My journey for Middlesbrough started at 8:45am Wednesday morning, and finished at 4:30am Thursday morning. All calculations being correct, that’s almost a 20 hour round trip to see, quite frankly, some absolute drivvle. I wish I had taken a leaf out of the Boro fans’ book and just stayed at home.
The performance was poor, and I will get onto that in a bit, but the most frustrating thing for me is that only 3 (maybe 4) players at an absolute push, bothered to walk the few meters to come and applaud the travelling support. We made up a fifth of the total attendance at the Riverside, we had endured a painful attempt at a game of football, and had a 7 hour journey ahead of us. Most people took at least one day off work, others two. I can deal with a loss, no matter how bad, but a little respect for what we had gone through to watch our team play wouldn’t have hurt anyone.
Rob Green made it all the way over to the fans, Matthew Upson and Scott Parker didn’t make it all the way over, but noticably directed some applause in our direction. And I think that it may also have been Jack Collison who joined in with the thanks, although my eyes are slowly failing me so I can’t be 100% sure on that one!
The worst person for me though had to be Carlton Cole, who half heartedly raised his hands and clapped as he walked off the pitch….after having spent the time swapping shirts with a Boro player. Now, you could argue that I am splitting hairs, but when you have made the sacrifices that 4,000 or so fans had made to be there for that game, you should at least contain your excitement at getting hold of a precious piece of Middlesbrough memrobillia till when you are out of the fans’ sight. To be honest, he was so poor anyway, he may as well have been in the Boro shirt from the start.
Regular readers of my blog will know that I am usually optimistic and I’ll always try and find the bright side of things, but the fact that not every single player and both Zola and Clarke did not come and at least recognise our efforts, was an absolute disgrace. So try as I might, there is no silver lining to this one…appalling.
The ‘Performance’
In all honesty I don’t want to talk to much about the game, as I am still pretty cross, so I’ll keep it brief…
- So, once again, we go 1-0 down early on, closely followed by the second. Bored of that now West Ham, it has to stop.
- It was clear after about 15mins that we needed width. Everything was predictable and it was all coming through the middle. We rarely mixed up our options and we didn’t have a plan B when it wasn’t working.
- Neill and Illunga put in the effort to get up the flanks, but a simple introduction of Savio on the left would have made life a lot easier for them. Behrami’s role therefore could have been to hug the right touchline, Savio’s the left. It would have mixed our game up, it would have provided some new outlets for our play and I believe it would have caused Boro some problems. Southgate knew what he was doing the exact same thing…we made Downing look good.
- I don’t think the sale of Etherington was the right move.
- We shouldn’t have given starts to both Kovac and Sears, neither really looked at the races. I felt sorry for Sears really because he was just chucked in with very little game time under his belt alongside Carlton Mis-Control, who once again looked to be back to his former self.
- SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT. We need someone to just take some of our opportunities and make something from them…ie, put the ball in the back of the net. We had a lot of posession, we had a lot of pressure, but we did nothing with it. Boro seemed to have less posession, but attacked with pace and intention and always looked a threat. It has to change.
I’m going to stop going on about it all now, it’s done, it’s finished and it’s clear that a lot has to change. Unfortunately I think the blame lies at Zola’s feet for poor tactical selections and decisions. If we are all honsest with ourselves, Man City could very well be a struggle…
Sam
Competition Entry:
I have one more copy of West Ham United: In My Day, Vol. 2
Well no wonder we got free travel.
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1st and most important i commend and respect you for being there at Boro and applaud not West Ham but you away supporters.
Myself and my son was going to make the trip and had the tickets but a last minute hitch with his pregnant wife made our trip a no goer.
The team was awful and i pray that that kind of play and passing will never happen again. As for the players not coming to the fans and applauding your dismal trip to the grey counties of NE England then i am ashamed to call them West Ham players, it is because of your love for the Hammers that they get paid so well.
Maybe its a lesson learned by the guys that made the trip.
Great article i have to admit, it was getting kind of boring reading about the 100 best players ever at West Ham on other blogs.
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Spot on this is what I put on another forum….http://www.westhamfans.org/node/9914
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You are absolutely right – Zola and Clarke got it wrong. This was not the night to give Kovac his debut or use the inexperienced Sears. And the lack of width was a major problem. You are right too about Etherington. Ilunga is a good attacking full back who can create things up front, but he needs someone to play off and create the gaps. He was working this well with Etherington. Although Neill is the captain I thought Spector against Bolton was much better at going forward – he created the goal. I would put Spector in at right back and if we have to play Neill then put him at centre back. He is too slow at right back.
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Good post Sam H.
I too was there with my daughter. Great credit to Robert Green and also Upson, Parker & Collison (who should have played from the start) for clapping the fantastic fans at the end.
From my perspective:
No width
Looked jaded
Must stop the early goals (albiet great free kick from Downing)
but most of all no passion!
As my daughter remarked at the end of the game “Boro weren`t even very good!”
On a positive note I have belief in Clarke, Zola & Nani (note the order!)
Westiron
…until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes…
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incidently here is a picture of the 4 aforementioned players who actually bothered to applaud us fans:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/02/28/article-1158010-03ABB2B4000005DC-192_468x343.jpg
parker has just finifshed clapping, and at this point green was onhis way over from what I can remember
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Totally agree with u!!…i thought the same………….
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