Credit to Boro

[Tony_Kaufman]

Got to give Michael Carrick his dues, he's dpinga cracking job and has them playing some really nice attacking football.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

Looking at the stats their shot conversion is a bit daft right now. 5 on target, 3 goals. We had 10 on target and scored one.

Just wasn't our night. Too many just didn't perform to their levels

It's a similar tone that Heckys taken but it's not how I saw it. They were far better than us on the night and were worth the scoreline.

 

[Pittsburg Blade]

I quite like the way Boro are putting together a decent looking team. They’ve been truly gash over the last few years. They have a good following and deserve to go up again (via the playoffs). Hope they meet Sunderland first. That would be a couple of awesome games.

 

[Panini]

Mid 80s points is not going to be enough for top 2 90+ is probably going to be required.

Are you serious? To reach 90 points Boro would need 11 wins and 3 draws from their last 14 games

 

[CaptainMorgans]

Are you serious? Boro need 11 wins and 3 draws from their last 14 games to reach 90 points

I think they'll average over 2 points per game. Similarish to Forest.
Think we will need 87/88ish to keep them off us.

 

[Mendi]

Middlesbrough are flying high.

 

[Harry's Game]

Are you serious? To reach 90 points Boro would need 11 wins and 3 draws from their last 14 games

They look a class above anything I have seen in this league the last three seasons we have played in it. Can’t see who takes points off them except maybe Burnley

 

[Panini]

I think they'll average over 2 points per game. Similarish to Forest.
Think we will need 87/88ish to keep them off us.

2 pts per game puts them on 82. We've also still got a healthy GD lead even after tonight.

If we only win 7 of our remaining 15 and lose the rest, Boro would still need to go at minimum 2 pts per game and catch up 16 on the GD just to have a shout.

It's still absolutely in our hands and not about what Boro do.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

2 pts per game puts them on 82. We've also still got a healthy GD lead even after tonight.

If we only win 7 of our remaining 15 and lose the rest, Boro would still need to go at minimum 2 pts per game and catch up 16 on the GD just to have a shout.

It's still absolutely in our hands and not about what Boro do.

I think they'll get over 2 points p/game.

 

[RWE]

Akpom was immense. They were tactically brilliant and to me looked a Prem side on tonight performance.

 

[Katzenjammer]

If we're going to fucking deep-throat and rim-job every fucking team that beats us in the pathetic way we have towards Middlesbrough tonight across two threads then I sincerely hope we don't go up.

Absolute loser mentality.

 

[sheepbridge]

We can thank our lucky stars that Boro havent had Carrick in since the start of the season because it would be them and Burnley absolutely pissing it this season.

You could argue that it's a shame the last manager didn't do a half decent job with those players because he still might be there if they were just below the playoffs. Unfortunately they were in the relegation zone.

 

[jt64]

Confused by all this "shocking ref decision" talk. McAtee is fouled, ref plays advantage, we have the ball but then immediately concede possession for the hundredth time. That's our fault, not the ref's. Thought he was generally fine.

 

[Champagneblade]

It's a similar tone that Heckys taken but it's not how I saw it. They were far better than us on the night and were worth the scoreline.

The xG is about 2.5 to 1.3 in our favour.

Despite our failings over 10 games like that we win more than we lose.

 

[Dynamo Kev]

our(boro) xg was amazing under wilder, but we were utter shite, couldnt score and the defense was like a civ.
i love a good stat but i just dont get the xG one. its a bit stupid. last game we beat cardiff 3-1. they had a better xG to. but we totally dominated them in the first half, there was a huge gulf between the two sides.

said before the game, we just keep getting better every game. its amazing time for us. look at our last 5 managers monk, pulis, woodgate, warnock, wilder. we have done some suffering under them lot. we looked good for about 3 months it total over all of their reigns 2 of those months were under wilder.

 

[ForgeBlade]

They came, they saw, they deservedly gave us a bit of a kicking.

 

[Harry's Game]

I think Boro will get between 88-92 points

People saying that would be a record breaking run… yes it will be.

 

[nopigfansintown]

Middlesbrough were the better side but they are very exploitable. Massive holes in between their centre backs and full backs. Acres behind their ponderous backline. Dodgy at defending set pieces. United were awful and despite that it was very evident they aren't all that.Then again, who is?

 

[Grey Blade]

Confused by all this "shocking ref decision" talk. McAtee is fouled, ref plays advantage, we have the ball but then immediately concede possession for the hundredth time. That's our fault, not the ref's. Thought he was generally fine.

I wonder if a free kick would have been given if McAtee had gone down.

 

[BouncinBlade]

Best team to play at the Lane this season!
They deserved that, and I will be amazed if they don't catch us, especially if we perform like that!
Very poor, didn't want the win, slow, closing down was poor, Norwood was shite tonight, and that affected everyonelse. Hopefully just a blip, but boro look strong.

Didn’t want the win?

 

[KiwiBlabe]

The free kick for McAtee is a bit of a red herring. we still had the ball between the centre circle and the box in their half after this, then gave it away and defended very poorly. This was symptomatic of our poor play when in possession for long periods.

We panicked when pressured or tried to play miracle balls/fancy tricks when easy balls were the way to go. We tried to get it forward too quickly time after time, it was embarrassing some of the punts that were not within 30 yards of a Blades player.

Boro played as a team and kept the ball really well at times. The TV commented that the Boro staff were shouting "enjoy the ball" and you could see that they did, we didn't.

That said, we could have been 2 or 3 up after 15 mins. It was not our night, too many off the boil. my thoughts are that this will refocus us and get us back on track and focused. It is 1 game, first loss in however many

 

[XH536]

Best team we've played this season but they will have raised their game for us. Lets see how they cope against cloggers who put 10 behind the ball. We started half their moves with our terrible passing and ball retention. If they played like that every game, they'd be top.

Good assessment, they did latch onto Blades mistakes, which by fortune fell their way but United were a yard slower, all game.
Also, they used the full width of the pitch, not allowing Blades defence to hunt in pairs or more as they usually do.

 

[nopigfansintown]

On two other occasions the referee pulled play back after a bad advantage to give us the free kick. On both occasions the United player was in a better position than Mcattee who had no obvious advantage (arguably a disadvantage).Refs do it regularly. Play a bad advantage, realise they've fucked up, then pull it back for the free kick. The crowd groans but it's the right decision. Only when the ball enters a further phase of play is it the wrong decision. That is the fouled team have progressed the ball into another area with a clear control of proceedings which they'd obviously have with a free kick.

 

[GymClassHero]

Let's not all shit the bed. We absolutely thrashed Burnley at The Lane, does that make them shite? It's football you win some you lose some - it is still entirely in our hands and if you'd have said at the start of the season we'd be 7 pts clear with a game in hand at this point in the season, you'd have snapped their hand off.

All this negativity "we're shite, insert negative repetitive comment here. No, we are not shite because we are 2nd in the league.

Fuck me grow a pair, get behind the lads they need to dust themselves down and go again Saturday.

UTB

 

[Champagneblade]

Middlesbrough were the better side but they are very exploitable. Massive holes in between their centre backs and full backs. Acres behind their ponderous backline. Dodgy at defending set pieces. United were awful and despite that it was very evident they aren't all that.Then again, who is?

People are very results biased after the event.

Jebbo and Egan both had headers they should have done better with. Ndiaye and McAtee could arguably have put the game to bed in the first 15.

You get a couple of those right and the result is in reverse. It gets billed as a battling performance and you move on.

Boro also took their opportunities really well. But you don’t normally score 60% of your shots on target. That’s an outlier.

Yes we were disappointing but sometimes the stars simply don’t align.

Occasionally you need a little bump in the road to keep everyone focused. Maybe this was it?

We’re second in the league. We’ve played 31 games. That’s a large sample size. It’s not unreasonable to say we are playing teams, yes in the top half shortly, but teams we are better than, otherwise we wouldn’t be so far ahead of them.

Calm heads. One game at a time. Beat Millwall. Pressure on Boro as the games tick away. Match them over the next few, win the game in hand, 10 ahead, 10 to play, ain’t happening.

 

[nopigfansintown]

People are very results biased after the event.

Jebbo and Egan both had headers they should have done better with. Ndiaye and McAtee could arguably have put the game to bed in the first 15.

You get a couple of those right and the result is in reverse. It gets billed as a battling performance and you move on.

Boro also took their opportunities really well. But you don’t normally score 60% of your shots on target. That’s an outlier.

Yes we were disappointing but sometimes the stars simply don’t align.

Occasionally you need a little bump in the road to keep everyone focused. Maybe this was it?

We’re second in the league. We’ve played 31 games. That’s a large sample size. It’s not unreasonable to say we are playing teams, yes in the top half shortly, but teams we are better than, otherwise we wouldn’t be so far ahead of them.

Calm heads. One game at a time. Beat Millwall. Pressure on Boro as the games tick away. Match them over the next few, win the game in hand, 10 ahead, 10 to play, ain’t happening.

Exactly. To put it simply we had a lot of chances and excellent situations. They didn't have control of the game until they'd got the third. Recency bias and a failure to analyse what actually happened has made them out to be some kind of footballing powerhouse. Well not on that evidence.


Bogle had two decent opportunities. Mcburnie a goal and another shot. Mcatte one excellent chance. Berge should've shot when he tried to slip Ndiaye in when well placed. Ndiaye had three opportunities - two really good ones. Then Jebbo and Egan's chances and other good situations. A great side at any level simply doesn't give that volume of chances up especially to a team that wasn't, by our own admission, playing well.

I'd reiterate, though, that I'm yet to see a top side. Even Burnley aren't all that.

 

[Champagneblade]

Playing at 1230 can be a double edged sword but is probably just what we need.

After a defeat you want to put it right as soon as possible.

So a game away from a nervy home crowd to somewhere that will have. Abit of noise is just what you need.

Just what you need IF you win! Gal back to 10, then Boro have pressure on them, their result vs us is expunged and they have it tl dl again against an unpredictable QPR team, with World's Best Player Lyndon Dykes!

Of course, lose and we'll be all shitting our pants but we've lost once since November 8th in a game where, despite being 'poor', we still had twice the shots on goal as the opposition and pretty much double the xG.

 

[Lendegoeystash]

Credit to Howson (16) at the end for helping Egan pull Robbo away from what could’ve been an embarrassing, possibly costly situation with the fan in the John Street stand.

 

[CoatesyBlade]

I’m sure all the pessimistic Burnley fans spouted the same doom and gloom after they lost at our place.
Calm down it’s one game.
We could’ve been 3 nil up in the first 10mins, lucky break for their 2nd, inept referring decision causes the 3rd. Yet some would have you believe we played prime 1970’s Brazil last night!
I do think Boro played well. I also think we had an off night.
Let’s see how we get on against Millwall on Saturday.

 

[CoatesyBlade]

Credit to Howson (16) at the end for helping Egan pull Robbo away from what could’ve been an embarrassing, possibly costly situation with the fan in the John Street stand.

What happened with this? I’m putting 2 and 2 together and if it’s what I think then we may have lost the dressing room here! Can’t start a fight with the players after loosing one game! Why would they want to play for us if we’ve got that mentality!