Boro Mania

The morning after the day before and the finger pointing of blame has begun following the shambolic collapse against West Bromwich Albion. The brunt, no pun intended, of the vitriol seems to be aimed fairly and squarely on the shoulders of manager Gareth Southgate, but for me the players who took to the field yesterday let themselves, the club and the fans badly down.

Southgate picked the team, but prior to the match how many fans would have picked a different starting eleven? What Gareth seems to be completely incapable of doing though is motivating the team or firing a rocket into them at half time. The fact that at 3-0 down at half time, the same eleven players came trotting out for the second half was a bizarre decision. When he finally did decide to ring the changes, to see him swap like for like instead of changing things and trying to mount at least some sort of fightback was frustrating and inexplicable.

At 3-0 down at half time you would expect a manager to ring the changes, shake things up and show the players that what he saw wasn't good enough. I don't want to seem like I am jumping on the anti-Southgate bandwagon because we have had a good start to the season, still lie in 3rd place and still have a more than respectable chance of promotion this season but it seemed as if he had all but given up on the match at half time. There was no Plan B evident, there was seemingly no rollocking given to the players at half time and at the end of the game we were back to the same:

I've learnt a lot about some people today and it is better to know that now than later.

The worrying thing is that, though we have cruised against some of the more average sides in this league, we have so far struggled against decent sides. A goalless draw against Sheffield United where we rarely troubled their goalkeeper, a defeat away at Bristol City and a humiliation at the hands of WBA.

However you cannot lay the blame solely at the feet of Gareth Southgate, the players who went out on the pitch were not good enough on the day. These are, for the most part, the same players who have got us to the top of the Championship so far so they have to take their fair share of the blame.

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Danny Coyne had his poorest display yet in a boro shirt and looked very ordinary, I can see Brad Jones coming in for the Coventry game. All across the back four we were extremely average, McMahon and Grounds conceded possesion way too often and, McMahon in particular, were given a torrid time. David Wheater had his poorest game of the season by far and you had to feel for Sean St Ledger, making his debut in this sort of game, but I think he will settle in and be a decent addition.

The midfield was a shambles, we have never missed Gary O'Neil more than we did yesterday. Rhys Williams was overrun and had a poor game but he seemed at times to be having to do the defensive work of 2 and 3 players. Julio Arca, as always, needed way too much time on the ball and constantly caught in possesion. Adam Johnson was starved of service, very tightly marked and had a disappointing game and Mark Yeates may as well not have been on the pitch.

Up front Aliadiere showed little before going off injured after half an hour, Marvin Emnes worked hard but lacked any sort of penetration. Caleb Folan came on for his debut and won headers and put himself about but I am far from convinced.

The bottom line is we are not as good as we think we are, or some of us thought we were, we were soundly beaten by a better side who could go on and cruise to the championship and promotion. It's not all doom and gloom though, I would put us up there with the Geordies and both sides are capable of comfortably beating 90% of this league so we should still be in the promotion/playoff battle come the end of the season.

The team need to disect what happened yesterday, lay the blame where it is needed and then move on. Coventry City away next and we need to bounce back with a victory.