking but we were renegades breaking new ground (we didn't know what we were doing) gotta take the rough with the smooth with that one I think.

We're on the up with Neil Warnock, we're heading in the right direction. If we play the window right we could be dreaming the impossible dream.. UTB!
 
How can anyone say this with any certainty? There's no guarantees we wouldn't have been relegated some other season, under another manager.
It’s an opinion and a belief, obviously I can’t be certain but we had been in the premier league for 11 consecutive years (edited from seasons - my error) and were established. We had just been in a UEFA cup final and our stock had never been higher, we appointed a rookie manager and ultimately paid the price. We should have appointed an experienced manager to take us to the next level, at the very minimum someone tasked with maintaining our premier league standing with a cup run thrown in here and there.

How can anyone say this with any certainty? There's no guarantees we wouldn't have been relegated some other season, under another manager.
 
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It’s an opinion and a belief, obviously I can’t be certain but we had been in the premier league for 11 consecutive seasons and were established. We had just been in a UEFA cup final and our stock had never been higher, we appointed a rookie manager and ultimately paid the price. We should have appointed an experienced manager to take us to the next level, at the very minimum someone tasked with maintaining our premier league standing with a cup run thrown in here and there.

Fair enough Joey, obviously you're entitled to your opinion.

I just don't think there's any guarantees whoever you appoint. I agree an experienced manager could, and probably even would have done better in that short term period. I find it hard to imagine we'd be sitting here discussing 22 consecutive seasons in the premier league now though.

Is there a next level for a club like Boro? Winning a trophy, finishing 7th, getting to the UEFA final I think is pretty much our peak.
 
Just to add on my Southgate defence... I don't agree with this idea that we should have stuck with Southgate any longer than we did. That 0-5 at home to West Brom was absolutely minging.
 
The 3 points fiasco yes he'll have been informed & updated on every minute leading up to that decision to not travel, I believe he left it in the hands of his more experienced management team to sort it out & which has been pointed out regarding the team we could have had had we stayed up
No for me his biggest mistake was appointing Southgate, no badges, still a good enough player to be involved, we had lost a European final, 11 years as an established PL team, he had to pick a top manager but went for the cheapest option available
Once McClaren players left the club Southgate team nosedive & got relegated without a fight, that's my opinion
 
This is what always bugs me when people say Gareth needed more time and he was getting it right, he wasn’t as that result showed.
He continually lost the big game, round about the time we lost 5-0 at home to WBA, we played Leicester at home, had we won we'd have gone top, we lost 1-0, add that to the Cardiff cup debacle, his relegation flop, he couldn't motive his, team
 
but we had been in the premier league for 11 consecutive seasons and were established.
11 years as an established PL team

This is pedantic, but at the time Gareth got the manager role we were going in to our 9th consecutive season in the premier league. As I said yesterday, he did keep us up his first two seasons in the hot seat. Seems a bit unfair to use what is partly his achievement as a criticism against him having been appointed!
 
This is pedantic, but at the time Gareth got the manager role we were going in to our 9th consecutive season in the premier league. As I said yesterday, he did keep us up his first two seasons in the hot seat. Seems a bit unfair to use what is partly his achievement as a criticism against him having been appointed!
As I said yesterday, his words not mine, he told all Boro fans at the beginning of our relegation season, now judge me, this is my team
Life's not fair, he dismantled a good, solid base of players that kept us up & brought in dross that took us down without a fight

You can dress it up as you like his team got us relegated, the players he inherited kept us up, dispute Southgate been the manager, they were good players who knew each others game
 
Fair enough Joey, obviously you're entitled to your opinion.

I just don't think there's any guarantees whoever you appoint. I agree an experienced manager could, and probably even would have done better in that short term period. I find it hard to imagine we'd be sitting here discussing 22 consecutive seasons in the premier league now though.

Is there a next level for a club like Boro? Winning a trophy, finishing 7th, getting to the UEFA final I think is pretty much our peak.
Winning another trophy, finishing 6th, getting back into Europe.

Nobody is guaranteed anything in football. Pep is in 6th with Man City, Abromovich's Chelsea in 9th place and Arsenal in 11th place.

Man Utd are currently top with Matic (who we turned down for £1m) and Lindelof (who was due to sign for us for £5m) Harry Maguire was on our radar with bids of £4m going in. We had Traore in the Championship. Braithwaite and Stuani seem to be doing well in la liga.. De Roon

We always seem to be in the mix at least..
 
I'm hardly "dressing it up" Erimus. :rolleyes: I'm not saying oh what a marvellous side he put together. Merely that him being given the manager role isn't the worst single decision the Boro chairman has made the last 35 years. :ROFLMAO:
 
He continually lost the big game, round about the time we lost 5-0 at home to WBA, we played Leicester at home, had we won we'd have gone top, we lost 1-0, add that to the Cardiff cup debacle, his relegation flop, he couldn't motive his, team
I lot of the reason we were up there was due to our early season form being able to use huth and tuncay throughout august, once we cashed in on these two the results dipped leaving us solely reliant on Adam Johnson. This was a player Southgate reluctantly used the year in the relegation season before despite his obvious talent to keep a wantaway (transfer request handed in during January) Stewart downing happier in his preferred left and thus allowing him not to sign a contract extension meaning we had to sell in January to get any sort of fee for him.
 
In the end, it was a mistake to give Southgate the gig. Undeniable. But as others have said, we've had mixed levels of success with rookie managers. I can see the qualities that Southgate has, that could make Gibson think this might just work and decide to take the gamble.

And looking at Gibsons experiences as Boro chaiman up to that point I can see as well why he'd maybe be thinking "even if the worst happens and we go down, it'll be just like it was under Robbo and we'll be straight back up".

Sacking Karanka when he did and then handing over to Agnew I think was a worse decision. I don't remember anyone on here thinking it would end well. And there was still a lot of football left. He could have got literally anyone in to try and inject a bit of impetus and give us a chance of staying up. To just sack it all off after the length of time it took to get promoted was shocking.
 
Winning another trophy, finishing 6th, getting back into Europe.

That'd be keeping us at the same level as 2004-2006 and would be an unbelievable achievement for any boro manager.

I just think it's a bit harsh to say appointing Southgate was the worst decision in decades, because he wasn't able to maintain the clubs best ever period of success.

I always find it quite odd how Gibson goes through these pendulum swings with the amount our managers are able to spend. Imagine being McLaren with Viduka, Hasslebaink, Maccarone, Nemeth, Christie and Danny Graham on the books, and then being allowed to go out and sign Yakubu as well. :ROFLMAO: And then the next manager in the cycle is shopping around getting in strikers like Aliadiere and LDG in.
 
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