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THE TEN GAME TEST PART TWO 23-10-07
John Powls
Why "The Ten Game Test"? Well it's often said - and with some evidence to back it up - that where you are after ten games, with just over a quarter of the season gone, is a solid predictor of where you'll finish.
How do we read and analyse the results of Boro's Ten Game Test then? And what do we do about it?
Yesterday I looked at the team itself. Today I investigate how the management and coaching situation is affecting our current form.
CLICK HERE FOR PART ONE OF THE TEN GAME TEST
What about the manager and coaches?
Wasn't this going to be the season that it was done Gate's way - his close season, his coaching staff, his squad, his style of play? It's a wonder we haven't yet had the other old chestnut yet - "This was always going to be a season of transition."
Playing neat, attacking football in the middle third gets you nowt. With no end result in attack and the defence leaking goals, neither does simply saying we're going to stick to our guns and just try harder. You can't just aim to cut out the individual errors either - the problems are systemic not just to do with individuals.
Gate says, "We know all the problems, we just have to put them right." Well, just so - but the problems have been glaring for weeks now and where is the evidence of them even being addressed let alone being put right?
Since Gate and Coops are seasoned and recent Premiership and International defenders why can't we organise and coach a defence that contains current Aussie, English, German and Austrian full Internationals and English U21 Internationals to defend set pieces?
Why are we persisting with all eleven in our box and a zonal pattern when we defend corners against all the evidence that we can't make it work? Why isn't it seen that a player upfield means that the opposition have to keep two or more back and offers you an out ball? Why do we lack sustained concentration?
We lack anyone on our coaching staff - and we have done for ages - with the background in or coaching experience with attacking midfielders or strikers. Why don't we get someone?
Who is choosing and coaching the team play overall? We seem only to be comfortable with 4-4-2 and, as in the era of The Ex, there is no plan B (let alone C) that we can adopt in different games or even switch to during a game if needed. We have never mastered the art of using subs to change a game - a skill which sets the best managers and coaches apart form the also-rans.
On the few occasions we have started with an attempted plan B this season (usually a 4-5-1 formation) we've had to give it up as a bad job in the game and revert to 4-4-2 because we either weren't getting over our half-way line or because we'd already conceded the goal that the formation was designed to stop.
We can't seem to find the way to adapt 4-5-1 when defending to a 4-3-3 when attacking - but in many ways this might be the set-up that best suits the squad we will have until January.
Whatever system we play, whether defending or attacking, we are not playing as a team. We are not compact or cohesive and gaps appear all too easily which isolate our defence from our midfield from our front-line. This creates huge spaces that our opponents exploit - to pass though us, to expose our defence or stifle our strikers.
None of this is any more than Coaching 101.
Why is the coaching so poor? Are the players left to their own devices? Are they getting the right coaching but are so poor that they can't deliver on the pitch what they develop in training? This seems unlikely for players at this level. Or are they repeatedly ignoring what they're being told with no come back?
We're not in the Club so we don't know the answers - but the questions come from what we see on the field and the results we get.
Is Gate having to take too much time out for his Coaching badges? Can he motivate and discipline the team and individuals as he needs to? Some players have said they bought into his vision. Many seem to like him and respect him as a man but what about as a manager?
And what the heck does Malcolm Crosby do?
Taken overall, have Gate and the coaches got what it takes? Moreover, have they got what it takes to dig us out of the hole we're now in, which might call for the sort of experience they haven't yet got and maybe are getting at our expense at the moment?
Don't get me wrong, I like and respect Gate - and Coops too. I think Gate is an intelligent and thoughtful bloke. He is open and honest and I'm sure with time will make a fine manager. But I want him to succeed with us and preferably now!!
But is he up to it now or are we just in the process of wrecking the start of his career by having given him too much responsibility too soon?
We'll know soon enough.
What can we do?
We can't just wait for the window, the die will be cast by then. Furthermore there's no guarantee that we'll be able to get what we need anyway or that Gibson, who has often said that he dislikes spending in the January window, will have MFC support Boro in the market.
Carrying on carrying on won't do it either - some things have to change. The necessary and pragmatic must come first. Longer term aims on the way we play can be left for a while if the two are found to be incompatible. They may not be, done right.
Tough decisions on who is doing it and who is not on and off the field have to be taken and acted on.
If 4-4-2 is the limit of our invention for now then lets stick with it and make it work in all areas of the pitch - not just the middle third - and ensure that the team and work ethic in delivering the basics correctly subsumes everything else.
Let's work on our fitness and drive, be compact and cohesive and attack and defend as a team. Let's acknowledge that there are times in a game to be open and expressive and times to dig in and be able to recognise the difference.
There are, currently, worse sides than us in League position terms but I don't believe Spurs will languish much longer and the Trotters have already dispensed with Little Sam.
There are many sides on equal or slightly more points than us in the bottom-half of the League, with many of them having inferior squads to ours. We should look at them closely - these will be our competition. The best we can hope for is to ensure that there are at least three of them below us at the end of the season.
Anything else is pie in the sky until we get forty points. It will not go down well to have players and staff mouthing the kind of nonsense about top half or Europe that got spouted last season until very late in the day.
Leave aside the odd point we may pick up against the top sides as what will deliver our survival will be how we do in the six-pointers.
The immediate future
Our next game is away at ManUre. Even in a likely defeat we have to try and salvage some pride from a strong performance.
The November games are crucial. Spurs at home, Bolton away and Villa at home. Any new injuries apart we should have the bulk of our squad available for those games, although Arca is unlikely to feature.
Assuming we avoid humiliation at ManUre - in which case earlier action may be needed - Gate and the coaches should have this opportunity to show what they and the team can do in November. Seven points must be the minimum target.
If this turn around is achieved, all well and good, and we can set ourselves up for a strong Christmas period. Then we can reassess.
If we lose against Spurs and Bolton then the International break would be the time to reassess. Any later would seriously hamper our chances of a recovery. That means either Gate and the coaches have to go or they have to accept a Venables-style Director of Football post to take the reins as an interim.
I offer this alternative because Gibbo has been down this route before and he doesn't like admitting getting things wrong. It may also allow Gate some leeway to recover his own career.
That would give the incoming person a run of games that will allow us to assess the situation before the January transfer window opens.
If we have a credible management/coaching regime and a few results by January then we have some chance of getting the three or four decent new recruits that we want. If we haven't who is going to want to come?
And will any want to leave if the offers came? Tuncay, for example, Stewie or Woody?
Alves, who we were heavily linked with in August is now linked with Citeh. If you were him and not a Boro fan where would you go?
I repeat that this scenario is not one I want to see but it must be Boro first and Gibson must swallow his pride and be ruthless if he want us to survive in the Premiership.
And what of MFC changing their ways?
Don't hold your breath, they haven't even owned up yet to the fact that they need too. Let's hope we're still in the Premiership when they do.
'Yerjoki'aren'ya' Quote of the Week
"McClaren is the best coach there is in the country and I don't think there will be many who disagree," said Chris Riggott. No, son, only the rest of us in this country and anyone else who knows anything about footy.
The next Ten Game Test ends just before the transfer window opens. I'll be back to review our performance in that.
The Away End will return after the ManUre game on 27th October. Will it be the Theatre of Dreams or Nightmares for Boro?
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John Powls is a published poet with five books of his work in print. He is a regular performer of his work at major literary festivals and exhibitions in the UK and America, often working with musicians, painters with photographer Carol Ballenger.
Check out Red Shoes 250 for more of John Powls, right here.
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