Past, Present and the hopeful future: A Story of Boro's impending 21/22 Season and the failings prior

The Past, Present and Hopeful Future

A Story of Boro's impending 21/22 Season and the failings prior

 

        Next season is one of great expectation, but could threaten to fizzle out fairly quickly and condemn us to another year midtable obscurity should we not hit the ground running. Most teams looking at a playoff/promotion push next year just have one or two pieces left to slot into their jigsaw puzzle; Boro however, are still sat taking theirs apart after forcing the wrong piece into the wrong slot for many years in the hope that it will look alright in the end. 

Where did it all go wrong?

    Many are quick to blame Gary Monk for his transfer dealings, which is certainly a turning point. However, the likes of Gibson and Bausor could have stepped in at any point; neither thought it was a poor decision to spend a reported £6.5m on a young Ashley Fletcher who only had 5 career league goals to his name at that point. Nor did any stop the transfer of Martin Braithwaite for an alleged £9m. The biggest mistake of that season was not the transfer dealings, we had a very good squad which should have finished in the top 6 with ease. Nor was the biggest mistake sacking the man who brought them in, in Gary Monk; who threw out all the team had worked towards during preseason and decided to extend the preseason tweaking into the actual season. But the biggest failing of that season was the hiring of Tony Pulis.

    Tony Pulis was gifted with a squad full of technically good players such as Bamford, Traore, Gibson and Jack Harrison. Only to ignore the middle third of the pitch. You could park a Boeing 747 between our centre forward and our next midfielder in support.

    You look around the leagues and see teams like Norwich, Brighton, Brentford, Barnsley and Swansea performing well on very little NET spend. This is because they all have a plan in place. They have commit to a certain style, and would not dream of appointing a Tony Pulis and gifting him with players who are good with the ball at their feet. Even from a business perspective, if we have a team full of technical footballers, and we employ someone with dated tactics; chances are these players are going to take a dip in form or potentially not even play. Thus their stock decreases and we will struggle to sell, as we have done with 80% of our recent purchases; most of whom are running down their contract with us. The Brighton Technical Director Dan Ashworth was once asked "What if Graham Potter did not play the certain style of football you wish to implement", his answer - "Then he wouldn't be at this football club".

Jobs for the Boys

    This was the outcry from a large section of fans when Woodgate took charge, and to an extent, they weren't wrong. Woodgate was the cheaper alternative, someone who was respected as a very good coach and hailed by the likes of Ben Gibson as someone who really brought their game forward. The hope was that a good coach would translate as a good head coach. But this was not to be. However, the season under Woodgate wasn't a disastrous one off the pitch. The talk of a Golden Thread excited many and was music to the ears of football purists who were sick of us spending money in the hopes of instantaneous success. We would look for lower league talent, be more shrewd in the transfer market and build a team that would grow together, playing a certain way for years to come. An identity that we had lost under Pulis.

    Unfortunately, the problems on the pitch where too obvious to ignore and a glance at the starting XI team sheet for the Swansea match looked to be the final nail in Woodgate's coffin. And in came Warnock, and out went our golden thread. Warnock seemed a logical appointment, someone to come in and keep us up and leave in the summer. Job Done. Leaving Gibson and Bausor to draft up some new blueprints to coincide with a new 4/5 year plan. However, it was decided that Warnock would stay on another season. Which rang alarm bells for myself, the same alarm bells that echoed in the ears of a section of fans during the Woodgate appointment. Jobs for the Boys.

    Warnock and Gibson are long term friends in football, and Gibson was more than happy to scrap our relatively successful recruitment a season prior. The likes of Bola and Dijksteel came in and struggled initially but we can see now that on their day, they are two of the best fullbacks in the division.  The biggest failing in our recruitment was not being able to get in the players that Woodgate needed and left him short in the first half of the season.

The Warnock Era

    It seems ironic that my first and previous blog post was about how much I had grown to like Warnock, and now this blog is taking a different stance; as if this was a TV show directed by Robert B. Weide. I admired Warnock for his interaction with the fans and still do. I love his prematch press conferences and I despise his post match press conferences. If Warnock was a few years younger, I would have little issue with him staying on yet another season (would be better if he decided to keep politics out of football). 

    However some of these post match press conferences are riddled with Pulis style excuses, throwing his players under the bus because the tactic of hitting the ball long to Duncan Watmore for 90 minutes didn't work out. Saying we've played this season without a striker when we are still struggling to create many clear cut chances. The amount of times I have seen Akpom and Assombalonga make a decent run to beat the offside trap, only to be ignored by our midfield is equally disappointing and upsetting. For a team who doesn't like to keep hold of possession for an extended period of time, I'm surprised we don't take on the risk of these through balls more often. Worst case scenario is that we end the game on 36% possession rather than 37%.

    I feel sorry for our forwards, and can guarantee Assombalonga will score 10/15 goals next season should he choose the right team for him. As for Akpom, he was Warnock's number 1 choice and he commended Bausor for 'Getting this one done', only for the £3m man to sit on the bench for Duncan Watmore to take the number 9 spot.

"Wait until Warnock gets his own players in"

    In our final match of the season, also came possibly our worst match of the season. 8 of the starting XI where players Warnock either signed or gave new deals to. The majority of this team is his. Yet we failed to register a single shot on target from what I can recall. Its either a case of, the players where at the beach already, the tactics where wrong or Warnock had lost a section of the dressing room. I believe all of which are a factor. If it wasn't for his reputation, questions would be getting asked as to if it was worthwhile keeping him on for another year. After all, he is going to look at getting more players in to suit him and following his latest presser where he said "If you look at us, we should be looking for another midtable finish next year" it seems he has already some serious doubts as to how far he can take us. Initially he had been saying he'd need only 2 or 3 players and that we would give it a "right good go next season", now we are seemingly needing 7 or 8.

    But noone knows this league as well as him? The last time Warnock oversaw a rebuild of this magnitude was at Leeds United where he signed 15 players in the summer and was sacked in April, 5 points from relegation. Which is why I worry about how we have seemingly gotten rid of the 'Golden Thread' because we have seen that Warnock is a very, very good coach; and has turned the likes of Fry, Bola, Dijksteel, McNair into world beaters. Warnock could coach these gritty lower league players and polish them into gems, ready for the next manager to come in and kick on.

The Summer Transfer Window

    Although this blog has seemingly been a 'hit-piece', it is also unfair to judge Warnock before any business gets done this summer. Would I prefer to have a different manager at the helm? 100% yes. But having Warnock around breeds a certain expectation. I said it prior on my Twitter account that I am expecting promotion or a top 6 finish as a minimum because if not then what is the point in having a short sighted plan?

    We will know where we stand after 10 games next season, and we will have an idea as to what damage may be caused by who we sign. I will be optimistic once we get the first couple of players through the door, but that optimism would soon be shattered should we be signing the likes of Famara Diedhiou. A man who is stalling contract negotiations with Bristol City over wage demands, would no doubt be the second coming of Rudy Gestede. If we sign 10 planks of wood, 6ft+ who cover the same amount of ground as a slug on a treadmill then I will do what I have done for the past 5 seasons, which is wait for the season to end and the new one to start. However, if we sign players who are multi-faceted; players who we know can adapt to a different style long after Warnock retreats back to Cornwall to enjoy retirement then that is good enough for me.

    Overall, as I see it now, I can't see us being in and around the Top Six personally and if we start the next this season as we finished this one, my prediction for next season is that we will struggle early doors and the toxicity around the Riverside will return; Neil will unfortunately resign before the season is up as the boos and groans get louder and more frequent. I hope I am wrong. Although this blog is an account about how much I don't understand the appointment of Warnock, he is a legend of the game, and deserves a good send off.

The Post Warnock Era

    There will be an end to Warnock's tenure, whether it be an amicable exit or a bitter one. With this comes the biggest decision Steve Gibson would have, after years of seemingly making the wrong decisions. Personally I would like us to bring back the golden thread, have us be a club who sell for a profit and buy our replacements for less than we received. Gibson is a millionaire in a billionaire's game, but the rises of Norwich, Brentford and Brighton should be used as inspiration. We cannot ignore the latest trends in football, like employing a Director of Football or Technical Director, or risk being left behind. We need to employ a manager who plays a certain way, lets us see a lot of the ball; someone fresh, with a glint in their eye and colour in their hair. And employ someone with a bit of grey in their hair to create a balance. The worst case scenario is to employ Kevin Blackwell, a man who has a terrible reputation in the game.

    For me personally I'd go for Alex Neil or Russell Martin. Alex Neil has overseen promotion from the Championship before with Norwich, plays an almost tiki-taka style and has most recently been sacked by Preston. However, sacked from a Preston side who's Chairman has repeatedly sold their best players each year and will no doubt struggle next campaign. Russell Martin is the Scott Parker of League 1, his MK Dons side yield the most possession of any team in Europe's top divisions; as well as having the most touches in the opposition box  so its not possession for possession's sake. For too long, I've been sick of Boro hitting long balls into the channels with no substance; to see us pass it from side to side and create spaces to exploit would be my dream scenario.

    At the end of the day, this is football, anything could happen. Warnock could get us promoted next season with Diedhiou score 18 goals for Boro, leaving me to eat my own words. Thats what makes it exciting at the first game of every season, 3 teams are guaranteed promotion and every single fan has a voice in the back of their head thinking "What if?".