Middlesbrough (H) 1-2 - Post-Match Thread

[Mike1983]

I wasn't aware how many injuries they had going into this game. Poor effort from us.

[Hammo]

Big test of this team’s mettle coming up now after that, starting in the cauldron of Elland Road.

 

The concerted effort they put in late in the game was encouraging, but the players can’t come swanning into any game from now on thinking that they can just knock it around harmlessly at will and the opposition will eventually submit to their ‘control’. They have to work for this promotion and make life much harder for the opposition than was the case today.

 

Leeds and Southampton are good teams - virtually on a par with us in terms of quality of personnel - but fortunately we got a head start on them both. Complacency - the sort of complacency shown today by Mavididi and Faes - is the only enemy that can undo us. That’s what happened last season. It had better not happen again.

[Parafox]

1 minute ago, Gamble92 said:

You having a pop pal?

 

What? It was a jocular reply in response to what I thought was a jocular statement from you, nothing more.

 

If you want a scrap I'll meet you on the reccy in half an hour. Better bring your mates. 

[ARM1968]

45 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

It’s okay to be concerned….. and I am….. we’ve displayed some concerning characteristics at times this season, and I fear that if the pressure gets ramped up, we could fold. 

This too is my major concern. Because of our position I can understand people being a bit blasé about it and knocking those of us who can see potential trouble. I hope I’m wrong, but somehow we’ve adopted the Spurs ethos and become bottlers. Might just be PTSD and I hope it is, but there are signs, portents, ripples in the tea leaves I don’t like the look of.  

[MPH]

30 minutes ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

No but we missed two sitters in the first twenty minutes. The stats from the game suggest we battered them.

 

if you mean percentage of play…. We won the league with  less that 40%  possession so that means nothing. Shots also mean nothing if you don’t get them on target. Both teams had 2 on target each. Even then, that doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t score.

[Parafox]

1 minute ago, Hammo said:

Big test of this team’s mettle coming up now after that, starting in the cauldron of Elland Road.

 

The concerted effort they put in late in the game was encouraging, but the players can’t come swanning into any game from now on thinking that they can just knock it around harmlessly at will and the opposition will eventually submit to their ‘control’. They have to work for this promotion and make life much harder for the opposition than was the case today.

 

Leeds and Southampton are good teams - virtually on a par with us in terms of quality of personnel - but fortunately we got a head start on them both. Complacency - the sort of complacency shown today by Mavididi and Faes - is the only enemy that can undo us. That’s what happened last season. It had better not happen again.

Agreed, but the difference for me is the implosion last season was entirely down to one man rather than the team's complacency

[Jazzy_Jeff]

One of them.  Fine margins and all that.
 

No need to panic, we move on to Friday. 
 

[Chocolate Teapot]

4 minutes ago, MPH said:

 

if you mean percentage of play…. We won the league with  less that 40%  possession so that means nothing. Shots also mean nothing if you don’t get them on target. Both teams had 2 on target each. Even then, that doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t score.

We just didn't take our chances.

 

Well done for mentioning the league win though. 

[Hammo]

1 minute ago, Parafox said:

Agreed, but the difference for me is the implosion last season was entirely down to one man rather than the team's complacency

Rodgers was mostly to blame, obviously, but a lot of players downed tools too and couldn’t rise to the challenge when it really mattered.

 

Maresca deserves our trust for what he has done so far, but we are now entering the ‘business end’ of the season and the heat is on. He has to be ruthless and ensure that the players do not take promotion for granted (like some of our fans appear to be doing).

[MPH]

1 minute ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

We just didn't take our chances.

 

Well done for mentioning the league win though. 

 

it’s not so much that we ‘ didn’t take our chances” although that’s 100% correct… we missed our chances. We missed absolute sitters these weren’t shots that we snatched at that were half chances, they were absolute sitters. You don’t deserve  to win when you do that, no matter how much possession we had.  We didn’t batter them, we lost fair and square.

[funkyrobot]

37 minutes ago, Mendi said:

The best team won.

That is absolute bantz

[The Doctor]

1 minute ago, MPH said:

 

it’s not so much that we ‘ didn’t take our chances” although that’s 100% correct… we missed our chances. We missed absolute sitters these weren’t shots that we snatched at that were half chances, they were absolute sitters. You don’t deserve  to win when you do that, no matter how much possession we had.  We didn’t batter them, we lost fair and square.

How else do you describe creating multiple "absolute sitters"?

[Chocolate Teapot]

1 minute ago, MPH said:

 

it’s not so much that we ‘ didn’t take our chances” although that’s 100% correct… we missed our chances. We missed absolute sitters these weren’t shots that we snatched at that were half chances, they were absolute sitters. You don’t deserve  to win when you do that, no matter how much possession we had.  We didn’t batter them, we lost fair and square.

I give up.

 

You're right mate. Does that make you feel better?

[Parafox]

3 minutes ago, Hammo said:

Rodgers was mostly to blame, obviously, but a lot of players downed tools too and couldn’t rise to the challenge when it really mattered.

 

Maresca deserves our trust for what he has done so far, but we are now entering the ‘business end’ of the season and the heat is on. He has to be ruthless and ensure that the players do not take promotion for granted (like some of our fans appear to be doing).

And I think they downed tools because of him and just gave up trying.

[MPH]

1 minute ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

I give up.

 

You're right mate. Does that make you feel better?

 

Or you could just not reply.. have you thought of that?

[funkyrobot]

17 minutes ago, Mike1983 said:

I wasn't aware how many injuries they had going into this game. Poor effort from us.

Coburn being injured was a massive boost for Boro, have you seen him play? 😬

[Finnegan]

4 minutes ago, MPH said:

 

it’s not so much that we ‘ didn’t take our chances” although that’s 100% correct… we missed our chances. We missed absolute sitters these weren’t shots that we snatched at that were half chances, they were absolute sitters. You don’t deserve  to win when you do that, no matter how much possession we had.  We didn’t batter them, we lost fair and square.

 

The only reason you can ever "deserve" to win a match that you don't is if you somehow get absolutely robbed by terrible ref decisions or something. 

 

If you miss chances you obviously don't deserve to win a game. 

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, MPH said:

 

Or you could just not reply.. have you thought of that?

But isn’t that an agreement by omission then? Anyway, whatever, don’t care. We missed, they didn’t.

[Lillehamring]

Frustrating, but hard to feel too downhearted - the games that we've not won have generally been games like this, when we haven't played bad but things just haven't clicked in the final third - i'd be concerned if we hadn't turned up or been overly passive, but the stats show that we did more than enough to win this game, sadly for us, that misfiring in the final third is only survivable if we defend solidly.

 

So, for me the worst thing about this game is the second goal, at 1-0 there's nothing in it, 2 down it becomes a real effort - so to conceded that 2nd from our own føkking throw in is unacceptable.  People have been defending JJ and arguing that he is superior but the guy offers nothing going forward and on several occasions made a mess of things defensively - just not good enough.   Not that he was the only player having a bad day, but to make such a crucial mess of a throw in, and the hopeless response that followed, made all the difference today.

 

Special mention to the dreadful ref who bottled giving clark a second yellow.

 

Hopefully they'll respond positively against Leeds who, let's face it, aren't going to be as defensive as boro.

[LCFCJohn]

34 minutes ago, Parafox said:

My point still stands and I wasn't spinning it. Calling gifted goals "clinical" is just wrong. 

 

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I felt too much credit was given to their goals.

Maybe semantics but clinical to me is how many chances are put away compared to those missed not how the chances come about. We had a game last season, I think Wolves, where we had 4 shots and 4 goals which is clinical. 
 

Goals being gifted speaks more to the creativity side if anyway.

[Nolucklcfc]

21 minutes ago, ARM1968 said:

This too is my major concern. Because of our position I can understand people being a bit blasé about it and knocking those of us who can see potential trouble. I hope I’m wrong, but somehow we’ve adopted the Spurs ethos and become bottlers. Might just be PTSD and I hope it is, but there are signs, portents, ripples in the tea leaves I don’t like the look of.  

We’ve literally just lost one game and won 5 previous. More confidence in our lads please! 

[Tommy Fresh]

2 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

Frustrating, but hard to feel too downhearted - the games that we've not won have generally been games like this, when we haven't played bad but things just haven't clicked in the final third - i'd be concerned if we hadn't turned up or been overly passive, but the stats show that we did more than enough to win this game, sadly for us, that misfiring in the final third is only survivable if we defend solidly.

 

So, for me the worst thing about this game is the second goal, at 1-0 there's nothing in it, 2 down it becomes a real effort - so to conceded that 2nd from our own føkking throw in is unacceptable.  People have been defending JJ and arguing that he is superior but the guy offers nothing going forward and on several occasions made a mess of things defensively - just not good enough.   Not that he was the only player having a bad day, but to make such a crucial mess of a throw in, and the hopeless response that followed, made all the difference today.

 

Special mention to the dreadful ref who bottled giving clark a second yellow.

 

Hopefully they'll respond positively against Leeds who, let's face it, aren't going to be as defensive as boro.

He's back, Justin has a bad game, can't be arsed to look but doubt you've been mentioning him recently, after stating you would and do when he plays well.

[Dahnsouff]

Quite a few stray passes today, bit odd.

[StriderHiryu]

That has to be the worst the team has played all season in terms of individual performances. Mavididi, Fatawu, Daka, KDH all hooked and none of them could complain. Enzo could / should also have hooked Praet, Justin, Faes, Vestergaard... pretty much everyone. Even the subs didn't really do that much.

 

Despite that we probably should have drawn or even won the match, but we wouldn't have deserved it.

 

For me the weird thing was we crossed to the outside post so many times this game, and I don't really know why? Were we targetting Ayling? It didn't work if that's what we were going for.

 

Onto the next one, though Leeds away was always going to be the hardest game of our season. Maybe the collectively awful performance today will give them all a kick up the bum for that one?

[Chocolate Teapot]

13 minutes ago, MPH said:

 

Or you could just not reply.. have you thought of that?

So you don't feel better then?