Who has been the Boro player who surprised you the most?

TheWolfman said:
Johnny howson, I thought we were getting a strong running, forward thinking midfielder with the appetite to get in the box. A player who could score quite a few pile drivers!
Only seems to have played well first half of this season, a real disappointment.
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I agree wolfman but you had better get your tin hat out. 😀
 
theredrooster said:
I agree with you about the decision to sell Rocky as he was the only one with the vision and ability to play through balls for Alves and this in effect starved him of the type of service he thrived on.

However, can't agree with the Arca bashing, he was a decent player for us who often unjustly became a target for the boo boys (see also Clayton, who also suffered the same fate). He did love a dragback though but if it works 9 times out of 10, don't knock it.
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Rooster I was maybe a bit harsh on my comments calling him a crab. I actually used to like Arca when he first came but had a lot of injuries, with us and Sunderland, and think his time had gone. Southgate should not have give him a contract extension at the expense of Rocky. He wasn't good enough to start a fullback by then and he certainly wasn't good enough for midfield. That's nothing against him as it was Southgates mistake.
 
I'm torn between Graeme Souness and Bobby Murdoch on this.

Although I was only a kid, Souness was a Spurs reserve and Bobby seemed to be a past star who was coming to England to lengthen his time a bit. Nothing to excite anyone really. Goodness me how wrong could you be........prelude to the great 73-74 side :)
 
271266 said:
Emerson.Having only vaguely heard of him before he signed didn't really know what to expect.I thought he was the complete midfielder.He had skill,energy, could tackle and scored wonderful goals.What a pity his temperament let him down.Could have been a world great.
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strange how 2 opinions can differ so much,
I thought he was constantly half arsed, and that was when he could acctualy be bothered to come and play
 
Has to be Uwe Fuchs. When we signed him it was Uwe who? Then that magnificent end to the season.
 
Kris Boyd was often a sub at Rangers and he was playing against the equivalent of Div 1 sides. It was jump for him to the English Championship.

This season Bola is unrecognisible from the Bola of last season. I honestly think someone has come as his double.

I was surprised with Dimi - he came as a coach really from lower leagues and became a regular in a side that finished second.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
In terms of the sort of player who thought they'd be, or expected them to be.

This has just popped into my head after thinking about Mo Besic on the Pulis thread. I expected Besic to be a tough-tackling, nasty, aggressive sort of player but he didn't really show much of that. Didn't he have a poor disciplinary record before he played for Boro? I mentioned Parlour on that other thread as well. He was a right nasty b*stard at times, with incredible strength and skill. You could see why he'd spent so long playing for Arsenal. He was a superb footballer.

I also remember being absolutely blown away by Christian Ziege. We used to sit in the east lower when he was playing left wing-back and his touch was insane. And his power, running power as well. The accuracy in his left foot, pinpoint perfection. He had everything.
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You were watching a different Parlour to me. He grafted and did a job for us, I wouldn't argue with that.

But "incredible strength and skill" nah, don't recall that at all. All about opinions of course mind!

I'm going to mention Ricard. I don't think anyone foresaw that premier league season he had after watching him play in the championship. I'm still not entirely convinced it was the same player.
 
Good thread this and I agree with most of the posts so far.

Another player I knew was good but didn’t realise just how good until we had him in the team for a season or two was Bryan Robson.

Another big disappointment for me, and I think we have had a lot of disappointing signings over the years, was Peter Davenport.
 
festa5 said:
You were watching a different Parlour to me. He grafted and did a job for us, I wouldn't argue with that.

But "incredible strength and skill" nah, don't recall that at all. All about opinions of course mind!

I'm going to mention Ricard. I don't think anyone foresaw that premier league season he had after watching him play in the championship. I'm still not entirely convinced it was the same player.
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Parlour was much better than I expected but wasn‘t he injured a lot? Like Merson though, I thought you could see why he had been at Arsenal so long.
 
I'll go for Andy Peake. Didn't really think he was worth his place in the promotion season, but head and shoulders player of the year the season after.
 
This thread has just shown that the game is all about opinions, This is what makes football such a fantastic sport to be part of- especially our own club.
For what it is worth. Peter Davenport came to us as a prolific goalscorer and record signing, we all expected that to carry on- I think he was the biggest waste of money our club has ever spent
 
Redwurzel said:
Kris Boyd was often a sub at Rangers and he was playing against the equivalent of Div 1 sides. It was jump for him to the English Championship.

This season Bola is unrecognisible from the Bola of last season. I honestly think someone has come as his double.

I was surprised with Dimi - he came as a coach really from lower leagues and became a regular in a side that finished second.
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Bola has made one of the biggest improvements I've seen in a player obviously it's quite early but for me along with fry the first names on the teamsheet.

You can see him growing in confidence every week, he's starting to get at full backs and trying little tricks. If he can improve his final ball gonna be a real asset. Good defender too.
 
HolgateCorner said:
Parlour was much better than I expected but wasn‘t he injured a lot? Like Merson though, I thought you could see why he had been at Arsenal so long.
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Certainly in his second season he was. I think in his first season he had a few really good games in cm, but after mendieta got injured spent most of the time on the right where he wasn't anywhere near as effective IMHO.
 
Terryterrycooper said:
strange how 2 opinions can differ so much,
I thought he was constantly half arsed, and that was when he could acctualy be bothered to come and play
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I agree with 271266, I actually thought that after about 6 games we had signed the best midfielder in the world, then Arsenal came calling & he was very rarely the same player again
 
festa5 said:
You were watching a different Parlour to me. He grafted and did a job for us, I wouldn't argue with that.

But "incredible strength and skill" nah, don't recall that at all. All about opinions of course mind!

I'm going to mention Ricard. I don't think anyone foresaw that premier league season he had after watching him play in the championship. I'm still not entirely convinced it was the same player.
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What I mean about Parlour is I really didn't expect him to be so tough, so good at tackling. He could tackle with his whole body, with such force. Opposition players used to bounce off him. I thought we were signing a wide player, a winger, who could dribble and pick a pass and a cross but we actually signed a really good, physical midfield player with an edge about him.
 
For me Bolo Zenden. I watched him at Chelsea and. I was worried we had signed a very expensive duffer who would hold back local talent like James Morrison and Downing.

How wrong I was. He was swashbuckling and for me was the glue of that team for a couple of seasons.
 
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