Boro Match Thread

[Platypuss]

Hand on heart can anyone honestly say we're further down the line towards Adkins supposed progressive style than we were at those initial weeks?

This is what concerns me a bit TBH. Performances have absolutely got worse since those opening fixtures where we looked good in parts. Now we never look good.

We really miss Bridge, basically.

[Vision]

The bulk of this squad is still the one which won the Championship a couple of seasons ago.

I've read this a few times in a number of threads, but people must have extremely short memories. Take the team that beat Southampton away in the promotion year....

Feds - still here.
Cummings - still here
Pearce - still here
Gorkks - still here
Harte - gone
Kebe - gone
Tabb - gone
Mullins - gone
McAnuff - still here
Hunt - gone
Roberts - might as well be gone

McCarthy - still here
ALF - still here
Gunnarsson - gone
Afobe - gone
Church - gone

Add to that that both Leigertwood and Jaracan were key players that season, both now on the long term injury list, with the only other current squad member I can think of who played a role that season being HRK, and it's patently obvious that to say that the bulk of that squad is still here, and available for selection, is a complete fallacy.....

It's a bit selective to pick one single game over a 46 game season and include fairly brief loanees to suggest that it sums up the championship winning season.

Since we're being selective and cos I'm bored I had a little look. Over the course of that season we had 13 players make 20 appearances or more. I'll add in Tabb and Roberts who just fell shy of that mark but clearly made significant contributions.

10 of those 15 are still at the club 2 seasons later. Of the 5 that aren't only Kebe went for a fee and all of them were released by Adkins who presumably didn't want or rate them.

Even then if you consider the current squad has Bridge for Harte, Pog for Hunt, Guthrie for Tabb then perhaps only Blackman for Church is an inferior looking swap (although Blackman's 1.2m valuation dwarfs that of Church's I'd imagine).

We're dealing with semantics to some degree and "bulk" may be overstating it but there is a significant number of the key players still here so I don't think it's a fallacy to point it out.

Of course he's been unlucky on the injury front as I've already stated and I'm not here to bury the bloke but it's a squad that anyone without serious blinkers on should expect to be in the hunt for a play off spot.

Personally I don't give a stuff about the Premier league. Those that have been around here loing enough will know that I'm more than happy to stick around the Championship watching us develop Academy players and adapting a more passing possession based playing style. If that's the long term ethos of the club then great as far as i'm concerned but what we've been witnessing for the last few weeks bares little resemblence to that. Of course it's not going to happen overnight and there will always be good and bad periods along the way. This may just be one of those blips but it's a genuine concern if things don't pick up soon and long term plan or not, I suspect the powers that be will expect a little more than "we're building for the future" whilst the parachute payments are keeping us afloat financially.

[Zana Badawi]

Personally I don't give a stuff about the Premier league. Those that have been around here loing enough will know that I'm more than happy to stick around the Championship watching us develop Academy players and adapting a more passing possession based playing style. If that's the long term ethos of the club then great as far as i'm concerned but what we've been witnessing for the last few weeks bares little resemblence to that. Of course it's not going to happen overnight and there will always be good and bad periods along the way. This may just be one of those blips but it's a genuine concern if things don't pick up soon and long term plan or not, I suspect the powers that be will expect a little more than "we're building for the future" whilst the parachute payments are keeping us afloat financially.

Agreed - and this is our current problem.
Whilst we sort out the ownership issues, a lot of fans will be happy to hang around in the championship and have a proper shot at the prem when SJM sells his shares. Even the club seem to have recognised this as we have only made speculative punts in the transfer market for nearly three years now.

In the middle of this, and seemingly oblivious is NA. Every public statement he makes seems to centre around really wanting promotion, as if he believes we are going to repeat what he achieved at Southampton. This is the main reason why a group of fans can't connect with him - his number one fundamental priority is wrong. I do find it ironic when said group of fans are name-called as 'Quick fix Charlies', when, in fact, the opposite is true. If he was to calm down a bit, he'd be more effective. But everything he says is either out of kilter with the reality of the club, or is just plain fabrication to keep face with the players. In that way, he is directly lying to the fans. He cant expect respect for either lying or acting against the club reality.