EFL Championship Match 8 - Middlesbrough 2 Southampton 1

Right Lads, Now We're in Front, Let's Do Nothing

A long trip to Teeside and the Riverside Stadium for a game against Michael Carrick‘s bottom of the table Middlesbrough, who have endured an absolute shithouse of a start to the season, having last year finished in the playoffs. A new season brings new problems however, with the players they had on loan last season not returning and maybe, Carrick had a bit of beginners luck last season in his first full-time managerial role.  Regardless of the why’s and wherefores, Middlesbrough are bottom of the league and should therefore be the sort of team that we should certainly be looking to get back on track against having lost our last three games in pretty dismal fashion.

Boro’s points haul this season stands at two and they are closest to us in terms of conceding goals so surely you would expect us to have enough up front to win this one.  Who can tell though with the current form of Saints and the somewhat random team selections of Russell Martin.

As the team news was announced, all I really wanted to see was things that were obvious being put into place, starting with the back four that finished the game against Ipswich. I also of course want to see a completely different midfield, which we certainly have the opportunity to so today, boosted it as we are by the return of Flynn Downes from injury.

And no…. My wish regarding the back four didn’t happen.  Yes, Jan Bednarek came into the side to partner THB but KWP has switched to the left to bring in Mason Holgate on the right. Ryan Manning had dropped to the bench which on the face of it seems like a right collection of strangeness. The midfield seems to contain Shea Charles, Flynn Downes and Will Smallbone. How the fucking hell Smallbone keeps his place is beyond me but he clearly is going to have all the responsibility for creativity today given that neither Stuart Armstrong or Charlie Alcaraz are starting. There’s another change on the wing with Sam Edozie left out to accommodate Adam Armstrong, who of course has to play somewhere, so it’s Arma on one wing and Ryan Fraser on the other. Not convinced by that I have to say and I would guess that this is another lineup that absolutely no one else would’ve picked.

Middlesbrough look understandably edgy at the start of the game and give the ball away in midfield too Smallbone who looks up and sends Adams running thorough and he does exactly the right thing in taking it early from 35 yards before the keeper gets set, but this time he passes it just wide of the post which makes a change I suppose from smacking it straight at the goalkeeper. Really should’ve scored however.

Smallbone’s positive start of the game continues with a good ball out to Adam Armstrong who takes it down well and then forgets that he is very unlikely to bend in the top corner with his left foot and puts it miles over the bar.

So it’s good-ish start and it continues with Downes picking up the ball in midfield on the left-hand side after some decent pressing and playing it forward to Che’s feet and he turns and plays a great ball in between the defenders to pick up Armstrong who is coming off the right hand side and he takes a touch and smacks in the near post.  Get in.  That’s the blueprint… win it, pass it forwards quickly, goal.  That’s the fucking way to do it.

Having shown everyone the way to do it, we then show the way not to fucking do it as KWP sells Charles an absolute pup in the centre of midfield and he gets tackled and away come Boro with Coburn, who knocks forward and finds Jones who slides it across goal and it evades Baz and has just too much on it for the player sliding in at the back post. Somewhat fortunate to get away with that one.

The early ball up to Coburn is suddenly causing us all sorts of problems in defence and another one is dealt with by Harwood-Bellis who gets the ball to Holgate who has not seen the Boro player behind him, who slides in and knocks the ball to McGree about 30 yards out and he takes a touch and smashes it through Bednarek‘s legs which means that Baz sees it late as it fizzes into the corner.  What happened to keeping possession and stifling the game?  Two minutes to half-time and more great game management. Fuck off.

Mason's Loan Spell Is Not Going Well

Half time and Holgate, like Edozie against Leicester is the fall guy and is replaced by Manning.   Saints should obviously be looking to impose themselves on Boro again at the start of the second half but we appear to be overcommitting, especially in the wide areas and when we give the ball away, one ball forward causes all sorts of carnage and we are fortunate when a Boro break ends with Jones putting a weak short straight to Baz. Straight away I’m wondering whether we have a left back on the pitch, watching on as Manning is, from the half way line.

Again we look vulnerable to the most basic play with Smallbone giving the ball away midfield, the subsequent boot forward being headed down by Harwood-Bellis and no one in midfield reacting to the loose ball, giving Boro another opportunity which McGree smashes straight at Baz again. So simple, just reacting to second balls.

Saints to try their patient sideways and backwards build up on the halfway line until Charles has no options and gets tackled and the ball finds it so I quickly out to Jones on the right for Middlesbrough and his cross into the box is behind Coburn who tangles with Harwood-Bellis and hits the deck, penalty.  There was absolutely no danger from that ball into the box but we’ve managed to give a penalty away for fuck‘s sake. Up steps Jonny Howson to pass into the net to send Baz the wrong way. Wankers.

Now we’re behind it time for the cavalry to come on with Sulemana, Edozie and Stuart Armstrong on for Charles, Adams and Fraser.  Now having to play with a bit more urgency, Manning lashes one wide from the edge of the box having been set up by Stuart Armstrong.

We win a corner and the crowd get excited but Boro’s nerves are settled by us passing the ball back towards the halfway line and then Downes plays a turd of an underhit pass to Stuart Armstrong in midfield with all our players ahead of the ball and Cockburn runs through and smashes it at Baz who manages to get it up and over the bar.

More desperation and another shocker in midfield by THB allowing the ball to bounce and Boro send Jones away on the right.  He finds Coburn who is this time slides it across to McGree who hits the post.  How the fucking hell are we still in this.  Usually you’d think Boro would pay for missing chances.

Aribo is on for Smallbone, showing once more that he’s ahead of Charly Alcaraz in the pecking order and he features in the next chance as KWP chips the ball in to Stuart Armstrong, who brings it down really well before burrowing into the penalty area and teeing up Aribo on the edge of the box but Slow Joe takes a horrendous touch and has to knock it on one further to Edozie, who takes a step inside and curls one towards the top corner but the keeper Dieng, gets up to flip it over the bar well.  The end and even with the most positive, biased goggles on, we deserved to lose and were outplayed pretty much by the team bottom of the league.

Yes Russ, You Lost to Michael Carrick

Well that was right up there with some more embarrassing defeats that we’ve had over the past few seasons. Going to a team that hasn’t won at all and has hardly scored a goal and we manage to cough up enough chances for them to have scored six. In all honesty, we were lucky to only lose by one.  To be fair to Russell Martin, he tried to be slightly more pragmatic today with the inclusion of both Downes and Charles in midfield but instead of leaving out Smallbone, he left out Edozie and we were far too sideways and backwards after the opening twenty minutes. Even with people making runs ahead of the ball, they never got it. Saints are not looking to pass the ball forwards enough and you could tell that Boro were just waiting for the lack of movement ahead of the ball and the delay in passing it and using that as their pressing trigger.  I didn’t watch Swansea play last year but it’s obvious that the other teams in the Championship did and they all know what to do against us.

Part of this new way of playing was to be able to control the game which especially comes in handy when you go a goal up in theory.  We were an utter fucking shambles once we went a goal ahead, again showing no management of the situation just before half-time, through some classic doziness by Mason Maitland-Holgate-Niles, we allow the softest of equalisers.  In his defence, he was thrown in to an unfamiliar position which makes no sense when you have James Bree who could have played.  I have a feeling that Martin feels he has to play Holgate when he can to justify having him here when he is clearly the fourth choice in his preferred position at centre back.  Did you know that Middelsbrough's old Ayresome Park ground had an end called The Holgate End?  I wonder if they'll rename the Holgate fuck up end at the Riverside.

There was a few minutes of intent at the start of the second half but then we stopped going forward again and allowed Boro back into the game and from another mistake, this time by THB, we give away a penalty and that was the end of that. THB’s response to have on his own shirt pulled by Boro forward Coburn, was to pull his shirt back and throw him on the floor.  Not exactly the most intelligent response.  He got absolutely played by the Boro forward who of course then made the most of the retaliatory pull.

Desperation substitutes were made in the last 20 minutes with Stuart Armstrong again making a difference when he was introduced, far too late yet again. Like with the Ipswich game, I really want to like Russell Martin but some of this is absolutely mind blowing and I can’t support it.  Joe Aribo as a final roll of the dice with 10 minutes to go when Charly Alcaraz is sat on the bench, is just fucking stupid.  He attempted to explain it afterwards, muttering something about Charly not being fully on board with the way we want to play, which seems basically to be a thinly veiled dig at the fact that he doesn’t understand English particularly well. You could well argue that not fully understanding the way Russell Martin wants his team to play would actually do some of the players a favour. There was more word salad regarding the fact that we were too passive once we scored a goal and didn’t handle a good moment well.  Against Ipswich it was that we didn’t handle bad moments well. Pretty impressive to have a team but can’t handle any positive or negative incident? One thing we certainly can’t handle is the last five minutes before half-time where twice in the last three games we’ve had an acceptable scoreline just before half-time and maybe the players were thinking about the segments of half-time oranges when we conceded crap goals just before the break.

Today was just weird. The selection of Mason Holgate ahead of Ryan Manning destabilised the back four that looked half decent in the second half against Ipswich. Even with the most defensive midfield structure that we could muster, we still gave Middlesbrough enough chances to score about six.  If he had picked Flynn Downes and Shea Charles with an attacking midfielder like Alcaraz or Stuart Armstrong, then I would’ve understood what he was trying to do but he left all the creativity in the hands of Will Smallbone who, unpopular opinion this may be, is not good enough to carry that burden from twenty minutes onwards today, doesn’t look to pass the ball forwards unless it’s almost a last resort.

Sam Edozie has been our best winger all season but he gets left out to accommodate Ryan Fraser and Adam Armstrong and though Armstrong scored and it was a good finish, you can’t tell me that that really worked, given the complete lack of cover he gave Holgate in that first half. Once Edozie came on for the last quarter of an hour, he certainly looked at the most likely to drag our sorry arses back into it.

For me, this was a fantastic opportunity to break the losing run and we fucked it and next up is a much harder opportunity with Leeds United at home and of course their ranks include a certain Joël Piroe, who we should have signed but of course, we didn’t, probably because we have Adam Armstrong to play that hybrid midfield/attacker role. Slow fucking handclap there.

There was very little encouragement given in today’s game to suggest that it will be anything other than a surprise if we’re not looking at the barrel of five defeats in a row after next Saturday.

Up the Fucking Saints.