This Most Excellent Canopy, The Air—Look You. Boro at Home.

[Enoch]

True is it that we have seen better days

[officer_dibble]

Beckfords confidence has gone
Dugouts been trying to replace him since he signed him

[twilight]

just back from the game having decided to go last minute. Been to two games so far, Watford and tonight...and lost both, although I can safely say they were better tonght than at Watford, for me it wasn't a big improvement.
The ones who were ok tonight were Craig Davies (who was a handful and did well to win the penalty)Chungy,, Ream, Feeney (in patches) and Trotter was alright.
Spearing was poor tonight, very poor.
BUT the problem is, Freedman sets us to be negative...when we get a chance to go forward we play it back, no ideas when we are near the opposition's box, altogether we are quite poor as a team, and Middlesbro' were average, so doesn't say much about us, and we had home advantage!
All in all that game was there to be won by us and we weren't strong enough or imaginative/good enough to stamp our authority on the game.
By the way, the Ref was crap!!
And Freedman doesn't have many games left i hope.

[Jugs]

We seem to be lacking in quality.

[twilight]

Most worrying thing is that teams are going to start seeing us as a soft touch and having no fear of us. At home we've pretty much always been hard to beat; right now we're anything but. Beckford seems unable to buy a goal and hardly a feared striker and our defence isn't exactly even up to Home Guard standard.

Trouble is Tango, we ARE a soft touch, that games was there to be won and taken by the scruff of the neck, Middlesbro are an average team, but Freedman is absolutely petrified of attacking and going for the kill, he wants the team to sit back and it's not good enough

[SmokinFrazier]

I think you'd struggle to find a team in England who struggle to create fewer chances than we do. Lesser teams with less individual talent are more creative than us and you very rarely watch us play and think that as a unit, we are dangerous. Eagles, Moritz, Mark Davies, Chungy, Feeney and a few others have all had games in Freedman's time where they've been really good and created lots of chances, but in terms of the team as a whole, it's so poor. Every week, the players look like they're playing with each other for the first time, there is so little cohesion.

I remember when people first started criticising Freedman, the argument was (and I think he used it himself) that he needed a pre-season. After his first pre-season, we had our worst start in 111 years and after his second, we're in the relegation zone, have 1 undeserved point and look as bad as ever. If a pre-season is the time for managers to get their teams playing a certain way, what exactly is Freedman teaching our players? It's unacceptable.

Hopefully he's sacked as soon as possible, and if that means us losing a few games coming up, it'll be the best thing for the club in the long term. He has to go.

[IggyTheDawgster]

Spearing IS very poor, anyone who expected anything else when we signed him need their head feeling.

[William the White]

We need to be clear. Boro were very poor. No way will they be challenging for promotion.

We were worse than them.

There were some willing hearts tonight (Craig Davies - he tries, he's not very good; Tim Ream probably MotM; Lee ok second half) but there were dismaying performances elsewhere.

Seven years ago we played Bayern Munich. And drew at their place. This season Bournemouth may do the double on us.

Our squad is very, very poor. Last year's record breaking start to the season may well be broken this year.

The crowd was dreadful, tiny, lethargic. When you can hear players on the pitch shouting you know how unengaged the support is.

Tonight you might have heard a conversation.

[twilight]

You're right WTW, heard Bogdan loads of times. Don't mind that, at least there's one player trying to communicate and give orders, but my god, they could have closed all the upper tiers tonight it seemed that empty and devoid of emotion. It felt depressing tonigh and i wish those drums would get lost!

[Worthy4England]

We need to be clear. Boro were very poor. No way will they be challenging for promotion.

We were worse than them.

There were some willing hearts tonight (Craig Davies - he tries, he's not very good; Tim Ream probably MotM; Lee ok second half) but there were dismaying performances elsewhere.

Seven years ago we played Bayern Munich. And drew at their place. This season Bournemouth may do the double on us.

Our squad is very, very poor. Last year's record breaking start to the season may well be broken this year.

The crowd was dreadful, tiny, lethargic. When you can hear players on the pitch shouting you know how unengaged the support is.

Tonight you might have heard a conversation.

Indeed for most of this - when you start thinking "Trotter ain't too bad", you know there's trouble brewing.

[Puskas]

Don't worry about it.

We're still on for beating last season's winless streak. So that's nice.

And what's even nicer is that word-averse poster a1 will be along with a picture of one hand clapping or some such, to remind us all of how bad things were under Owen Coyle, but only succeed in making us think, "Yeah, Coyle was a bit shit. But not this shit".

W00t.

#MakingHistoryWithDougieFreedmansSuperWhiteArmy
#Yeah
#Hashtag

[Lord Kangana]

Whatever happens, please nobody, and I mean f*cking nobody, say something stupid like "it was better under Megson".

That would be the final straw.

[bobo the clown]

Trotter was piss poor. Poorer than a very poor thing living poorly in the poor area of the poor house.

He had one nice run on about 30 minutes & that was it. He has one strength; he can find space. He spends 95% of his time in space. Nowhere near the ball or the action. But certainly in space. He doesn't get involved. Apart from being an obstacle he offers absolutely nothing .... I'll say it again, nothing (thanks to Edwin Starr).

The Lenny Henry of football.

[AbrahM]

1st half we were not good at all and just played long ball after long ball. First 15 of second half we were very lively and cfeated some really good stuff which we should have made the most of. After they scored their second we were dire and I have no idea how they didn't get a 3rd or 4th.

Bogdan 6 no fault for the goals and dealt with a couple of pile drivers from the edge of the box well when defenders were backing off.
McNaughton 6 Nothing special tonight but I thought he combined well with Lee down that side in the 2nd half
Wheater 5 may have been a soft pen but they had a better shout for one earlier when i think it was Wheater tripped up their lad. Looked quite shaky at times and didn't win anything in the air when he went up top which is more Freedman's fault than his.
Mills 6 decent game
Ream 6 looks more comfortable at left back i feel
Spearing 3 his passing is shocking at times and he needs to learn sooner rather than later that he aint Stevie G. Head went down after their second, don't know why he is on corners and freekicks, awful.
Trotter 6 decent defensively but did very little in terms of our attack, had a volley go horribly wide
Feeney 4 ineffective best word to describe him, thought their defence dealt with him well but he just wasnt up to it today
Lee 6 He abviously has a lot of ability and always has which makes these defeats so frutrating, never puts all of this to much, beat his mana nd put a ball in once all game i think.
Mason 6 anonymous for large parts put he makes good runs and has a good touch on him
Cravies 8 easy MOM, worked really hard and their defence couldnt deal with him, similar to Juke last season, his hold up play was excellent

Danns 6 Offered a lot more than Feeney and I dont know why he wasnt on earlier
Beckford 5 fluffed one and had another disallowed for a shove in the back which i think was right call, played like a statue in comparison to Mason and Cravies

Druggie 3 Way too late until he changed things around, first half was awful and heads dropped after their second, possibly trying to avoid buying a striker this summer and instead convert David Wheater into a centre forward like he briefly tried with Zat Knight (who he also experimented with on the wing)

[Norpig]

A few thoughts on last night.

Why did DF start with the very immobile Trotter, who does nothing at but jog about in space he does not tackle, he cannot pass, he does not mark, he does not close down. He does nothing, for the second goal he stood and watch the goalscorer run past his as though he wasn't there. What did Mr Trotter do point at him not track go with try to block him in any way no he points at him, result goal!! What baffles me after such an ineffective 1st half why was he still fertilising the pitch in the 2nd half??????? Most of all why did it take DF 80 minutes to realise he should take him off??????

The other baffling thing was why did he take off Davies who was the only forward causing problems? Then proceed to move Wheater a defender up front, if he was going to put an extra body up front why did he not take off a defender and leave Davies on?????

As for the game 1st half they started better than we did no surprise there as every team starts better than we do. We then grew into the game and look to be going in 1-0 did not think it was a penalty but 1-1 seemed fair at half time.

2nd half we seemed to have a lot of the ball without doing anything at all with it we had a couple of half chances and the sitter set up by some great play by Chungy.

[BWFC_Insane]

Well it was dreadful. Abysmal. No other words for it.

If you take out the performance of Craig Davies which was absolutely outstanding, the rest were a mixture of decidedly average and terrible.

Lee played well for 10 minutes in the second half. Showed us what he CAN do. But the rest was his usual anonymous self.

Feeney got no service and got frustrated.

Mason - see Feeney.

Trotter was ok - certainly not the trainwreck some suggest. He was the best central midfield player we had on the pitch.

Spearing was dreadful. Utterly dreadful. Couldn't pass, got nowhere near challenges, set pieces were awful.

Mills and Wheater don't look a pairing to me.

Ream was terrible. The man cannot defend.

McNaughton was steady but offered nothing at all in terms of ball retention or the like.

We are back to giving away the softest of goals. Which is incredibly frustrating to say the least. The improvements we made through last season have seemingly vanished.

Totally frustrated and fed up.

[Bruce Rioja]

^ Needlessly harsh on Ream. Constantly left exposed by Lee and left between two stools, as he was against Forest. One of our better players on the night - at the very least finds a white shirt with his distribution and is now comfortable enough to hold the ball until he has an option.

Someone you missed from your list is Bogdan. Unaccustomed as I am to praising our goalkeepers, this is the second game on the spin that Ginge has been excellent. Commanded his box, confident, rock-solid handling, a cracking save in the second half and, as Twilight attests - could be heard constantly bossing / organising the back four, came for stuff that he previously didn't bother with. Hope he keeps it up.

[BWFC_Insane]

^ Needlessly harsh on Ream. Constantly left exposed by Lee and left between two stools, as he was against Forest. One of our better players on the night - at the very least finds a white shirt with his distribution and is now comfortable enough to hold the ball until he has an option.

Someone you missed from your list is Bogdan. Unaccustomed as I am to praising our goalkeepers, this is the second game on the spin that Ginge has been excellent. Commanded his box, confident, rock-solid handling, a cracking save in the second half and, as Twilight attests - could be heard constantly bossing / organising the back four, came for stuff that he previously didn't bother with. Hope he keeps it up.

Maybe. But his constant diving in and letting men beat him easily in doing so is becoming incredibly frustrating. I don't think we'll ever have a watertight defence whilst he is part of it. And yes he's decent on the ball but I didn't think last night was a good showcase for that either. Gave it away a fair bit and plenty of his passing was aimless.

If we could combine him and McNaughton we'd have a really good full back, but as it is....

[boltonboris]

Got a kebab on the way home from the boozer after the game last night.. Left my tummy a bit tender this morning.

Anyway, the poo that has resulted was a metaphor for the match.. Started relatively solidly, but then it all got a bit sloppy second half.

[boltonboris]

Oh yeah and Ream cannot stay on his feet. Either get's too tight and spun, or backs off too much and gets skinned and STOP THOSE SQUARE PASSES INTO THE CENTRE OF THE PARK FFS