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THE AWAY END
CRYSTAL PALACE v MIDDLESBROUGH
John Powls, 9 Nov 2009
The Build Up To The Game
The start of the Strachan era wasn't exactly auspicious, with yet another home defeat without scoring - this time to lowly Plymouth - and dropping down a few rungs of the Championship ladder as a result. This took us out of the top six and further off the 'two points and two goals per game' automatic promotion trajectory.
For the Plymouth game, the new Boro manager had had only a few days with his new charges, and the latest attempt to fill the 'big lad up front to lead the line and get goals' vacancy - Marcus Bent - was even fresher to his team-mates and very short of match fitness.
Column Continues Below...
But even so, I think the 'larger than there has been' Riverside crowd and the whole DiasBoro expected a bit more of a 'new broom dividend' - even if no-one expected Arca on the right wing! 'Disappointing' was the word most often used on the websites this week.
With a week more under their collective belt, Phil and I were expecting to see more of the Strachan Boro emerge at Selhurst Park. In our chat on the way there, we hoped for better in terms of performance and outcome.
Tellingly, we realised that we were 'hoping for' rather than 'expecting' better. But, on further reflection, we weren't yet confident enough to change that opinion. We also wondered whether we would see the latest loanee, Isaiah Osbourne, who had arrived on Thursday.
Strachs said of Osbourne, "He's not a flair player, he's what I would call a continuity player, but he will also give us strength, height and get about the pitch. He will bring us more strength in the midfield area where we are definitely short on numbers."
This sounded just the sort of thing that Boro have needed to knit the various elements of the team together and keep them ticking. Phil and I agreed that we would partner him with Digard in a Carrick type holding role. This would lock up the centre of midfield, with the running of GON and the flair of Johnno being able to hold their width.
Selhurst Park is probably the most remote of the London grounds, as well as one of the most primitive in terms of its facilities.
Fortunately, there was crisp November sunshine for the hike to the ground and for the ritual gristleburgers with cheese and onion that you are best to get from the one trailer outside rather than in Selhurst - a lesson that Phil and I had learned by dint of indigestion in the Premiership days!
The same Winter sun was straight in the eyes of the sizeable Parmo Army for the first half - there were going to be times in the second when you'd wish you couldn't see!
Strachs had gone for a line up with Osbourne but no sign of Digard. How many selected were married (one) somehow escaped the stadium announcer and the match programme!
The Game
Even before things had begun to unravel on the field, the atmosphere in The Away End seemed curiously flat.
Starting and sustaining songs and chants seemed harder than usual and, once Palace had notched from their only shot on goal in the game on sixty-five, a 'here we go again' fatalism seemed to take hold amongst the Parmo Army, as well as amongst the team.
If The Eagles - and their top scorer Darren Ambrose - went 'one for one' on goals per chance, Boro struck out from at least half a dozen opportunities. Some of these ranked, proverbially, as the sort your Granny would have put away.
Although Boro shared the glaring misses around, Marcus Bent and Leroy Lita hogged the lowlights. In the first half, the Birmingham loanee shinned a shot wide from six yards out, dead centre. Dead loss.
Then, the two of them got into a penalty box tippy-tappy routine before tamely giving up the ball rather than getting a shot away.
The only need for Palace's Speroni to make a save in the first half was from a ball poked back from a colleague making a last ditch tackle as Lita dithered again. The Argentinian sprawled to tip the ball wide.
In the second half, Boro had a four on one break with Lita in possession. The Away End roared him on. Unbelievably, he was either so greedy or so lacking in 'getting his head up' - or both - that he ignored his three colleagues who were unmarked in the centre.
He pressed on - absolutely regardless - until he reached the byline and then tried to score by shooting from there. Inexcusable - and The Parmo Army joined the players in cyan with heads in hands. The roars soon died in the throats to be replaced with expressions of disbelief and anger.
But it wasn't just that. Lita and his new 'strike' partner were also pretty hapless and hopeless throughout.
Bent's lack of match fitness and newness to Boro gave him more excuse. But aside from illustrating his unreadiness and lack of goalscoring pedigree, he also struggled to lead the line or to win a physical battle with the sort of big lunk centre-backs that this division abounds in.
Nor were he or Lita clever enough to exploit the centre-backs' immobility or their 'nosebleed' tendency if they'd been pulled out wide. Too often, when they weren't missing chances, the two were noticeable only by their absence.
After Boro went behind, they continued to make and squander chances. Gary O'Neil, still struggling for form and back on the right side of midfield, broke free in a gallop on goal. Those of The Away End who were not already on their feet leapt up. We should have known better!
As he approached the advancing Speroni, instead of doing the straightforward thing and passing the ball past him into either corner of the net, he attempted the sort of lob that is a skill for those on top of their form and confidence, and who have that sort of finish in their locker.
For all his strengths, GON isn't in that place. He got the lob wrong and gave the keeper the chance to save. Speroni was too far on top of his form not to take advantage and he reached up and pawed away.
Wheats forced a scrambled save from a header at a corner and, with Jon Franks on to replace Lita - withdrawn from the (non-)firing line for the late cavalry charge - the young Academy product got a shot away from a sharp chance.
Either side of Speroni and he would have equalised - but with Boro in 'won't score if they played until midnight' mood, it was fated that it would be straight at the keeper, who saved again at the cost of a corner that produced nothing.
Meanwhile, Boro's frailties in defensive organisation - let alone individual performances - still made them a soft touch to concede at some point in the game.
If Williams and Osbourne were limited going forward, they left the back line exposed too often - particularly when Boro were upfield and attacking set pieces. For the second time in two games, Boro conceded after a break from their corner.
This week, Hoyte was left to mark three breaking Palace forwards and lost out in a header to winger Neil Danns. He presented Ambrose with his chance.
Despite the Boro shortcomings, so poor were Palace that they couldn't take advantage more than once. Aside from picking the ball out of his net, Brad Jones didn't have a save to make. He was only threatened by an Ambrose free kick that was close to a post, and by a kicked clearance that he had messed up himself.
Even when Arca - on as a substitute on the right wing - produced a classic bout of 'Land Crab' and did a couple of pointless pirouettes followed by a loose pass across Boro's back four, the South London side couldn't take advantage.
When Boro tried to pile on the pressure, or make the most of their possession, they illustrated that they lack any craft or guile in the centre of midfield. Meanwhile, the killer pass is a lost art.
Osbourne had a decent debut but he's exactly what Strachs described him as - a continuity player - and far too like Rhys Williams with whom he was partnered and Digard (who seems to have been banished to the outer darkness, not even being on the bench).
So there was little decent service from the pressing in the centre and with O'Neil struggling and Johnno fading badly in the second half after flaring brightly in the first, the quality of supply to the forwards was poor from open play. The service from set pieces - mostly overhit - wasn't much better.
The ball lumped over the top was the only thing that worked as Palace's lumbering centre-backs were turned - but even then the opportunities that were made were wasted time and time again.
Even a bout of Palace fans fighting amongst themselves and with the stewards and Police in the adjacent stand couldn't lift the mood in The Away End as we awaited the inevitable. It finally arrived and we trooped homeward.
Later
On the long and fiddly journey home - compounded by an attempt on the World Record for 'weekend engineering works' on the Tube - Phil and I tried to work out quite what went wrong - again.
The problems are the same old, same old - don't score enough and don't have enough resilience so that any team, however poor, knows that all they have to do is get ahead and that's it. And make no mistake, Palace were every bit as poor as Plymouth and on a poorness par with most of this league.
Two games in, the new Boro manager has produced a 'fearful symmetry' to performances and results. Two one nil defeats - one at home and one away; no goals and no points.
Boro are now seven points - three wins with goal difference taken into account - off an automatic promotion slot and far from 'burning bright'.
For those looking for anything like a positive 'new manager dividend', Phil and I agreed that there is nothing much to find yet.
He still seems to be struggling to find for his best side. Although it's difficult to criticise bringing in players to strengthen the squad and addressing the shortcomings we all know are there, putting them straight in and tinkering in other ways means that the goal of a settled side with strong enough individuals and partnerships seems some way off yet.
And Boro are still short of a creative central midfielder and a striker who can score.
In his post-match comments, Strachs wouldn't have many in The Away End who would argue when he ventured, "When you have chances like that and you don't take them, you have a problem. Luck has nothing to do with it. It's frustrating, just like last week against Plymouth when our best player, Adam Johnson, missed a penalty. It's frustrating for me, it's frustrating for the players who work so hard and it's frustrating for the fans."
On the BBC Football League show, Manoj Bhasin and Steve Claridge had little to say about Boro's game as it had been pushed back to the graveyard of the graveyard slot, with the only 'highlight' shown being the Ambrose goal.
The Sunday newspaper reports laid into Boro's profligacy in front of goal and stressed just how far off the pace of the top two Boro had slipped. This is very concerning when you consider the sort of results they will now need to get on a par.
The Away End will return after the Peterborough game on 28 November.
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Comments On This Article
andrew, November 9, 2009 at 4:48 pm
What I like about this article is well constructed and unbiased it is ! Great journalism.....football is the same the world over ...doesnt matter how many chance you make ..if you dont take at least one them, you wont win ! Palace only needed one (although my view in the 19th century wooded stand that housed us...they had more than one chance)...they took it !
I can not say we was robbed...!
Nick Thompson, November 9, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Excellent article.I do not understand where Digard is - surely the rumour about WGS hating the French can\'t be true. As for our full backs,surely even WGS can see how useless Hoyte is. Once Williams was switched there we looked a lot more balanced.Grounds was not much better He must be at least 4th in line at left back when injured players are fit again. This is a serious crisis and without major investment in January we have no chance of promotion and even then it may be too late. Clearly the problem is the players not the manager and it just shows what a poisoned chalice Gareth was given with having to sell so many of our star players. If Gareth was less of a gentleman he would be having a quiet chuckle at our predicament right now,but knowing him he will be genuinely concerned at our plight.
s lilly, November 9, 2009 at 8:15 pm
If you think we were poor mate I dont know what your lot were.You couldnt break us down and your now serving up sour grapes,premiership your avving a laugh.If we were poor your lot were p**s poor.Palace aint the easy push over you lot and a few others think they are,are they a ? We (Palace) will upset a few more along the way this season and we will have a good laugh at you mugs.
Nick Fairfax, November 9, 2009 at 9:59 pm
What a pathetic and one-sided article. I am going to presume you weren\'t at the match, and are pretending that you were. Yes, Palace had one chance (which we took, unlike your useless strikers), but we dominated large parts of the game. Our players were passionate and committed, and yours just didn\'t look like they cared. You are displaying the same sort of arrogance that relegated Premiership teams have shown every year, and when your team doesn\'t go up this year, you will become on of those teams on a \'poorness par with most of the league\'. You need to take of those rose-tinted glasses and realise that you are in for a real struggle this season, because your players simply aren\'t good enough.
John Powls, November 11, 2009 at 7:16 am
Nick Fairfax and s lilly
I don\'t normally comment on comments - your opinions and you\'re entitled, of course.
Just two things:-
I was at the game last Saturday. If I hadn\'t been, I would have said so. I can\'t get to absolutely every Boro away game and, on the few occasions when I can\'t get to a game, mates who have been contribute and I quote them.
Secondly, if you\'re looking for a match report from a neutral, you\'ll need to look elsewhere. That\'s not what I claim to do. What I write is an observation from a Boro fan in The Away End (or Away Side, as it is at Selhurst).
And this site is \'ComeOnBoro.com\', after all!
If you follow Palace away, you will know that The Away End is a partial, funny (peculiar & ha-ha) and unforgiving place and, like me, is bound to have more feeling for and interest in its team rather than the opposition.
But, from reading the article again, I\'m not quite sure, though, how you can get the idea that I was \'rose tinted\' let alone \'red eyed\' about Boro\'s performance on the day - or indeed in our season so far.
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