"We Were Found Out" Admits Lamb
KEITH Lamb has broken his silence and admitted that Boro were "found out" last season. Over the thudding sound of a giant penny dropping he added that the club had paid the heavy price for filleting the team of experience and relying too much on untried youth.
Lamby did a series of press conferences at Hurworth today. I guess after the big boss and Neil Bausor on Radio Brownlee it was his turn to spin a bit. I don't want to second guess what the nationals will use tomorrow but I presume most of them will go on the Stewart Downing "for sale" shocker (already on the Gazette website).
But among the rest of the quotes for the Gazette and official website there was some subtle hand-raising and can carrying as well as a quite upbeat eve of season ticket deadline message on the robust finances, the gaffer's position and the prospects for next season. Read on...
"I think Gareth would acknowledge that if we made a mistake last year it was we didn't have some older players in the squad," said Lamb. "We relied a little too much on youth and perhaps we got found out in the end. We lacked leadership and experience in the dressing room when things went wrong. With that in mind, we are looking to bring in more experience and to find players who are a bit more physical."
Lamb admitted the squad now needs to be reshuffled with some older heads coming in and insisted the cash was there for the reinforcements needed to launch a promotion charge.
"We are more than confident," he said. "We know that we are in sound financial health and that the club will survive this relegation. We will not go into freefall as a number of other clubs have over the last few years. Some clubs have gone into such freefall they are not in the Championship, they are in League One.
"There will be people leaving, that is inevitable, but they will only be leaving if it is in the best interests of Middlesbrough Football Club. But I feel the squad needs refreshing. I think everybody accepts you need a squad to get you out of the Championship and another team to keep you in the Premier League. The gap is that wide."
"There will be players coming in," said Lamb. "The squad you need for the Championship is different from the squad you need for the Premier League, so we need a different type of player.
"The need for leaders is something that Gareth has mentioned. When he became manager he wanted to bring down the average age of the squad and he has achieved that aim.
"We know who we want, we know exactly who our targets are and we are well on with a number of them. Certainly we have a number of targets who are within our resource."
The new faces may be as yet unknown but the departures are pretty much nailed on. The sheepish superstars sat in the seats near the 'need a new challenge' door include Stewy, Tuncay, Matthew Bates and his three new knees paid for by Boro and Gary O'Neil but Lamb refused to be drawn on exact movements.
"It is too early to say who will be leaving and who will be staying," he said. "It is that time of the season when if I look in a newspaper everyone is for sale, everyone is being tapped up," he added. "The only time we will comment on individuals is when we have a deal to announce and someone leaves."
Lamb fessed up that relegation has blown a hole in Boro's long term strategy but stressed that the club were capable of managing the dramatic drop in income.
"They talk about parachute payments but you need more than a parachute," he said. ""It is financially bad news. It does mean we could be losing up to £30million of income. That leaves a big hole in any club's budget and planning for the future.
"Having said that we can recover from it and if there is anything to be said for getting relegated it is that, financially, we will be able to handle it. We can't avoid the fact it has been a poor season all round - on and off the field it hasn't been particularly good.
"But we are where we are. We are not where we wanted to be but the club is not in the dire straits that has been painted by a lot of the media in recent weeks," he said... mainly by his own manager who has been spinning a slightly different line on the question of finances he could have added but didn't.
The chief executive reiterated the club's backing for deceptive dressing room hatchetman Gareth Southgate, saying: "I have always been impressed with Gareth's ambition. Don't be fooled by his pleasant demeanour and politeness - he can be tough when he wants to be. He is strong. He wants to stay and he wants to change the club and get us back in the Premier League."
Older/Newer
« Boro Struggle In The Money League | Twittering On. Again. »
54 Comments
Leave a comment
Profile
Anthony Vickers
Keep up to date
Follow Untypical Boro on
Stolen from a chant about Bobby Zamora to the tune of "Amore"
If your'e sitting in Row Z....
And the ball hits your head....
That's Afonso....
Talk is cheap.
Talking about ambition should not be confused with practical incompetence.
Putting pieces on the Blog at 7.37pm! Are you getting overtime?
Just been out for a meal with friends from my previous place of work. One of them will definitely NOT be renewing a season ticket for next season, and the other MAY not renew. Still, keep smiling Boro Board, my money will still hit the club's coffers. It could be lonely on the West Stand next season.
Lamb has, and will continue to make very bad decisions. He has to take a massive chunk of the blame. He has never been popular in my book, and it has been him that has ultimately undersigned the selling off some of our better talent like Morrison and Cattermole that would have been integral to staying up (at least they would have pitched in with 10+ goals) and responsible for the double whammy of stumping up even more for Alves in installments because of the tumbling Euro conversion rate.
Lets not forget the money we just threw away with no equity at the end. Four million quid for Gazza, and he crashed the team bus. Lamb really is the spin doctor of the club and misguidingly must believe in his own spin and capability.
**AV writes: Do you think he is some kind of loose cannon acting without higher sanction?
So it's taken a full season for him to change his tune from 'the best squad we've ever had' to 'we were found out' ?
How can anyone believe anything this man says?
I think you've misunderstood the difference between 'can carrying' and 'carpet under sweeping'.
Can carrying involves someone taking a fall and there being some kind of punishment. It doesn't work like that at MFC. I am yet to hear anyone from the club tell me why things were not adressed in January.
**AV writes: You forget Boro is a closed community of collectively responsibility where responsibility means never having to say sorry. It is like 1970s Kremlinwatching where who sits where on the top table and where the commas are in the official communique have deep significance.
Just to admit that the club structure and the ethos of a team without experience was flawed is a statement of deep culture and political importance. Believe me, these quotes are heavy with implication.
I read on FMTTM that the Boro have sold nearly 12 thousand season tickets for next season.
Considering MFC is only supported by people who live in Middlesbrough remembering that Stockton folk are mackems, thats a decent amount of sales.
I think this is a very interesting article in today's Northern Echo. Of particular interest are Lamb's comments on the 'myth' of trimmed wage bill and that Boro's failure as a team last season cannot be put down to a failure to invest in the squad.
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/4424071.Gibson_slashes_debts_to_aid_Boro___s_promotion_bid/
"I have always been impressed with Gareth's ambition. Don't be fooled by his pleasant demeanour and politeness - he can be tough when he wants to be. He is strong. He wants to stay and he wants to change the club and get us back in the Premier League."
This is the comment from THAT GIBSON & LAMB SHOW .
i PERSONALLY THINK NO MATTER WHAT THOSE 2 SAY HE IS USELESS & WILL TAKE US NEARER DIV1 THAN THE PREMIERSHIP.
What did the Gazette poll show? 80% wanted him out .
Please Mr Lamb do not take us for fools .
AV
I'm glad to see that you can divine no particular purpose to this performance by The Count - other than the one that he offered; 'everyone else is on holiday'.
I was mystified as to why he'd bothered, except he clearly loves the sport of winding up the people he (and Gibbo) act 'only as custodians' for and he'd got bored with the phone not ringing and getting to the 'master' level of solitaire on his laptop.
You were right that the nationals would pick up on the 'tell us something we don't know' revelations about Stewie and Ross Turnbull (and the rest) going.
The bits that I picked up on from the Beeb televised lowlights were the admissions that the club had been complacent about its Prem status and that for the last six months of watching our Prem status trashed he'd felt 'powerless to do anything about it'.
Both staggering admissions. Ordinarily, the only time I'd expect to hear a CEO make those sort of admissions is when they're telling you they're going to 'spend more time with my family'. But we know that none of The Triumverate are going.
I'm presuming that his estimation of the 'the last six months' meant after the embarrassing failure of the January 2009 transfer window that was the worst transfer window for Boro since, oh...., the one before that.
He was one of the 'triumverate' that fashioned those failures. So, not 'powerless to do anything about it' before the end of January, then.
And, Nigel, if you can stop playing with the toys still in your pram for a minute and pay attention, the evidence of recent transfer windows is why I won't believe a word of the sort that Gate, Gibbo and, most recently, The Count say about who Boro will get in until I see them sign a contract.
On the issue of Season ticket sales if the figures being bandied about are correct [12000] then surely the club are getting a huge wake up call.
If we had stayed up I would have guessed a drop of 3000 to 17000 as a result of a dreadful season and economic recession. Add on to that a gutless relegation, a manager that most people have lost faith in, no new signings and talk of many departures then surely the people in charge can see why many will not commit their money up front.
I've renewed mine but I fully understand those who have taken the decision not to. At the end of the day it's the only sanction the fan has on the club.
There has never in our recent history been as much pressure on Steve Gibson and his staff to get the fans back onside.The only way to do that is by performances on the pitch and by starting the season with a squad of players which tells you that the club are really giving it a right go to recover their Premiership status.
There is no getting away from the simple fact that everybody involved with running Boro did a poor job last season. Transfer decisions were totally awful.
Looking ahead the prospects are not too bad because even though the back line is too clumsy for the premier league and nobody knows how to score, the squad will be good enough to cope (but not excite) in the championship.
I don't expect promotion next season but at least the ship can be steadied, and Boro fans can look forward to probably beating the Mags twice. The top clubs will likely be Sheffield Utd, Ipswich, WBA, Reading, Derby and Bristol City - probably finishing in about that order.
Boro will be just under that group along with clubs like Cardiff City and Crystal Palace. The Mags will be competing with teams like Doncaster Rovers, Peterborough and Scunthorpe to stay up.
How long Boro stay in the wilderness will depend on keeping the younger players. If too many are sold then both relegated NE clubs will probably be out of the top division for a generation.
Hard as it is for fans of the other local teams to take, it seems that Sunderland will become a true power again and be the pride of the NE in coming seasons. asically we are now back to how things were some years ago, i.e. only one good team in these parts.
As reshuffles are in the news, do you have any information on the comings and goings in the backroom 'cabinet'?
Rumour has it that certain members have been sacked or shoved sideways and others promoted - although I've yet to hear of Southgate being accused of sexism.
**AV writes: We expect changes. I think it is clear that all is not sweetnes and light between Colin Cooper and Steve Agnew. I think the key role of shouting and pointing from the touchline will be decided by two falls, two submissions or a knockout in the coaches room.
I've just popped out of my pram for a moment to pick up a couple of toys I chucked out after reading a couple of earlier posts.
An observation, Keith Lamb's comments appear to be the closest we'll get to an admission mistakes were made and an apology.
The buck of course stops with Steve Gibson and the fact that he can't bring himself to say 'sorry' for mistakes made and the consequences of them is in my opinion a big weakness. To my mind Steve Gibson has many strong leadership qualities however the fact that he lacks the one which would allow him to say sorry is his biggest weakness.
I can, unlike many, forgive mistakes and failure given that we all make them. However the ability to admit mistakes usually results in respect gained and I suspect some of the anger and frustration expressed by Boro supporters is down to the Boro management team not overtly accepting collective responsibility for the disaster of relegation.
John - you're right, attention to detail is not one of my strong points, perhaps your weakness is making assumptions. The Gazette does not obtain all its Boro 'info' from MFC, the Gomez story reported in the Gazette came from 'a source' from outside the club as AV pointed out, therefore you made an incorrect assumption.
Keith Lamb you talk utter nonsense. Those who played a part in bringing Alves to the club are the only ones who got found out.
We all watched a goal scoring machine miss everything except the kick off. A player you personally watched going from bad to worse and did nothing about. That is the truth of the matter and the facts are in print called stats. Why don’t you simply admit that another fortune has been wasted on another failed striker?
Bernie Slaven was pointing the finger at the main faults, but his fair and very constructive criticism was seen as an act of betrayal.
You should have employed Bernie to teach our strikers what they were doing wrong, because he was up there with the best for producing the goods. He would have scored 10 goals with his suit on and a Microphone in his hand that I saw Alves miss.
Do not try and come away from this collectively, because that is a slur on those who did play their part.
I can't stand Keith Lamb and I wish he would do us all a favour and resign. Did he really think we would believe the 'best squad we've ever had' quote at the start of the season?
I do not believe a word he says and would rather he just said nothing at all. AV, can we ask the question of the club when all this spin is going to stop?
It is all politics.
In recent weeks the various members of the triumverate have all been busy trying to distance themselves from responsibility for the disaster of relegation.
As relegation became inevitable Southgate took every opportunity to scream that it wasn't his fault - his hands had been tied with wage cuts, no transfer money, and a young squad... a fact he emphasised by putting on teenage debutants ina game we desperately needed to win at West Ham when more senior players were available.
Last week Gibbo went public and stressed through gritted teeth there was collective responsibility but also said he was disappointed with relegation and that he had expected better results with a squad he thought was better than some teams that stayed up pointing the finger at Southgate.
Now Lamb has underlined that fingerpointimg and said explicitly it is NOT down to money, the wage bill cuts are a myth, it is down to what you do with it and said that mistakes were made in letting older players go and bringing in kids...
For me they are setting up Southgate for a fall. They let him form a noose with talk about finances then both slapped him down publicly saying it is nowhere near as bad "as some people have made out."
Now they have both set promotion as a target and said there is money. I think if Boro are not in the top two or three after ten games Southgate will get sacked and then they will both dump everything on him.
**AV writes: Do you think he is some kind of loose cannon acting without higher sanction?**
Good one, AV, but that would mean he was acting with some sense of intelligence and of course that can't be true, can it?
Is it me or am I missing something. Why has suddenly Matthew Bates become a more important asset to the Boro than Stuart Downing? Bates hasn't proved himself in any shape or form. He hasn't got 23 caps in the full England side. Why are we being fed this nonsense?
To Downing's credit has been an ever present in the side and has contributed a lot (shame about goals this season) and in typical Boro style our main asset got crocked right at the end. Downing and Bates are in different leagues. Not only in their attitude to the club, but in ability.
Lamb said: “We accept that Matthew faces a real dilemma. For starters he is a local boy who loves this football club. He has had three cruciate injuries earlier in his career and he knows how much the club supported him during this time."
But then we go on to:
Lamb added: “So Matthew has to decide whether to find a club in the Premier League or does he stay and help us for the way we have looked after him"
I hope that is a 'back handed' comment from Lamb that we can read between the lines. I hope what it suggests and suggests to me that Bates has no loyalty to the club that has seem him right.
Has David Wheater ever had ideas above his station and questions about his loyalty? No. Is Wheater a better asset and player with more experience than Bates? Yes. Has Downing shown commitment to the club? Yes. Is Bates a better player than Downing or Wheater? Absolutely not.
These stories aren't without background, and we've heard nothing in the past week other than Matthew Bates. I think Gareth said that he wanted players that were 100% committed to the cause of getting the Boro out of the Championship at the first attempt. Whoever Bate's PR is deserves some recognition, because he is a bit part player, a CHAMPIONSHIP player who should cut their cloth in the CHAMPIONSHIP. If he doesn't like that and quite frankly i'm sick of hearing about him now, I want him to go somewhere else. In this instance i'd like 'silly' money.
It's becoming quite clear that there is a new line being drawn in the sand.
There is a new “contract” in place between Gibson and Southgate. Southgate has been (fairly in my view) spared the sole blame so far, because many of the big decisions were "committee" decisions over the past three seasons. The first of which, of course, was the appointment of the rookie manager, who had to be given time to find his feet.
Southgate didn't have full managerial authority and therefore couldn't fairly be held personally accountable for the full range of “normal” managerial responsibilities.
The ballpark has now been changed, however. (Yes, I know - it's now the bloody Championship!)
Whether Southgate will be endowed with complete managerial authority will not be apparent to outside observers, any more than in any of the last three seasons. But, irrespective of that, I believe that this time round, Gibson will have made it clear to Southgate that he will be held accountable, either way, for the results.
That, I believe, is the new top contract and like others have commented, he'll be given only as many matches as Gibson feels comfortable with to be at the top, or within spitting distance of the top. Should an uncomfortable points gap open up between Boro and the top one or two, Southgate's grasp on the managership will be released, either voluntarily, or otherwise.
Even now, I believe Gibson will be quietly developing contingency plans to identify prospective candidates. Not that anyone should expect to hear anything about that though, because to do so would undermine Southgate’s position from the off.
Whether this is fair will depend on the extent to which there is agreement between Gibson and Southgate on the criteria against which Southgate will be personally judged. But from where I stand, there appears to be little doubt that next season will be about results and results only!
Should Boro, with Southgate in place come up short, the degree of “sanction” will be interesting. Whether he is supplemented with temporary talent (as Robson was in his final year) or whether Southgate leaves, is a point for further conjecture.
But irrespective of that, I reckon the slate's been wiped clean and a whole new set of “rules” are in play from “Day #1”.
Well, no way Sherlock!! What revealing insights will you provide next, Mr. Lamb...we should have bought a keeper? We should have replaced Rochembach etc? We should have spent money in January?
The last few weeks of collective denial remind me of a line from Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose"..."When everyone owns something, no-one owns it". Right now this collective responsibility bull is deflecting any serious discussion on what went wrong (not that the club seems to want this -- let's face it, the only serious discussion seems to be among us) and how to fix it.
A.V.
If I may, Mr. Average said "they are setting up Southgate for a fall". Could not agree more, Southgate has done what was required and got the team relegated, now if he does not keep the team within a few points of the play off positions, he goes.
Richard, spot on, Mr. Gibson is not too worried about promotion as long as the club appears to be in with a chance. If not bye bye Mr. Southgate.
Mr. Sebastian T. Dead right do not expect promotion, we are not going to get it under Mr. Gibson, he cannot compete with the billionaires and has had his fingers burnt and won't want it to happen again.
The rest of the Gibson era will be in the Championship. A bold and perhaps a foolhardy statement but a logical assessment of the situation that has also been recognized by the more discerning contributors to this board.
Incidentally all leadership manuals make it plain "admit your mistakes" Something the triumverate should bear in mind.
In the eyes of many Boro fans Mr. Lamb was found out long ago.
In my opinion, the Boro board is too small. Some may argue that is a good thing, however, there is currently nobody else to challenge the decisions of Steve Gibson and Keith Lamb.
Result being, we have to accept willingly or not, that the transfer policy adopted by this small minority is good for the club, manager, team and fans.
A debate that will rage for many years to come unless change is forthcoming.
How to fix it?
First of all find out who wants to stay. Then find out who we want to keep.
Get rid of any who aren't good enough (quite a few proved this last year).
Go after proven transfer targets. No more unknowns or projects. Don't mention a word to the press until the ink is dry on the contract.
Changes in coaching staff are required. We can't defend, and our strikers can't strike. Expert coaching in these two areas is essential.
An EFFECTIVE scouting network needs to be set up.
Gibson and Lamb to keep their noses out of what should be the Manager's job. They just provide the money and negotiate the contracts. Southgate's job is to pick the players, select the team, and determine formation and tactics.
If we are not near the top of the Championship by Xmas, Southgate GOES. End of. No ifs, buts, or maybes. He GOES.
Blind faith only goes so far. The fans are not a cash cow that can be relied upon forever. We expect to see some sort of positive return for our loyalty.
When the Boro fans (including those pseudo Makems living in TS19 and surrounding area) start believing the spin and hype then ticket sales will increase rapidly. At the minute all we are hearing is hollow rhetoric repeating what we collectively were screaming out over 6 months previously (and a lot longer in some cases, TB take a bow).
I have circa 15% confidence in GS being able to suddenly become something or someone in the next two months that he hasn't been able to show in the last 12, probably 50% of the confidence that I had in SG 12 months ago. With regards to KL nothing has changed my opinion of him, he is consistent so at least I will give him that. The Neil Bausor experiment seems to have lost its fizz (oops collective fizz).
Talk is cheap, it started with Dickensian hand wringing over our financial plight in December leading up to the Transfer window and now we are to believe that all in the garden is rosy. Is it any wonder we show complete disdain over the "collective" mumblings over what went wrong? As Neil (USA) above points out "this collective responsibility bull is deflecting any serious discussion on what went wrong".
When we replace the coaching team, sign two proven strikers, a keeper, two midfielders and replace the outwardly mobile with suitable replacements then we will not believe (let alone show blind faith) but we may gave the courtesy of listening with a half open mind.
Lets see what happens over the next 8 weeks. We are hearing that collective lessons have been learned, if thats then case then lets see some collective action.
I think Lamb gets a lot of unfair criticism from fans. He has only to open his mouth or put pen to paper and some fans will start ranting and raving with no reference to the content of his comments. He seems to me to be a man of common sense who has been a great servant to the club.
The one person who has been talking down Boro's ability to be competitive as a Premier League outfit is Gareth Southgate, and I think Lamb's patience has worn thin with the excuse of not having had sufficient funding. In my view that was the impetus to Lamb's interviews on Friday.
It was Southgate who was the first to start discussing Boro's (lack of) finance with the press in order to provide reasons for Boro's extremely poor results. Lamb may not be directly attacking the manager with his comments in his various interviews of Friday, but he is dismantling the defences behind which Southgate has been shielded by people who point to the club's changed business model as the predicate for relegation.
Firstly, Lamb reinforces a point first implied by Gibson on the radio that it was ultimately Gareth's decision to dispense with so many experienced players in such as short space of time.
Witness how he mentions the manager by name when he talks about the cost Boro paid for lacking experience as a squad. "I think Gareth would acknowledge that if we made a mistake last year it was we didn't have some older players in the squad".
He goes on, in an interview printed elsewhere, to mention Gareth again as the person who wanted "to bring down the average age of the squad and he [Gareth] has achieved that aim".
Up until now it has been implied by the manager and by elements of the local press that reducing the age of the squad is something the manager was tasked with. Significantly, Lamb is saying Southgate wasn't just acting under orders but was effectively taking a lead on filleting of the squad of experience, as AV puts it.
Even more damning is the little nugget about the savings to the wage bill being pure "myth". What's interesting is not how accurate Lamb's figures are, because figures can be skewed to present various versions of reality, but that the Chief Executive is quite consciously contradicting Southgate's insistance that he has made savings on the wage bill during his time as manager.
Here it's the motivation that's more interesting than anything else. WHY is Lamb saying this? The answer, I think, is that Lamb thinks Gareth has overplayed Boro's financial difficulties going so far as to (coyly) insinuate that the club might be on sounder financial footing in the Championship.
If I was a Chief Executive reading those quotes attributed to Southgate I would be most disappointed, and I reckon Lamb has had enough. In his closing comments in the Northern Echo piece he doesn't mention Southgate by name but rather the players he has signed.
Gibson didn't want to talk about individuals, but Lamb is not afraid to name names: “This year we had the most expensive strikeforce in the club’s history. If you look at Mido, (Afonso) Alves, (Marvin) Emnes and (Jeremie) Aliadiere, I think it was £25m-£26m they cost us to bring to the club. That is the most we have ever paid for a strikeforce. Now that is not consistent with the common belief that we have been cutting back. What we have not had is a return on that investment.”
In a single day of interviews Lamb has issued statements more interesting than anything else Gareth and Gibson has said in the last twelve months.
Middlesbrough FC is run very badly isn't it? Yes it is without a doubt! This has been proven in a quite disastrous season which has broken records for all the wrong reasons.
Until we get people at the club who know how a football club should be run i dont see anything changing in our fortunes. Steve Gibson may be an astute businessman,but the way he conducts things at MFC leaves a lot to be desired.
If you or i had made as many mistakes as Southgate has this season, we would, and indeed expect to be relieved of our positions.To actually keep faith with someone who clearly isn't up to the job is quite staggering. I bet if GS had been one of Mr Gibson bulkhaul staff he would have been shown the door some time ago, yet we are made to suffer for another season (or at least part) again.
So what you need to do Mr Gibson to avoid this problem occuring again is
1 - appoint an experienced manager,preferably with a proven track record (no more rookies please!)
2 - make sure he has decent coaches to work with (no more Malcolm Crosby types!)
3 - listen to the fans a bit more (it wont hurt to say sorry you got it wrong!)
4 - get a new chief excec
5 - employ a director of football to over see the day to day running of the club (sorry but you just aint very good at it son!)
There, problems solved!
Some people here are getting way too upset about what has been said by Lamb et al. I dont see anything wrong with what he has said. He was probably asked a question and he quite simply answered. What more can you expect?
They say talk is cheap, so why does everyone take it so seriously? What's the point of getting upset just because you didnt hear something you want to hear? Come on people, time to move on and get back to supporting the team come rain or sunshine
I don't think Keith Lamb deserves most of the criticism he gets, simply because we fans don't really have a clue how well he does his job - we don't know the details of what he does. We can't make an objective judgement on it. I don't think Steve Gibson would continue to employ someone who was so useless as is made out (add your own Southgate quip here).
However, I would suggest that Lamb, Gibson, Bausor, Southgate etc would stop talking so much and get on with finalising our plans for next season because whatever they say at the moment, however right, or however well-intentioned is just going to annoy the majority of fans, and who now want to see actions (i.e, signings), and not words.
In simple terms, can we agree, signing a player for a fee, plus signing on inducement (like Alves etc) means loan payment for that cost plus salary, so which head case decided to let Boateng, Viduka, Rochembach (could have taken option) go when they only required a salary? Can I hear "You dont know what your doing?"
Jwm367t: its not what has been said by anybody at the Riverside that has caused any upset as what they say sadly is treated with the contempt it deserves (not that I or others on here want to I hasten to add). It is the gaps in what they are saying (or conveniently avoiding) that is causing the upset.
More and more they are acting like politicians becoming more desperate by the day with their ridiculous, insulting and clumsy statements. I have not heard a single believable, uplifting or confidence building statement from any of them in recent weeks despite the club being in dire and urgent need for strong leadership right now.
We are witnessing a collective Thatcheresque melt down performance, perhaps only outdone at the minute by Gordon Brown. The fans stood up and were counted towards the end of the season and showed more unity than MFC deserved.
Thats one of the reasons why there is the distinction for some of us between "Boro" the club (and its warts and all history which belongs to Teesside and its people) and MFC who we simply cannot relate to and feel that we are blatantly not welcome in attempting to relate to!
Some of the people are being fooled but thankfully not all of us. I and others will always support the Boro but am totally alienated by MFC and the holy Triumvirate right now!
AV - The Agnew vs Cooper superbout could have a real winner takes all feel to it as I fully expect one of them to be appointed manager /stooge should GS be relieved of duties in the not to distant.
Comforting to know that after all the years Lamb has served Boro, he presumably accepted the club had to cut the age of the squad and reduce its size. A decision favoured or promoted by a manager with less than three years experience. Blind faith or stupidity or cost cutting with the hope that we might get away with it without being relegated?
So its back to square one and a call for more experienced players for the next campaign.They really do think we are gullible, something I shall reflect upon as I look around the empty seats in August.
Giles:
Very perceptive. You've picked up on the subtleties that most people miss.
The executive have now positioned themselves publicly and distanced themselves from Southgate. As I said in my earlier post - he's on his own now! And if he doesn't deliver, he's history.
It's a pity we can't have the same treatment handed out to everyone at the very top, because it's certainly not only Southgate who's been responsible for taking us down. But a bit like with Government, the democratic response to show disapproval is for the people to withdraw support - use your vote/ stop buying the product, if you don't like it.
I suspect we'll find that many will go down that route this year, although the club will do it's utmost to put positive spin on it - whatever "it" is!
Definately changing from Holy Tinity to sanbiki no saru or in English, Three Wise Monkeys: Didnt see relegation coming says Gibbo, powerless to stop it says Lambie, the big boy did it says Gate.
It makes you wonder if anyone was on the bridge as the Good Ship Boro approached the iceberg.
Their meetings must have been like a John Cleese training video with no agenda, no note taking and no action points. The one thing about not knowing where you are going is that you are sure to get there. Oh dear.
Sick of these excuses. Gibson promised a full investigation on what is going wrong. Seems like nothing is going to change and the club are just protecting southgate and trying to spread the blame across to everyone.
I see despite Southgate saying wage bill has been reduced. Mr Lamb now says it is not much different than three years ago. The club are coming out with so much mixed signals. Makes you wonder if they are treating the fans with no respect and think we are mugs.
We want to see serious changes this summer so the club can show to us they mean business. I still can't believe Southgate has survived that season unscathed. Are the fans just not bothered and happy to accept any rubbish?
Middesbrough Football Club were relegated, because they never scored goals.
Goals, which on many occasions were a mere tap in.
Goals, which on many occasions looked impossible to miss.
Goals, which a £12m striker should have used for target practice.
We should have corrected that error in the January transfer window, but the attitude was always focused on Alves coming good. Why the club didn’t shuffle the pack and buy a striker?
The Gazette’s sports team had Alves in the position one would have expected at the end of the season, but had they compiled their list prior to January, it would have almost read the same, such was the incompetence all round.
That played right into the hands of Hull, Stoke and a few more teams who took full advantage of a team who simply couldn’t score goals.
AV,
The posts here are very negative to say the least. Some think that SG have become a bad chairman in a year. We all hailed Alves as the greatest ever forward just a year ago (I still do believe in Alves). GS was our best captain ever in Cardiff etc. But everything is terrible now.
It was a huge dissappointment because I for one expected this to be one of the best seasons ever. But this is not the worst season either - did you support Boro in 1986? I was in England then I didn't know if Boro werer ever play in the league again - just a day before the season started at Hartlepool.
Boro is healthy now, have a new stadion and a great training ground. Get real this is not the end - I am looking forward to the Championship already (finally).
By the way, could you, AV, please collect all the 'difficult' questions from here and have Mr Gibson answering those here? Just to see that everything is not lost and margins are small in the PL.
Season ticket sales were worryingly low so Gibbo and Lamby surface from their Bunker to plead with the fans to back the Boro. Once the deadline is past of course, as usual the silence returns. Predicable - yes, successful - no.
Time to wake up to the real world Boro, it is down to the club and the club alone, after three years of awful football, to convince the fans that you really mean business. That means investing in players and playing attractive attacking football. Do that and the crowds will return. The vast majority of fans are waiting for the Boro to turn up, not the other way round.
Well KL's broken the mould by admitting 'they' got it wrong. Decision made - 'they' who got it wrong can now get it right and we have just got to believe them because 'they' aren't going anywhere.
As my last post stated, you can have all the money and devotion but it doesn't mean you will be successful. GS 'is a strong man with vision'. In reality GS has presided over two seasons, I say again two seasons, of below par performance and a third of unmitigated failure. Now SG & KL want us to believe he will be a success (if only).
Is this not just more evidence that the three men in a boat are in fact also in a bubble of fantasy. GS has never brought a club out of the championship into the Premier League. His track record in no way suggests he is the man for the job. He has zero success in management. No trophies, no European football, nothing.
Okay negativity over. Pleading begins. Please, please, please, get out of the bubble, eat some large slices of humble pie and get an experienced manager who will organise and run the team. Pay for Mogga damn quick and let him get on with the job.
It would be useful if everyone could move on and start looking forward to next season with some positivity.
Southgate is going nowhere. Lamb is going nowhere, so just accept it. The alternative is to walk away.
Also, can this ridiculous Stockton issue be dropped once and for all. It's so BORING!
Fascinating stuff...
What begins to emerge is a subtle apportioning of blame, and deferred accountability - GS may not get the bullet immediately but it seems his credibility is in question even with KL and SG, and that his days are numbered
If this is the case - if these doubts exist - surely the prudent course of action is to bite the bullet now and replace GS in good time to allow a new (more experienced and presumably non-German coach) to start putting the pieces back together again before the season begins. To delay and then change the Manager come January seems to be another huge and reckless gamble
What surprises - no, disappoints - is the playing again of the post-Eindhoven 'blind faith' card, the failure to recognise that this card has already been played before and so has lost its utility, and that nobody has felt it necessary to apologise for the mistakes that have brought us to where we are. The continuing reliance on 'positive spin' just serves to create a distance between 'us' and 'them'
I'm tired of complaining and making similar points over again but nobody seems to be listening and the direct 'questioning' of those with responsibility (even if not accountability) is too gentle, selective and imprecise
So, we begin to re-assemble around the red flag, albeit in reduced numbers and with faith in short supply. We await the comings and goings with resignation (wouldn't that be a nice change) rather than expectation, and with a sense of forboding that come January we'll be putting the wheels back on the Boro battlewagon yet again
As we wait for the inspirational words from GS to convince us to give him another six months, out of the mist, shadows and mirrors emerges Ian Gill, his face painted red and white, with the rallying call 'They may take our MFC but they'll never take our Boro!!'
Gibbo and Lamb are a double act so nobody should expect the departure of Lambo.
We all wanted Alves at the club. I wonder if he can get us some goals in the championshp? Somebody like Yakubu would be perfect for the championships style. Alves its time to pay back the Boro. But he wont be able to do it without a decent couple of midfielders behind him and some strength in the left back dept.
While I'd love Alves to succeed next season, it's generally accepted that he has struggled to withstand the physical side of the English game, why should that be any different in the Championship? In fact, it should be a lot harder.
Foolish of me (AGAIN!) to type a post without saving it and then managing to hit a wrong button before it was complete. It will either disappear forever, or will at least cause some confusion!
In short, Jarrko, many of the posts on here are negative because it has been a very negative season. And unless we start to see some positive changes many of us fear that next season will be a less than pleasant experience, too. We want to be positive, but many of us are realistic.
Without some change, we will continue on the same dangerous course. To make the change, those in charge have first to understand what went wrong, then have the determination (and in some cases the ability?) to put it right, and QUICKLY.
The comment by Giles above as to how Southgate's defences are being dismantled continues in today's morning editions where Mr Lamb states that the manager has the call on transfers in and out and that it is a myth that he and Steve Gibson decide on sales and puchases of players.
So in the course of the last 3 days Keith Lamb has publically stated that the finances are not as bad as Southgate spent half of last season telling us they were, that he's not cut the wage bill by the amount he was suggesting and that nobody else is responsible for the hiring and firing of players.
The inference has to be that Southgate is in the last chance saloon.A bad start to the season and I can't see him lasting 12 games.
**AV writes: I have deconstructed some of the mixed messages of less than collective responsibility coming out of the club in today's Gazette column. Once the paper is out on the street I'll stick it up here. If I remember.
Nigel (from Mumbai)
My secret is out!
I must admit I was tempted to bid for Toon on ebay but decided against it.
I also had a frightening moment when I thought about how the club have reduced its debts. Was this to free up Gibbo to make an aquisition elsewhere, luckily the thought went as quickly as it came but it did make me shiver.
I listened to the Keith Lamb interview and can only conclude it was an exercise in spin aimed at both the fans (in respect to renewals) and the players (in terms of current and potential signings).
He's attempting to clean up after Gibson's jibes about Stockton and most fans living within five miles of the ground and at the same time put on a show of strength for the club to the players to indicate last season was simply a blip and MFC is still a major player in english football.
Though I see very little merit in identifying the mistakes after the season has finished as it's all blindingly obvious to everyone now - surely senior figures at the club are paid to act a lot quicker than after the horse has bolted - most people on these boards were calling for action long before the train about crash had even left the station.
The worry is that SG has become a kind of populist Boris Johnson figure unable to control his tongue, whilst nothing washes with the fans after the spin spun by KL's Peter Mandleson persona is only an insult to the supporters intelligence - which probably leaves Southgate as a weakened Gordon Brown, determined to see the club through the crisis despite not convincing anybody he knows how to.
The only advantage I see in continuing with GS would be in getting a head start in recruiting players before the 'managerless' Newcastle and WBA get their act together - Though I was worried with KL's 'everbody is on holiday' remark - Is Kaka on holiday? Was Gareth Barry on holiday?
I think given the right offer I'm sure players and clubs will somehow make contact - I hope MFC don't blow the transfer window again as it won't matter who's in charge if we hope to compete with an even thinner squad - So stop the talking and get a move on as the preseason is only a few weeks away and we need to hit the ground running.
"leadership manual", "admit your mistakes"
What I see most here is that people want to know everything and want it to be told in public.This is Steve Gibson's business. Admitting their mistakes is only something they need to do in private and fix them.
Nothing in any leadership book says you must air your dirty laundry in public. Perhaps to their own staff, but not to their customers.
I, for one, couldn't care less what they choose to admit to or not admit to in public, it's all water under the bridge. I'm more interested in what they're going to do next season.
Actions are all I want, not words.
Sack GS and employ new manager and coaching staff. I have no confidence whatsoever in the current management to lead us to promotion, after all it was they who took us down.
For me 090% of the reason we were relegated was down to poor management.
Please please act now, not 10 games into next season. I still can't believe Southgate is in charge after all this time.
I wonder if Steve Gibson runs his Bulkhaul business the same as MFC.
Rule one - Appoint a rookie manager without absolutely No managerial experience to run operations.
Rule two - Manager has to be un-sackable despite how many mistakes are made because “we are in this collectively together”
Rule three – Get rid of experienced staff and bring in less experienced staff to reduce the wage bill
Rule four – Once new staff are in place, shuffle them all around out of position i.e. have your wagon drivers doing sales and marketing, and have sales staff driving wagons.
Rule five – Tell worried customers not to worry and to have blind faith
I could go on and on. Was it also a collective decision in the 3 points fiasco?
I will not renew my season ticket until we have an injection of new business people on the board, and a top manager with a proven track record installed with a free reign to manage a football club.
Lamb states that Gareth wanted the age of the squad reducing and has now successfully achieved that, but what Gareth has actually done is like saying "I wanted to trim my fingernails, but I cut my arm off by mistake - Oops... and now the other one too?"
So whilst he was trimming the age of the squad all the others let him get on with it without any comment or input - this I find is incompetence of the highest order and totally unforgivable.
Someone should have been sacrificed for this, but yet again the people at the top are the ones (just like the politicians) who just seem to get away with it time after time the same mistakes and pathetic excuses are continually spouted out while history, past campaigns and fans with good advice are totally ignored.
To gain the fans trust there has to be changes at this club starting from the 'VERY TOP' downover - So please Mr. Gibson get some balls and do something about it!
By the way! To all those fans who say Boro fans should stop whining and get behind the club, I say this... When you are nearing the age of fifty and having spent enough time and money supporting the Boro since the age of seven (thanks to my uncle) - I think I deserve to have a say on how my club is being run. After all, If it wasn't for fans who are objective you would never achieve change!
Lawrence, Rioch, Robson and McClaren - Fan power!
Lets face it,it's not the first time Lamb has had a shocker is it !...
The 3 points we lost, the Marco Branca affair, the players we sold in the last 18months & at the start of last season that he is now referring too as the type of players we needed to stay up,and it won't stop any time soon.
This man truly believes he is right about everything all of the time, no matter what it is. It's time for him & Southgate to go, before we are playing Leeds & the monkey hanger's.
Having read everyones comments I must agree with most of them.
Why was it that after hitting top form against a below par Man City and winning 8-1
we dismantled a Premiership side to become a Championship side?
Allowing Rochembach to leave on a FREE meant we lost an experienced battling midfielder who scored & created goals, but left Alves trying to speak English instead of Portuguese! Playing an England left winger on the right & Hoyte at left back was stupid. I wonder why the great Brazilan side played Garrincha left wing & Jairzinho right wing?
Maybe my spelling is a bit awry just like the Boro management Eh? Still it is no good us crying over spilt milk and can only hope lessons have been learnt.
A couple of combative physical strikers MUST be signed soon to take the pressure off our goal scoring machine.
Come on BORO