FAN’S VIEW: 24/25 – No.43: MIDDLESBROUGH AWAY

MIDDLESBROUGH 2 OXFORD UNITED 1

Second trip of the season on a LRC coach for me and the smoothness of the journey was the complete opposite to the Carrow Road trek. Left Kidlington at around 8:30 and even with half an hour services stop was parked up right outside the away turnstiles with time enough to spare to walk a mile each way to the Infant Hercules micro pub and have a pint.

In 1862 the then Chancellor of the Exchequer visited Middlesbrough and commented that it was a “remarkable place – the youngest child, as I may call it – of England’s enterprise… an Infant Hercules.”  The industries he’d witnessed the expansion of, steel making and ship building, are now of course long gone. 

A micro pub by its very definition is not large. The struggle to the bar was worth it with four different styles of beer served. I couldn’t fault my extra pale. If we’d have stayed inside it would have been too crowded to be comfortable. Outside wasn’t much more pleasant. The weather was bitter.

I thought this was a dreadful performance from Oxford. The positives are tiny when compared to the negatives.

Those positives as I saw it were how we started the game, the way the defence played in the first 45 minutes and the fact that we were still in with a chance of a point right up until the very end as we were only one goal behind and had been level on the scoreboard until the 80^th minute.

Small comfort though. If we play as we did here for the rest of the season we will go down. If, and what a sizeable IF that is, we do stay up and go again with this squad we will go down next season.

Our forward line is almost non-existent.

So many times I’ve heard “we don’t look like a Championship side” and “we’ve got too many League One players”.  That’s been my view for some while now. Of those who don’t look up to the level we’re now at some were here last season, but not all. If we were to put players up for sale at this point in time I doubt we’d get what we’d paid in at least some cases.

We got into the Championship on merit having finished in the top six and getting through the play-offs. That currently makes us a Championship outfit but I have started to wonder if there’s a bit of a feeling of imposter syndrome at play somewhere.

Gary Rowett’s honeymoon period is well and truly over. That bit extra he was getting out of this limited squad has long gone. I still think it was right to remove Des and bring him in though.

Match stats sometimes give a misleading view but not always and over time they do not lie. The data from this game is truly damning.

We had possession just 26.5% of the time. That’s not necessarily a negative if you can hit the opposition with pace on the counter and have players who can put the ball in the net when you do so. We have neither.

With possession comes the number of passes. There were 828 passes in total. 612 by them and just 216 (26%) by us. They were 85.5% accurate. Our accuracy was much lower at 65.3%. We were incapable of keeping the ball. We could hardly string a pass together. I found it quite embarrassing to be honest. And the long ball figures are very telling. We played 48 of them whilst the home side only did so 32 times. I don’t know if these long balls are included in the total number of passes. If they are it means we hit it long 22% of the time when attempting to pass.

We know those long balls are meaningless other than just getting it further away from our goal. We don’t win them. Down the middle Mark Harris provided almost no nuisance value. Their centre-halves had an easy time of it as far as open play was concerned. We never got the wide men going either.

Each team was dispossessed nine times. Given how little we had of the ball that proves how inferior we were. And don’t get me started on successful passes in the final third. Our total was a paltry 27. Dwarfed by Boro’s 202.

In those first 10-15 minutes it looked potentially promising. We were unquestionably better than them and should have gone two or three goals up. But with sub-standard finishing that just isn’t going to happen.

Our most potent attacking weapon at present is Will Vaulks’ long throw. Noticeably of late more and more sides are employing this tactic. After all a goal is a goal however it is created. There are no extra points on offer for artistic merit. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner.

WV launched one early on. Ben Nelson won it initially and, after a half clearance, Shemmy Placheta’s head got the ball back into the danger zone. Ciaron Brown swung around at it but didn’t make proper contact. If he had done there would have been a strong likelihood that he would have scored. If he’d left it, Matt Phillips would have been facing goal.

From what I’ve seen of him in an Oxford shirt Phillips’s most effective position is at wing back. He reads the game well and defensively knows where to place himself. In that initial flurry he played a ball in from the left giving Placheta a very presentable chance. Our Poland international side footed straight at the keeper.

Vaulks’ throws continued to cause unease amongst the Middlesbrough rear guard and from one we won a corner which Siriki Dembele took. It found its way to Phillips who put it wide. Another very good chance gone begging.

The home side were not better than us when it came to hitting the target. Although they soon had the ball most of the time their efforts on goal were mostly wayward shots from outside the penalty area that caused Jamie Cumming no concern whatsoever.

In the 38^th minute we took the lead and it will have come as no surprise to anyone watching the game that it came from yet another throw by our number four. This one was from way out. Nelson again got his head on it and when it dropped from the sky a second time Harris did really well laying it back to Michal Helik. He put it away like a proper finisher, low, hard and accurate. Mark Travers in the Boro goal was rooted.

Whenever I think a fair assessment of a player is that they’re either not up to standard in general or just having a bad game I try quite hard to find evidence to contradict myself. But other than Harris’ assist what was there from him? Should he have been awarded a penalty? I’ve now watched it again a few times and am not sure. I asked my son for his opinion. “Seen them given but not sure”. Is it fair to ask would a bigger stronger centre-forward have got to the ball in a more positive fashion? Or was it just very good defending?

We still had another seven minutes, plus added time, to negotiate to get to the break with the lead. Kelechi Iheanacho smacked a shot against the bar when it was a chance that should really have been put away. Even players who have at one time commanded a £25m transfer fee can fail when it comes to putting the ball in the net. This missed chance came about after Harris lost the ball. Again, am I being unfair mentioning this? Another criticism I have of him is that he often seems to be back on his heels thus being slower than opponents to react. I’ve thought this for a while now. Chatting to a fellow fan on the return journey I found I’m not the only one with this view and that was without me raising the matter.

But we did make it to the break a goal to the good. That was down to our back line and of the others I thought Vaulks – and not just for his throws – had been decent, as had Alex Matos. But these are defensive types. They’re not attackers. They’re not creative. We create nothing from the centre of the field.

I was so disappointed in our so called attackers throughout the entire match. Placheta flatters to deceive. Dembele is too light-weight and runs into trouble when the sensible pass is on.

Rowett cannot have been happy either. No manager would have been. In the 65^th minute Harris, Placheta and Dembele were replaced with Tom Bradshaw, Stan Mills and Tyler Goodrham. This did not improve us.

Bradshaw did not look fit. One could have been forgiven for thinking that he’d put a shift in elsewhere before he came on for us. Mills wanted to get the ball out to the left quickly. It didn’t work for whatever reason. TG looks a shadow of the player he has been. Something is amiss. The burden of fatherhood? The gap between L1 and Championship being too much? Half a yard off the pace? No, possibly a whole yard.

At half time I had Phillips as a strong contender for our man of the match. He didn’t reappear for the second period due to injury. In his stead was Peter Kioso. Just three minutes in we were no longer winning. Any coincidence that the goal came from their left flank where we’d had a change of personnel? This time Iheanacho finished clinically, Ciaron Brown having tried to cut the pass out with his wrong foot.

The delivery for their winner in the 80^th minute came from the same area and the same player, Samuel Iling-Junior. He’s on loan from Villa who bought him from Juventus for £11.8m. The finish from Neto Borges was a neat one.

It goes without saying that our main attempt at salvaging something really late on was getting the ball into the box, usually courtesy of Vaulks’ hands. Goodrham on the edge of the box ended up with the chance of glory, twice. The first one he didn’t connect with properly when under no pressure. The second he put way over the bar. That’s not Championship football. That’s a player very much out of form.

Mrs FV kept asking “Have you written the Fan’s View yet”? My reply being “some of it”. Honestly though I’m finding motivation and enthusiasm hard to come by. Something to watch on TV? Right I’ll do that instead. Following the Yellows, as I’ve said many a time, is an addiction that I can’t shake off. But if I was to see game after game like this I can genuinely envisage myself starting to skip a trip or two on the road – and what would that lead to?

There were 653 of us at the Riverside and the support given was always vocal. There was no collective negativity.

Comments on the Facebook “Football fans Home and Away days” page make for mostly complimentary reading about our supporters and also give the take of the home fans on the game:

“Great effort from a relatively small club. Better than most so called ‘big’ clubs have brought to Boro this season. Was chatting to a young Oxford fan walking to the away end. Decent fans. Hope they stay up. UTB”.

“Bigger clubs have brought less a fine effort. Luckily you were slightly worse than us. Safe journey home.”

“Spoke to a couple of these guys today absolutely cracking fans travelling a long way with no expectations of there (sic) team winning but giving there money time and support with loyalty top fans wishing you the best for your team to stay in championship”.

“They could have been 3 up in 15 minutes, we were lucky to go in 1-0 at HT”.

“Made more noise than some bigger away crowds, I couldn’t understand their 3 subs at once but, hey ho, it helped us get the 3 points.”

“Good effort never thought they would bring that many up”.

“Good set of fans tbh we’ve had far bigger clubs here bringing far less”.

“Solid fans although they did throw a water bottle at me and say have that for this months benefits” – cringe worthy behaviour. Sadly like all clubs we’ve got some knobheads amongst our following.

Following Derby’s predictable win over Preston on Wednesday night we’re now just two points off the bottom three and with the fourth worst goal difference.

I’ve looked at our remaining fixtures and those of the others in the relegation fight. Ours look the hardest of the lot.

There’s only nine points covering the bottom 10 clubs. Over the last six games the Rams have picked up 12 points, Luton 10, Pompey 9, Swansea and Hull 8, Cardiff 7, Plymouth 5, Oxford 4 and QPR just one.

So Rangers are on even worse form than us and they visit next Wednesday. What a crunch game that will be. This, along with the Watford game – where we delivered – were the two most fans had identified as the most likely sources of three points.

We’ll need more than just another three that’s for sure. Where on earth are they going to come from? Next up is the visit of the Blades. Top of the table. They’ve won eight and drawn one of their last ten matches.