What is the actual aim this season?

MidlandsBoroFan said:
They underperformed. This season they aren’t.

Agree, all with better squads than us.

So it happens less than once a season on average. There are probably at least 8-10 teams every season thinking they have a chance. Most don’t make it.
Nice manipulation of the stats by the way, picking which seasons to choose. I can do that too. It’s happened once in the last 4 seasons.
Teams with PPs have way more chance.

Which is why it’s our best chance.

Still is. Our team and squad are in the top 5 or 6. Definitely not the top 3. I don’t know why you think we should finish above that.
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Like dealing with a plank.
Manipulation of the stats - what looking at the last 10 Championship seasons?
13/30 of the promoted teams in the last 10 seasons did not receive PP's. 9/20 automatically promoted without PP's.
I haven't manipulated anything.

Making the top 2 would be major success, but going up would still be success.
Not going up would be very disappointing.
But I think that with the backing Carrick has had then not making the top 6 will be absolute failure. There is a big possibility that will happen from everything I've seen this season.
 
RavsFan said:
God loves a trier, but there are limits. 😉

I think we need to be realistic, we struggle against teams that park the bus, Portsmouth, Blackburn, Preston, Bristol C, Sunderland etc we can beat teams who try to play Oxford, QPR, Hull, WBA etc, but we have an unfortunate knack of giving soft goals away sometimes, it is he one thing we are consistent at, often by trying to break the lines and overcommitting players forward we leave ourselves exposed. Watford, Norwich, Leeds, Burnley immediately spring to mind but the goals conceded to Bristol, Portsmouth were softer than a Mr Whippy as well. Coventry had the ball in the net 6 times for goodness sake, albeit against 10 men.

I accept we have players of good ability that are worth decent money. However, we are often slow and ponderous in possession at the back, we have little to no creative threat from the left side, we are weak at full back, winning consistency has been missing all season and our only consistently good performers have been Edmundson and a young inexperienced Doak (loanees).

To put 6 past Oxford and 4 past QPR and 5 past Luton is great, but not when you are year on year losing home games to the likes of Bristol, Blackburn, Coventry and struggle to get points out of Portsmouth, Preston, Swansea etc. I love Carrick to bits, he got a tune out of good players in his first season, so we know he can coach proven players well enough. I do question how good some of our signings really are when we can’t be sure which Azaz, Lath, Conway, Borges, Engel, Bangura, even Hackney are going to turn up. Hamilton has shown nothing really, Silvera is doing nowt at Pompey. Gilbert has done it when started but oddly never gets a look in.

We desperately need two proper full backs and a left winger to give us a push in January but we have bought 3 left backs in the last 2 summer windows Engel is poor, Borges is poor mostly and Bangura is seemingly made of glass like a few others in the squad. We are a long way from being a top three side. Unless we start to develop some consistency and keep key players fit getting 6th will not be a forgone conclusion. It is no good looking fine on paper. Some of this rests with Scott and some with Carrick too.
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God also loves the blind…..

Nobody is saying everything is perfect. We’ve made mistakes on and off the pitch. Nobody is immune to criticism. I personally think we’re getting more things right than wrong.

Argue all you want. But nothing changes the fact that our squad of players is not as good as at least 3 teams in the league. How so many of you think we should be finishing top 2 is ridiculous.
 
indeedido said:
But I think that with the backing Carrick has had then not making the top 6 will be absolute failure. There is a big possibility that will happen from everything I've seen this season.
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Agree. We’re less than half way through, are in the mix, have not had much luck and are getting players back.

But not going up being disappointing? Yes, a little. But there are 3 teams better than us. We have a chance, that’s all. We’re not favourites, even if we made the playoffs.

If every team got promoted based on whether their fans thought it should happen, probably half the teams in our division would go up.
 
BoroMart said:
If Bangura was fit we wouldn’t have needed Borges and we could have used the budget to upgrade Barlaser. Ayling was brought in to cover smith, if smith was fit we’d have another 700k+ wage budget to invest elsewhere. If Lenihan wasn’t out for over a year we wouldn’t have needed Edmundson and could have used that money elsewhere.

I’ll “bang the drum of reality”, there are consequences to long term injuries it’s sunk costs that reduced your ability in the transfer market. We can’t say we’ve signed cover so it’s irrelevant. There are consequences.
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Your first point was our first choice right back and left back haven't been available. We replaced them before the season. Our first choice RB and LB have been available.
But you are making a different point now.
Now you are saying that the long time injured players are a drain on the budget preventing us from upgrading our squad. I don't know whether that is true or not. We still have FFP headroom to upgrade the squad as well as bringing in the players we have done so it really comes down to whether Gibbo is prepared to commit more funds. In the case of Edmondson, I don't think bringing him in prevented us from recruiting elsewhere. He was a last minute emergency loan.

Looking at the CM, we had the chance to let Howson leave the club and bring in another CM but we chose to renew Howson. That looks like a mistake in hindsight. Barlaser is still under contract so is much harder to simply upgrade. Will anyone else pay him what we are paying him? We probably have him for the duration of his contract. To me it feels like we were comfortable that we had enough with Hackney, Morris, Howson and Barlaser.
 
MidlandsBoroFan said:
Why choose 10? Because it suited your argument. You could have chosen 4 seasons. Or 15. But 10 suited you best.
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Seriously let it go.
I chose 10 because I thought it a reasonable number.
I guess I could have chosen your 4, but that is being selective.

Parachute Payments were introduced in 2006-07, so been going 18 seasons.
So I will be exhaustive rather than selective. 18 seasons, 36 auto promoted, 18 Play off winners.

The Championship champions have been in receipt of PP's 10 times in those 18 seasons. 8 clubs were not (Leeds 20, , Wolves 18, Bournemouth 15, Leicester 14, Cardiff 13, Reading 12, QPR 11, Wolves 09).
The runner up had PP's 8 times. 10 clubs (Ipswich 24, Sheff U 19, Cardiff 18, Brighton 17, Boro 16, Watford 15, Burnley 14, Southampton 12, Norwich 11, Stoke 08) were not.
So since PP's were introduced, only 18 PP clubs have been automatically promoted. 18 were not in receipt of PP's.

Only 8 of the 18 Play off winners were in receipt of PP's. 10 clubs were not (Luton 23, Forest 22, Brentford 21, Huddersfield 17, Palace 13, Swansea 11, Blackpool 10, Burnley 09, Hull 08, Derby 07)
So only 26/54 promoted clubs since PP were introduced in 2006-07 were receiving PP's. Over 52% were not.

32 clubs have been promoted in those 18 seasons since PP were introduced.
Burnley, Norwich, Fulham, West Brom and Hull have been most active. Those 5 clubs have filled 17/54 promotion slots.
Newcastle, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Watford, Southampton, Leicester, QPR, Sheff U, Cardiff and Wolves have had a couple of promotions. Those 10 clubs filling 20/54 of the slots.
But there are still 17 other clubs who have been promoted.

4 Burnley have gone up 4 times; 2 with PP's, 2 without
4 Norwich have gone up 4 times: 3 with, 1 without.
3 Fulham and West Brom have each gone up 3 times with, 0 without
3 Hull have gone up 3 times: 2 with, 1 without.
2 Newcastle and Birmingham have each gone up 2 times: 2 with, 0 without
2 Bournemouth, Watford, Southampton, Leicester, QPR and Sheff U have each gone up 2 times: 1 with, 1 without.
2 Cardiff and Wolves have each gone up 2 times 0 with, 2 without.
1 Aston Villa, West Ham, Sunderland, have each gone up 1 time: 1 with, 0 without
1 Huddersfield,Middlesbrough, Ipswich, Luton, Forest, Brentford, Leeds, Brighton, Palace, Reading, Swansea, Blackpool, Stoke and Derby have all gone up 1 time: 0 with, 1 without
 
Nano said:
Are we really in the 2nd-6th range? We could be 8th after tonight. Watford are one point behind and have 2 games in hand. WBA have drawn 10 and won 1 since we played them and are only 2 behind us with a game in hand. They have to start turning those draws into wins at some point. Even splitting wins and defeats in that would have had them above us. We're on course for 71 points which has only just been good enough for the 6th twice in the last 8+ years. It's basically the same as last season, undeserving of promotion.
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Yes, we're in a group chasing those spots, we've moved up gradually then slipped a little having only taken a point from two difficult away games.

I actually think that was a decent point, I expected nothing. We've now got to win three or four of the next half dozen and we're well capable of it.
 
I am pretty confident of the play offs. Not saying we’ll go up (it’s often a crapshoot) but if Carrick can keep getting us in the play offs for the next 2-3 seasons we’ll be successful eventually.
 
Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
Yes, we're in a group chasing those spots, we've moved up gradually then slipped a little having only taken a point from two difficult away games.

I actually think that was a decent point, I expected nothing. We've now got to win three or four of the next half dozen and we're well capable of it.
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Don’t forget we only took 3 points before that from two winnable home games.

I agree we have the capability…..
My worry is the inconsistency
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
We are 10 points off the top and 8 points off second, the team in second place has a game in hand and has had 2 points deducted. This is after only 20 league games. If this is replicated over the next 20 games we are 20 points off the top and at least 16 off second.

We have lost a third of our games and have conceded 25 goals, the second-worst in the top 10.

We are supposed to be ‘having a go’ at the top two but to me we look miles off it. It will come across as negative and I suppose it is tbh but we were supposed to be competing for automatic promotion.

Our ambitions have been downscaled since the end of September and I don’t like it. We are supposed to be better than this. The whole season was geared around it. We were not supposed to be pinching 5th or 6th place, at a push.
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That's Carrick - dampening down your expectations and slowly having you come to HIS expectations - which he doesn't reveal to us 'fans' ........he's a clever fooker though is Carrick and hoodwinked Gibson for too long in my eyes.
 
Imho there are 4 teams stronger than us. Leeds, Sheff Utd, Burnley and WBA. I would say we are never getting any where near a top two place. If we keep making the same mistakes, not using subs in a timely manner and having a horrendous injury list. Then a play off place is going to be out of reach
 
This thing about Sheffield United. They were a complete basket case and in absolute disarray when they came down. They had a long, drawn-out takeover battle rumbling in the background and were deducted two points for rule breaking.

They have completely rebuilt their squad. We spent more in the transfer market than they did. I think people might be surprised at just how much work Wilder and the staff there have done in terms of players coming and going, I checked yesterday and it was staggering. They have a very small squad and lots of players were picked up for nowt.

When they came down last season and we went into the summer, it was never a given they would finish above us, such was the car-crash of a situation they were in. Now we suddenly can’t be expected to compete with them? Nah, I’m not having that. They’re 10 points ahead after a 2 point deduction, that was NEVER supposed to be happening to us this season.

Burnley and Leeds, I can sort of understand a bit more but as has been said, Leeds sold a lot this summer and although they were expected to be up there I certainly don’t think any Boro fan would’ve ‘expected’ us to lose to them. I read that on here in the aftermath, that we were expected to lose, and it sort of blew my mind. It’s Leeds, not Liverpool or Bayern Munich.

There is a disconnect between the acceptance of Boro not being able to dig in and win at Leeds because Leeds’ budget is so much bigger but teams like Millwall, Preston, Blackburn and Bristol City routinely turning us over on our own patch despite our budget being much bigger than theirs.

Now apparently we aren’t as good as West Brom. Honestly.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
This thing about Sheffield United. They were a complete basket case and in absolute disarray when they came down. They had a long, drawn-out takeover battle rumbling in the background and were deducted two points for rule breaking.

They have completely rebuilt their squad. We spent more in the transfer market than they did. I think people might be surprised at just how much work Wilder and the staff there have done in terms of players coming and going, I checked yesterday and it was staggering. They have a very small squad and lots of players were picked up for nowt.

When they came down last season and we went into the summer, it was never a given they would finish above us, such was the car-crash of a situation they were in. Now we suddenly can’t be expected to compete with them? Nah, I’m not having that. They’re 10 points ahead after a 2 point deduction, that was NEVER supposed to be happening to us this season.

Burnley and Leeds, I can sort of understand a bit more but as has been said, Leeds sold a lot this summer and although they were expected to be up there I certainly don’t think any Boro fan would’ve ‘expected’ us to lose to them. I read that on here in the aftermath, that we were expected to lose, and it sort of blew my mind. It’s Leeds, not Liverpool or Bayern Munich.

There is a disconnect between the acceptance of Boro not being able to dig in and win at Leeds because Leeds’ budget is so much bigger but teams like Millwall, Preston, Blackburn and Bristol City routinely turning us over on our own patch despite our budget being much bigger than theirs.

Now apparently we aren’t as good as West Brom. Honestly.
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We beat leeds earlier in the season when They did play a load of kids, but we played with 3 CBs which usually does well against better sides. We haven’t been doing that as much lately and I don’know why
 
Tired Alan said:
We beat leeds earlier in the season when They did play a load of kids, but we played with 3 CBs which usually does well against better sides. We haven’t been doing that as much lately and I don’know why
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Probably because we never seem to have three fit centre backs. That plus Doak is ahead of Jones who is a better wing back, as opposed to Doak who is a pure winger imho. And the left side position is cursed. Ayling looks a shadow of the player he was last year, and clearly Carrick doesn't fancy him at RB anymore, let alone CB.
 
atomicloonybin aka ALB said:
Probably because we never seem to have three fit centre backs. That plus Doak is ahead of Jones who is a better wing back, as opposed to Doak who is a pure winger imho. And the left side position is cursed. Ayling looks a shadow of the player he was last year, and clearly Carrick doesn't fancy him at RB anymore, let alone CB.
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I think signing Doak has nullified a big part of Ayling’s game, which is crossing it. In the final third of last season he was regularly setting up chances and made 8 goals alone, this season that’s down to 2. When he was playing he wasn’t marauding forwards any more as Doak does all that for us. Those two signings in particular *seem* to suggest a lack of joined-up thinking because one of them cancels out the other.
 
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