wilsoncgp

For me, before Scott was coming in, having Neil Warnock in charge represented a must-get-promoted image. There was no reason to have Neil Warnock in charge without trying to get promoted every year he signs up for. And he will only sign up for a year at a time. No disrespect to Warnock's age as such but he is only willing to commit to a club a year at a time, which means for a club without any semblance of cross-manager direction at the top end of the club (as we have had for ages now) it represented a must-win scenario. Zero point appointing a short-term manager without short-term ambition. Now though, I'm more than happy to wait. If we get promoted in the next 2-3 years, it will be a bonus because it feels like we are so far from a club that is willing and able to support a sporting director. Those who are sceptical right now are worried because it has taken Steve Gibson so long to accept it is necessary to have one in place, he's a bloody control freak and he needs to step back and let Scott do that part of the job now. The murmurs from local papers are positive though, it sounds like Gibson is really accepting this vision and allowing someone to have that level of control. For a start, the fact he's putting someone in this position who actually has any idea what he's doing and has zero connection to the club is a good sign. We briefly had Adrian Bevington in a similar role a couple of years back but that was a guy whose experience in football is essentially public relations; the only reason he got the job was because Gibson knew and trusted him, he was a Boro fan who'd worked at the FA. Alongside Jonathan Woodgate, this was yet another showing of Gibson's 'jobs for the boys' that didn't represent any change in dynamic at all. We have to wait and see how this will all go but it feels like we're actually progressing into being a modern football club and I really wondered if that would ever happen again with Gibson at the helm.

Warnock will almost certainly be gone at the end of this season though, whether we go up or stay put. With the appointment of Scott, Warnock's entire tenure starts to make a lot more sense. He's a stopgap, the kind we needed whilst we both recruited a sporting director and allowed them time to come in, get settled and start making changes before trying to bring in a more suitable manager. Put it this way, before we put him in charge, Jonathan Woodgate nearly got us relegated. The club doesn't want a manager they can't trust to keep us in the Championship as a bare minimum whilst we transition to something more long-term.

Just getting proper confirmation about this from our local paper now: https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/neil-warnock-confirms-kieran-scott-21233871

Variety is the spice of life! For me, I'm not really a takeaway parmo person. Don't get me wrong, love a Parmo but I don't often want one from a pizza shop. Boro has a lot to offer in the countryside surrounding it and the Parmo makes its way out to those pub/restaurants and some places do really good ones and best of all, they will all probably put their own little spins on it whilst sticking to what makes the basic recipe so good. My wife makes a solid home-made parmo too, which is good because we live in Sunderland right now and there's only one place here (a takeaway) that actually understands the make-up of a parmo. Most places who try to recreate it think it's basically a pizza with a chicken base!

I will say that the article there states 2 things I completely disagree with regarding Spence. For one, he is 100% not a left back, not even as cover. He played there in a friendly against York City out of necessity as both our actual left backs are injured but I think that might be the only time he ever has played there? He didn't even play right-back that much last season, he definitely wasn't the preferred option there. The other thing though is that despite his 40 odd appearances, he did not have a good season at all. Our fans have a habit of pinning everything on the lad when it's not his fault so you'll get plenty who say they'd sell Spence for peanuts, that's not accurate in my view. But he wasn't good either. Part of me thinks it's because Warnock plays him out of position most the time at right wing, the lad has a bit of pace and trickery but not enough to be a winger. But even at right back, the lad is nowhere near Max Aarons' level, he's miles off being a Prem player as it stands. Put it this way; I think our fans were probably more sad to see James Husband join Norwich, wondering what could have been, than they would be to see Spence join you.

As with many players, Hugill was sold short under Tony Pulis. It's kind of hard in the end to quantify how good he really was because he spent so long having to chase lost causes by himself. There was a moment, can't remember when, when we lumped a ball into the right hand channel and Hugill chased it down. He beat his man to it on the right wing and went with his gut to pull it back across goal. And there wasn't a Boro player within 40 yards to make anything of it. Part of you thinks he should get his head up and look before playing but part of you just thinks he's on a hiding to nothing 'cause Pulis' 9 men behind the ball mean he's got **** all to work with on the counter. I think there was a half decent player in there but I don't think we'll ever get to know how good he was for us. He's another local lad so most fans just seem to remember him as 'that player who used to pull pints for a living in the local pub'.

Yeah, Karanka basically made him as a player, he was easily one of the best defenders in the Championship whilst he was with us but he always had a moment like that in him. Naturally, Wembley was the perfect moment for him to do it again. 🤦‍♂️

It's a bit early to say but I imagine given we've already been making moves into the South American market without much of his input that we are just looking beyond his short-term stay. I would be quite surprised to see Warnock still in charge next season whether he takes us up or not, I think at best he might stick around in an advisory role though not sure how much influence he'll have from Cornwall, where he's based. I think Pulis was the worst of the old school managers, though. Not only was his football utterly diabolical, even in comparison to Warnock's, but Pulis made a point to talk about how at Boro we had it better because he had a direct line to the chairman rather than having to go through any kind of director. He then complained about his lack of talent in wide areas... and yet still, every window without fail he'd refuse to sign wingers because they didn't want to be at Middlesbrough (because everyone inside and outside the country loves the Boro as much as we do, right?) but signed about 100 centre-mids, including spending £7m on George Saville, the once-future-Boro-captain who just went back to Millwall without making much of an impact on any Boro fan.

Boro fan in peace! What do Norwich fans make of Scott's ability to make the step up into the sporting director role then? This is something our fans have been crying out for for years now and despite the the up and down nature of Norwich's last few seasons, the same fans look at Norwich and see a model they'd like to replicate and start to see the beginnings of a modern football club. We like the idea Scott has been in some ways an underling to one of the Championship's relatively long term success stories. Having a plan in place when you're relegated from the Prem must have been nice! Just seen that Boro Fan TV thing again, Christ alive. That AJ or whatever his name is does my absolute nut in. Embarrassment to the rest of the fanbase to sit outside not just Carrow Road but I'm sure he did Elland Road too, slagging off the team that plays there and mindlessly reducing their history to nothing. Glad to see Gibbo is away from Burnley permanently now, too. Do you reckon he'll be in the first team in the Prem? I remember back when he was with us in the Championship he was great but always felt he was 2nd best to Dani Ayala in our first-choice centre-back pairing. When we got promoted though, Gibbo stepped up big time. Was like he was made for the top level, one of those players who seems like a better fit for the Premier League than the Championship so I hope he's going to be playing there for Norwich!