Middlesboro(home)predictions

[champs95]

I have paid to watch the replay of the Bristol City game. As my cousin said, it was very even, and they are on a superb run.
Champs, I saw no evidence at all in that game to suggest the players aren't trying. Same in the second half against Boro. The first-half performance was unrecognisable and unacceptable, I agree. Mowbray DIDN'T accept it. He changed three players at the interval. How often does that happen?
Couldn't we just agree we're on a bad run without trying to read too much into it?
We have mainly used our D.1 players, and I never thought for a minute they would be good enough to gain promotion. I can't see why you thought that was a possibility.
This is nothing to do with "little old Blackburn" and all that. It's just the reality of our squad.
Should we have invested heavily in January? Who knows, but how often do January purchases do spectacularly well? As I said, Mowbray was clearly not prepared to buy in a sellers' market. Fair enough.
Why has everyone suddenly decided Lenihan, Mulgrew and Rodwell are not "proper" centre-halves? Who was saying that a month ago?
I agree the defence looks shaky at the moment, but a lot of that is down to low confidence. Claiming that several players are not in their best positions is stabbing in the dark. Where SHOULD Mulgrew play? And Rodwell, even?
I didn't want Downing to leave, but let's be honest - there's a load of hypocrisy surrounding that issue too. Early in the season, he was described as a D.1 workhorse (or even "donkey"!) Now he's gone, we've apparently shipped out a Tony Adams!
This is football, for heaven's sake - in one of the most competitive Leagues in the world! It's not just a question of the manager picking the "best" team...and hey presto!
At the moment, everything is Mowbray's fault. If, by some chance, we do beat Birmingham, it will be nothing to do with him!!!
Such is the nature of much of our "support".

I am backing down the longer the week goes on. But I still remain with a feeling of being really let down by a bunch of lads and manager I had a lot of faith in. Maybe that my fault?

I was saying this elsewhere about Downing. Players who don't play football matches suddenly get legendary status.
Its not really the point though, I'm not even demanding he stayed? Just why didn't we replace him? We had already been shipping goals over the season, and at least one of our centre halves (from Rodwell, Mulgrew and Lenihan) has been injured at some point this season. And it was nieve to leave us so light. In an area we have struggled. Our GD is poor. When we where in the top half of the table, ours was much much worse than any other side. Our defence is, and has been one of the poorest in the division. Taking out the odd, short run when Mulgrew didn't play.
It hasn't been addressed, and is now really catching up with us. While I don't believe Downing was the answer, he certainly was capable of staying around and stepping in to do a job for us. Right now, he is a far better option than Charlie. This could've been easily avoided.
I am saying Mulgrew isn't a centre half. He hasn't played in that position in his career. Last time we played in the Champ, we went down, and shipped goals. He played his part in that. Throughout his career, he hasn't played much in this position, nor been effective. Apart from in Div1. I am also saying Rodwell isn't a centre half. Again, he hasn't played there in his career. He looks steady next to Lenihan, but for every decent game he had, like home to Hull. He also played and was pathetic vrs Brentford, when we shipped 5 goals. He was embarrassing that day.
Lenihan is our only centre half, but also not perfect. But paired with Rodwell, they look ok.
2 non centre halves together, Mulgrew and Rodwell, looks disastrous.

That's the not the most concerning thing, his constant changing of the tactics, personelle, sometimes mid half (like on Sunday) smacks of a guy who isn't sure what he is doing anymore. We set up so poorly vrs Boro, he HAD to change it in the first half. And the second tactical change didn't work either.

as I have always maintained, you learn nothing about your manager and players when things are going well, you only find out what they are made of when things are going wrong. How will they react? Will TM find the answers?

On sunday, that performance was as bad as anything under Coyle. But I will be fair and say it was one shocking performance, which hopefully can be marked as a one off. The poor results of late are maybe just a bad run? We will find out over the next few games, if the rot has set in, or if we can move past this.