Middlesbrough vs Sheffield United

EFL Championship Matchweek 11 - Wednesday 23rd October 2024 - 20:00 - Riverside Stadium
Please keep all discussion related to the match within this thread.

Player Ratings:
Matchday Stats/Player Ratings - https://www.s24su.com/forum/match-day/match/middlesbrough-vs-sheffield-united.708/

Officials:

Referee: Andy Davies
Assistants: Graham Kane and Darren Williams
Fourth Official: Josh Smith

Coverage:

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[jt64]

I would not put RND anywhere near he’s bloody awful Burrows left back and your dropping Gilchrist Christ on a bike is your name Chris

I would have to assume if Burrows is fit then Burrows would be playing, but he isn't, so I have to assume that he's only on the bench as "in case of emergency break glass" bench warming. If Burrows can play 90, or close to it, then why wasn't he doing it tonight? In the context of having zero defensive support from upfield, RND was fine when he came on and offered much more offensively than McCallum did. You can't just throw him under the bus because Wilder just went like for like and didn't address the underlying problem.

And "dropping" Gilchrist? Grow the fuck up with your terminology. It's a squad game and has been for decades. I literally said I'm the post you reference that it would be harsh on him as he played well tonight, but it is with the specific objective of addressing the huge issues we have had in the three hours that I've wasted watching us this past seven days, namely that the midfield has been non-existent and, with that, we've had zero attacking threats. Maybe read what people post occasionally?

 

[Bl4desutd]

Have a read its quite funny

Just describing to a tee what we’ve witnessed pal. Are you Wilders wife or what

 

[robbiez666]

Worth noting a Boro mate just said:

"Best I’ve seen us play this season."

 

[Dnblade]

Started well first 20 minutes,but then they got more control and I thought the goal was coming the amount of times they got in on the right and around the back of us.
Plenty to improve on,mainly in an attacking sense. .Cooper motm for us.

 

[Pedro Verde]

Are you Wilders wife or what

 

[Keen Blade]

Starting to see the same mood he fell into before he quit

The bizarre changes for Leeds were the first sign - the players must have been pissed off to have a change of system just before a big match.
Then the comments about opposition having "better players in every position" , reveal his mardy mindset.
What a jolly good job he's on a short contract.
His persistence with an unproductive attack is worrying.
Once his mentality starts to slide , it will be very difficult for him to correct.
C'mon Chris , give your head a wobble and work out a plan of attack.

 

[Keen Blade]

It looked like tonight was the first time Wilder lost patience with O'Hare. First he switched him to the left side at half time after his poor performance in the 1st, and when that didn't work either he took him off for Hamer.
Wouldn't be surprised to see O'Hare benched against Stoke.

Why does it take Wilder so long to recognise that a player is not contributing effectively when all if us can see it ?
Should he sit up in the stands to get a better view ?

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

It was just soooo fucking boring.

Watching the first half sucked the life out of me and the second nearly finished me off.

No gags please unless it's the Kenneth Williams meme.

 

[Thrice]

Why does it take Wilder so long to recognise that a player is not contributing effectively when all if us can see it ?
Should he sit up in the stands to get a better view ?

Good question. At least he does see it, I guess. Means he's not completely stubborn.

He still needs to find a way to solve the Moore problem though. You can't have a striker who barely touches the ball, let alone gets a shot on goal. He's not Haaland.

 

[Wetwang blade]

I wonder what the coaches were watching on the ipads, it must have been good cos they weren't watching the play. I wish the players would stop fannying around with the goal kicks and passing slowly across the back line which allows the opposition time to reset. Why are we so feckin negative, not allowing midfield or forwards to be creative (apart from keefa who hasn't got it). We could have won that one, Wilder needs to reset to the old Wilder of yesteryear. blade till I die

 

[jt64]

Good question. At least he does see it, I guess. Means he's not completely stubborn.

He still needs to find a way to solve the Moore problem though. You can't have a striker who barely touches the ball, let alone gets a shot on goal. He's not Haaland.

I mean in fairness to Moore on that point, it seemed as if the vast majority of out balls once we regained possession seemed to be aimed towards JRS or whoever was playing down the left at the time, almost as if there was a deliberate game plan to get it wide immediately once getting the ball back. Whether that's down to the nature of the central midfield and that we had no Souza to allow someone to push forwards more comfortably to receive possession if Moore wins a hoof and holds it up, I don't know, but he was for all intents and purposes a passenger tonight.

 

[toledo]

I think the most frustrating thing is what is being said above… it’s just boring watching us go forward….. we are bereft of creative talent for any type of 90 minute game…. It’s simply not there….

 

[Cheesebored]

Just got back. Good first 20 minutes with missed opportunities. Thereafter Boro came into the game and slowly imposed themselves on it. They played some decent football TBF. We were slow and predictable in possession and coughed up possession too easily. I thought the result was fair enough overall but showed we're still short of quality in a couple of key areas, notably up top. I've defended Moore previously but he was just poor tonight and has been for the last couple of games. We also lack a creative player as a 10 or in midfield. Important game now Saturday.

 

[Keen Blade]

I think the most frustrating thing is what is being said above… it’s just boring watching us go forward….. we are bereft of creative talent for any type of 90 minute game…. It’s simply not there….

Having fannied around playing out from the back , we wait till oppo defence is set and then try to attack by passing around IN FRONT OF the oppo defence.
Useless.
Chances & goals don't come that way.
We virtually never get quickly on the attack after gaining possession. We never slide a long pass INSIDE THE OPPO FBs , for JRS or Brooks to run onto at full speed , panicking the oppo defence and putting in a cross which favours our striker.
Our speed of transition is woeful.
This type of thing ought to be coachable.
But if not , sit the players down in a room and play them the goal highlights every week to show them.

 

[Champagneblade]

It feels like the team selection against Leeds, focusing on the opposition, going in there with an inferiority complex, has made us lose our swagger.

 

[JJBlade]

It feels like the team selection against Leeds, focusing on the opposition, going in there with an inferiority complex, has made us lose our swagger.

That's the problem.
A good performance where we lose to a fancied team away from home is one thing.
Being scared of a fancied team and doing fuck all but trying to poison and stink the life out of the game for 90 minutes is another thing, and it instils a lack of confidence for future games

 

[Pittsburg Blade]

I was ready for his manbabies.

Not now, I'm getting my anus stitched up.

Ooo I had sewing lessons at school if you need help

 

[castinsteel]

It seems that Wilder's strategy is first and foremost not to concede goals rather than trying to score them. To be fair to him, our defence is pretty good now but it is the rest of the team and the tactics where we are short of quality. I'm all for clean sheets but the simple fact is that all they do is guarantee you a minimum of 1 point per match or 46 per season. A team probably needs double this amount to go up automatically. So for every drawn match, you need to win one to get to 92 points.

We have started playing with a slow, sideways and backwards possession based approach that gives us no chance of scoring goals and winning matches. All it does is invite a press from the other side which leaves us more vulnerable to conceding. We need to move the ball faster and forwards which is not exactly rocket science.

We have scored 12 goals in 11 matches. This is one more than QPR who are bottom of the league. Sunderland have scored 21, Leeds and Norwich 19.

Moore, O'Hare and Brewster do not look like scoring for us, while Campbell isn't getting much of a chance to show what he can do. This is not a new problem and the fact that it has not been addressed is going to be our downfall.

It's not going to get fixed before January, so we need to use the players that we have that get forward and use them in a style of play that creates chances rather than boring the living daylights out of everyone.

This means building a system around Hamer, Rak-Sakyi, Brooks, Burrows and even players like Seriki who has looked good going forward when he comes on. Why not start giving Louie Marsh some minutes to try and develop him more? Not starting Rak-Sakyi at Leeds and leaving Burrows out is hard to fathom. Brooks needs to be on the pitch more.

It is still early days and we need to be patient. We are a lot better off than many of us feared back in the summer and the manager deserves credit for this. Wilder needs to start playing to the strengths of the players he has rather than allowing the opposition to dictate our style and set up.

UTB

 

[Pedro Verde]

I wonder what the coaches were watching on the ipads, it must have been good cos they weren't watching the play. I wish the players would stop fannying around with the goal kicks and passing slowly across the back line which allows the opposition time to reset.

You want to go back to Blackwell hoof ball dont you

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

Wilder to remain tactic introverted.

Boro's Laffey Laff to find his shooting boots.

And we have Nosferatu to do the reffing.

View attachment 195562
View attachment 195563

Well owd Laffeh Laff had the last laff even tho he used his bonce.

 

[Wetwang blade]

Don't be stupid, Pedro I want the game to flow like it did with Wilder Div 1 and upwards

 

[Shadota]

I feel like the last 2 games have been a case of us getting found out. We've played average teams up until now for the most part, and looked fairly comfortable against the majority of them (exceptions being throwing the game away vs QPR, and Norwich, who I felt played extremely well). There have been issues I've noticed in the team up until now, and these 2 defeats have really highlighted them.

A major one is that we have often relied on moments of individual skill to get results, rather than good team play. Look at things like both goals at Preston - a very generous deflection, and a moment of individual brilliance from Hamer. There's both goals from JRS vs Luton, both good individual goals, but neither would I attribute to excellent teamwork. The only times I've really noticed us truly playing as a team, were the goals vs QPR and Hull. Plenty of very positive movement, on and off the ball, creation of space, and exploiting defensive errors that we forced with good play. Outside of that, I haven't really seen anything of note. Often, it has been down to Brooks or JRS to try and beat a full back 1 on 1, or for Hamer to have a crack from distance.

I'd imagine that a large portion of this is a consequence of the coaching staff implementing a complete change of tactic for this season. Something which, as a club, we haven't really done for the better part of a decade now, is play with a back 4. Considering that, and the volume of player turnover we had in the summer, I'm not surprised that things are taking time to come together. But I'd have expected us to be more fluent by now than we are. We've had the entirety of pre-season, 13 competitive fixtures at this stage, and countless hours on the training pitch to bring things together. But we so far, seem to just be repeating previous mistakes.

Our build up play is too slow. We reach the opposition penalty area, and everyone decides to just knock it about for a bit. This is the same problem that developed the last time Wilder was in charge. Any urgency we had evaporated, and teams had an absurdly easy time defending against us because we did everything in front of them. We're starting to do the same now as well.

I believe there is room for this team to develop, and progress into something truly special. But I'm concerned at present, that a lot of the old habits we adopted under Wilder before are starting to show, and if they don't disappear quickly, we could easily fall away and become another Championship also-ran.

 

[Cappy]

I know this is crude, but….

 

[Salmon Pastures]

That set up for Leeds has fucked us
Destroyed the layers Confidence and regressed us to last season

I love your politics and blunt views Frank. But, frankly???????