|
 |
END OF SEASON AWARDS 2008/09
James Bassett; 28 May 2009
It doesn't really feel like a time for celebration but, despite Middlesbrough's relegation from the Premiership, it's business as usual at ComeOnBoro.com towers and this means it's time for our end of season awards.
As usual, our panel of writers, pundits and experts sat down to discuss the best and worst - but mainly the worst - the season had to offer.
What with this season being the most dispiriting one for over a decade, we've decided to add a few bonus categories this year too.
************************
Goal of the season
Tuncay Sanli, Middlesbrough 1-1 Aston Villa (16th May 2009)
With Boro scoring fewer League goals than any other professional side in English football, this category took all of about thirty seconds to judge.
Our panel were divided between Stewart Downing's genuinely wonderful free kick against West Ham in the FA Cup and Afonso Alves's similarly impressive blast against Stoke.
The sympathetic choice was surely Alves but we've ended up opting for Tuncay's overhead kick against Aston Villa in the penultimate game of the season. It was a goal that offered us the final, painful glimmer of hope in a disastrous season.
What with relegation and, y'know, having a club in absolute tatters, it has been forgotten that Tuncay actually scored a fantastic overhead kick against Blackburn Rovers earlier in the season, which was incorrectly ruled out for something or other.
Not only did it count, but the one against Villa was executed even better.
Julio Arca switched the ball out to Stewart Downing who attempted a cross-cum-shot. The ball looped up into the air and, true to form, every Boro player stood around looking stunned. Well, except for Tuncay, who threw himself up into the air and volleyed home a spectacular overhead volley.
Nobody else in our squad would have even attempted it, never mind pulled it off.
Jeff Winter: "I recently spoke at the Leeds United Player of the Year Dinner. They had more nominations for Goal of the Season than we have fucking well scored."
Gordon Dalton: "Hardly a great bunch to pick from this year so I'll go for Tuncay's rusty bicycle kick against Villa, which for twenty minutes gave a glimmer of hope. It's just a shame the other 99% of his efforts didn't go in."
Luke Raine: "It proved that the Turk will go on to bigger and better things next season."
************************
The moment you knew we were going down
Gill Hughes: "Saturday 18th April, 4:42pm. Seven days earlier, for the first time in thirty-two matches, Southgate had played two strikers up front and Tuncay in the hole. We scored three goals. We repeated the line-up against Fulham and Man of the Match Mark Schwarzer had just about kept us out. As the crowd were cheering the Boro on to get that late winner to keep us up, he took Alves off and replaced him with... a winger!"
Mohammed Saffaf: "Contrary to what most Boro fans will write, I only realised we would go down after losing to Bolton. Matt Taylor put the nail in the coffin for me, especially when you consider he had the chance to go to us."
Simon Fallaha: "After the two late goals we conceded at St. James's, my faith in the team was all but extinguished."
************************
Performance of the season
Middlesbrough 2-0 Liverpool (28th February 2009)
It says almost everything about our season that the panel considered this the best performance.
For your host's money, West Ham at home in the FA Cup was the best performance, but our panel seem to have been blinded by the unlikeliest of results that we secured at home against Liverpool.
Boro were shocking. Liverpool could and should have been 3-0 up inside half an hour. Kuyt, Babel and El Zhar squandered more chances in the first half than Boro have created all season. Had Fernando Torres been playing, he'd have scored ten.
Although Boro took a fluky lead via a Xabi Alonso own goal, Liverpool continued to batter us. However, the defence, for once, stood firm and, somehow, Tuncay doubled the advantage midway through the second half. Before the final whistle blew, David N'Gog managed to squander further opportunities for Liverpool.
Does the outstanding shock result make this the best performance? Not in your host's lowly opinion. But in a season with so little to cheer about, I'll let my colleagues off the hook.
Tom Warnock: "It could easily have been the catalyst for survival."
Mohammed Saffaf: "The home win against Liverpool, without a shadow of a doubt, although this is also the game that probably gave us so much false hope. At least until the next game."
Ian Gill: "We did not fold under early pressure and kept going, harried their players and got our rewards."
************************
The "we will learn" award for the moment you realised Gareth wasn't up to the job
Gordon Dalton: "January 31st."
James Keen: "'Quitting is like suicide, it's invariably a selfish act'. No it's not. If you quit and somebody does a better job than you then it's an entirely selfless act. It's nothing like suicide."
Jeff Winter: "I'm still making my mind up. I have concerns over his team selection and tactics but have great sympathy because he is playing with the hand he has been dealt. The problem is that I can't think of anyone who I want as manager given that anyone half decent probably would not touch the job. Despite having the reputed 'best chairman in the world', no one could do much with no money and our current crop of players."
************************
Worst performance of the season
West Bromwich Albion 3-0 Middlesbrough (17th January 2009)
Sue Watson deserves a mention here for her unfortunate performance in making the biggest PR gaff in the history of the Premier League but ultimately, losing 3-0 to West Bromwich Albion has to take the mouldy, festering cake.
If there was one team we ought to have been able to beat home and away, it was the Baggies. Not because they're a particularly poor side but because, like us, they try to play pretty football but don't have the personnel to carry it off. Those who think we under-perform because we've made Stewart Downing our fulcrum should consider West Brom's plight: their main man is Jonathan Greening for crying out loud.
So, having lost to them 1-0 at the Riverside, we'd surely scurry down the M1 to win some pride and, more importantly, three points back off them, right?
Wrong.
That Chris Brunt put the game beyond doubt inside the first five minutes tells you everything you need to know about the lack of backbone in this Middlesbrough side. The Baggies went on to score twice more through Marc-Antoine Fortune and Robert Koren and, although Didier Digard was harshly sent off, Boro could have little complaint about the scoreline.
If the alarm bells started ringing at full-time against Cardiff last season, here the Mayday warning volume was too loud to bear.
In a season of sub-standard performances and almost perpetual embarrassment, Boro somehow found a new low.
Simon Fallaha: "Having West Brom complete the double over you at The Hawthorns - and in style, too - really was humiliating."
Jonathan Way: "The embarrassing 3-0 defeat at The Hawthorns left every Boro fan in a state of shock. Completing the Baggies' double over us, this game showed many supporters what was to come for us later in the season."
Gill Hughes: "They were six points adrift at the bottom when they did the double over us. If it hadn't been for results against us, they would have been another Derby."
************************
Biggest let down of the season
Craig McLeod: "Paying £93 for tickets for three people for the Everton game, just to see us lose 1-0 to a team that didn't have any fit strikers and was crap on the day."
Andy Morgan: "Afonso Alves. The hopes were high and the price tag higher but the bald Brazilian failed to deliver time and time again. However, the fact he was forced into playing as a lone striker time and again and that he did not have a consistent midfield behind him didn't help. I wonder if we can get those two Brazilian "ladies" who were with him on that cold January afternoon when he was unveiled to play. They probably have more balls than Afonso."
James Keen: "Steve Gibson for not showing us the 'ruthless businessman' that apparently he is by sacking our failing manager. Perhaps they meant toothless?"
************************
Most disappointing player of the season
Afonso Alves
I almost - almost - feel sorry for him. Brought to the club with the most ludicrously over the top fanfare, Afonso Alves could only ever disappoint. And disappoint he most certainly has.
His nadir came this season against Aston Villa at Villa Park. While Tuncay - our only other striker with a reputation not confined to waitresses at the Soho Revue Bar - was making hay from Villa's defensive mistakes, Alves fluffed as good a chance as you're ever likely to see. What's more, he then contrived to blunder an even easier one.
Seven goals in thirty-five appearances is an unimpressive statistic no matter how one tries to defend his lack of service, his inexperience in the League or any other cockamamie excuse anyone would care to cook up.
Go back and watch the clips on Youtube that so tantalised some of us. Notice anything strange? That's right, nobody tries to tackle him. It was never going to work.
Elle Brunton: "For the fact that we are still paying for him, for his inability to stay on his feet, find the net, link up with his team-mates, finish chances that are put on a plate for him, for turning up for a game barely twenty minutes before kick off and generally been the worst club record signing in living memory - there is only one Afonso Alves."
Mohammed Saffaf: "A Brazilian with no skills and a striker with no strength or finish. Disgusting."
John Powls: "Again, there's a long list but The Twelve Million Brazilian Boro 'Goal Machine' takes it - one of the very few chances he's taken this season!"
************************
The Josef Fritzl award (for hiding the real truth of a situation)
Jonathan Way: "Gareth Southgate's team selections - rumours have led people to believe that somebody is pulling Gareth's strings behind the scenes. Most of his decisions have been bizarre; buying Emnes for £3million and leaving him on the bench all season, dropping Alves for the Chelsea game after he had scored four goals in his last four games and dropping Turnbull after his one mistake at Chelsea."
Elle Brunton: "Gareth Southgate and Steve Gibson have been at this all season. Problems with Mido were disguised as injuries, whilst Downing's written transfer request was passed off as 'making enquiries'. We had no money, then we had a little bit of money, then we signed Marlon King on loan..."
Tom Warnock: "Keith Lamb when he was quoted in the match day programme as saying this year's team is one of the best Boro teams he's seen."
************************
Young player of the season
Matthew Bates
Much like the Performance of the Season award, this decision places your host in a rather tricky position. You see, there are some terrible players at this football club but, as far as I'm concerned, Matthew Bates might just be the worst.
Nonetheless, the rest of my co-judges appear to have been conned by the fact that he's played in lots of different positions and, well, no actually, I don't know what else impressed them.
At right-back, Bates lacks the pace or attacking inclination to excel in the position. At centre-half, he's too short and is too often caught dozing whilst opposing strikers are scoring goals. In midfield he seems to exist only to play 40-yard back-passes to Brad Jones.
I have no earthly idea what on earth my colleagues see in Bates. But we live in a democracy and the panel have voted, so the ComeOnBoro.com young player of the season is Matthew Bates.
Jeeeez.
Jonathan Way: "After terrible injuries over the past few years, it has been a great return for Bates, who has been a big player for us this campaign."
Karl Watson: "He looks like someone who will turn into a quality player in a few years time. He could yet turn out to be the best player the academy has produced."
Steve Goldby: "I'm not giving anyone this award as I don't consider anyone deserves it."
************************
The Lord Lucan award (for the worst case of who went missing)
Craig McLeod: "Jeremie Aliadiere from November to present."
John Powls: "I'm almost sorry to say this but I think it's Digard. Whilst looking like a deserter from the Foreign Legion, he almost challenges Aliadiere for the femmer Frenchie award. He was never happier than when he was recovering from yet another injury at Clairefontaine - as Coops confirmed when he bumped into him there."
Simon Fallaha: "'What happened to David Wheater?', my own brother asked me after he saw the Bolton blitz. Yes, indeed. What happened to our future England star, the Redcar Rock? Was last season a one-off? Okay, being forced to play at right-back at the start of the season didn't help, but still."
************************
Player of the season
Tuncay Sanli
The panel was nearly unanimous on this one. In third place, with one vote, was Ross Turnbull. In second place was nobody.
Tuncay is an exceptional player. He is the most talented player in our squad by some distance and probably the best footballer we've had since Juninho - or, at the very least, Boudewijn Zenden.
His head was turned by reports linking him with a January move to Chelsea and that's inexcusable. However, even when disinterested, he was head and shoulders above the rest of the team.
He does have a tendency to want to do it all himself but if you picked up the ball, looked around you and saw Matthew Bates, Adam Johnson and Marlon King standing there, you'd opt to do it all yourself too.
James Keen: "The only player in our squad who doesn't deserve to be relegated."
Steve Goldby: "I'm not giving anyone this award as I don't consider anyone deserves it."
Ian Gill: "Tuncay had his mid-season wobbles and missed chances but is whole hearted. One of the few you do not mind getting paid."
BACK TO AWARDS INDEX
A GUARANTEED NO RISK £20.00 FROM BETCLIC
Betclic have come up with the same offer for you and these are by far the best betting offers of the season so far.
Have a bet on any sporting event of £20.00 or more and if your bet loses, you get your £20.00 back.
1.  Click here to open an account with Betclic.
2. Have a £20.00 bet on any sporting event you like. You can bet more if you wish, but the refund offer is for up to £20.00.
3. If you bet wins, well done! If your bet loses, you get a £20.00 refund.
You just can't lose with this offer.
CLICK HERE TO OPEN YOUR BETCLIC ACCOUNT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS EXCELLENT OFFER
*************************
A GUARANTEED NO RISK £22.00 FROM PAF
And our good friends at PAF have done the same as well.
Have a bet on any sporting event of £22.00 (25eu) or more and if your bet loses, you get your £22.00 back.
1. Click here to open an account with PAF.
2. Have a £22.00 bet on any sporting event you like. You can bet more if you wish, but the refund offer is for up to £22.00.
3. If you bet wins, well done! If your bet loses, you get a £22.00 refund.
You just can't lose with this offer.
CLICK HERE TO OPEN YOUR PAF ACCOUNT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS EXCELLENT OFFER
*************************
A GUARANTEED NO RISK £25.00 FROM BETFAIR
Our good friends at Betfair have offered you, our loyal readers, a really great betting offer.
Have a bet on any sporting event of £25.00 or more and if your bet loses, you get your £25.00 back.
1. Click here to open an account with Betfair.
2. Have a £25.00 bet on any sporting event you like. You can bet more if you wish, but the refund offer is for up to £25.00.
3. If you bet wins, well done! If your bet loses, you get a £25.00 refund.
You just can't lose with this offer.
CLICK HERE TO OPEN YOUR BETFAIR ACCOUNT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS EXCELLENT OFFER
|
|
|
|
