Worst Boro player/manager/chairman inteviews?

parmoboy

parmoboy

Well-known member
I'm thinking of examples where they've said something in an interview which had made you cringe, or has caused fans to turn on them.

I'll start off with the obvious one, Strachan saying he was gonna go home and take drugs after we'd just been beaten.
 
Wilder always came across as a bit cringeworthy tbh. Doesn't even matter what he was saying it was... just... cringeworthy.

Also back during the McClaren years, SMAC overused the word "magnificent" when describing our performances, even though many weren't.

And of course there was Stewart Downing who loved to say "obviously" a lot, often three or four times in one sentence.


Honourable non-Boro mention.. Jamie Carragher, the cringey cnut. He can't get through a commentary without saying "it really is" about 12 times a match.
 
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parmoboy said:
I'll start off with the obvious one, Strachan saying he was gonna go home and take drugs after we'd just been beaten.
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That was the one I immediately thought of. I seem to remember Ali saying it was both disrespectful and unprofessional; I recall thinking it wouldn’t be long before he got the boot. An awful appointment resulting in terrible football followed by spurious and embarrassing interviews.
 
Woodgate.
With Neil Warnock's arrival ending Jonathan Woodgate's tenure here at Boro I think it's only right to bring to your attention some incredible moments from some infamous press conferences / interviews he's conducted in his sole season in charge.

In September Boro lost 4-1 at home to Sheffield Wednesday, all the goals came inside 34 minutes. The team were vociferously booed off at half time, in his post match interview Woodgate simply said:

"It’s not really the situation you want at half-time, going in there 4-1 down".

The media missteps continued as a week later boro went down 2-1 at Birmingham, afterwards he partakes in a toe-curling interview with Sky's Caroline Barker, the start of a truly bizarre feud between the two of them, in which Barker probes a dejected Woodgate live on sky sports with:

"Today couldve been 5 or 6, you have West Brom and Fulham coming up, if you play this way again theyre going to murder you arent they?" https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/11827720/woodgate-we-move-on

Following that interview, Boro would go on to score a total of 0 goals in the next 4 games. At the end of October he conducted his most infamous interview that didn't go nearly as viral as it deserved. I'll quote him verbatim and provide you the link to the audio for this because it's quite something:

"Nah it's lying though, people say that the league table tells the truth. It's not. Its lying"
https://twitter.com/x/status/1189615740934152193

A month later boro were dismantled 4-0 by 'rivals' Leeds in which Woodgate, following this game conducted an interview with the Leeds media in which he beamed about the "unbelievable" reception he got by the home fans, admitted that he wanted to wave back to show support but it wasn't appropriate given the score, that they were a "top club" and that "they're some train to get on it'll only go one way". It's perhaps worth noting we're not even into December yet, he's only been in charge for 4 months at this point. https://twitter.com/lufc/status/1201490875618119683

A mini resurgence in form over christmas came to an end at Fulham, another match live on sky which meant, another toe-curling Barker vs Woodgate interview. Again I have to provide a link to the interview so you can understand just how awkward it is. https://twitter.com/boropolis/status/1218305000243388416

Barker leads with "One shot on target was there a call for Fletcher to be brought on?"

Woodgate responds with a prickly jab of his own "I wouldn't say so, you should be a manager you"

Barker is quick to respond "that's why I'm not"

Woodgate is faster still with his dismissive retaliation "yeah yeah you're probably right" You can see a glint in his eye, he's thinking hes 1-0 up on her

Barker attempts to rephrase the initial question "Was there no thinking in your mind that he should have come on earlier?"

The verbal tennis kicks up a gear as the two commence in a rally spanning about half a second

"not really no"

"why not"

"I didn't want him to"

Barker stammers, as she tries to form another response, Woodgate butts in, sensing shes on the ropes he comes out swinging

"look I pick the team and you dont" Game, set and match you can see he's thinking to himself. Unfortunately, verbal sparring with a female journalist on live tv isn't quite the impressive achievement he appeared to think it was in the heat of the moment.

3 successive 1-0 defeats to Leeds, Barnsley and Luton followed, the latter a home game in which Luton ended a run of losing 12 successive away games. Woodgate admitted after the game that:

"I don't blame the fans for booing because I'd have done exactly the same"

He also, gave an insight into his motivational half time team talks:

"I said to them at half-time that the positive is, you can't play any worse than that. Actually they did" https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport...oodgate-booing-stands-middlesbroughs-17755926

This leads up until this very weekend, the championship restart. Leading up to the home game against Swansea, Woodgate spoke about how sharp the players had been in training and about the importance of a positive start to the game. After 34 minutes Swansea had hit the post, missed a header from 2 inches out and were already 3 goals to the good. It would finish 3-0 seemingly because of an unspoken mercy rule in which Swansea treated the remaining 56 minutes like a park kickabout. After the game on a webcam interview, answering a question about how he found the alien matchday experience, he responded with a now trademark response of

"So the experience wasn't good at all for me, hopefully in the next game is...erm....listen... if we have our fans there it's going to be a lot better"

https://twitter.com/pmforster/status/1274354749110923264

Despite all this chicanery, it's a real shame that it didn't work out here for him. And it's a shame that with the ghost of Tony Pulis still lingering over the current squad of players, that we've yet again had to flip the clubs vision and reach out for the oldest hand available in Warnock. We can all take some solace in the promise that if anyone can outdo Woodgates interview tomfoolery, its probably the Warnock.
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Another silly one was Pulis complaining about the previous manager leaving the club with 5 strikers, sarcastically describing it as "brilliant recruitment".

He failed to see the irony that Bamford had been sold and replaced with Hugill, still leaving us with 5 strikers, and our best striker had been replaced by another striker who wasn't fit to lace his boots.
 
If I recall correctly didn't Strachan once say he was going to go home and hang himself when the interviewer asked him how he was feeling after a defeat? Totally inappropriate attempt at humour and not a good listen tbh.

Remember when Steve Mc went to work in Holland and he adopted a faux Dutch accent? He would use this to cringing effect when pronouncing words with an exaggerated 'Schh' His logic was that the fans would understand him better! He ended up being called Shteve Maclaren! haha.
 
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