Saturday 5 March 2011

What's Wrong With Boro?

Its been about six weeks since I had the fire in my belly to write about Middlesbrough again after a series of drab performances over the past couple of months but it came to a head today - a royal spanking by Reading and the departure of Kris Boyd caused me to pick up my pen, so to speak.

Saturday's game, if anything, highlighted just what's wrong with Boro. No squad depth, no creativity, no idea how to defend, no experience. I despaired hearing how time and time again our defence was carved open and how Grounds and Hines could not cope. When the fifth goal went in I thought back to our 8-1 mauling of Manchester City and how their fans felt - as I was feeling very similar.

Asset Stripping

At every opportunity Boro seem to be selling. This season we have already seen David Wheater and Gary O'Neil disappear off to the Premiership, and now another player sneaks out of the back door... Kris Boyd. Kris has hardly set the world alight at Boro but 5th place Nottingham Forest obviously see something in the SPL all time leading goalscorer.

There are two things that really worry me about the departure of Boyd:
  1. How is it that Middlesbrough are unable to afford to bring in a loan keeper without having to trade out a striker?
  2. What if Boyd goes and scores a bag load of goals at Forest? What does that say about the coaches at our club?
Only time will tell with regards point 2, but I do worry how we are so skint that we need to loan out before we can loan in. What I would like is Steve Gibson to come out and tell us, the fans, what is actually going on at the club. We need a rallying call from the boss, but all that is coming out of the Boro boardroom is silence.

The big 'r'

Middlesbrough have been consistent over the past two seasons if anything - and that has been selling players. As we have sold more players our position has dropped down and down the league. An obvious trend, but not one that the Chairman has spotted which is a worry because if we get any worse we are going down.

Boro need to stop this constant fire sale, pull together, give the fans a reason to go to the games but with the departure of Boyd it really would indicate to me that our ambition is fading, and ambition is something that Boro always had in seasons gone by.

Paul Smith

Not the designer or lead singer of Maximo Park, but the Nottingham Forest keeper has signed for Middlesbrough on loan. Smith has played for Forest since 2006 and was part of the team the gained promotion from League 1 in 2008 winning the Puma Golden Glove in the process. He is also the scorer of the quickest League Cup goal, scoring in 23 seconds against Leicester City in 2008. Having fallen out of favour at Forest Smith was placed on the transfer list and told to find first team football elsewhere.

It may be too early for Smith to start tonight's game against Derby as he has not played a first team game since May, but hopefully over the coming matches he can help sort out a defence devoid of experience and quality and get us back to keeping clean sheets.

2 comments:

  1. What's wrong with Boro is the split up, and close down on Wilton which led to the subsequent loss of income for Gibson's Bulkhaul and thus Boro.

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  2. Boro are missing a genius like Juninho

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