Vs Middlesbrough (home). Matchday thread.

[Rev]

Derby County Vs Middlesbrough, New Year's Day 3.00pm kick off.

 

After possibly the greatest comeback Vs Norwich, yet another opponent from the top 6 awaits.

 

In typical Pulis style, they've made their way to the upper echelons of the table quietly and efficiently, can us Rams negate the Boro and start the New Year on a high?

 

In the words of Mason Mount, our aim is top 2, can we maintain momentum in the coming games to make that a realistic target?

Our glorious leader mentioned on the previous matchday thread it takes big balls to start a matchday thread in these circumstances, I can confirm I'm up to the job.

So much so, I can't currently fit both bits of male equipment into the toilet seat at once, which makes a poo a thing of dread, just try holding back a wee when you need a poo!

Anyway, one thing is for sure, this team has balls enough for all of us!

I did look for 10 fun facts about Boro, but the list I found had Parmo high up, when in fact it's just a ? kebab, so I didn't bother.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

[RadioactiveWaste]

Interesting things about Boro

1. Brian Clough originated there and played for the team

2. The Corvette escort ships used in WW2 came from a design of a whaling ship made by one of the shipyards there

3. Steve McClaren once had a season ticket thrown at him, the club decided most people were thinking about it, and gave it back to the bloke.

4. struggling now...

5. Gareth southgate was a reasonably good player for them once?

[Sexydadbod]

We need to be far more solid in midfield. Playing Evans and Huddlestone together will give us a good platform to allow Mount and Wilson to focus on attacking.

                  Carson

Bogle  Keogh   Tomori   Wisdom

            Huddlestone   Evans

Waghorn      Mount      Wilson

                     Marriott

[Ellafella]

1 hour ago, reveldevil said:

Derby County Vs Middlesbrough, New Year's Day 3.00pm kick off.

 

After possibly the greatest comeback Vs Norwich, yet another opponent from the top 6 awaits.

 

In typical Pulis style, they've made their way to the upper echelons of the table quietly and efficiently, can us Rams negate the Boro and start the New Year on a high?

 

In the words of Mason Mount, our aim is top 2, can we maintain momentum in the coming games to make that a realistic target?

Our glorious leader mentioned on the previous matchday thread it takes big balls to start a matchday thread in these circumstances, I can confirm I'm up to the job.

So much so, I can't currently fit both bits of male equipment into the toilet seat at once, which makes a poo a thing of dread, just try holding back a wee when you need a poo!

Anyway, one thing is for sure, this team has balls enough for all of us!

I did look for 10 fun facts about Boro, but the list I found had Parmo high up, when in fact it's just a ? kebab, so I didn't bother.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

...erm...0hh they’ll come floodin’ back in a minute...oh yes....ahhh!!! Yes, now then...ICI...ah...Jesus...there’s tons I juste mmm dried up.,,they are ....oooh ...go on...

[rynny]

59 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

Interesting things about Boro

1. Brian Clough originated there and played for the team

2. The Corvette escort ships used in WW2 came from a design of a whaling ship made by one of the shipyards there

3. Steve McClaren once had a season ticket thrown at him, the club decided most people were thinking about it, and gave it back to the bloke.

4. struggling now...

5. Gareth southgate was a reasonably good player for them once?

Steve Bloomer played for them? 

[RadioactiveWaste]

1 hour ago, rynny said:

Steve Bloomer played for them? 

Did he, now that's interesting.

[Jimbo Ram]

2 hours ago, McLovin said:

We need to be far more solid in midfield. Playing Evans and Huddlestone together will give us a good platform to allow Mount and Wilson to focus on attacking.

                  Carson

Bogle  Keogh   Tomori   Wisdom

            Huddlestone   Evans

Waghorn      Mount      Wilson

                     Marriott

Yes agree. That would be my team.

[BramcoteRam84]

Unchanged team for me. Boro are pragmatic and defensive, they will sit off. We need to give them lots of problems to think about. We’re at home we need to go for it, if our first thought is to be solid we’ll get dragged into their sort of game and probably lose 1-0.

[Harrowram]

Go for the jugular as we did when we played them away. We should have been home and dry after 30 minutes. They couldn't get near us!

[McRainy]

14 hours ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

Interesting things about Boro

I was born there.

My friend's gran still lives there. 

She has a cat called Smoggy. 

Er, that's it. 

[Comrade 86]

14 hours ago, reveldevil said:

Derby County Vs Middlesbrough, New Year's Day 3.00pm kick off.

 

After possibly the greatest comeback Vs Norwich, yet another opponent from the top 6 awaits.

 

In typical Pulis style, they've made their way to the upper echelons of the table quietly and efficiently, can us Rams negate the Boro and start the New Year on a high?

 

In the words of Mason Mount, our aim is top 2, can we maintain momentum in the coming games to make that a realistic target?

Our glorious leader mentioned on the previous matchday thread it takes big balls to start a matchday thread in these circumstances, I can confirm I'm up to the job.

So much so, I can't currently fit both bits of male equipment into the toilet seat at once, which makes a poo a thing of dread, just try holding back a wee when you need a poo!

Anyway, one thing is for sure, this team has balls enough for all of us!

I did look for 10 fun facts about Boro, but the list I found had Parmo high up, when in fact it's just a ? kebab, so I didn't bother.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

Off to a cracking start on the match threads though so fair play to you, but thank God I wasn't reading this over breakfast as is often the case. Images of you trying to cram your nether-regions through a bog seat would hardly have complemented a full English with sausages and black pudding ?

[Richard246]

The perfect team for me looks solid Evans and Huddlestone could be good

[RamNut]

Fun facts continued......

• In 1801, Middlesbrough was a small farm with a population of just 25. The town achieved remarkable growth so that by 1849 the population had risen to 49 - almost doubling in size.
• Middlesbrough is famous as the first place to be bombed during the Second World War. However this claim was actually fake news. Middlesbrough hadn't been bombed at all. It just looked like it had.
• In 1974 the town was expelled by Yorkshire and disowned. The town subsequently became associated with Newcastle, Sunderland and Hull as the "armpit of England". 
• Middlesbrough is one of the few places where Steve Bruce has not yet managed. 
• Famous people from Middlesbrough include Brian Clough,  Paul Rodgers - lead vocalist with Free and Bad Company - and musician Chris Rea who left Middlesbrough but occasionally drives back home for Christmas. 
• Another famous association is with Captain James Cook who left Middlesbrough in his ship the Fried Chicken to discover Hawaii. Unfortunately after a row with locals, Cook was killed, and baked with béchamel sauce and cheese. This was the origin of the words 'cooked' and 'cooking' and spawned a whole new street food industry based on fried and baked meats.
• Middlesbrough proudly boasts the second shortest life expectancy for women in England and Wales.
• Middlesbrough is twinned with Lake Nyos and Bhopal.
• Bishop Desmond Tutu has a holiday home in the town.

[Carnero]

15 hours ago, McLovin said:

We need to be far more solid in midfield. Playing Evans and Huddlestone together will give us a good platform to allow Mount and Wilson to focus on attacking.

Why did you never mention this before!!

[Carnero]

2 hours ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

if our first thought is to be solid we’ll get dragged into their sort of game and probably lose 1-0.

Yep. Exactly what we did at Stoke! (scoreline excepted)

[Rev]

Anyone know if this game is on the Red Button?

[Jimbo Ram]

15 minutes ago, reveldevil said:

Anyone know if this game is on the Red Button?

IT should be, a mid week game.....

[cstand]

1 hour ago, RamNut said:

Fun facts continued......

• In 1801, Middlesbrough was a small farm with a population of just 25. The town achieved remarkable growth so that by 1849 the population had risen to 49 - almost doubling in size.
• Middlesbrough is famous as the first place to be bombed during the Second World War. However this claim was actually fake news. Middlesbrough hadn't been bombed at all. It just looked like it had.
• In 1974 the town was expelled by Yorkshire and disowned. The town subsequently became associated with Newcastle, Sunderland and Hull as the "armpit of England". 
• Middlesbrough is one of the few places where Steve Bruce has not yet managed. 
• Famous people from Middlesbrough include Brian Clough,  Paul Rodgers - lead vocalist with Free and Bad Company - and musician Chris Rea who left Middlesbrough but occasionally drives back home for Christmas. 
• Another famous association is with Captain James Cook who left Middlesbrough in his ship the Fried Chicken to discover Hawaii. Unfortunately after a row with locals, Cook was killed, and baked with béchamel sauce and cheese. This was the origin of the words 'cooked' and 'cooking' and spawned a whole new street food industry based on fried and baked meats.
• Middlesbrough proudly boasts the second shortest life expectancy for women in England and Wales.
• Middlesbrough is twinned with Lake Nyos and Bhopal.
• Bishop Desmond Tutu has a holiday home in the town.

I work with a few Boro fans should be a laugh letting them read this. 

The Boro fans hate the style of football they are playing under Pullis if we can score first the game is ours. 

[brady1993]

18 hours ago, McLovin said:

We need to be far more solid in midfield. Playing Evans and Huddlestone together will give us a good platform to allow Mount and Wilson to focus on attacking.

                  Carson

Bogle  Keogh   Tomori   Wisdom

            Huddlestone   Evans

Waghorn      Mount      Wilson

                     Marriott

I disagree on two fronts;

1) That we need to be more solid in midfield against Middlesbrough.

Against Boro last time we played a midfield 3 of Hudds, Wilson and Mount and completely dominated them for the first 30 minutes. Boro had to change formation, personal and tactics to become more solid to even get a foothold in the game. They switched to completely bypassing the midfield because we were in that much control and bar one mistake from Boyle and one header from Gestede we handled that side of the game effectively. 

2) That switching to the above formation will actually makes us more solid and/or more likely to win.

Now I can completely see the logic of behind your argument of switching to a 4231 but I'm far from convinced it would actually solve the problems you've outlined. The defensive two in a 4231 has to play differently than the holding midfielder in a 3 does. They have to help transition play more and they have to actively press more. Basically they can't just sit in and mark a zone like the DM in a 3 does. The issue with this is that Huddlestone lacks the mobility to do this effectively and so we either risk creating gaps in midfield (from pressing/going forwards) or being too static (by both midfielders firmly holding postion). Evans would be fine in a two but we'd need somebody like Ryan Woods alongside him to make that midfield set up effective in my opinion. 

Evans/Wilson/Mount probably gives us the best balance currently but we are crying out for a midfielder who is a bit more of an allrounder that can help us transition play better.

[Millenniumram]

We can celebrate that spectacular result tonight, but when it comes to preparing for this match we can’t forget that the ultimate charectar and fight papered over some serious issues that were exposed once again in the team. We need to show that same desire and fight from the first minute here, as well as better quality on the ball, because this match is massive, absolutely massive.

If I’m being honest I’d probably take a draw here, Middlesbrough are extremely tough to beat and have always been a bogey team for us. But with the recent dropped points at home we really could do with a win here to keep the pressure on. They’re the sort of team who’ll pounce on any mistake we make so we need to be far more assured defensively here and switch on, particulary to aerial balls, watching the highlights of today’s game far too often we let a man escape unmarked. Can’t allow that to happen here. Gotta look after the ball better as well and be stronger on it, because this will be a battle without any doubt.

With that in mind...

Carson 

Bogle Tomori Pearce Wisdom

Evans

Johnson Mount

Wilson Marriott Josefzoon

Now I know that looks like I’m on the sauce, which I’m not... yet. Some games imo require horses for courses, and if any game ever did I think it’s against tony Pulis’ Middlesbrough. Most anti football team and club you will ever come accross. We know exactly what to expect, big centre half’s, long balls, lumps up front and pacey wingers whipping it in, set pieces being the big target. With that in mind, we need to correct our weakness to aerial balls. So, nothing against Keogh at all, and I wouldn’t be advocating dropping him for poor performances, but imo we need some more aerial strength in there which Pearce brings, as well as hoping with both types of set piece. Could have been either Keogh or Tomori to move out, but Tomori is arguably slightly better distributing (which we need to counter Pearce’s entire lack of passing ability) and having scored today I feel he should keep his place. Keogh would return straight away however, just this match requires special attention.

Similar story for the midfield, where this game probably won’t be really played. Johnson gives us more of a “bite” in midfield, alongside Evans to make sure we’re not bullied in midfield, could switch to a 4231 in defence as well as we look to hit on the counter. Fast wingers in Wilson and josefzoon should make that possible, against a somewhat slower and less footballing boro defence, who won’t like it on the ground around them. Would probably have gone with Waghorn up front for more strength again up against the lump of flint, but he doesn’t seem to play two games on the spin ever, and couldn’t rest Marriott after that winner!