Middlesbrough slumped to a 2-1 defeat against Hull City on Wednesday evening, but Michael Carrick refused to lament the performance of his players, insisting they were ‘controlling the game for large periods’.
The Boro boss gave his scheduled post-match interview to the club’s media, and appeared to praise the effort and application of his players, adding, ‘I do believe if we keep playing like that, we’ll be absolutley fine.’
What Carrick means by ‘absolutely fine’ is dependent of course on the club’s aspirations this season. Most fans are understanding of the progression of the club and the apparent vision with regard to recruiting young players, but it would surely be a disappointment to not be in or around the play-off spots come the end of the season.
Deja vu for Boro
That is not to say they have no chance, but the defeat to Hull sadly carried an element of deja vu and not from previous seasons, from this campaign where clubs have played Michael Carrick’s side and looked decidedly average, only to emerge with a point or three.
Boro have now drawn or lost against 8 teams in the bottom half of the Championship and we are not even at the halfway stage in the season.
The former Manchester United man is not wrong when he says that his team control the ball for large parts, they do, and it is a definite strategy, but aesthetically pleasing passages of play in the middle of the park don’t win football matches, so Boro need to find a way of being decisive in both boxes, otherwise the possession strategy just becomes a vanity project.
The game against Hull felt like a slight turning point, a deviation in terms of how fans felt about the season so far. Fans who are generally positive post-match, appeared to show their frustrations in their reaction on social media platforms.
Toothless forward line
The game is not solely based on statistics, but to add some context as to how toothless Boro’s forward line was, according to the WhoScored website, The Teesside outfit had 16 shots, with only one goal scored. That is a conversion rate of just 6%. Hull City were less than impressive in terms of their general play, but they scored twice from 8 shots on goal. A conversion rate of 25%.
It is true that Middlesbrough are suffering badly from their injuries to key players, but there are enough first team individuals in the line-up to be performing better than they are currently.
Up front there has to be some concern about the number nine position. Emannuel Latte Lath worked hard and got a goal for his efforts, but he struggled to generate any kind of cohesive phases of play with his attack-minded colleagues. On top of that, Josh Coburn has been taken out of the squad for a bit of protection because of the amount of games he has played for a young player in development.
It was not the worst performance in the world, but the team looked disjointed at times. Crooks, Greenwood and Jones misfired and many of the footballing relationships within the starting eleven looked like they hadn’t played together before. Carrick had made the point in previous interviews that the chopping and changing of personnel is not helping with the fluency in games and that was certainly evident.
Wins need to come
The Middlesbrough boss continues to explain that he is happy with the way that his side are playing, but Boro have now drawn or lost against 8 teams in the bottom half of the Championship and we are not even at the halfway stage in the season. they have lost 10 games out of 21.
There are plenty of fans who would rather their team start picking up wins irrespective of how they come. Currently, the play-off places are still in touching distance, but if Boro’s festive period continues in the same vein as their recent form, the gap to the top six could become insurmountable.