Middlesboro(home)predictions

[champs95]

Lenihan was roundly criticised in December, but I think we miss his drive and enthusiasm.
Let's be honest, though: four of our most consistent players - Mulgrew, Bennett, Evans and Dack - had absolute shockers in the first half. This meant we had no rhythm at all.
Clearly, Brereton will have to be shelved for now, because his confidence is so low.
It is a puzzle, though. While I was on holiday, I read a lot of criticism of Travis and Bell for their recent performances, but they both had decent second halves.
It's this inconsistency thing again. It has plagued us all season. I don't buy this argument that it's all about managerial decisions, however. If the players are going to show such up-and-down form (look at Reed, for example), any pre-match plans are going to disappear in smoke.
I would personally always start with Nyambe and Smallwood, but I have been openly mocked on the Telegraph site for suggesting that.
At least we saw a reaction from the players in the second half, but Graham and Dack have both lost that ***** sharp edge at the moment.
Fair play to Boro, though. You could clearly see why they have conceded so few goals this season.

7 defeats in 11 games. Playing 2 of the worst sides in the division. And only finding 3 points against both. This isn't good enough. For me, he has 3 games now, or he's gone.
He is very much a 2 season manager throughout his career. And things have gone very very wrong.
If he starts another game with Brereton sack him there and then. For me he couldve gone yesterday. He set us up to fail yesterday. The performance was remiscent of Coyle days. The current run is as bad.
Playing our top goalscorer in his own half picking up balls from the centre half tp plsy 5 yard passes to a centre mid. Pathetic.
Mulgrew ....Pathetic.
Starting with 2 in midfield....Pathetic.

Mikel ran the game, with ease. He's someone we haven't had since Tugay left. While we stick with Evans, we are missing out on some class. And as for leaving us with just Lenihan, Mulgrew and Rodwell. That's the biggest mistake of all.

Simply not good enough.

[champs95]

the next 3 games are crucial.
Birmingham (away) - I can only see another loss. They are no better than us, pretty evenly matched. Only we are no longer doing what we have all season. And neither is the manager. - DEFEAT

Rotherham - (away) - I can only see a draw at the very most. They are battling like mad, not the best side, but one who are currently playing quite well. You fee we would need to score 3 goals to win any game at the moment. Graham is dead on his feet, and Dack is uninterested. Brereton is being ruined by the manager more and more each week passes. DRAW

Preston (home) - They are a better side than us, they just started the season badly. Above us now, and it will stay like that. Local derby, they will come with a game plan and be highly motivated to get all 3 points over us, and do the double. I just can't see us laying a glove on them. We where matching these sides (in most, not ALL games) but not anymore. DEFEAT

if ....and it remains an IF ....we only get 1 point from the next 3 games, we will be at real risk of finishing 1 place outside the bottom 3. Which is actually a disgrace. There is no excuse for this complete falling apart. But facts are facts, something has gone horribly wrong. I'm not buying his pre and post match comments anymore, he is talking absolute nonsense. All this will prevent a good season next year. If Dack left now, we'd be lucky to get £2m. He is that bad. He probably wants to go, infact I'm 100% he does. We wont attract anyone decent. And as I stated last week, its all becoming clear we are going nowhere.

[AucklandRover]

I don't very often say this to you, Champs, but I think your last two posts are massively exaggerated, and contain an element of hysteria.
Football is a game of fine margins, and we have been on the wrong side of the line in those games.
Confidence has inevitably slipped away, and the players looked very unsure of themselves in the first half against Boro. Mowbray's half-time changes made a big difference, though.
As I said, my cousin thought the two sides were very evenly matched in the BC game.
Against Reading, the experimental line-up could easily have been 3-0 ahead at half-time. Fine margins.
Frankly, calling for Mowbray's head is ludicrous and not worthy of you.
Incidentally, I don't think for a moment that Dack was supposed to play that deep. You certainly couldn't fault him on effort, but he ran around like a headless chicken on speed, passing the ball to the linesmen!

[robinrover]

I strongly believe march is a crucial time for the club
If we do what we have done recently(Poor month,good month)We should be fine
We have more winnable games in March and the 3 more wins to get us over the line should hopefully be achieved in that period.
I am not panicking yet but if we continue to look shaky then the fear factor will creep in
After all we are not safe yet.

[champs95]

I don't very often say this to you, Champs, but I think your last two posts are massively exaggerated, and contain an element of hysteria.
Football is a game of fine margins, and we have been on the wrong side of the line in those games.
Confidence has inevitably slipped away, and the players looked very unsure of themselves in the first half against Boro. Mowbray's half-time changes made a big difference, though.
As I said, my cousin thought the two sides were very evenly matched in the BC game.
Against Reading, the experimental line-up could easily have been 3-0 ahead at half-time. Fine margins.
Frankly, calling for Mowbray's head is ludicrous and not worthy of you.
Incidentally, I don't think for a moment that Dack was supposed to play that deep. You certainly couldn't fault him on effort, but he ran around like a headless chicken on speed, passing the ball to the linesmen!

I know how this is all reading. And I'm starting to sound like the idiots. I've been questioning things for a while now. Those 4 wins? 2 vrs Millwall & Ipswich where standard. Two woeful sides. We played really well against Hull. But was it just a freak result? The four disastrous games after say it was. And Overall 7 defeats in 11 games since Xmas tells me this isn't just a minor blip.
And if Dack wasn't meant to be playing that deep, why did our manager stand watching and do nothing? He looks completely out of ideas. And it's worrying

[Despair]

Typical Pulis side , hard to break down / disciplined, but to me surprising going forward - until the final 1/4 1/3. Then taking out their goal there wasn’t overall all that much in it.
As for the goal , yes CM hugely at fault for not dealing with it firstly, but then the highly fortunate spin and dip on the deflected cross lands absolutely perfectly on Asom’s head.
Yes he followed in well, as all good strikers do, but the fortunate flight of the ball?
The rank poor first half showing is what is colouring the overall assessment of the game.
We all said we will lose games , and we just have , four of them.
I cannot disagree that TM’s decisions and selections I have trouble agreeing with, but given have far we have come and where we are currently I am happy.
Rather than speculating ‘we are at meltdown point’, I’ll just dust off my crystal ball and get the real sp.
there’s gona be further ups and downs, that’s football/sport , it’s not an exacting science.

[champs95]

We are better than being down near the foot of the Champ, which is exactly where we are heading.
A strong finish to the season, as high up as possible then we kick on next season. That was the plan.
Something has gone horrifically wrong, and if the slide continues then he will be gone. As the owners wont be happy with yet another slide backwards. This was meant to be a drive forwards. If the current guy cant do that, and its now looking like he is completely out of idea's, then he will be down the road in the next 3 games.
He is destroying Brereton, which I don't agree with.

I am not knee jerking. I said it several weeks ago, I wasn't too happy. I smelt a rat back then. This is a simple view I have taken based on trailing around the country watching us play. And since xmas, other than one decent performance vrs Hull its been poor. We are no longer doing what we did.
Team spirit is absolutely shot.

None of you take this the wrong way, but you will only notice the (lack of) team spirit, the in-fights on the pitch, arguments, the way they are with one another. How Brereton's head just went down after 10 mins. The way our heads dropped. Something is wrong. Its not about fine margins. We haven't been unlucky conceding 5 goals vrs Brentford.
When Rodwell backed off their centre forward vrs Reading and we gifted them the winner, 2 mins after equalising ....that wasn't fine margins? That was plain bad defending. Against one of the poorest sides in the league.
Mulgrew isn't a centre half by trade. Neither is Rodwell? That's not fine margins. Or bad luck. That's just ignoring the fact we had one central defender in the whole club. If he got injured, we where going to be in trouble.
Now Lenihan is injured, and he let Downing go out on loan \we are in trouble. That's just bad decision making.
Downing has never let us down. So taking such a big gamble has put us where we are.
Spending all our budget on a 19 year old kid, who may or may not come on as a player, instead of buying Champ quality players is also not fine margins. Just bad planning. And taking a gamble where we didn't need to. That move could prove to be the most costly for TM. As it is really catching up with us now. Can he be trusted to go spend more money? another gamble is testing new formations vrs Reading and Boro that simply didn't look close to working.
Testing formations with over a 3rd of the season left? And we are far from safe.

This is a well thought out view I have, which I have held for quite sometime. Not just after we lost on Sunday. I predicted we would lose the last 2 games for a reason. Like I am calling these next 3. If he doesn't turn it round quickly, then we could easily go into fee fall.
Something has gone very wrong, the manager isn't doing what he did before. The players aren't either. And its not as simple as fine margins.

[champs95]

Typical Pulis side , hard to break down / disciplined, but to me surprising going forward - until the final 1/4 1/3. Then taking out their goal there wasn’t overall all that much in it.
As for the goal , yes CM hugely at fault for not dealing with it firstly, but then the highly fortunate spin and dip on the deflected cross lands absolutely perfectly on Asom’s head.
Yes he followed in well, as all good strikers do, but the fortunate flight of the ball?
The rank poor first half showing is what is colouring the overall assessment of the game.
We all said we will lose games , and we just have , four of them.
I cannot disagree that TM’s decisions and selections I have trouble agreeing with, but given have far we have come and where we are currently I am happy.
Rather than speculating ‘we are at meltdown point’, I’ll just dust off my crystal ball and get the real sp.
there’s gona be further ups and downs, that’s football/sport , it’s not an exacting science.

I do get that. However, when you are a striker, if you complete your runs in the width of the goal posts, the chances are you will get a chance to finish. That's what Asombolonga did. Yes, they got lucky with the defelection. But with Mulgrew playing the way he did, we where always going to gift them chances. He continued to do it in the second half. The major concern is, Brereton will not put himself in positions to miss those chances. His confidence is so low, he wont even put himself in the position to miss.
Dack was putting himself in those positions early in the season, when we where playing well.
Dack picking up the ball from our centre half in his own half, and passing it 5 yards to a midfielder wont hurt the opposition. So if he's taking upon himself to drop back so far, it should've been stopped. If it was the managers idea, then I am confused why he thinks our top scorer is going to hurt them in our own half of the pitch? Either or, its a bit of a shambles. So we are left with an isolated Graham who is very jaded from playing too much football. At an age where he simply cant play every week and be effective.

[AucklandRover]

I don't agree.
As it stands, the maths simply makes relegation almost impossible.
Are all the current bottom six going to go on huge winning streaks?
What about when they play each other? What about when they play the TOP six?
QPR have lost five in a row - worse than us.
Stoke have picked up only two points out of 15 - worse than us.
This tendency to react as if other clubs don't exist, and as if we are the only club having a poor spell is just blinkered.
Rotherham are third-bottom. If they DOUBLE their current points-per-game haul from now on, they will finish on 52. We are currently on 43. If we HALVE our current points-per-game haul from now on, we will finish on 51. Those are two damned big "IFS"! And, of course, every time Rotherham get fewer points from a game than us, the maths gets harder for them.
Relegation is - statistically - highly unlikely.
The simple fact is, half a dozen of our most reliable players put in shockers in that first half on Sunday. You can't legislate for that. In the second half, we came out fighting, but confidence is low and Boro have a very solid defence.
Brereton will clearly have to be dropped, but are we also going to drop Bennett, Rodwell, Mulgrew, Reed, Evans, Armstrong and Dack, who all had poor games too? Of course not.
I think Mowbray needs to put Rothwell in and say to the others, "Here's your chance for redemption."
My eleven?
Raya
Nyambe Rodwell Mulgrew Bell
Bennett Travis Reed Rothwell
Armstrong Graham

A kick up the pants for Dack, by playing Armstrong at No. 10, but with a promised final half-hour to let him prove something.

[champs95]

I don't agree.
As it stands, the maths simply makes relegation almost impossible.
Are all the current bottom six going to go on huge winning streaks?
What about when they play each other? What about when they play the TOP six?
QPR have lost five in a row - worse than us.
Stoke have picked up only two points out of 15 - worse than us.
This tendency to react as if other clubs don't exist, and as if we are the only club having a poor spell is just blinkered.
Rotherham are third-bottom. If they DOUBLE their current points-per-game haul from now on, they will finish on 52. We are currently on 43. If we HALVE our current points-per-game haul from now on, we will finish on 51. Those are two damned big "IFS"! And, of course, every time Rotherham get fewer points from a game than us, the maths gets harder for them.
Relegation is - statistically - highly unlikely.
The simple fact is, half a dozen of our most reliable players put in shockers in that first half on Sunday. You can't legislate for that. In the second half, we came out fighting, but confidence is low and Boro have a very solid defence.
Brereton will clearly have to be dropped, but are we also going to drop Bennett, Rodwell, Mulgrew, Reed, Evans, Armstrong and Dack, who all had poor games too? Of course not.
I think Mowbray needs to put Rothwell in and say to the others, "Here's your chance for redemption."
My eleven?
Raya
Nyambe Rodwell Mulgrew Bell
Bennett Travis Reed Rothwell
Armstrong Graham

A kick up the pants for Dack, by playing Armstrong at No. 10, but with a promised final half-hour to let him prove something.

I don't think we will go down. The fact we are even talking about it, from the position we had been in, is the really disappointing thing. No, I agree we wont go down. But we will (if we carry on like this) finish just outside the relegation places. Which will massively affect us pushing on next season. And doesn't bode well at all.
I believe we should have pride, and not simply accept this pathetic notion we are a lower than midtable side. Its not acceptable, its a complete cop out. I believe we are better than that, and have to have ambitions to push on. Its all too nicey nice all this. Little old Blackburn settling for a place just outside the relegation spots. Its not good enough. And its not acceptable. And this cop out, is coming form a club struggling to attract fans. And are about to lose another paying fan who was fully behind everything.

If we go to Rotherham and lose (which is a distinct possibility) that's 3 points closer to catching us.
Dack simply has to be benched. He isn't a central midfielder. So if he insists on pissing about like that, bench him. If the manager is telling him to do that, then he is more useless than I every gave him credit for.

And despite the side you have picked, it worryingly contains 2 centre halves that are NOT centre halves. So no matter how well we play going forwards, we WILL gift them numerous chances, because we are a shambles defensively. The midfield won't, can't protect them. And the 2 lads are simply not good enough. So we are reliant on luck in order to get anything. And that wont change now, as we are hugely light in a crucial part of the pitch. And have nobody to bring in.

And Reed? The one lad in our squad that has made a huge effort to say he doesn't want to be here. So to expect him to run the exra mile and put in effort for a club he doesn't want to be at is silly. There is no actual point playing him anymore.