[Archived] Rovers 0 V 4 Middlesbrough review

[jim mk2]

As a post-script, Saturday reminded me of the abject 4-0 thrashing Rovers received at the hands of Birmingham City at St Andrews in the FA Cup last season.

Rovers did not look intersted that day and they showed the same lack of enthusiasm for the cause against Boro. What does it take to motivate lazy, multi-millonaire so-called professional footballers?

[krislu]

I've just seen the goals on Match of The Day 2. Beforehand I'd held out the hope that our defending wasn't as bad as some had made out, how wrong I was.

Was thinking the excat same thing myself. I have never seen such poor defending in my whole life! No question Amoruso have to go, he might well be the worst defender in the Premier League.

What we lack in defence is someone who can take charge and really command those silly clowns back there. Berg, even though he was not the most skillfull player, he was brilliant at organizing the defence, and ATM we have no-one back there who can do the same.

In januray we should buy a defender with some real presence, a player that will shout and command the clowns for 90minutes. I dont care if he is 20 or 35, just find him, and find him fast!

[Nuclearsox]

Saturday wasn’t good was it? At times like this it’s important to concentrate on the plus points:

1. For five minutes I though we were excellent - crisp passing in triangles, instant control, a decent number of shots on target and even some showboating. Fantastic stuff. Then Mr. Riley started the game and it all began to go pear-shaped.

2. The line-up for the pre-match handshakes was immaculate.

3. Tugay cannot be selected for the next match.

4. We’ve finally stopped conceding soft goals from set pieces. Fair play to Sparky for that. Although I’m not sure the tactic of allowing the opposition to run at goal unchallenged is a sound one. Time will tell.

5. The bloke behind me has stopped mis-pronouncing players names. In fact he’s stopped using names altogether and has opted instead for a raucous “Oooooooooooh Noooooooooo!! Eh?” in the broadest east lancs accent you’ve ever heard.

6. The Blackburn End have a great new song which I can see being used for months to come (until they have all been ejected).

7. We provided Gary Lineker with excellent joke material (Tugay = Two guys!! Nice one Gary).

8. It can’t get any worse than this. ….Can it?

[Hughesy]

Wes Brown and Gabbidon for our new look defence please.

[waggy]

most people seem to forget we had ten men for a hour on saturday,we were cut to peices in the 2nd half due to this.this match is better forgotten but the yearning lesson from it is that the whole defence needs replaceing.

the 1st goal gray was not turned inside out once but twice by jfh,the 2nd ammo gave the ball away and then watched as that prolific scorer boatang scored,the 3rd niell did actually try and cover jfh whilst the men who should be doing the job marked thin air.by the time the 4th went in i was watching the crowd leave in droves

[Ricky]

Henchoz would do for me Hughesy, he's available on a free.

[krislu]

Wes Brown and Gabbidon for our new look defence please.

Would any of those command and organize our defence? Having said that, I would gladly take any defender over what we got atm...

Sign Keown or Desailly

Edited October 18, 2004 by krislu

[Nayef]

Assuming Hasselbaink doesn't have murder in his eyes...

[Nayef]

Boro have got one point from the last possible nine and they have only scored one goal in five hours and 12 minutes of Premiership football.

aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I hate stats like that, especially when Rovers are involved.

Looks like a shed full of goals and max points for Borough.

Alan.....Believe.

[G Somerset Rover]

I think that Desailly would have been an ideal choice, but has he not gone to ply his trade in Quatar now? After seeing the goals again it simply makes me laugh. Gray looks like he's doing his best Micheal Jackson twirl impersonation-and as others have pointed out, why is he marking JFH on the right hand side of the area? Boy he must have alot of faith in Laurell and Hardy aka amo/matteo. And as for the other goals, such as Amo's Zidane like pass to the Boro player, it was nothing short of a joke. I agree with most people on here in that Dickov cannot play up front alone anymore. He's falling very short in the class department. Why not try something like Gally/Bothroyd, or Jansen/Stead. Anything other than what weve been playing. But wouldn't it be so Rover like for us to get a result at Chelsea now....We can hope.

[Cocker]

I think that Desailly would have been an ideal choice

Just what we need, another old/slow defender

[joey_big_nose]

Just for my tuppeny worth.....

I agree that we need to make ourselves hard to beat but the fact of the matter is we lack any players to really do this with. All are central defensive pairings appear awful, we have no dogged tackler in the middle of the park and our full backs are vulnerable to decent wingers. I cannot see how sitting deep is going to help us as we have no one with the pace to hit a team on the break.

Goddammit, we have a team that is certainly technically proficent, we just lack the abilty to score and prevent conceding, so we might as well pass it a bit.

A quite possible team to shake things up would be:

                    Friedel

      Niell  Short    Todd    Gray

Emerton  Flitcroft  Ferguson Djorkaeff

               

                Stead Gallagher

Flitcroft should sit resolutely within fifteen yards of the central defence and just soak things up as best he can (which is pretty awfully). Gallagher has to get a game.

Bloody hell........ are we going down?

[roversfan1]

How about :

Friedel

Matteo Short Amo

Neil Fergusson Todd Flitcroft Gamst Ped

Gally Stead

At least this way we have bodies in the middle of the park to make passig difficult and the defence is that bad I dont think we can rely on just two of them to stop chelsea when they come forward. Up front we would have two lads who are young and would work hard and Todd would provide an anchor in the lightweight midfield.

Just an idea...

[Jan]

Are we assuming that Thommos is still injured/injured again? If not, we should try him. He can't be much worse than what's been on view so far! Question is, which position would we play him in (HINT,HINT NOT LEFT WING MR HUGHES) other than that, anywhere in midfield would do.

[American]

Rovers did not look intersted that day and they showed the same lack of enthusiasm for the cause against Boro. What does it take to motivate lazy, multi-millonaire so-called professional footballers?

Same for the Leicester City match last season and the Villa match the season before.

Part of the problem is that most of the players with something to prove (Bothroyd, MGP/DePedro, Todd, Gallagher) aren't on the pitch.

[chris]

True we rarely got thrashed under Souness - just beaten, week in, week out. He purchased crap players and left us to reap the whirlwind. The sooner Hughes can clear the whole lot out the better. These so called professional players are responsible for the club's predicament.

what makes you think that he can, Hughes has a record of about 1 win in the last 2 years and he has no experience in the PL, particularly in a very demandig relegation battle, I am sightly worried he does not know what to do

[roversfan1]

I honestly dont think he knew just how bad the sqaud that he inherited was before he took the job - if he did he would probably have stayed at Wales or waited for a better offer !!

I hope that the board support him with money in January and that he is able to improve the sqaud (though where to start ... ?) We shouldnt be worried that he doesnt know what a relegation fight is just yet as neither do alot of managers who find themselves in there. Last year Dowie, Megson and Worthington were all winners and top of the first division tree and this (Megson aside) will be a new experience for them as well. The same can be said for Wigley at Southampton.

It is man managment and coaching ability that matter not nesseccarily experience (Coleman for example) and I think that in Hughes we have someone who will prove he has both of these qaulities.

That said this will be a tough season and if last weekends defending continues as well as our inability to score goals it may well be all over bar the shouting by Xmas

[Paul]

. The sooner Hughes can clear the whole lot out the better. .

How can he clear out Souness's dross with little money to spend and the transfer window closed for ten weeks (by which time it might be too late anyway)?

Or do we have to accept relegation as inevitable in order to rebuild and start again?

From a footballing perspective that could be the best solution but goodness only knows what it would do to the rest of the club.

[Laurence]

I think you're right rf1 he will turn out to be ok, but we have to make it to Christmas in one piece.

We've got to treat the next 2 months like the last 2 months of the season and start fighting our relegation battle now. We need to get Short and Todd fit and playing together (or Short & Matteo + Todd as a defensive MF) Amo can be packed off to the glue factory for good (Jay would be a better bet any day of the week) and start making ourselves hard to beat. This is the core of the problem, the team is sh*t scared to commit themselves forwards because we're so leaky at the back, as soon as we conced a goal the whole side's confidence evaporates and the back four just loose it completely.

Johnny Stead can play a few weeks in the reserves (or just a few sub appearances) so's he can remember where the goal is, Bothryod and Gallagher deserve a chance and FFS lets get MGP on the bloody wing!

sorry about the rant, saturday still smarts.

[Tango]

Finally, how many will Boro win by on Saturday?

a very close 0-4 win for boro (only joking 0-1 to boro)

3, A hat-trick from George Boateng. You heard it here first.

I think we should get these two predicting every week...

[CAPT KAYOS]

Well (here's my 70 mins worth) and what can only be said as what aload of rubbish

I was another who for the first time ever left the game early on Saturday - not so much in anger but more out of disgust and the likelihood if I had stayed my being arrested may have been forthcoming ( more on this later).

Anyway, cannot disagree those saying we where the better team up to the sending off but can with what some people say about after this.

Regardless of whether we where down to ten men this game was there for the taking - which is what we should have done instead of crumbling away in the fashion that we did.

Arrived at the game feeling very confident of a win - or how I chuckled and had a joke with a mate that we had nothing to fear about JFH as every time he had played at Ewood previously he couldn't hit a cows arse with a bandstand never mind a banjo and was sure he'd never scored here before; but in good old tradition carried on to say that just watch him score a hat trick or something now (odds - oh how I wished afterwards)

Game started well for us, good football with a bit of other entertainment thrown in by the way of ice-skating , or at least that's what I thought the way our players kept falling over ( why is it always ours -not as if they don't have time to get their boots right ffs!) but yet again no convinction in getting into the box.

Then what do we get - Tugay thinking he is playing volleyball and Riley seeing a goalscoring chance going begging for Boro that he must book him - (WELL DONE RILEY)….. Then only something that can be described as a good bit of JENGA by Boro. Talk about crumble - even my Grandma could never have conjured up a better Rhubarb one when she was alive.

Whether Tugay can be blamed or not I don't know, but what cannot be accepted is the way we fell apart - there was no organisation, understanding or fight ( not on the pitch at least) and the highlight was actually being in the BB End ( best (bad) atmosphere for ages) and having a tanned Terry Hurlock lookalike providing the entertainment (disappeared and reappeared miraculously without anybody seeing him) to rows 27- 30 seats 47 - 60 of the BB End lower and abusing Bobf ( or we thought he was with what he screamed anyway).

I personally feel Hughes has to take some of the blame as well, due to the fact that he chose to put Emerton on the left (Why?) and start with the 'sicknote' Reid (who Souness played basically to play on the left??). Regardless however, under the circumstance I thout Reid did ok considering and from the 70mins I saw was our best player which isn't saying much. Forget all this nonsense about playing 1 up front as we can't even do it with 2 - so how the feck do people think we will score. What we need is some structure and consistency and with the set of rice paper defenders we have at the moment, there is isn't a cat in hell's chance of us doing this.

Anyway, coming back to the leaving early (my resentment at the stewards etc is becoming more although I understand they have a job to do) I decided to take the opportunity to go and confront the orange coaters down at the front as to what had happened and what was going on - alas I didn't get there as an unfortunate Policeman in my tracks and susequently it was he who got my rant in his face (all be it in a distinguished manner anyway) the gist being that our club is in a mess and is falling apart, to which he agreed and from all accounts he had had it all numerous times over the last 1/2 hour from the hoardes that where leaving early. To put it short as there is another thread for this but matters are in hand with what happened in the boxes and the situation of standing up (From what I saw as well I am sure the Rovers fan arrested in the ground early doors was a member of this MB )

What is it with Rovers - we are totally useless when we are down to ten men - yet always struggle when playing the opposition with ten men.

Totally disappointed and saddened by what is happening to our great club

CK

[speeeeeeedie]

I said that we should give Souness 10 games during the summer before action needs tobe taken, he went and we are 9 games in, in exactly the same place with Hughes we would have been with Souness - looking back at his few games. We are a bad side right now, no confidence and a shoddy back line, something I've been harping on about for years. In 5 years Souness neglected the back four, now we are paying for it.

It would be a different story for Hughes if we didn't have the transfer window, he could ship out now and bring in replacements. An unfortunate part of this is that due to the nature of our club we have to intice players with higher wages, making it difficult for us to offload them if they are not up to it as other teams won't want to fork out and our players are reluctant to leave because of the windfall they are getting.

I thought we would come back after the international break fitter and better but due to a sending off we were denied that. Sometimes at premier league level 10 men makes a massive difference, Boro proved that. When you go down to 10 the idea is to get men behind the ball and play on the break, it makes the defence work that much harder and our inefficiencies were highlighted by this display.

I don't think we should write off the season based on a heavy loss with 10 men. We are not a good side, but we will not go down. We will be again scrapping for 13th to 17th spot.

[luxor]

Jim and Phil.

The one thing that has happened under Hughes is that the lethargy that had set in under Souness has evaporated - the players were trying hard.

Joey big nose sums it up well. Defence looks wobbly, attack looks indadequate.

Sadly we have missed out on so many quality players over the last 5 years. Pedestrian through and through. And before Tris et al cite cost, consider big Sam. It's about imagination, coaching ability and being astute - all clearly not in the GS lexicon of 70s machismo.

And while Hughes was the fans' choice, the more imaginative one would have been Dowie or Moyes given the circumstances. Still, let's hope Hughes is a fast learner.

So, dire straits and we can't say we haven't been warned. Could it be 3rd time unlucky? To end on an optimistic note, we could scrape by again. Replace the 2 central clowns (Short/Todd/Nissa followed by Jan signing). I still don't understand why Gresko/Gray can't be tried on the left. McEverley/Gray perhaps although I realise Jay is more of a CB.

Upfront, is not easy - too many so-so players. Gallagher I would venture will be a better player than Stead. Time for some management creativity for a change - loan deals etc. It's not always a question of big money.

[John]

Was Amo taken off because he was injured?

Paper reports say he stormed down the tunnel after being subbed- if correct unlikely he will start the next game on that alone.

[Brownie]

Which other club would put their current most in form player on the opposite wing to which he normally plays thus nullifying his threat to accomodate a player who can at best be described as non match fit and as having a slow start ot his Ewood career.

It's like United switching Giggs to the right wing to squeeze in Quinton Fortune.

Morten Gamst Pederson has also had a slow start but having scored for Rovers and Norway recently would surely have been a better bet, particularly in his preferred position.

Also where has Flitcroft gone ? I presume with Tugay suspended for Chelsea he will come straight back in to start ?