Hello again

We are into the new season now, and having not posted for 6 months I thought a blog post was well overdue.

A lot has happened since I last posted, my last one was about Tomlin and Karanka winning their Player and Manager of the Month awards and our 3-1 win against Charlton in February! All of which seems like a lifetime ago!

Now I could make a massive blog post about the great season we had last year and how we fell at the final hurdle. But we are into a new season now and rather than dig up the quite depressing past  I thought it'd be best to keep looking ahead.

I also won't be delving into and analying any signings that have already come to or left the club because (A. I probably tweeted about it at @onestevegibson on twitter) but also because there's no chance to change it now. Seeing Tomlin leave was a shame, but in Downing and Fabrinni we have two very capable replacements and the same goes for Stuani and Nugent for Vossen and Bamford.

The squad looked settled after Nugent's signing. Especially after the 3-0 hammering of a rather poor Bolton Wanderers side.

 Then 'something happened.' When we conceded a late equaliser in the game away to Derby County (the 'fellow promotion candidates' who are without a win this season.) Albert Adomah seemed to get the blame for it. This seemed strange because Karanka has always put the onus on the team, whether we win or lose it is a 'team' performance. So it was strange to see Adomah's name on the bench for the visit of his old club Bristol City. Last season Ben Gibson had gone through a phase where he had given away penalties and scored own goals, but Karanka had stuck by him and the same with other players. I remember how he changed Friend to be more astute defensively. 

Nobody really thought too much of this, although after the 1-0 loss to Bristol City, blame fell at Karanka's door for not including Albert Adomah. Aitor responded with the Mourinho-esc like of 'I am the manager and my say goes.'

What came out in the days after the defeat though was an apparent 'bust-up' of sorts between Aitor and Albert. When the Bristol game was over and the players like Clayton, Friend and Forshaw were applauding the Boro fans, Adomah went over to the Bristol fans and clapped them. This wasn't strange as he has an obvious affection to the club still. When he left the pitch he gave a little clap to the south stand, but that was it.

This obviously ticked AK off because that is when the bust up apparently happened, culminating with Adomah supposedly telling Karanka he doesn't want to play for him again. Hence his omission from the squad who traveled to Burton and Sheffield Wednesday.

This whole situation has put a dampener on moods around Teesside as with Adomah's pace, power and skill it was assumed that he would be key to our promotion push. But it is doubtful if he will ever play for us again and with one a day to find a fitting replacement, and Nottingham Forrest wanting in excess of £7 million for likely replacement Michail Antonio things are looking a little worrying, with only wingers at the club being the inexperienced Adam Reach and hit and miss Wildschut.

On behalf of all the Boro fans i'd just like to ask AK and AA to kiss and make up. We love you both to pieces and for the sake of everyone around Middlesbrough we want to see Albert Adomah on the team sheet for the next game (vs MK Dons) on September 12th.

What curse?

Congratulations to our two winners, AK and Tomlin, who won manager and player of the month. But even more so congratulations to the whole team on the victory on Saturday.

It was a worry that, with only one loss in the previous 8 and Charlton's recent form of not winning since November 10th - and with the awards - that 'typical boro' ways would creep back into our way of playing and that we would lose against the "easier opponents", with no disrespect meant to Charlton. We had done so against Blackpool earlier in the season, letting the lead slip in the game which, if we'd won, would see us sitting 2 points clear at the top.

But to quote Muzzy Carayol (along with nearly every other person) 'Everything happens for a reason' and we may not have kicked on since then to only lose 2 games in all competitions since that clash on the 30th of September.

And the start of the game gave no implication that we would slip up, as Bamford nodded in from a Leadbitter corner in the 5th minute. Karanka fielded the same team as faced Brentford the week before, presumably to show everyone that they didn't fluke the win against the Bees and to put in a good performance.

The rest of the first half, from the 10th minute or so onwards, was poor. Misplaced passes galore and little to no attacking threat. Charlton's goal was no shock, therefore, as even given their poor form of late, this kind of performance would've been punished by a Blackpool or Leeds. (Sorry, cheap shot.)

But as the half time whistle went, Gudmundsson's effort was what we took from the first half. No team had dominated, and that was reflected in the scoreline.

It seems to be a feature of my thinking lately that 'Karanka must be giving these  guys a kick up the backside for that performance.' It shows, however, because the performances in the first half against Huddersfield and Cardiff in particular have been poor.

The team was out to prove a point in the second half, and scored within 3 minutes of the restart, as the rejuvenated Tomlin (a point i'll come back to later) saw he shot fall back to him and he squared the ball for Vossen who could do nothing but score from two yards out. Unlike the Seattle Seahawks. (Sorry, cheap shots are becoming a common feature... I need to stop.)

Vossen did  have chances to increase his goal scoring tally for the season, but the 'keeping of Dmitrovic kept it at 6 in total for the Belgian.

Charlton's threat was limited, as they seemed to lack creativity and a 3rd was added not long from time, when a routine straight from the training ground was dispatched, as Tomlin volleyed in from the edge of the box, as Leadbitter found him open and with time.

Now, I remember saying before that I wasn't the biggest fan on Tomlin. He's made me take that back, however, with a great recent run of form. He played well against Liverpool earlier in the season, but didn't carry that on into the league. But, it looks as if Karanka said to the team in those two games prior to Man City that places were up for grabs and Tomlin took that chance by the throat, scoring 3 goals in a week, earning him a start and nearly earning him THAT goal.

Lets have another look shall we?



His goals and performances have bolstered his confidence shown, not only in his play, but in his twitter antics. Lets have a look at that again shall we?

My washing machine was making loads of noise I opened it and kompany crawled out I must of left him in my pocket 😂😂😂 #banter
— Lee Tomlin (@Leetomlin10) February 2, 2015

Man City fans yes I'm aware he's won the prem but when chelsea win it this season you will support them 😂 #banter
— Lee Tomlin (@Leetomlin10) February 3, 2015

But this kind of  '#banter' will only go so far and having handled egos like CR7s I'm sure Karanka will keep him in check and make sure he is fully focused on the games that remain. Especially for the game against Blackpool.

This is a game sent from the gods... on paper. Bournemouth and Derby face off on the same day, and, should that be a draw, we would have the chance to go top of the table by a point with a win. And we couldn't have asked for an easier game ON PAPER.  Blackpool are bottom of the table and have scored only 3 more goals than we have conceded all season.

It would be so like the Boro of old to disappoint when we are on the edge of greatness... *Cough* Eindhoven 2006 *Cough*
Karanka has given us no reason to doubt his ability so far so why should we? Now I've definitely said that before, One thing I will hopefully be saying soon, is that we are top of the league.

Who would have thought it?!

What a day! What a win! 2-0 versus the champions of England would be a headline in itself, but from a team in the tier below is very impressive, to say the least, from our lads. Only the ex-boro brigade down at Bradford stole our thunder (where Halliday and Yeates score, Davies plays and Stockton-lad Phil Parkinson manages.)

The day began and we were more hopeful than expectant. Upon hearing the news that the Manchester City lads had only been in the country a matter of hours, the players must have smelt blood. The only thing I smelt, however, was a strange burning as we passed over the Pennines in my Dad's Mazda 2.

Thankfully, it must've been some crazy farmer on a hill somewhere as the smell wasn't coming from inside the car. We arrived in the private car park, adorned with Manchester City badges, so us 'Boro-simpletons' didn't get confused, and gave the nice man in the luminescent jacket £7 for the troubles of letting us park in this strange piece of land behind some silver iron buildings. As we pulled up, McDonald's in hands, we were thankful to see, not only Boro fans, but other cars. The car park we went into before was deserted and looked 'dodgy as' and was through an assault course of pot holes and round the back of a random building.

On the walk down to the Etihad, however, we thought that the stadium, despite looking like a spider, was a great looking stadium. Some pictures of it can be seen on the twitter page for this blog - https://twitter.com/onestevegibson/media
There were also numerous novelty scarf salesmen. Although they seemed good from a Boro fan's perspective, you had to question how many that Man City Fans would buy. If they were £5 to sell, you'd imagine that they weren't that expensive to make, due to the sheer number of them about.

There was refurbishments around the ground, but once inside it did look very good, high sides that made it look rather intimidating. It looked quite different to how it does on Match Of The Day.

Multiple groans came out from those in the crowd as we discovered the man keeping goal for us would be Tomas Mejias, the man who conceded 3 to Sheffield Wednesday, a team that lost 7-0 and 2-1 to Manchester City earlier in the season. It was also no surprise to see Lee Tomlin in the team, as he had scored 3 in the previous 2 games. Adomah started over Adam Reach, presumably Karanka opted in favour of the more experienced head of Albert. These were the only real surprises in a team that also saw Kike dropped to the bench and Dean Whitehead start in right-back, as Kalas' injury he picked up against Cardiff hadn't healed in time.

The team was a very strong one, especially for one that had played just 4 days previously. And as the game kicked off, the 6 players (Dimi, Friend, Ayala, Gibson, Clayton and Leadbitter) whom had played nye on every game since the turn of the year, were called on from the off. They saw a lot of action in a first half dominated by the hosts (let us not forget Deano, also, who played very well in the game.)

Now, contrary to what has been said by ALL media outlets (except Jermaine Jenas maybe), even tough Manchester City troubled our defense with shots, Milner's was the only real chance where they got a clear sight of goal. Boyata lashed wide with 3 bodies in front of him and Silva refused to head the ball. Milner's shot was dealt with very well by Mejias who pushed the ball around the post. for a corner. Also, in the first half, Ayala was claimed to have handled the ball in the box. And I have to say that this is rubbish. You can clearly see Ayala's hand is about 6 inches from his hip and only moves as the ball is coming towards him, in an attempt to get it out of the way. So Mr Fowler, it , therefore, wasn't a penalty.

The only real attack of note from a Boro point of view, in a half plagued by misplaced passes and unsuccessful dribbles, was when Tomlin put the ball in the back of the net from 10 yards, after Bamford had already been called offside. Whilst it counted for nothing, it showed to the team that they could break down City's backline.

AK must've had a word with his players as they came out in the second half and tried to run at City and tried to close them down, where as we had been sitting back in the first half. I enjoyed the second half a lot more, not least because of the fact that I could actually see there attacks, where as the crossbar had obscured my view before.

We attacked with a lot more intensity and after a worrying Man City corner that amounted to nothing, a bouncing ball in the midfield was misjudged by Fernando and Bamford, and Kompany's backward header was nodded on by Bamford to Vossen, who inturn poked the ball through to Adomah. Fernando managed to stab the ball back towards Caballero. The Argentine, however, was slow off his line and Adomah kicked the ball into Caballero, the ball then rolled agonisingly goal-wards and we thought Fernando was going to get it clear. But Bamford had other ideas, as he ran in the way of Fernando's clearance and the ball hit off the diving loanee's leg, and into the back of the net.

Delirium ensued for us, the travelling faithful as 10,800 arms were either held aloft of shaken wildly or used pick up others. It was a great moment that will live long in the memories of all that were there. Moments later, we thought it would happen again, as more inadequate 'keeping from "Willy" lead to a chance for Lee Tomlin, who, after skilling past 3 blue shirts fired against the goalkeeper. The rebound fell to the one man we would have hoped and prayed for it to fall to. Grant 'Thunderb*****d' Leadbitter. He wound up the shot, and as all the Teesside faithful waited for it to hit the net, the falling leg of Fernando stopped his glory.

This great chance was only topped by that of  Lee Tomlin. As the pass came to his fee, with his back to goal, he turned 180 degrees with the ball at his foot and hit a shot with the outside of his right foot off the inside of he post and the ball tickled wide of the other post.

For those who are yet to see the Tomlin Turn™ https://t.co/c0n10wSQ6k
— Kay Murray (@KayLMurray) January 24, 2015

Such great chances went begging, such as Adomah's attempted chip and Vossen's volley at Caballero, that we could have been 7-0 up, if we had taken the chances. You don't hear that reported! No, only the 4 Man City missed.

Man City's only real chance of the half came when Lampard's 20 yard effort hit he upright courtesy of Adam Clayton's outstretched leg.

We dominated the game, and we finally put the game to bed in the 92nd minute, and after Bamford was fouled whilst running through on goal, the ball fell to Kike, who had failed to score against teams like Reading, Wigan and Cardiff, who rolled the ball past the city 'keeper and put Boro 2-0 up vs the champions. Kike's celebrations are endearing him to us Boro fans, he ran into the crowd and celebrated after scoring his goal. Much like his 'thumbs up' celebration after scoring against Bolton.

It was an amazing game, and amazing day. And, now, we will hopefully have another and with the same outcome because we have drawn Arsenal in the 5th round.

As ever, though, Karanka remains focused on the next game, as Derby have the chance to go ahead of us today (27th) so Brentford is a game that, if we win, means we can go top (again.)

Up the Boro.

"Boro go down with the decorations"

I heard the quote for this post from BBC Tees' own Ali Brownlee, and I'm quite disappointed that it looks like I won't getting to use that.

To be fair I would rather us be winning games. The two most recent games have been examples of games which are showing a side of a team we haven't seen for a long time. A team who can grind out a win.

Reading was a perfect chance to do that. The Royal's sat in 19th place when we faced them at the Madejski. It wasn't an interesting 0-0, which was why I didn't do a report on it!

(That was a joke, I have had mock exams so have only been posting tweets.)

But chances like the one that fell to Adomah, which he headed at Federici in the Reading net, epitomises what I'm trying to say and we didn't grind out that  win. Chances fell to Bamford and Kike in that game, but none were converted.

And a week later, against Huddersfield the same feeling was there. It was the first game at the Riverside since Boxing Day and the players would have been eager to impress, especially with the good performances towards the end of last calendar year.

But the first half was rather lackluster with guilt-edge chances falling to people like Bamford, who headed wide from 6 yards with a vast majority of the goal to aim for.

As we headed into the second, the same could be applied, with Kike scuffing a left footed shot from inside the box. I know at the moment there is quite a lot of hostility towards Kike from some fans, and a few of them sat close to me. I get what people say, that 'if you pay free n'alf million for the lad he should be able to put a ball in the back of the net.' Firstly, it was £2.7 million (3.5 million euros) and he hasn't hit the ground running, per say with 6 goals in 26 games. But he has almost become a victim of his own success. A goal on his debut has lead many fans to say that he should be dropped. If we remember, Jelle Vossen didn't score in his first 13 games or so. We should, therefore, not slate him as he is 25 and only just arrived in the country.

If you look at those 'up there' with us,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/championship/table
Bournemouth have Wilson, who has done well coming up from League 1, but they still have Pitman and Kermogant who are scoring for them, and they all, literally, speak the same language, not like Kike who's had to learn another language and maybe hasn't fully settled yet. Derby and Ipswich have has their strikers (Martin, McGoldrick and Murphy) for more than one season. And, again, they all speak English.

You can see that Kike's problems are all to do with his confidence. You could see in the Cardiff game how desperate he was to keep hold of the ball after chesting it down, as he was afraid of boos and heckles. So, keep singing his name. Just not so often or it might seem facetious, like we are mocking him.

But anyway, back to the Huddersfield game, and it took until the 61st minute for Boro to score their first league goal since Leadbitter's penalty sealed the 3-0 win over Forest. Tomlin had fired a well struck shot over the bar a few moments earlier, and Huddersfield should have learned their lesson as he strode forward again and lashed the ball into Alex Smithies' net.

I remember recalling that these were the first shots in the game that had been hit with any venom, we had been over-passing and this looked to be an instruction from AK, to actually try shooting.

Credit Huddersfield, however, as they looked good on the attack with the pace of Wells, who would strike the woodwork in the closing stages of the game. Ex-Boro man Jacob Butterfield's ferocious strike caused Dimi to produce a great save, which nearly forced him off injured.

He played on, and saw his opposite number come up for a corner in the 90th minute. Smithies was unmarked in the box, but the corner couldn't find him and Boro got it clear for another corner. Huddersfield, bewilderingly, decided to take this corner shot. They presumably wanted a better angle on the cross, but instead gave Tomlin a very good angle to score in an open net, as Leadbitter intercepted the corner and Tomlin ran forward.

Some said that 'Tomlin didn't see the 'keeper off his line.' I refuse. He can't not have seen the 'keeper run up for the corner. He just didn't want to lash it from the halfway line and miss an open goal.

This was a game that I felt we hadn't taken our chances in the first hour, and one that we may have drawn, or even lost.

The same feeling present in the Cardiff game, although it was a lot more cold.

More missed from Kike brought many to their feet, as did a strange decision to award a throw in to Cardiff, when Bamford had played the ball ,quite clearly, off Cardiff's fullback, Brayford. The linesman was obviously aware of his error as he gave another decision the wrong way, but in Boro's favour when it should've been a Cardiff throw in. Leadbitter had some choice words for the linesman, whether they were congratulatory, or derogatory I don't know.

Headed opportunities came the way of Ayala and Friend, but none were taken. Even when Ayala went for the spectacular shoulder, after misjudging one.

This result, however, didn't look as in the balance as Huddersfield did. Cardiff just lumped the ball up to Alex Revell and then his replacement Jones and it seemed a matter of time before Boro would score.

And it was. The lively Reach, who looked fresh after not playing the weekends game against Huddersfield, provided a low cross for Bamford. He looked to have squirmed his chance as he hit it into the arms of the sliding midfielder, Peter Whittingham, but he buried the second chance.

Tomlin doubled the scoreline on 80 minutes and has really pushed for a place against Manchester City on Saturday, with his 3rd goal in as many days.

The Cardiff attacks didn't look to cause much bother in the Boro back line, who were gunning for a 6th consecutive clean sheet, with Gunnarsson firing over. A defensive lapse from newly introduced Albert Adomah, however, gifted youngster Joe Ralls with the ball, which he whipped into Jones' head and he dispatched, with Gibson and Friend struggling to compete with him.

Even though Gibbo said it 'felt like a loss' because the defense had conceded for the first time in over 650 minutes, it was a victory. One that sent us into 2nd place, just one point from Bournemouth who had lost at Leeds, surprisingly.

Leeds' favour was quickly followed up 24 hours later by Brighton who beat Ipswich, who are now behind us on goal difference. Derby can still go top when they play Blackburn. Now we have to hope that Steeley can show his true Boro roots by keeping a clean sheet. (OR Eastwood plays yet another blinder.) And also Brighton don't cash in that favour on the last day of the season, when we play them at the Riverside.

Attentions can now turn to Man City on Saturday. The optimists will be hoping for another 8-1, and the pessimists will be thinking they will avenge it, by hammering us. I just hope that none of them have tickets, because although I have said some rather pessimistic things, you can't go there thinking that we will get knocked out. Look at Sheffield Wednesday, they pushed Manchester City to bring on Silva and Nasri before they could seal out the game. And, even though they beat us, I'd like to think we were better than Sheffield Wednesday.

And if we perform like we did against Liverpool, but may be tighter at the back, with Dimi in goal and may be the experienced head of Woody marshaling the back 4, we might be able to cause an upset!

Oh one final thing, I have just said that Woody might come into the back four with him being on the bench for the match against Cardiff, but I'd expect the back 7 to be unchanged (that being Dimi, Kalas, Ayala, Gibson, Friend, Clayton, Leadbitter) with maybe a return for Vossen and Adomah, to add a bit of pace to the team, as if Demichelis is playing centre back, I feel we can 'get at them'

So, as we march on City's city, I'll say again; up the Boro; in Aitor we trust and, of course, there is only one Steve Gibson.