BFTG Middlesborough

[sandman]

Great work from the FLS to totally miss the fact Feds tipped the ball onto the bar yesterday.

[harry]

Feds - easily MOTM. Couple of point blank saves which seemed certain goals plus the tip onto the bar. 9

Gunts - playing well again. Last season's standards rather than the pre-Christmas stuff. Even got into their box a couple of times with link ups. 7
Obita - not his best game but can't remember him doing much wrong, some good crosses 7
Hector - mixed. Tries too hard to nip in front of his man too often. 5
Pearce - solid. Tidied up where others mucked up. 8
Mackie - ran all day, linked up play well. 7
HRK - mixed. Much improved on most of his performances this season. Still a few head in hands moments but some good positive runs with ball etc. 7
Norwood - hopefully an off-game. Some poor passes & poor dead-ball deliveries. Equally some good tackles. 6
Williams - put in a shift and will need some patching up after the treatment he got from some of their challenges. Ref gave him no protection. 7
Cox - moments of link up with Pog early. Not his best game but like his attitude. 7
Pog - ran out of steam in 2nd half but given how long he has been out thought he did well. Signs of some good understanding with Cox, etc. Thought he should have done better with the header. 7

Guthrie - rusty. Tried a few things that didn't come off. 6
Blackman - put himself about & tried to link up but very isolated on his own 6
Jem - an entirely objective 10

[Royal Ginger]

Great work from the FLS to totally miss the fact Feds tipped the ball onto the bar yesterday.

Both on screen and in commentary.

[melonhead]

Feds 9.5 mom
Pearce 7 decent
Hec 6 will learn alot from that
Gunts 7 much better
Norwood 6 no room
Williams 6 same
Cox 6 worked hard but mostlyineffective
Pog 6 worked hard.held it up occasionally. Won a header
Hrk 6 ok, but looked like he was running through glue on occasion
Mackie 6 worked hard but ineffective

A good point against a better team
Would 100% have lost that under adkins

[sandman]

Kudos to Goals on Sunday for also missing the save.

[Once were Biscuitmen]

I enjoy the fact Pog has not forgotten his normal, 'run out of steam, slow down, wait for the midfielder to run into the back of him, and then fall over to win a free kick' routine.

[Royal Ginger]

He only did it once yesterday.

Did anyone see the inch perfect slide tackle he did to stop what would have been a very dangerous cut back towards the end of the first half? Where he got that from and what he was doing in the right back position I don't know.

[RoyalBlue]

I think it's interesting how many differing viewpoints peeps have on the same game.

"Pog was shite, pog was good, sell hrk, hrk best attacker etc.......

You would expect differing views of the same game. However, what really pisses me off is when people resort to outright and ridiculous lies to support their prejudices regarding players.

In today's thread we have the usual 'Pog didn't win a single header during the game' - I have one of those arseholes sat behind me and yet again yesterday he was very quick to point out when a defender beat Pog to the ball but too busy spouting his footballing expertise/not watching to see/comment on the very many occasions when Pog did win the ball in the air.

We also had the Fed's distribution is too slow/inaccurate. Strange that, considering there were at least three very clear occasions when his teammates (and those less prejudice/blinkered in the crowd) applauded him for very quick and accurate kicks downfield/outwide. I wouldn't have said that his distribution was unduly slow on other occasions, particularly when waiting for our players to get into position, and his kicking was pretty damn accurate, particularly given the windy conditions.

[Bob1871]

Overall you could clearly see Clarke's game plan was not to lose. We set up to be hard to beat against a side clearly better than us and in the whole restricted them to a few chances and some great saves by Feds.

Pog & Cox have no understanding of each others game and twice yesterday went to head the same ball, Pog showed a bit of effort but i've seen tortoise with more pace! I didn't think I'd ever hear myself say it but we did look much better when Blackman came on and played through the middle. I wonder whether he deserves a run through the middle to see what he can produce, we already know what we can get from Pog.

Good to see Karacan back on the pitch and in his stint really showed how good he is at breaking the game up and getting his foot in.

I didn't realise HRK was playing for huge chunks of the game, he is a passenger for us. He has so much potential just seems so lazy and he backs out of almost every challenge

[Hoop Blah]

Do you realise his last goal was against Newport County in the League Cup in August. Not bad for a centre forward. But hey, apparently he won a header today Hurrah!

You do realise he's been (allegedly) injured on and off since August and has only started 3 games between the Newport game and yesterday?

I thought we did ok against a good 'Boro side who've probably played a lot worse and won convincingly this season. They looked sharper, more composed and more capable of playing the game around our efforts to stop them than we are currently. We gave them a good run for their money in the second half so I don't think we can complain.

Federici obviously had a cracking game and pulled off two very good saves in the second half. A couple of the other ones just hit him, but he gets credit for being in the right place at the right time and standing up enough to be able to react. I think it also helps him having the team set up to defend better in front of him.

I thought the front two did pretty well too. Cox had a good game and could easily have had a hat-trick of assists if his team mates had done better with 3 excellent through balls he crafted.

As for Pogrebnyak, we got a decent hour of him too. He isn't the same player as Murray and surely people can realise that after watching him over the last 2 seasons. Despite his size he isn't a target man like a Quinn or Murray and he isn't a fox in the box like Cureton or Le Fondre. I'm not even sure what he is to be honest. He works hard but he's not dynamic enough to be a Doyle or a Long and he doesn't quite link up play well enough to be a Kitson or Cox type withdrawn forward and generally just doesn't look like he's going to score enough goals. Like Kitson though he does defend from the front well and his size helps us out at set pieces.

As a team I think we need a forward who will lead the line, get in and around the six yard box whilst being able to run in behind. That's a bit of a tall order of course but it's why I expect Blackman to have a real chance of partnering Cox if we don't buy anyone else in.

Although Blackman played a bit more in and around their centre halfs I still don't think he caused them enough problems.

All in all though it's a good point, although a fortuitous one at that, and it's good progress for Clarke to have us looking more solid and more resilient because 3 months ago we'd surely have lost that 3-0.

[loyalroyal4life]

Point gained, Boro hard done by and deserved to win. Can see them finishing top 2!

Still its 4 points off them so can't complain.

Lacked any spark in final 3rd, hopefully be able to bring someone in soon and have mcleary back

[Royal Ginger]

I didn't realise HRK was playing for huge chunks of the game

Whilst I'm not going to say he's a great footballer, i think that was partially due to the way they set up against us. The same could be said of the usually very hard working Mackie. I didn't notice he was playing until just after half time.

I think Karanka's an excellent manager who completely read our game and did a very good job of shutting down the midfield which is where our talent lies.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Yeh, Mackie and HRK had three men on them as soon as they got the ball.

[Brum Royal]

For me, Pearce was the only other contender for MOTM - he was excellent.

+1 a very very solid, under the radar game. Won a lot of headers and tackles and kept Bamford relatively quiet for the most part.

[Brum Royal]

I take it you did not go to the Huddersfield game last Saturday.
It was like watching Barcelona today compared to the first half performance there.

A bit of an exaggeration but I agree with your overall point.. It was a fairly simlar performance, albeit we looked more of a threat in the last 20 mins. Set up to keep it tight, not give too much away and try to grind something out at the other end. Clarke's impact for me is obvious in these last two games, set us not to be beaten and build from there, worry about the goals afterwards. Not the most exciting for us lot, but it's a big step to getting the confidence back on track. Prior to Huddersfield, the last game I saw was Birmingham away (lucky me), where we carried more of an attacking threat but looked more porous at the back, which was indicative of Adkins era for the most part.

[Brum Royal]

It's weird how people see games so differently. Given that he's been out for so long, I thought Pog played well and put in a real shift.

I'd agree with that, it was also the point Ady was making on Radio Berks prior to the game. Given how long he's been out for it was also going to take him a little while and a few games to get back up to match speed. He worked hard, tried to link with Cox, won a few headers, but was up against two taller centre backs and the balls pumped in his general direction were generally about 20 yards away from him meaning he had to chase after them, which has never really been his game. His wages are an easy stick to beat him with, but I think he deserves a bit of credit for a decent shift on Saturday.

[Brum Royal]

Pog did what Murray has been doing - being the first line of defence, getting fouled by defenders with no protection from the referee, having virtually no service apart from balls pinged at him at 60 mph. The only really significant difference was when he got a decent chance of a header at goal it went a fair way over.

With a run in the team and playing against a less well organised defence (and most championship defences will be less well organised than Boro's) he could make a real impact on the season if he stays fit (and avoids the red card that seems to be hanging tantalisingly over his head every time he goes in for a tackle).

^This. Pog needs service to be effective, not what he was served up on Saturday.

[Brum Royal]

Adomah was dangerous and really could have punished us if he'd stayed on his feet.

Yeah, their main threat I thought, Too prone to going over though, but tricky feet.

Referee was terrible. Thoroughly enjoyed 2 3rds of the north stand helping to count out 10 paces for him after he'd previously got bored at 7.

The ref's pacing of freekicks seemed very variable. I think one of the freekicks we had in the first half (the second with the vanishing spray in front of the East Stand) looked a good 12 yards and took 11 paces, whereas one in the second half seemed to be only 7 paces. Very odd.

[Brum Royal]

I was pretty impressed with Boro's back four, specially Friend.

We backed off Friend a bit too much when he attacked down our left. There was one run he did in the second half where we made him look like Pele as he ran at us, then danced through three very weak half arsed tackles. A good solid player certainly, but not as good as we made him look on Saturday!

[Coppell's Ghost]

Hector is a problem.. one season away from being ready. No competition for places is starting to really show in the starting XI...... Hector, HRK, Pog, Norwood.. Jem returning was a real positive from Saturday,,, energy and effort - which has been lacking for a while.