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SLIPPING AWAY FROM HOME TRUTHS Part 2 30-3-05
On the Never Abating Injury Debate
The previously mentioned should also be said for the training staff at the club. As alluded to earlier, the number of injuries we have had this season has been completely unacceptable and must be far greater than any other club in the Premier League. It is this that is at the root of the fans' frustration because these injuries and thus our dip in form, are entirely of our own making.
There is no coincidence I believe in Boateng being out and our current lack of form, although I accept that if you rely on one man you deserve to finish in the mid-table position it appears we are heading towards.
This association between training and injuries can be made because of our thirty or so injuries this season. Only about five of them have actually occurred during a competitive match. This makes you question what the hell are they doing in training to result in such a prolific number of problems and this in turn leads to the inevitable view that the training methods, along with the role of the trainers themselves, should be re-examined, at least.
The whole point of training is to get people fit and it is evident that this is not happening. Indeed another dimension to the debate is the length of time it is taking to get players back from injuries. Boateng for example has had a broken toe now for three months, yet when Beckham broke his metatarsal before the World Cup in 2002 he was back playing within six weeks.
I accept complications may arise in individual cases but there are many other players in the squad who seem to be taking a hell of a lot of time to come back from injuries. So not only are the trainers causing the players to be injured, either through the methods they employ or their own incompetence, but they may also be culpable for the fact that it is taking longer for our players to get over their injuries.
This is also evident when we consider the number of times a player who has been returning from injuries has become injured in training again. And this in turn makes you wonder how competent the training staff is down at the Riverside. At the very least I call for a review to the training methods to see how we can rectify this situation.
Because at the moment the fans are being short-changed. They are not seeing the star players they pay significant amounts to see nor are we playing attractive football or getting the results we need. And when McClaren turns round after the abysmal Southampton result and says 'the fans have high expectations', the answer should be that wanting the side to win more than one game in three months does not constitute high expectations. Even West Brom would expect a better return than that.
And even if by some bizarre twist of patronising logic that does equate to our expectations being too high, it is through McClaren's own achievements that they derive. It starts and stops with him and so there can be no sympathy. As the weeks go by and the excuses become ever weaker, you begin to wonder how suitable McClaren is to handle the pressure of expectation. Because it's one thing to achieve but quite another to keep achieving. Maybe McClaren can do the former but not the latter. And from this point of view, maybe a replacement should be seriously considered.
On the Lack of January Transfer Activity
Another frequent comment on McClaren's management is that we should have bought players in January when the transfer window was open. This is open to debate but the view espoused by the club that they wanted to buy long-term investments rather than stop-gap measures does not wash with me. There is nothing wrong with offering a player a six-month or a one-year contract - with a clause stating the contract could be extended if the player impresses - if he strengthens the team in the short term.
This is particularly the case if that player was to contribute to the realisation of our aims at the start of the season. It was evident to everyone, fans and management alike, that we were weak in January, we had long-term injuries and we knew where we needed to strengthen. I believe that, and I know that hindsight is a wonderful thing, it was fundamentally naïve for the management to believe that the squad was good enough to cope with these injuries, simply due to the number of injuries that we actually had.
It was also fundamentally naïve not to allow for any further injuries, whether they be from training or during a competitive match. Thus there is an element of a lack of realism within the club which needs investigating because next season may be a very poor one if we don't turn round this current run of form.
Indeed to state that you didn't want to sign a few players on short contracts because of your long-term aims when the reality may now be the leaving of many of our best players due to a lack of European football does seem somewhat misjudged. Hopefully it won't cost us in the end. But I fear it may well do.
The Skinny (Dipping)- The Power of Expectation
And this gets me back to where I started. Because now we are out of the UEFA Cup, the FA Cup and the Carling Cup, the only thing we have to rescue our season is our league position. And in this respect we are slipping down faster than a pair of whore's knickers in Southend.
There is no denying that even if we finish eighth this season with our highest Premier League points haul, it would still be a season of failure because we would have won no silverware nor would we have achieved our aim of qualifying for Europe.
Call this expectation but managers are judged by their own success. Look at Alex Ferguson who only won the FA Cup last season. For nearly every other side in the country this would have been an achievement but for Sir Alex and the pedigree he has behind him, this looked small fry.
Similarly McClaren now has a pedigree. And attached to it is expectation, furthered by our flying start to the season. The fans want things to get better. For example, say we finish 10th. We would look at it as a disappointment because we were 5th at Christmas and realistically expected to finish higher. But if we were struggling, were 17th at Christmas and put a good run together to reach 10th, we would say that's an achievement.
Success and achievement is all relative and McClaren, in winning the Carling Cup, guiding us to the last 16 of the UEFA Cup and to 5th place in the League at Christmas has made life difficult for himself. Because the fact remains that due to what he has achieved, not getting UEFA Cup football will be a retrograde step, and possibly a devastating one at that because our pulling power would decrease and some of our better players may leave.
It's a poor league this season and we need to take advantage of it and I can think of no better argument against those people in the media who complain that we expect too much. Indeed you can ask 'if I offered you last 16 of the UEFA Cup and 9th in the League at the start of the season would you have taken it?' But that neglects the context under which all this was achieved. We have the squad to finish 7th, which is looking like a UEFA Cup place now. We just need the confidence.
Eight games to go and we can still do it. Don't disappoint, don't grumble, just fight. And we as fans need to get behind the team and spur them on, to implant the confidence in them that is so evidently lacking. To make them believe that if they try they can succeed.
I was at the debacle at Villa Park, what was the worst performance I have ever seen from a Boro side, particularly in terms of effort. The booing was valid, we pay a lot of money to watch the team and the least we deserve is a bit of passion, a bit of desire and a bit of effort.
But that's behind us now and one thing I still have is belief. And if we all have that then we CAN make this season a success. We need European football and your support is vital. And with that in place, I am sure we can climb the two places we need to climb to get what we desire.
Palace is a crucial game- win it and we may start a run, lose it and I fear everything will be over. So all those who are going, make some noise, scream, shout and support the Boro. I'll see you down there. C'MON BORO!!!
Until next time...
Packwolf
SLIPPING AWAY FROM HOME TRUTHS Part 1 29-3-05
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