Middlesbrough Post Match Thoughts

[flourbasher]

Dicko hardly gets a game at Hull
Cheeky loan bid in Jan?
Relegation rival though

[Redshank]

That hard earned point last night could turn out to be the most influential point we’ll earn all season. Nothing to do with mathematics but everything to do with what’s going on in the players’ heads. My only criticism of last night’s performance was how easily we gave the ball away when in good position and how too many simple passes went astray. We were just too rushed at times and that has to be a confidence thing.

I’ve always believed that, under Warne, performances would steadily improve as the season progressed and we saw that last night. Smith and Ajayi were at their brilliant best yet again…but the rest of the defence looked solid. One flappy punch from Rodak (as usual) but once he’d got that out of his system he looked unbeatable. You’d have needed an abacus to keep track of the corner count last night but I’ve rarely seen us defend so well under such sustained pressure.

Incremental improvement (as the man says) is the thing to look for and we saw that last night. I honestly think that there are better teams and sterner tests to come than Middlesborough, but if we were to play that game again in a couple of months against a similar Boro performance we’d probably win. Onwards and upwards.

[BigLadonOS]

Just found the video.