We had a bad start last season and finished 3 points off 4th. You'd know that if you actually paid attention to the league and not just Arsenal on the telly.
To be fair West Ham, Stoke, Saints, WBA could get embroiled in a relegation fight. Southampton have a new untested boss and might suffer from being in Europe. West Ham fans are revolting and they are maybe another loss away from imploding Stoke have been awful. Will it turn around quickly? Pulls never goes down is one thing, but Pulls is never good enough to aim for anything other than 40 points. As his style of football gets more antiquated, one day his team will clog into the championship.
Stronger league, also you're in Europa League and lost 3 of your best players so there's no chance of that happening again
Europa will have an effect for sure, but we won't be relegation candidates. Hopefully, Arsenal finally lose their little mini league of just scrapping into the cl places whilst winning nothing again.
I think you lot may have run out of luck on your managerial appointments. But I doubt you'll slip quite so far as to be involved in the scrap. As for us, well having missed out on points we should have picked up v West Ham and Palace, we maybe yesterday got 3 points when on another day we'd get 1. Was deserved overall though. Still no idea what our best 11 is though, it was our subs who won it yesterday. Need to figure that out.
I actually do think that we could be in for a long hard season. We have started where we left off last season - crap. The stats make for grim reading: 1 win in last 13 League games We have conceded 4 now 5 times in our last 10 games In 4 league games this season we have had 7 shots on target 0 clean sheets in last 20 games That has relegation written all over it and just cannot continue. To try and put a positive slant on it though we have started the season against a newly promoted side away from home, th team who I think will be champions this season, a team who now have a good manager and will be vastly improved this season and a team who almost won last season's title. We now have a run of 10 games coming up where we should be able to target some points. The way things are right now though I am not sure just how many we will get. Really I think we need to win 5 of them but can't see it happening
Think Stoke will be fine once Butland returns. Given was class in his day but the game has passed him now, look at his positioning for Dele Alli's goal.
Out for two months though so a big loss. Momentum and confidence play a big factor, if Stoke are still in the same position two months further in to the season I think Butland will make only so much difference. I don't think Given covered himself in too much glory yesterday. As good as Son's goals were, neither were in the corners yesterday. Kane's was the only one he couldn't really do any better with. Not that the goals were solely down to the keeper, Stoke's defending on the whole was dreadful but I think they're suffering for only having one decent keeper.
Given is terrible now and was only ever a shot stopper in his hey day and always rooted to his line. There'll be better back up keepers in the Championship. You can't carry that in the Premier League. It's why most Premier League clubs have a number 2 who are at least good Championship keepers. He's only playing because of how bad Butland's back up was when he got injured (I forget the name). A good or bad goalkeeper is often the basic difference between a good or bad result.
Tbf that's a terrible comparison. You can't compare major world events you learn from a young age to a sport ffs
You're talking nonsense too, how can you reminisce about the good old days when you've never known anything but the premier league? Typical ****ing hipster
Where did I reminisce about anything you complete ****wit? Read what I said, i clearly said I've never experienced it, you understand that means it's impossible to reminisce about it? All I said was that anything would be better than what we have now. ****ing clown.
All supporters are, but to say 'anything would be better than this' i'd be looking for other ways to spend my time and money. 30 years ago Middlesbrough were on the verge of extinction (Steve Gibson of course saved the club) while the English game was on the verge of collapse and destruction in the mid 80s. I'd say that was worse. The game has always had its problems and good and bad points and i'm as nostalgic as the next man.
I've been going since 1977, I've seen every generation since and Sky sports is by far and away the best thing to ever happen to football. In the Ayresome Park days it was a bit mental and away days were sometimes savage but footballing wise it was nothing compared to today. As a Boro fan our best generation was 97-2006, we have seen awesome players, numerous world cup winners, European Cup Winners etc and also got to s European Cup final and 6 domestic finals... All this camec from Sky money. As for the before sky it was more real and all kick offs were 3pm crap. I feel closer to my club than ever, the atmosphere at Boro games now is brilliant, I stand and sing through the whole game just like I did at Ayresome Park but I don't have to piss in a trough at the back of the stand and I can get a pint then I can watch the goals go in on my I pad on sky go. You can keep nostalgia, I'll have modern football with its brilliant pitches, stadium and TV coverage. If you are also an old ****er and preferred it the old way then fair enough... You're a retard but fair enough