What is the actual aim this season?

viv_andersons_nana said:
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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I suspect we felt we couldn't afford joined-up thinking when Doak was offered to us, a genuine blue chip prospect.
 
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 were expected to lose. Leeds were odds on favourites.

We were also expected to lose on Friday (not to the same degree)

Doesn't mean as fans we go in with zero expectations but those are the facts.
 
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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A lot of people make excuses for Carrick because he's a good guy, we play attractive football and they'd like him here long term. I'm on board with wanting him to stay for those reasons too but i'm not willing to revise the narrative so we can dance around an uncomfortable truth and that is that Carrick is not producing the results we were hoping for.
 
Humpty said:
A lot of people make excuses for Carrick because he's a good guy, we play attractive football and they'd like him here long term. I'm on board with wanting him to stay for those reasons too but i'm not willing to revise the narrative so we can dance around an uncomfortable truth and that is that Carrick is not producing the results we were hoping for.
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I think I’ve spent about 47 posts trying to say what you’ve said there. I completely agree with you.
 
BoroPhil said:
We were expected to lose. Leeds were odds on favourites.

We were also expected to lose on Friday (not to the same degree)

Doesn't mean as fans we go in with zero expectations but those are the facts.
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But when our promotion odds are referenced they’re often dismissed. When people need them to prove something they’ll wheel them back out.

The bookies had us as one of the favourites for automatic promotion. Listen to Not The Top 20 podcast and those two very polite nerds who do that show and use all the data and stats available have been saying for months that we are on for the top two. Adrian Clarke is another who says it, he watches plenty of Championship football and has co-commentated on several of our games. Gregor Robertson says it in The Times. Martin Hardy, The Times’ northern football correspondent, said it Tuesday’s Times Football League podcast. The Football League writer for The Guardian says it. The array of current and ex-players and pundits on Sky’s coverage say it consistently. Kieron Scott said it!

In fact people were saying it on here about two weeks ago, using this xG stuff to show that our ‘underlying numbers’ suggested that we were one of it not thee best team in the league. And now… well, we can’t actually compete. No. Don’t be silly.

This is not just some fans on a message board being unreasonable or unrealistic, this is numerous people right across the board, including some of our fans who tried to use stats and data to prove it. The point is that we were supposed to challenge for the top two and we have spent money and kept hold of players with that in mind. We are 7th after 20 games, 11 off the top and 10 off second. If in August you’d have said this is where’d we’d be at this stage people would’ve been really disappointed.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
But when our promotion odds are referenced they’re often dismissed. When people need them to prove something they’ll wheel them back out.

The bookies had us as one of the favourites for automatic promotion. Listen to Not The Top 20 podcast and those two very polite nerds who do that show and use all the data and stats available have been saying for months that we are on for the top two. Adrian Clarke is another who says it, he watches plenty of Championship football and has co-commentated on several of our games. Gregor Robertson says it in The Times. Martin Hardy, The Times’ northern football correspondent, said it Tuesday’s Times Football League podcast. The Football League writer for The Guardian says it. The array of current and ex-players and pundits on Sky’s coverage say it consistently. Kieron Scott said it!

In fact people were saying it on here about two weeks ago, using this xG stuff to show that our ‘underlying numbers’ suggested that we were one of it not thee best team in the league. And now… well, we can’t actually compete. No. Don’t be silly.

This is not just some fans on a message board being unreasonable or unrealistic, this is numerous people right across the board, including some of our fans who tried to use stats and data to prove it. The point is that we were supposed to challenge for the top two and we have spent money and kept hold of players with that in mind. We are 7th after 20 games, 11 off the top and 10 off second. If in August you’d have said this is where’d we’d be at this stage people would’ve been really disappointed.
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No one (I'm not) is saying we can't compete, I'm saying we just played our two hardest matches of the season and people are surprised they weren't easy wins. I read on another thread thst Leeds were 'there for the taking'.

I think we have underachieved a bit it's a long season and a lot of games are very fine margins. We have a decent run of games now, let's see where we are after Xmas.
 
BoroPhil said:
No one (I'm not) is saying we can't compete, I'm saying we just played our two hardest matches of the season and people are surprised they weren't easy wins. I read on another thread thst Leeds were 'there for the taking'.

I think we have underachieved a bit it's a long season and a lot of games are very fine margins. We have a decent run of games now, let's see where we are after Xmas.
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I did read that ‘there for the taking’ comment and agree that it’s nonsense. But I also think, did we come away from that match thinking we had genuinely given them a proper match, showed the best of ourselves and left everything we had our on the grass? I don’t think we did any of those things. We had a good 20mins straight after half time, other than that there was very little from us. They had 22 shots to our 8, 5 on target to our 2, 7 corners to our 4, 26 touches in our box compared to our 11 in theirs. Save for that 20mins we barely got near them.

You can argue our season won’t be defined by games away at Leeds but then… which games will it be defined by? We’ve already dropped points at home to Portsmouth, Preston, Bristol City, Coventry and Blackburn. We would‘ve been expected to finish well above all of those teams at the start of the season. *Possibly* Coventry aside tbf.

Of the playoff contenders, we’ve won at West Brom but lost at Sunderland and Watford and somehow managed to turn the chance to take a 4-1 lead at Carrow Road into a 3-3 draw. We’ve won at Oxford but lost at Derby and drew with Portsmouth.

It’s way, way too inconsistent. To the point where you would expect us to lose on Saturday but then win at Plymouth. That 0-1 defeat to Blackburn, was anybody actually surprised by that? That’s the problem we have. It feels like ALL of our home games are horrible affairs where we will inevitably drop points. If you can’t win these games at home then the pressure when you play the teams around you is ramped up, and we aren’t beating them either.
 
I think the fact that we can be brilliant masks the fact that we're far too inconsistent and not ruthless enough (at the back or upfront) to be competitive at the top of the league. We've had pundits and neutrals waxing lyrical about how good we are but the results don't back that up. I think we're overrated (both by others and some of our own fans).

It appears like we turn up each game and try to play our football. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't and when it doesn't we just shrug, take the positives and 'can't fault the boys' and move on to the next one.

I love Carrick and his team is far more enjoyable to support than some of the dross we've had in the Championship for the past 15-20 years but it is very frustrating. There's so much potential there but so far he hasn't been able to get the balance right between defence solidity and attacking flair.

He is working without parachute payments though so competing with those with parachute payment fuelled wage bills is always going to be hard.
 
BoroPhil said:
We were expected to lose. Leeds were odds on favourites.

We were also expected to lose on Friday (not to the same degree)

Doesn't mean as fans we go in with zero expectations but those are the facts.
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Let’s deal with expectations shall we……

We were expected to win v

Portsmouth - Home

Preston - Home

Bristol City - Home

Coventry - Home

Blackburn - Home

We got 2 points…….
 
Given our form away from home and against good sides. We should be in the top couple of places.

Sadly, we have failed to beat the middling and poor sides at home.

It's been close but not quite there - too many games where we created the better chances and didn't win.

Overall I think there is sense to the way we play.

I am happy with the performances this season whilst being very slightly disappointed with the results.

If the margins change slightly in the second half we could challenge for the autos (in despite of the current gap). But I think we should be aiming for a run like Carricks first season to finish in the 3rd-4th positions. And I think that would be a success.
 
Ravshoutsatbeck said:
Given our form away from home and against good sides. We should be in the top couple of places.

Sadly, we have failed to beat the middling and poor sides at home.

It's been close but not quite there - too many games where we created the better chances and didn't win.

Overall I think there is sense to the way we play.

I am happy with the performances this season whilst being very slightly disappointed with the results.

If the margins change slightly in the second half we could challenge for the autos (in despite of the current gap). But I think we should be aiming for a run like Carricks first season to finish in the 3rd-4th positions. And I think that would be a success.
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The Auto's are long gone.
 
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.
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Them and Luton have had a complete reversal of expectations. I thought Sheffield Utd would sink and Luton would rally but its been completely the other way around. To be fair, Wilder and Knill have done a fantastic job without spending money. They are still probably the most vulnerable of the three of them, Burnley & Leeds. They possibly have no depth in their squad but maybe their owner will flash the cash in January. If he doesn't and things start to go wrong I can see Wilder losing the plot.

Us hitting second this season required 3 of Burnley, Sheffield Utd, Luton and Leeds to underachieve. Sadly, for us, only one of them has.

Our points total so far this season is about par for Carrick after his initial spell. There isn't a lot of sign of improvement since the start of last season. There is some sign and it still feels a lot like a case of half-full / half-empty. Think that's what's so frustrating. It keeps looking like it's coming together but then it falls apart again.

Carrick and his coaching staff have been learning on the job. They've certainly provided the best football in the best part of 20 years. Carrick himself has been a really good presence and you can feel as though the club is close to getting it right. There's always that niggling doubt that maybe Carrick isn't the man to get us promoted. I hope he is because he's going about things in the right way.
 
1finny said:
Let’s deal with expectations shall we……

We were expected to win v

Portsmouth - Home

Preston - Home

Bristol City - Home

Coventry - Home

Blackburn - Home

We got 2 points…….
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Yeah and we were rightly frustrated after not winning those.

But it's a bit odd to get so upset after losing away at the best team in the division.
 
BoroPhil said:
Yeah and we were rightly frustrated after not winning those.

But it's a bit odd to get so upset after losing away at the best team in the division.
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That's very extreme interpretation.
You posted we were odds on favourites to lose at Leeds and Burnley. Understandably.
Yet finny just posted we were short odds on to beat the 6 he mentioned. We were and won none of them.

I personally didn't expect to win at Burnley, or Leeds. I thought we deserved to win at Burnley and was satisfied with a point.
We needed a result at Leeds to give hope of an auto place. Not only didn't we get it, but we played poorly for the vast majority of the match.

Some posters may be wanting to jump on anything disappointing, but most aren't I don't think.

But many are becoming tired of the endless excuses trotted out at any criticism of Carrick and the playing set up.

People ask questions, make observations; that doesn't mean those people are criticising everything. Different people criticise/question different things, with different emphasis, but some other posters take everything as an affront.

I'm not criticising Gibson, or Scott. I think the upstairs team have backed the club well.
I'm not on the back of every player, far from it, but there is nothing wrong in passing comment on what is seen.
I'm not looking to drive Carrick out, or undermine him at all.

I'm simply saying what many are: that Carrick has been backed, the season has been disappointing, we are currently short of what is required to hit the goals set, and the football at The Riverside has been far from the best we've seen in 20 years - FAR.
He needs to start delivering through his squad, other wise he will have failed.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
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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Ayling did an interview where he said he didn’t think he needed to get forward as much now Doak was playing

I think it’s a conscious choice from him and maybe the reason he hasn’t been playing
 
atypical_boro said:
Teams that are capable but inconsistent usually make the play offs.

Teams that are capable and consistent usually make the top 2.
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We are obviously good enough to make the playoffs and should make the playoffs (I don’t think we will for a number of reasons) but let’s imagine we do.
What do you think of our chances in 2 + 1 blood and thunder games ?
 
Ex Footy Legs said:
We are obviously good enough to make the playoffs and should make the playoffs (I don’t think we will for a number of reasons) but let’s imagine we do.
What do you think of our chances in 2 + 1 blood and thunder games ?
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I’d say our chances of winning the play offs altogether (at this point) are somewhere between 15 and 25%. Which is fine really.
 
All this doom and gloom. We are ironically the bookies 4th favs for promotion, just a whisker behind Burnley in the betting, whilst being 7pts off them.

Leeds are well and truly huge odds on favs - rightly so - 1/7
Sheff Utd are surprisingly still no where near as fancied as Leeds, even though they're top after a deduction - 4/6
Burnley are next at 17/10
We are next at 7/4
Sunderland 9/4
West Brom 9/2

We have a very very nice run of fixtures coming, which we obviously need to capitalise on.

I think we'll finish in the top 6. And looking at the betting, at the moment, I think the bookies would have us favourites to win the PO's - assuming Leeds/Sheff Utd clinch the auto's.
 
indeedido said:
That's very extreme interpretation.
You posted we were odds on favourites to lose at Leeds and Burnley. Understandably.
Yet finny just posted we were short odds on to beat the 6 he mentioned. We were and won none of them.

I personally didn't expect to win at Burnley, or Leeds. I thought we deserved to win at Burnley and was satisfied with a point.
We needed a result at Leeds to give hope of an auto place. Not only didn't we get it, but we played poorly for the vast majority of the match.

Some posters may be wanting to jump on anything disappointing, but most aren't I don't think.

But many are becoming tired of the endless excuses trotted out at any criticism of Carrick and the playing set up.

People ask questions, make observations; that doesn't mean those people are criticising everything. Different people criticise/question different things, with different emphasis, but some other posters take everything as an affront.

I'm not criticising Gibson, or Scott. I think the upstairs team have backed the club well.
I'm not on the back of every player, far from it, but there is nothing wrong in passing comment on what is seen.
I'm not looking to drive Carrick out, or undermine him at all.

I'm simply saying what many are: that Carrick has been backed, the season has been disappointing, we are currently short of what is required to hit the goals set, and the football at The Riverside has been far from the best we've seen in 20 years - FAR.
He needs to start delivering through his squad, other wise he will have failed.
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It's semantics to an extent but I just don't agree that the season has been disappointing and I've thoroughly enjoyed most of it so far.

I look at the table and I'd say 36-37 pts would be about par, we have 31. It's obviously a bit lower than I'd like but we've played 5 out of the top 7 away and have a good run of fixtures to come. I'm sure you'll tell me that playing weaker sides / at home is no guarantee of success based on previous results but it still presents a huge opportunity and one we are more than capable of taking.

For me it's enjoying the ride and seeing where we end up - there will be highs and lows and I don't think we should get too carried away when we only get 1 point from Burnley/Leeds away. You've seen yourself why it's probably not wise to jump to early conclusions (Azaz) and see how things pan out a little.

I have virtually no doubt we will finish in the top 6 this season and I'd be satisfied with that. I'd back us to give anyone a match in the playoffs.
 
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