This season, Middlesbrough boss Michael Carrick has had to address what could have been a major problem after losing some key components of what made his side a success last season.
A total of 46 league goals were lost in players that moved on in the summer (and that is before you factor in the loss of Ryan Giles’ assists). Chuba Akpom, Cameron Archer and Aaron Ramsey all moved on after spells with the Boro and fans could have been forgiven for thinking that replacing them and their contribution was near impossible.
In fairness to Michael Carrick, he also thought it was impossible and always reiterated the point that it was never about replacing those goals like-for-like. He preferred to look at the problem, or challenge as trying to ensure that the team and squad as a whole figured out a way to win matches collectively. Scoring goals in different areas and sharing that burden across the group made more sense to him.
Boro have had to rejig the way that they increase their goals tally, and they have done that by sharing the total across the squad. Riley McGree is currently the top league scorer on five goals, with Matt Crooks on three. The Teessiders have already had twelve different league scorers this season, no Championship club has had more.
How Boro have adapted
That can be an easy thing to say, but how it has been put into practice has been extremely impressive. First of all, Carrick and his coaching staff have ensured that the style of football has been maintained. Boro play in exactly the same fluid way that they did last season.
Some on the pitch relationships may have slightly changed, but the principles remain the same. Crooks in the ten operates in a slightly different way to Chuba did. Coburn-a player who has been granted an opportunity rather than loaned out-plays differently to how Archer did last season. But that has not affected the overall efficiency of the team. As each game passes this season, they look more and more like the side that did so well during periods of the last campaign.
Some will say that they have simply reverted to last season’s line-up, but if you examine it with a little more scrutiny, you will see that the new players that have been brought in are really contributing to the team effort and in particular the philosophy of scoring goals. Let’s be honest, that is where the strengths in a Michael Carrick team lay; scoring goals.
Strong summer recruitment
A word then about the recruitment team and their vision. What they had clearly envisaged, is now becoming a reality, the summer arrivals that have come in are young, hungry to play and leave their mark, and the majority of them are attack minded and are desperate to score goals. Lots of talk at the time surrounded the fact that Boro had only brought in one out-and-out striker in Emannuel Latte Lath, but a look at the other attacking players that were brought in, would tell you that it was a deliberate ploy to secure the services of players with particular attributes.
Rogers, Greenwood, Silvera, and young Alex Gilbert are all expressive, forward-thinking players who can play across that front line behind the striker and get goals.
Sami Silvera and Morgan Rogers have already shown how desperate they are to score and create goals. Those two, whilst often used from the substitutes bench have contributed to nine goals between them already. Add to that the goal threat of Sam Greenwood, a young player who has tasted the Premier League and wants to prove his worth in the North East. Then you have got Gilbert who Carrick clearly believes in, but wants to ensure his development is done in the right way.
The role of the forward
Those individuals have bolstered an area that is already full of talent. Riley McGree, Isaiah Jones, Matt Crooks and Marcus Forss are already at the club and have important roles, but Boro now have creative back-up, which has already seen them reap the rewards with Rogers and Silvera getting the winning goals from the subs bench in the last two outings.
Having so much creativity behind the number nine or the striker that starts the game means that, as long as they play their part-in as much as helping to knit together the patterns of play and stretching the opposition in different ways-then there is less pressure for them to score goals, because the odds are, if they keep playing the way Carrick wants, the goal will come from somewhere.
Carrick has already mentioned that he does not measure Josh Coburn’s game solely on goals, but more on performances. What the 21-year-old adds to the side is a physicality that can tire defenders more quickly, enabling fresh players to come on and take advantage late in games.
Carrick has been keen to keep the pressure off Josh, saying in a report in Teesside Live, “We knew what type of player Josh was, what his strengths were and the natural attributes that he had. He’s still growing physically, he’s still developing as a man, really. There’s still more to come from him, from that side of things.
No new striker needed
There has even been goals from unlikely sources this season like Jonny Howson and Darragh Lenihan. Hayden Hackney, who generally plays deeper than the attacking midfielders has also been encouraged by Carrick to add more goals to his displays after hitting a cracker against Huddersfield.
So the fact that Carrick was so adamant in his response that the club won’t be dipping into the January market for a striker, should not be so surprising. Latte Lath and Coburn will be alternated throughout the season, and the goal responsibility will be carried by everyone. It is extremely unlikely that a striker at Boro will hit 20 goals this season, but that will be the case for many of the clubs in the Championship. It is about figuring out how to score goals as a team, and Carrick seems to be already on the way to figuring out that conundrum.