BCFC Rich

Is there a reason not to include youth players as subs to make up the bench? Even if only for the matchday experience. Not a dig, I know NP was doing the same - I just don't see a reason not to do that. But I suspect there are good reasons that I have not considered.

I agree, I think the only potential way of saving it is to give teams a single challenge if they feel a decision is wrong. Something a little more like tennis - If you challenge and are successful keep the challenge if you are wrong you lose it. It would make sure the game is so stop-start. It hasn't removed mistakes anyway, so just except their will be imperfect decisions and that this is part of the game.

Agreed. Even more annoyingly if he had dropped to floor and rolled around clutching his face I bet it would have been a red. It just encourages the ridiculous over reactions you get sometimes.

I'm not saying the questions I want or you want would get asked. But you would be able to see how many fans wanted each question. It's transparent and good for the fans and the club. Difficult to argue/complain someone should have challenged JL on his comments if no other fans voted for your question about it. Equally difficult to complain about a question praising the Lansdowns for the matchday experience if you can see thousands of fans voted for it. It's a fair way of doing it, and a transparent way of doing it.

We should do it like lots of companies do for shareholders Q & A's now - Fans sign up and post questions, if you like their question and think it should be asked you upvote it and the most popular questions get asked. Obviously, there are some challenges to make sure that the system doesn't get abused, but it would mean the questions most fans want answered do get answered.

I think Bell is underrated, he's very disciplined and drops in + covers run to cut off options for the opposition. In my opinion, his lack of effect recently actually has more to do with Pring (by the standards he was setting last season) being off-form. All the defenders need to do is show him the outside and even if he beats his man for pace his left-foot crossing is not the best. If Pring can get up on the overlap more Bell is more likely to be able to cut inside or just use Pring.

Get a room!!

Always love a reflective post! I've had to do a few of these in my time ! Would be good if the most vocal poster on - "Everything good is down to NP work and LM can do nothing right." And "Thank god NP is gone we look so much better" - could take a leaf out of your book.

I think it was basically keeping possession over playing a percentage ball over the top and waiting for a good opportunity. We had more movement than against QPR, but still not enough - if we play with the kind of possession we had 1st half and improve the movement and passing options I think we'll do well. 2nd half we were sleeping 1st 10/15. OG didn't help and the atmosphere was flat when it could really have helped + lifted the players. But once we were back in front we defended well, went a little more direct (to me a bit more like we were under NP), and looked comfortable.

You may be right. I just can't remember the last time we won a game and there weren't multiple threads immediately after the game. "Thought player X deserved his own thread" etc. It just feels a bit muted to me.

Yeah, just different styles. I really enjoyed NP's press conferences and even found them entertaining at times, but it is hardly the most needed trait for a manager. LM talks sense and these comments reflect the game. As longing as his coaching is good, players believe in him and we get results I couldn't careless if his interviews are dull.

It's a strange phase for the club. Normally win, lose, or draw there would be multiple threads about who was MOM, who was to blame, what tactics we got wrong etc. But right now it's just a little flat. I think that was reflected in the atmosphere for long periods of the game today, even when winning. I think it's a general feeling of sourness at how NP left. Fans who didn't want that are not wanting to be too enthusiastic about a really good win. Fans who wanted the change are not wanting to be shouted down. Ultimately we should be singing the praises, Dickie was fantastic again, and apart from a crazy 10/15 in the second half, we are defensively really strong. That's something NP gave us. I love that 1st half we controlled possession and took our chances. I love that second half we did what so many clubs do to us - challenged Boro to break us down! And we stood strong and looked dangerous on the break. I also love that conceding corners is no longer a huge stress, we are so solid at defending set pieces. There are good signs of some of LM's influence and more importantly signs that we can build on what NP put in place.

A deserved win overall. I get what people are saying about the football, It wasn't entertaining, but we controlled possession first half and took our chance well + they could (maybe should) have been down to 10 men too. Awful first 10/15mins in the second half, but then we settled back in and defended really well. In short, I thought we were good, not that exciting, but solid except that 10/15 min phase. Some people said we were nervous defensively after that - but I don't think we were, we were pretty organised and solid, particularly on crosses and corners. Don't get me wrong I was nervous watching, but that's different from the players being nervous.

Agreed, glimpses of what we want to see from him and of confidence coming back. I have to say there were a couple of times I was shouting at him to stay in the corner!! But as it all worked out anyway - I'm glad he took the players on as it should hopefully help him find some form, although if we had conceded last minute I would have been annoyed that he hadn't shown better game management.

Summary of the game from comments on Boro forum. Gotta get more possesion. Bristol having too much possession for my liking. Not threatening hugely but we're letting them dictate the game. Holy *** that was some strike! Just a shame it was Bristol. It was coming though - we were letting them control the game too much. I know the defending is poor and is probably related but we have to concede the highest % of worldies right? I swear every team just bangs in worldies Vs us ever week almost. could easily have beena red card that. So clumsy Fry a very luck boy there! Pen to Bristol its falling apart Bang average BC team are battering up. FFS Fry. absolutely awful couple of mins from him. Madness Bummer. 2-0 Clumsy Fry! What was he thinking? Decent penalty - Dieng needed to guess right to stop that. Shambolic from Jones initially. Repeatedly poor from Fry. Thrown it away. Suppose we also need to bear i mind Bristol are benefitting from a new manager bounce...but even so we have been way below par and honestly IMO the scoreline doesn't flatter City at all. No changes, unbelievable from Carrick unless we witness a complete turnaround. I get the whole all our defenders are *** cos we conceded thing but didn't we just keep 5 clean sheets in our past 7 league games? Hahaha what an og Hahahahahahahahahaha Wtf was that?!?! YES! Exactly the start Boro needed! We're a second half team... Was that Crooks with the shot off the bar? Then Owen Goal comes to Boro's aid with a hilarious defensive header that loops gently over their keeper. 2-2 croooksy! What a come back! Great stuff from crooks for both goals. Guess we woke up Now what a disappointment this will be if we do not go on and win this blooming game or lose it. Never have we been in a better position to win a game Getting sloppy again we are not taking it to them or causing problems Carrick needs to make changes Bloody hell! Another set piece not defended. Unbelievable. We made no effort to take the lead after equalising and have paid the penalty Bristol City really are a poor side. If we lose this game we cannot have any complaints. Our attitude since equalising has been criminal what a time to take it to BC and yet zip all! Oh well... Onwards and upwards. Utb Well, we can't complain about the result. Boro haven't deserved to get anything from this. Also, if not for Dieng the scoreline could have looked a lot worse. Boro were far too casual first half. Looking for all the world like England under Southgate in "game management mode". Defensively awful - no complaints about going 2-0 down. 10 or 15 minutes of hope in the second half as Boro got themselves back into the game, but we quickly went flat again after that and failed to exert any meaningful pressure or control on the game. We failed to cut out Bristol's attacks and paid the price by conceding a third. Most annoyingly Boro didn't really try to apply any serious pressure until the last 5-10 minutes, but even then our play was sloppy and disjointed.

Pretty selfish Nick! Seems like you're putting your own happiness and enjyemnt over ours!

Ridiculous suggestion, Everyone knows Weiman just runs a round a lot! League 1 at best.

Saw he was 33/1 for the ROI job! Obviously can't see that happening, but would be interesting if it did.

TC is smiling at training!! What does this mean? Has LM won him over? Has he been threatened? Has he been replaced by a TC robot? Seriously though, I think it shows we've had so little to go on for the LM reign and emotions were so high after NP went that we all we're reading a lot into the tiny bits of info we had. Looking forward to things settling down a little and hopefully some of LM's style/philosophy showing up on the pitch.

Sorry you are struggling, I can definitely relate. I don't know if it would work for you, But I actually regularly suffered at that point in the year. I found that making myself get up early with the sunrise and jogging or riding really changed everything. It sounds counter-intuitive, but exercise actually becomes energising and is clinically proven to help with motivation and depression. It might be that you already do something like that, but it made a huge difference to me. It took a week or two to get into the swing of it, but I have kept it up ever since and it has had tons of benefits. Either way well done for posting here, glad this thread exists.

Manning talks about exactly this and the article with fans views from MK and Oxford talk about players playing hybrid roles. Will be interesting to see what happens.

A few quotes from an article interviewing fans from MK and Oxford about Manning and Hogg. To say there is nothing in his career to suggest he can be a success is to ignore the fans who saw what he did. No one is saying he is guaranteed to be a success here, but he deserves the chance and it's better to give him that. I know you'll say you want him to succeed, but you're obviously pretty determined to believe he won't. Why not wait a few games and see how things are then?

Something Hogg and Manning have talked about is the flexibility of formation and positions eg - this player is a defensive midfielder and holds that position, if he sees the opportunity though he pushes forward and this other player knows it's his job to drop in and cover etc. I really like to see this with the front three. Let's say it lines up Bell Conway Sykes - we are attacking down the left, Sykes needs to get into the box close to Conway so they form more of a 2-up top. We attack down the right and Bell gets closer to Conway. Obviously it's not that simple and it doesn't always have to be exactly that, There was one bit vs QPR where we attacked down the left and Sykes raced across to be an option at CM that worked really well. I'm hoping we will see these kind of things develop under LM.

I think for me it's pretty hard to get an upgrade on NP for the level we are at, which is why I was so angry with what the board did. However, with the decision to let NP go made, I wanted someone like this to come in. There aren't more established championship managers than the NP out there, that's even more true when it comes to having previously gained promotions. So, fo ,e. we had to go left field/up-and-coming for there to be any chance of it being a successful decision. We couldn't go for a Rowett - for example. LM has shown he can build a side, and from the level of anger Oxford fans had at him leaving you've got to feel he has something. Add to that fans of MK and Oxford saying that he improves players (even older players nearer the end of their careers) and that he can be flexible with what he has available - and I think it's better to try and look at those positives for now. How our board treated NP certainly isn't LM's fault, he is only guilty of wanting to come to our club and being excited about that. I also desperately don't want to see all the work NP did be for nothing, I'd rather NP was here to oversee it, but that obviously can't happen now. So instead I'm being optimistic and hoping for it to be like his time at Leicester and that his foundations lead to success. Or that it's like when Nigel Adkins was sacked at Southampton after back-to-back promotions from L1 - Premier League. That seemed a terrible, unfair, and unjust decision - then they replaced him with the not-so-well-known Mauricio Pochettino.

So you're finally admitting we were a top-end club under NP!