Sad Day For Middlesbrough Football Club

Last night the news broke about Tony Mowbray leaving the club after 3 years in charge. When Mogga was appointed he was the fans choice and it was a dream partnership with our chairman Steve Gibson both fans with club at heart in charge of our club. Sadly it has not ended that way and has left me personally gutted at the news.

After the previous manager we had who tried to rip everything Middlesbrough out of it. It was great to have appointed Tony Mowbray as our manager, he lived and breathed the club he was one of us. Telling us how he use to go the Holgate with his dad and could smell the Bovril, talking about the steel works, he understood what Teesside meant to people and the football club is a big part of people lives in this area. It’s sad that Mogga will not be the one to take us back to the Premier League. He wanted that more than anyone, no one can question his commitment to the cause.

He is one of the nicest guys in football. He always tried to play the game the right way, always spoke to the media after games he never hid and should be respected for that. A lot of other managers would have refused. When Tony took over from Gordon Strachan he was left with a big mess to sort as the team looked like heading for League One. Plus a big wage bill to reduce and no transfer funds as the previous manager had used it up. Mogga gave us a team to be proud of again as we finished 12^th in the league.

The next two seasons would see Boro have a good first half and a poor 2^nd half sliding down the table. We finished 7^th and 16^th after promising starts. It was always important after last season’s dreadful end of season to start this campaign well. Looking back at the games we had 3 shockers away at Ipswich, QPR and Barnsley. We should have had more points on the board in games at home v Sheff Wed, Bournemouth, Huddersfield and away at Wigan and Nottingham Forest.

I have been very critical of Dean Whitehead so far as I don’t think he offers much in games. He is not very mobile apart from putting two good balls through that resulted in goals I don’t think he has done much for a player with so much experience. One of his best games was at Wigan where he must been near to 100% pass rate til late on when he conceded a sloppy freekick which resulted in us getting a point instead of three. He is not the only one through there have been plenty of individual mistakes and basic errors have proved costly this season.

One thing for sure is Mogga has left the club in a much better shape than when he took over reducing the wage bill massively. Plenty of work has been done behind the scenes getting a scouting system in place. He has left a decent squad of players that should be able to compete for a place in the top 6. Watching us this season we didn’t look far away from cracking it and  getting the balance right but sadly we leaked too many goals. Results were not taking us anywhere.

It’s a sad way for a Boro legend to depart from the club. It’s painful. The same can be said for Liverpool with Kenny Dalglish that didn’t work and he’s now rejoined the club as part of the board room. Maybe one day Tony Mowbray can return to the club in some capacity. For now I like to thank him for his efforts and give him the respect he deserves. There’s Only One Tony Mowbray!

(FMTTM Column Doncaster 25-10-13)

2013 A Year To Forget!

2013 has been a year to forget so far for us Boro fans, only winning two league games both of them at home v Leeds and Cardiff. I don’t know quite what has happened since that great Blackpool display at home at end of year. It was one of the best games I’ve seen under Mogga, passing, movement the lot plenty of energy in the side great to watch.

The bad form in my opinion is a number of factors. First, Marvin Emnes was our top scorer last season with 14 league goals. Marvin made a huge impact last season but for whatever reason he’s not looked interested in this campaign. Jonathan Woodgate has not been available for enough games since the turn of year due to persistent injury niggles.

These stats are from before the Hull game but say a great deal. We have had 25 different back four combinations and 17 of them have come in last 19 games, Shipping 29 goals in 2013. Injuries haven’t helped, Steele has been only one ever present this season in back five. All in front of him have had spells out injured. Hoyte with hip injury, George Friend with his hamstring, Bikey with a hamstring and Woody  with a hamstring. This is before I talk about others in the team that have suffered with hamstring strain/injuries.

They must be an investigation in the summer to find out what’s gone wrong and why we had so many hamstring type of injuries. Even with the injuries the defence should be good enough to do job, after all none of them are young kids coming in to the side. I’m sure Steve Gibson and Tony Mowbray will sit down and analyse the season. Questions that I would like to see asked  are do we have enough experience? Do we have enough leaders? Do we need change the way we play and be more nasty?

When look at league appearances there are four players that have played over 30 games for us in championship this season. Steele 41, Leadbitter 39, McEachran 35 and Friend 34. That’s not many. On positive note three of those players will play a big part for us again next season, with Josh going back to Chelsea.

Too many key players have struggled for form this season. Rhys Williams, our captain, has only just started to look himself  again in the games against Peterborough and Hull. Rhys needs to settle into one position and play at centre back. We have looked more solid in last few games but are now struggling at other end to put our chances away. It was pleasing to get a clean sheet v Peterborough at home and hugely frustrating that we couldn’t capitalise on our chances and put one of them away! I actually fancied us to get the win on Saturday I thought the pressure was off and we would nick all the points. But yet again we struggled to put chances away and an error from Steele saw us come away empty handed again sealing our 20th defeat.

It makes very grim reading and puts us 8 pts of the playoffs with only five games to go.  With the dreaded goal difference it is like an extra point. It’s not mathematically impossible for us to reach the playoffs though we would be heavily relying on results elsewhere and for us to win all our games. We have not managed to put back to back wins together this year and so now we are probably left to build for next season.

In the next five games I would like to see us play a few of the youngsters, the likes of Adam Reach and Richard Smallwood who hasn’t really featured too much this season. We are going to need them next season so let’s give them some minutes on the pitch. Three of the Five games that are left are at home, two of them this week. It is massively important that we play well, with the season ticket deadline is approaching fans will want to see encouraging signs for next season.

I am personally looking forward to the new Riverside layout next season with the Red Faction taking the south stand providing us with Boro fans behind both goals. This means that away fans will be housed in the east stand. Leeds apart, away followings have only been a few hundred for majority of championship games this season. Change can be good and it could revive the Riverside. The family area is new for next season which is really postive idea by the club, getting the youngsters involved is important for the future of the club. The prices are really good value in that section and I’ve been encouraged at what club are doing off the pitch with both next season ticket deals and match deals this season. The club are taking on board fans feedback and certainly doing everything right off the pitch we just need to get right on the pitch!

 (FMTTM Column Brighton 13-04-13)



Sticky Patch For Boro!

It was a disaster start from Boro yesterday with Barnsley taking an early lead when Jim O’Brien shot took a massive deflection of George Friend and Past Steele. After that it was painful watch and looked like being a long afternoon! No question about it confidence is low in camp right now. We looked fragile, passes going astray, panic clearances hoofed up field. Looked out of ideas, no organisation it was chaos! The Juke was upfront on his own, he was starved of any service. We were out muscled of ball far too easy.

Second half was an improvement it had to be, getting in the lead with goals from Carayol + Main who replaced The Juke at half time. Yet again from our own doing we make mistakes that lead to Barnsley levelling when a Rory Delap throwing wasn’t dealt with in the box. It got worse when Hines passed ball back to Steele he slipped and ended up handling ball. Resulting in an indirect free kick. Scotland put Barnsley into the lead and apart from Leadbitter chance we didn’t look like scoring.

The last 2 games against Ipswich and Barnsley the lowest scoring teams in league is not good reading conceding 7 goals. It took me till late last night to check the results and league table. I feared the worst. Luckily we are still in a playoff place 6th after our bad start to 2013 with 5 league defeats. It’s a tough patch we need dig deep and get ourselves out of this mess. Get back to being hard to beat, be brave and stand up to challenges ahead.

Leeds up next we owe them for last season poor show please not again! The pressure is building like it does with any team that going through a bad spell. Arguments in stand, suggestions of Mogga out it not a great place to be right now. I know Mogga made some decisions that have raised some questions marks. Taking the Juke of and confirming after game he wasn’t injured being one of them. I would say this if anyone witnessed the game v Blackpool at end of December it was a joy to watch. That is what we all want to see. Passing, movement, organisation it had a lot of things we didn’t see enough of yesterday. It simply wasn’t acceptable. We have to get back to standards we were playing at start of the season.

It is a sticky patch the players, fans need dig deep and stay together to get our season back on track it’s only way. No time for passengers we need all players on that pitch up for cause 16 cup finals left, the sooner the next win comes the better for everyone it will be a relief to everyone connected with club. Hit 50 point mark and push on. We need a 90 min performance v Leeds. No better time to beat Leeds at Riverside than Tuesday night. Its massive it could be vital point that turns our season round!

Come On Boro! Let’s be as one and beat Leeds!

Bad January Strikes Again!

Let’s face it, the game against Leicester should never have gone ahead. The only reason it did, was the power of sky and the TV Money it brings. Forget about the fans safety hey! After four pitch inspections the game was on, one of the most bizarre, crazy build ups to a football match. Fans, BBC Tees radio team, match reporters, Boro team coach you name it, all struggled to make it to The King Power Stadium. Roads in Leicester were grid locked with 6 inches of snow falling, taking the Boro team coach 2 hrs to do a 4 mile trip from the hotel. Everyone made it eventually and kick off was only delayed 15 minutes so that the Boro players could have a warm up before kick off.

On to the game, I thought we rode our luck at times and had Steele and the Woodwork to thank. We played well in large spells, with some great link up play only for our final pass to let us down. Haroun had a good chance one on one but a heavy first touch took the ball away from him and Kasper Schmeichel claimed the ball. Ledesma had a good chance similar to the one against Watford at home and should really have scored. You can’t afford to miss chances like that. That’s been the difference in the last few games, we need to take our chances and we will win football matches again. A pen in the last min should secured a well deserved draw against a team up there with us. Emnes our pen taker took it and I thought it was a good pen that was well saved by Kasper Schmeichel. I know Emnes has had a poor start to this season after playing well last season but he been in and out of the team and I know if on his game he is a real handful for opposition and key player for us. We need him to be on form in the 2nd half of the season.

January has been a bad month for us in league, just like last season with 3 league defeats. Yes we have slipped up a few times and not helped our chances of automatic promotion and it’s a frustrating time with teams playing this weekend and our next league game in 2 weeks time away to Ipswich. That’s a long time for everyone connected to the club to mull over the recent form. No need to panic though there’s still plenty of games to go, 18 in fact. A few bad results doesn’t mean that its season over! We didn’t give up on Friday night, we kept going trying get back in the game. We’re not far off. Players are coming back and we have a stronger team than last season. The break from the league programme could be good for us. Play the first teamers against Aldershot in the cup to get some confidence in the team and some goals. Then the league games come thick and fast in February. I still believe we will turn this mini blip of results around. We all need to stick together and give this a good go. There is still so much still to play for and a lot of points. Believe!

UTB!