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Stam's Snorefest

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Originally posted by Nandrolone Stam
Each week I will predict the most boring match of the weekend.

This weeks selection: Middlesborough v Charlton

Don't stay up for this one.
Click to expand...

Mendieta and Juninho Vs. Parker and Jensen... Yeah, has snorefest written all over it.
 

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Re: Re: Re: Stam's Snorefest

Originally posted by Nandrolone Stam
Liverpool has Harry Kewell, does that make them exciting by default?
:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

If we were talking about Liverpool in the first place you may have had a point - however the subject at hand is Boro vs Charlton and the clear fact remains that both clubs have very talented, exciting, creative midfields...

If the four players mentioned all take the pitch the game should have more than enough fizz in it to make a spectacle.
 
Originally posted by Nandrolone Stam
Each week I will predict the most boring match of the weekend.

This weeks selection: Middlesborough v Charlton

Don't stay up for this one.
Click to expand...

1 from 1
 
Although I haven't seen the game, the scoreline tells a story.

Well done Mystic Meg.
 
We are boring but we are also climbing the table so I aren't that bothered. Better to be boring and going forward then all out attack and going backwards like other clubs. Before last night our form over the previous 10 matches was the fourth best in the league. Our defence is excellent and we still have Ehiogu to come back, our midfield is alright but our strikers are awful, particularly with Christie and Job out. If we buy a decent striker in Jan which we have said we will we will be alright.

And Schwarzers going well :) Been in goals in 6 of the last 7 matches in which we haven't conceded a goal.

And Juninho was injured last night by the way
 
And on soccernet......

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/feature?id=285797&cc=3436

The insomniac's choice

John Brewin

The subject of the Premiership being dull is a hot topic on the current media agenda.

Juninho, a little man lost in Boro's 0-0 draw with Portsmouth. (GaryMPrior/GettyImages)

In a league where only three sides have a realistic chance of lifting the Premiership title, there is a whole raft of sides whose only ambitions are to secure a mid-table position or at best, enter the continental football version of a plate trophy, the UEFA Cup.


Fulham and Charlton may be flying high but at the end of 2003/4 they'd be happy with mid-table and delighted with a trip to foreign climes for at least the first month of the season. So too Southampton and Spurs while Aston Villa and Everton are currently dreaming of such lofty heights.

Other teams have geared their accounting to the Champions League. Leeds have already fallen foul of such an approach while Manchester City have mired themselves in debt too. Meanwhile Newcastle and Liverpool have set out their stall for the fourth place that secures access to Europe's premier competition and seem to have little ambition for loftier heights.

But in this hub of limited ambitions and the humdrum, one side steal the show for listlessness. Steve McClaren's Middlesbrough, masters of little, save for the 0-0 draw, are perhaps the biggest mystery in the top division, a veritable floating ghost ship of disappearing talent. A team with little chance of either making a challenge near the top or being drawn into the relegation dogfight.

In short, they are already playing for little other than Premiership prize money. Last Saturday's goalless mediocrity with Portsmouth was perhaps the most predictable result in living memory.

Just last year, Juninho was a valuable squad member of a cavalier Brazil side that lifted the World Cup in Japan. When he first arrived at the club in 1995 he was one of the most promising talents in world football. Now in his third spell at the club, his flicks and feints at the Riverside Stadium remind one of a faded light entertainer at an end of the pier show.

Gaizka Mendieta was one of Europe's leading midfielders just two years ago. He was the counterpoint of two Champions League Final appearances for Valencia, even scoring in the 2001 showpiece.

But now, after a failed £28.9m move to Lazio and an unhappy loan spell at Barcelona, he finds himself, again on loan, in Middlesbrough, the land that exciting football forgot.

Massimo Maccarone was the dome-headed Italian youngster who destroyed England's U21s in the European Championship of 2002. He even made his full international debut against England in March that year. At £8.15m, his transfer from Empoli seemed to suggest that Boro had enticed one of Europe's hottest talents to the Riverside.

But after a season-and-a-half personified by injury, dissatisfaction and pallid form in front of goal, Maccarone looks to be a young man yearning for his mother's risotto speciale.


McClaren: No longer mentioned in despatches when the big jobs are discussed. (RossKinnaird/GettyImages)


And it's not just the foreign talent. Both Ugo Ehiogu and Gareth Southgate defected from Aston Villa in a flurry of talk about joining a club with ambition. Though both form part of one of the most miserly defences in the league, neither could have been said to have exactly exceeded the achievements of their time in the Brian Little/John Gregory era at Villa Park.

And both have all but slipped from the Sven Goran Eriksson radar.

Danny Mills was one of the England surprises of World Cup 2002. But now, to further add to the image of Middlesbrough as a club of cast-offs, a fall out with Peter Reid at Leeds saw him exiled to the North-East. His place as the natural England stand-in for Gary Neville has since been lost to Glen Johnson of Chelsea.

Nicky Butt, the Manchester United outcast for whom the Riverside is being mentioned as a possible destination, should beware. One-time England hopefuls like Malcolm Christie, Chris Rigott and Jonathan Greening could tell him a thing about being out of sight, out of mind to Eriksson.

And the manager himself, Steve McClaren, once mentioned both as a future England and Manchester United manager, has surely slipped from the reckoning with his record from 108 games of having won 38, drawn 25 and lost 42.

Once Sir Alex Ferguson's chosen heir apparent, there seems next to no chance of him ever succeeding his mentor now. And England would surely turn to a foreigner over the fixed smile and rouged cheeks of the dour Yorkshireman.

Why would anyone, except hardcore support, go and watch Boro? The brand of football played by McClaren's side is one of grinding erosion of opponents into submission. A hard-working midfield supports a resolute defence but hardly helps an extended cast of strikers. Maccarone, Christie, Joseph Desire-Job, Szilard Nemeth and Michael Ricketts have misfired all season. The Slovakian leads the scoring charts with a pitiful three.

Just 12 goals in 15 games signals a side short of invention and cutting edge. That has been offset by the miserly concession of just 15 which keeps Middlesbrough in 11th, well clear of the drop-zone but in the most average position possible. McClaren's side are hard to beat but find it impossible to win at a canter.


Robson: Exciting, at least. (MikeFinn-Kelcey/GettyImages)


Such banality may cause some to yearn for the days of Bryan Robson, whom for all his discredited reputation, put the club on the map with two promotions and three cup final appearances. And at least relegation dogfights bring excitement and emotion. The current fare on offer would seem to do little to set hearts racing or make one forget the icy breeze blowing from the Tees.

Indeed, in two-and-a-half seasons, McClaren's net transfer spend is already higher than in Robson's seven years. And Robson left the club having won appreciably more games than he had lost. And with his high profile, he was able to attract international quality players like Juninho, in 1995, and Fabrizio Ravanelli the year after.

Attendances have noticeably slipped since then too. When Notts County pulled a Premiership side from Sunday's FA Cup draw they must have celebrated. Until the reality of a sub 10,000 crowd at the Riverside dawned and dreams of a cash bonanza swiftly died. The public of Teeside are bored too.

Robbo's regime may have gone sour in taste but at least it wasn't this bland.
 
Re: Re: Re: Stam's Snorefest

Originally posted by Nandrolone Stam
If you include last weeks successful Everton v Massives selection, i'm 2 from 2 :D
Click to expand...

Think you will find Boro v whoever they played last week was the snorefest by a mile. From what I have heard of this one you got it spot on.

Moomba
 
Stam, easy choice for Monday nights snorefest....Villa v Wolves!!! :o
 

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Originally posted by Shinboners


Fulham and Charlton may be flying high but at the end of 2003/4 they'd be happy with mid-table and delighted with a trip to foreign climes for at least the first month of the season. So too Southampton and Spurs

[/i]
Click to expand...

Wait...Wait

Spurs would be delighted with mid-table?

Ohh

looks like nothing has changed for the team that 'promises' so much European football, but ends up the idol of mediocraty
 

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If you can come on here and honestly say that in your opinion Boro v Portsmouth was a more exciting match than Everton v City I will happily accept that you are 2 out of 3.

Moomba

PS - I reserve the right to laugh at your judgement. ;)
 

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