HUGHES' VIEWS
SPECULATE TO ACCUMULATE
Peter Hughes, 22 Jan 2010
Gordon Strachan is the unluckiest manager in recent Boro history.
Bryan Robson, Steve McClaren and Gareth Southgate have been able to splash out countless millions on players, some good - some not so good.
But Strachan has come here with a poor squad, and no money to spend.
Before the growing band of 'it was better with Gareth in charge' brigade start spouting about Southgate having no money to spend, look at the facts.
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In his first season as manager he spent over £17m on players such as Jonathan Woodgate, Robert Huth and Julio Arca . (As well as that great attacking partnership of Jason Euell and Dong-Gook Lee!)
In his second season, he bought Jeremie Aliadiere, Luke Young, Mido, Shawky, Gary O'Neil and Afonso Alves for a combined cost of over £26m.
In his third season he spend over £10m, wisely, on Marvin Emnes, Didier Digard and Justin Hoyte!
With his brilliant transfer negotiating he got rid of Ray Parlour, Joseph-Desire Job, Ugo Ehiogu, Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, Fabio Rochemback, Abel Xavier, Stuart Parnaby, Danny Graham, Ross Turnbull, Mark Viduka and Mark Schwarzer - all for nowt!
Poor Gordon is scratching around trying to buy players for a few hundred thousand pounds.
Already this season we have sold Tuncay Sanli, Stewart Downing, Robert Huth and Afonso Alves, bringing in around £28m. Surely there must be some sort of transfer kitty for Strachan to draw upon. Were we not going to pay Preston £4.5m for Sean St Ledger?
You cannot just sell all your best players and not give some money to the manager to reinvest in the team.
Obvious comparisons are there to be made with the last time we were relegated. We lost a lot of good players.
The likes of Juninho, Emerson and Ravanelli moved on, bringing in over £26m. Had we done what we have this season and not brought anyone in, we wouldn't have had Cardiff or Eindhoven.
But we spent some of that money on new players.
Paul Merson (£4.5m) was the big name signing that made the difference, but we also invested in Alan Armstrong (£1.6m) and the current technical director at Inter Milan, Marco Branca (1.5m).
The important thing about all three of these players, were that they were finishers. Something we don't have at the club at the minute.
In the match against Sheffield United, we had more shots, and more shots on target, than the Blades, but yet again we failed to hit the back of the net.
Defensively we are not doing too badly. In our last seventeen games, we have only conceded two goals on four occasions and three goals once.
That means in twelve of our last seventeen games we have conceded one goal or less.
These are games where we should be picking up a minimum of one point, and we should be looking to pick up three.
Because we haven't got a striker worthy of the name at the club, we have lost seven of the nine games where we only conceded one goal!
This rearranged game during the FA Cup 4th round gives us a great chance to cut the gap between us and the teams in the play off places. But I fear our lack of attacking options will cost us dearly once again.
From being one of the favourites with the bookies to go straight back up this season, we are now 7/1 to get up through the play offs.
The answer is not to get rid of the new manager before he has had a chance to do anything with the team.
We do not want to become a joke club like QPR, who have just parted with their 14th manager since the last time they won an FA Cup tie.
The answer is not to sign Facebook pages to get Gareth back. The answer is to release a small part of the fortune that Southgate wasted to Strachan in order for him to bring 'the new Merson' to this club.
Si, January 22, 2010 at 4:34 pm Thank you, Peter. At last you\'ve put The Sunday Times\' David Walsh\'s ridiculously over-the-top defence of his buddy in its rightful place. (I\'ll send you the link if you haven\'t read it.)
It really makes me cringe, not to mention saddens me, that Strachan\'s stats have allowed Southgate\'s managerial reign to get to this level of reverence from journalists and armchair fans.
Not one of his defenders seems to be paying attention to the poor asset management, the bad buys or the Cardiff disaster!
And while I acknowledge that things seemed better under him, I think our current position has more to do with the fact that opposition sides gradually found us out. (See \"The Five Point Plan For Stopping Boro\".) Denis, January 22, 2010 at 5:16 pm Spot on Peter, Southgate has been a profound disappointment as a manager.I had high hopes for him but he was a complete failure.Strachan or any other manager would have struggled with this team. Iam astonished how a top flight club such as ourseleves should not have a decent striker and be in such disarraAdelphi Theatery. Then we have to suffer the galling prospect of Southgate the football pundit, grinning inanely on BBC YV the other night.He has left an appalling legacy to Strachan Mike, January 24, 2010 at 1:55 pm Nice one Peter. It\'s an obvious point that you have raised here, but it\'s still got lost in the thick of the crying over Southgate and other issues surrounding Boro currently.
At least we all know Gibbo is a good Chairman who will give the manager time to put things right. Presumably by now the Board\'s ambition of promotion or bust has been suitably downgraded to one of letting a proven manager like Strachan rebuild the team.
