Middlesbrough 1 Chelsea 0

[CarefreeMuratcan]

26 minutes ago, martin1905 said:

You are right but I've been watching football long enough from my boys being involved in grass routes football for the past 11 years to watching us win 2 European cups so literally every level from the very bottom all the way to the absolute pinnacle of the sport and I have very rarely, if ever, seen such a poorly coached team. The only one that compares is us under Potter.

I got a lot of abuse for calling it early but the signs were there from the very beginning and we now have a big enough sample that shows just how inept the manager and his coaching team are and we have seen absolutely nothing to show they can turn this around.

We can rip the club to pieces, the owners, the scouting team, the money spent, the culling of the old guard, the purchase of far too many young players, the sacking of Tuchel, the appointments of three awful managers. There has been a long, long list of terrible decisions since the club was sold. None of that matters though when you break it down to the very basics of setting a team team up to play, compete and hopefully win football matches. 

Yes we would be better with a striker. Yes we would be better with some more experience. Yes we would be better without so many injury prone players but all that aside its not too much to ask to expect the manager to coach a squad on a daily basis and them get them ready to compete on the football pitch.

It's really not all that difficult. A manager, any half competent one, should have a philosophy. A style. A way of playing football that he drills into them on the training ground and it doesn't matter who is playing. It doesn't matter if players are injured. It doesn't matter if you are Man City or a team of 7 year olds playing grass routes football on a Sunday morning.

They train and train and train and take what they are taught during training into games. It doesn't matter if you are a high pressing, high intensity, possession based team playing on the front foot or a team that plays a low block,  with everyone behind the ball and looks to counter. The important thing is having a manager that understands the game and how he wants it to be played. A manager that is able to coach a team in a system that regardless of who is playing they play the same. Best example of that is Tottenham right now. Doesn't matter who plays, they all know their roles and how to play them and play the same, even with all their key players missing.

As I have said, I've been involed with my boys grass routes football now for 11 years, from 4 years old up until under 16's and have seen far better organised, far better coached teams at that level than what we are currently seeing. Since I gave my season ticket up I've been following Aldershot, as they are my local team, home and away and again have seen teams set up, far better than us, more organised than us, more disciplined than us, more motivated than us,  playing non league football.

It's embarrassing and no matter that we have too many young players, too many injuries, no striker and whatever other excuses people have made all season. Break the game down to its most simple form and nobody will be able to convince me anything other than the manager is inept.

I've said all season that it has never been about results but about performances. If we were 10th in the league but seeing something, anything to suggest we are building something I'd have no problem. All we have seen, all season is a manager with no philosophy who has never achieved anything in the game and has no idea how to implement a system, a style, an identity to a team. He can't organise them. He can't motivate them. He can't do his job.

He lives on his reputation for what he did at Tottenham but when you look at  what he actually achieved there, nothing, and look at the players he had during his time there he was put on a pedestal for failing. He was there with a team that was more than good enough to win trophies. Before Pep and Kloop made their machines, when Leicester won the league, when Conte won the league in his first season after we finished 10th the season before, during a time when there was no stand out team and he completely and utterly failed. Just imagine Pep had gone there and not City, with that squad he'd have walked the league, more than once.

Apparently he improves players? That was his main selling point when we hired him but has he ever actually done that? I can't think of one player he's improved here, but plenty that aren't as good. Much like how players performed under Tuchel and then Potter. Does he or did he just have a group of players at Tottenham, all together at the right time, that were always going to be good? Is Harry Kane the best striker in the world because of Pochettino or in spite of him? Did Vertonghen and Alderweireld become one of the best centre back pairings in the league because of him? Is Son the played he is today because of him? Or was it just the perfect group of players that made him look good but when they really needed him, he failed?

He relies, solely,  on individual brilliance from his players which is what made his Tottenham team. Kane, Son, Eriksen,  Delle,  Dembele,  Walker,  Vertonghen, Alderweireld all playing at their very best at a low point, in terms of quality teams, across the rest of the league. When it really mattered. When the team needed their manager to step up. To have a plan B. To motivate them. To manage a game of football and not just rely on the 11 players you pick to play well. To do something different in a final when the opposition scores inside 2 minutes and then change their gameplan from trying to win to not loosing. To have a system in place, after years, so when individuals aren't at their best someone steps in and does the same job. To push them on to actually achieve something. He couldn't.  He failed.  He's always failed and unsurprisingly he's failing again but this time he hasn't got the individual brilliance of players to make him look good so he is being shown up for exactly what he is.

We have seen first hand over the past, nearly 5 years now, since Frank's first time what difference a proper manager makes. We are literally the best placed fan base in the world to know how important the manager is. How much of a difference someone like Tuchel can make compared to Frank before him  or Potter after him, with same group of players!!!!  We've seen it with our own eyes for quite a while now, it's what amazes me when people don't see it. 

 

I overwhelmingly agree with this very well written and erudite post. 

The board need to own up to their mistake, properly research a successor (even those in jobs in case someone becomes available) and sack Poch and hire them when the time is right. 

I don't know who the candidate will be. It's shocking that we let Tuchel go, someone who is in the Pep and Klopp tier of managers. 

[xceleryx]

1 hour ago, Mark Kelly said:

One thing I have noticed and I am as far from a tactician as it's possible to be so maybe someone with more knowledge can explain this is that whenever we play the ball out to the winger , they're generally isolated and have very few options , occasionally the full back will pop in to help for a bit and then you have two players passing the ball to each other out wide with nowhere to go I have noticed many times that nobody in midfield and I'm especially targeting Caicedo here comes across and makes an angle for them to pass into the middle third of the pitch and we then end up passing the ball backwards towards our own goal and starting the farce again.

Last night Boro put two players on Madueke and Caicedo never showed for the pass once which would have opened up the middle of the pitch for us and helped us have some more meaningful possession where there was at least the off chance we could exploit the space to our advantage.

For me it's a coaching issue , one of not having any idea what to do , how to support your team mates or to show for the pass. 

When you add to it the constant personnel changes in defence , players being played out of position and poorly too , no help for the wingers , isolated forwards , glory hunters who do everything to make them look good and bugger the team and lack of application , spirit and desire , one has to conclude that Poch is taking the piss. 

I touched earlier on how Thiago Silva is a problem tactically for us, this actually has further impact with things like our wingers being isolated, fullbacks not overlapping, etc. Generally it's the DM that drops back in as a third CB, and the two CB's split right and left when we have the ball. In our case we have to keep TS in the middle to offset his lack of pace and his uncomfortableness defending wider areas, so our LB (Colwill currently) ends up being a LCB in possession and our other CB ends up on the right. This means we've really only got one fullback that can overlap, this currently happens to be Gusto - which he does do to an extent. One side, in our case the left, tends to end up offering little forward play and leaves the LW isolated completely. The result is being forced to funnel all our play dow the one side, or ask the other winger to try and beat multiple players on their own.

Our midfield shape also often ends up quite warped because of how the three operate in tandem. Caicedo is more of a roaming ball-winner in the vein of Kante, we then have Gallagher being similar in that he's quite box-to-box with a heavy emphasis on being the one who presses high, that leaves Enzo sort of between the two. He has however had more licence to get forward and we're seeing him at times on the edge of the box. In ways this is okay because it gives the right and left CB's space ahead to advance into the midfield, but because we lack the width the middle of the pitch gets super congested with Gallagher, Enzo, Palmer and the CF all trying to occupy similar spaces. That's amplified with both wingers being inverted and needing to cut back inside to be goal threats themselves. 

Caicedo sort of gets caught between having to protect the space and defence in the event we turn the ball over cheaply, which happens often, and also trying to present as an outlet whenever we can't find either Gallagher or Enzo. That said, the movement higher up the pitch is often awful so it means we're needing to use Caicedo more than what we realistically want to be doing.

It is a tactical and coaching issue to a degree, but there's also personnel factors that also have a telling influence. 

[Miguelito07]

16 minutes ago, CarefreeMuratcan said:

The board need to own up to their mistakes, properly research a successor (even those in jobs in case someone becomes available) and sack Poch and hire them when the time is right. 

 

[johnnybozo]

Was working early shifts so asleep while this was on. Glad I didn't bother 😂

[Bones]

1 hour ago, martin1905 said:

You are right but I've been watching football long enough from my boys being involved in grass routes football for the past 11 years to watching us win 2 European cups so literally every level from the very bottom all the way to the absolute pinnacle of the sport and I have very rarely, if ever, seen such a poorly coached team. The only one that compares is us under Potter.

I got a lot of abuse for calling it early but the signs were there from the very beginning and we now have a big enough sample that shows just how inept the manager and his coaching team are and we have seen absolutely nothing to show they can turn this around.

We can rip the club to pieces, the owners, the scouting team, the money spent, the culling of the old guard, the purchase of far too many young players, the sacking of Tuchel, the appointments of three awful managers. There has been a long, long list of terrible decisions since the club was sold. None of that matters though when you break it down to the very basics of setting a team team up to play, compete and hopefully win football matches. 

Yes we would be better with a striker. Yes we would be better with some more experience. Yes we would be better without so many injury prone players but all that aside its not too much to ask to expect the manager to coach a squad on a daily basis and them get them ready to compete on the football pitch.

It's really not all that difficult. A manager, any half competent one, should have a philosophy. A style. A way of playing football that he drills into them on the training ground and it doesn't matter who is playing. It doesn't matter if players are injured. It doesn't matter if you are Man City or a team of 7 year olds playing grass routes football on a Sunday morning.

They train and train and train and take what they are taught during training into games. It doesn't matter if you are a high pressing, high intensity, possession based team playing on the front foot or a team that plays a low block,  with everyone behind the ball and looks to counter. The important thing is having a manager that understands the game and how he wants it to be played. A manager that is able to coach a team in a system that regardless of who is playing they play the same. Best example of that is Tottenham right now. Doesn't matter who plays, they all know their roles and how to play them and play the same, even with all their key players missing.

As I have said, I've been involed with my boys grass routes football now for 11 years, from 4 years old up until under 16's and have seen far better organised, far better coached teams at that level than what we are currently seeing. Since I gave my season ticket up I've been following Aldershot, as they are my local team, home and away and again have seen teams set up, far better than us, more organised than us, more disciplined than us, more motivated than us,  playing non league football.

It's embarrassing and no matter that we have too many young players, too many injuries, no striker and whatever other excuses people have made all season. Break the game down to its most simple form and nobody will be able to convince me anything other than the manager is inept.

I've said all season that it has never been about results but about performances. If we were 10th in the league but seeing something, anything to suggest we are building something I'd have no problem. All we have seen, all season is a manager with no philosophy who has never achieved anything in the game and has no idea how to implement a system, a style, an identity to a team. He can't organise them. He can't motivate them. He can't do his job.

He lives on his reputation for what he did at Tottenham but when you look at  what he actually achieved there, nothing, and look at the players he had during his time there he was put on a pedestal for failing. He was there with a team that was more than good enough to win trophies. Before Pep and Kloop made their machines, when Leicester won the league, when Conte won the league in his first season after we finished 10th the season before, during a time when there was no stand out team and he completely and utterly failed. Just imagine Pep had gone there and not City, with that squad he'd have walked the league, more than once.

Apparently he improves players? That was his main selling point when we hired him but has he ever actually done that? I can't think of one player he's improved here, but plenty that aren't as good. Much like how players performed under Tuchel and then Potter. Does he or did he just have a group of players at Tottenham, all together at the right time, that were always going to be good? Is Harry Kane the best striker in the world because of Pochettino or in spite of him? Did Vertonghen and Alderweireld become one of the best centre back pairings in the league because of him? Is Son the played he is today because of him? Or was it just the perfect group of players that made him look good but when they really needed him, he failed?

He relies, solely,  on individual brilliance from his players which is what made his Tottenham team. Kane, Son, Eriksen,  Delle,  Dembele,  Walker,  Vertonghen, Alderweireld all playing at their very best at a low point, in terms of quality teams, across the rest of the league. When it really mattered. When the team needed their manager to step up. To have a plan B. To motivate them. To manage a game of football and not just rely on the 11 players you pick to play well. To do something different in a final when the opposition scores inside 2 minutes and then change their gameplan from trying to win to not loosing. To have a system in place, after years, so when individuals aren't at their best someone steps in and does the same job. To push them on to actually achieve something. He couldn't.  He failed.  He's always failed and unsurprisingly he's failing again but this time he hasn't got the individual brilliance of players to make him look good so he is being shown up for exactly what he is.

We have seen first hand over the past, nearly 5 years now, since Frank's first time what difference a proper manager makes. We are literally the best placed fan base in the world to know how important the manager is. How much of a difference someone like Tuchel can make compared to Frank before him  or Potter after him, with same group of players!!!!  We've seen it with our own eyes for quite a while now, it's what amazes me when people don't see it. 

 

A very good post!

I was trying to be patient with Poch since his appointment and was feeling positive during the pre-season, however, since the very first competitive match I have disagreed with most of this decisions. Changing the shape after the preseason, playing players out of position, unable to motivate them, not having a system in the final third, list goes on and on.

Good football people will always see this, just look at the the SAF comments after the first Villa match where they got battered, incredible how he predicted this and it's not a fluke:

 

[thevelourfog]

I suppose the question, or doubt, for me is ... Are Pochettino and Potter both as bad at coaching as performances under them suggest? On board with the idea neither is especially strong at setting up teams for matches by drilling on tactics, think would both commonly be thought to have their strengths elsewhere even pre-Chelsea. But do we genuinely think neither is able to do even a 5/10 job at that? 

Or is there a different common feature to how shit we have looked for nearly 2 years?

I can't honestly know, and either way it's no defence of Pochettino. But it has huge implications for what we do next.

[boratsbrother]

For over a decade Utd fans (and board) have blamed their managers for them failing to get back to where they were. None of them have been given time time and look where it's got them. We are going down that same road, so good luck with doing the exact same thing and expecting a different outcome.

[martin1905]

1 minute ago, boratsbrother said:

For over a decade Utd fans (and board) have blamed their managers for them failing to get back to where they were. None of them have been given time time and look where it's got them. We are going down that same road, so good luck with doing the exact same thing and expecting a different outcome.

And they would be right to.

Shocking appointment,  after shocking appointment. 

We went, with more or less the exact same players: Lampard-Tuchel-Potter. If ever there was an example of how much difference a proper manager can make we are literally it.

[Mark Kelly]

Just now, thevelourfog said:

I suppose the question, or doubt, for me is ... Are Pochettino and Potter both as bad at coaching as performances under them suggest? On board with the idea neither is especially strong at setting up teams for matches by drilling on tactics, think would both commonly be thought to have their strengths elsewhere even pre-Chelsea. But do we genuinely think neither is able to do even a 5/10 job at that? 

Or is there a different common feature to how shit we have looked for nearly 2 years?

I can't honestly know, and either way it's no defence of Pochettino. But it has huge implications for what we do next.

Everyone knows I dislike Pochettino , I think he's a coward and a fraud , he's essentially got a job for two years minimum with very little chance of being sacked if he fails to hit his targets but instead of emboldening him it's had the opposite effect , except in post match interviews where he maintains his cultivated image of someone who knows what's what.

Alarm bells started ringing for me first game of the season where he'd had some success pre season and completely changed the way he set the side up purely because Nkunku was injured and because of his innate cowardice and fear of the opposition played Chilwell , generally an effective full/wing back and turned him into a desperate shell of a winger , much like he has gone onto do with Mudryk.

The squad may be young , they may be learning on the job , they may be naïve , they may well be all these things and they're definitely not perfect but Pochettino isn't helping them or guiding them or by all appearances coaching them to improve or excel , he always has one or both eyes on what the opposition can do to us rather than what we can do to the opposition.

A case in point recently that actually worked despite his administrations' was the Palace game , where Gusto , who was a thorn in their side all game was moved to left back , negating our attacking options , simply because Pochettino was scared of Olise where he was playing against Colwill who Poch has decided must become a piss poor left back instead of a steady Centre half , even before Chilwell got his injury, that we went on to win that game with a penalty that the referee was overruled on was fortuitous and was in spite of Pochettino and not because of him.

He's got form , losing the French league from a position of huge power with Mbappe , Messi and Neymar as his attacking options that should have had the league home and hosed before Christmas , coming third in a two horse race in the Premier League etc.

He's actually doing a 5/10 job , that's the issue .

I stand by my assessment that almost any other manager in the Premier League today could get a better performance out of this squad even given the injuries that are plaguing us simply by playing to our strengths and not worrying about the opposition too much , confidence in almost every department of the pitch is low and its because of his tactics ( or lack of them) , wingers are isolated and expected to beat three players every time they have the ball , the defence is constantly chopping and changing , Colwill has been dreadful all season but still he plays him out of position , Sterling is playing for his own image and not to help the side , why isn't Poch taking him to task over it , why are we playing a false nine against Boro (for crying out loud) when Broja in the previous game finally looked like an option at CF with a beautifully taken header ? Enzo demanded to be played further forward and has looked half the player because of it , why isn't Poch telling him No?  

What are they doing in training when they can't defend corners properly and aren't generally much better taking them either , where is the shape , where is the movement , where is the flair , where is the player supporting each other ,  where is the fight for the shirt /badge WTF is he doing?

He's a fraud and should be out but he won't be and we have another season of misery to look forward to. 

[martin1905]

And then there is Emery, Howe, Dyche, De Zebri, Postecoglu as more recent examples.

I'm not even talking top level managers here. Just managers that have a way of playing and know how to implement it on the training ground.

That's what Lampard, Potter and Pochettino can't do and the evidence o prove it has, unfortunately,  unfolded right before our eyes.

Edited January 10 by martin1905

[thevelourfog]

1 minute ago, martin1905 said:

And then there is Emery, Howe, Dyche, De Zebri, Postecoglu as more recent examples.

I'm not even talking top level managers here. Just managers that how a way of playing and know how to implement it on the training ground.

That's what Lampard, Potter and Pochettino can't do and the evidence o prove it has, unfortunately,  unfolded right before our eyes.

I think your average football fan would have had both down as coaches who did that before they came to Chelsea tbf. I can't help but wonder if the next appointment will also be someone who most thought could do it before they came to Chelsea.

This is so depressing.

[boratsbrother]

17 minutes ago, martin1905 said:

And they would be right to.

Shocking appointment,  after shocking appointment. 

 

Really?

Moyes being recommended by no less than the all-time greatest league manager. 

Van Gaal 

Jose.

Rangnick.

Ten Hag.

Hardly a list of deadbeats there!

[Original 21]

The reason Broja didn’t start is because he can’t play two games in four days. He can barely play 60 mins and moves around the pitch with lead weights on his feet. Jackson is gone for a month. And Nkunku is… well, god knows. So the choice was playing Palmer or that young Brazilian kid. Palmer was a no-brainer except he went and missed all his chances. 

Colwill is left-back because Chilwell and Cucurella are injured and Maatsen is too short and Poch doesn’t rate him. Maybe he should’ve. It’s too late now. So Boro targeted Colwill all night and got their reward. 

That’s all it boiled down to really. We got punished for not taking our chances. And they took advantage of our left back issues. 

Not signing a striker last summer was always going to hurt us. Not blaming Pochettino for that. He’s having to make do with an attacking shambles and main defenders missing (Fofana, James, Chilwell). 

He’s been left with a threadbare squad and no centre forward. I really don’t know if any other manager would’ve organised us better, or gotten better performances from those left. But our main problem has been down to not scoring really. We’ve lost games we should’ve drawn, or drawn games we should’ve won, mainly down to not taking our chances.

I really think if we’d brought in a couple of strikers last summer we wouldn’t be in this position. And I don’t mean Osimhen or another 100m striker. Just any half decent strikers. All our fears about Jackson and Broja came true.  They should never have been our forwards to go into this season.  One injured, the other too raw.

The manager has been well and truly screwed over by the Board. I don’t want to make him a scapegoat for the Board’s incompetence. Because sacking him, would just protect those idiots in charge. Why should the manager be sacked and those dolts be allowed to keep their jobs? 

Edited January 10 by Original 21

[Sciatika]

I am very simplistic about these things, but it seems to me from watching the games that our problems have much more to do with our defence than our attack. I think we blame strikers for missing chances because our defence is so porous that we need them to score every chance. So, to check this idea out, I looked at our record since last winning the title (yes, I know it is very simplistic because positions depend on the other sides). This is what I found:

I have extrapolated the figures for this season by taking the current total (after 20 games) and multiplying by 38/20. In other words, it shows where we would be if we carried on scoring and conceding at the current rate. We will have scored more than 2017-8 (Conte), 2018-9 (Sarri) and 2020-1(SFL and Tuchel), and in those seasons, we ended up in the top 5. However, by the end of this season, we will have conceded a lot more goals and, hence, dropped points and will probably end up midtable. I am happy to be wrong about this, though.

[asvaberg]

Thanks, @Sciatika. At least we score a lot more than last season but sadly, we conceed much more......

[ROTG]

1 hour ago, thevelourfog said:

I think your average football fan would have had both down as coaches who did that before they came to Chelsea tbf. I can't help but wonder if the next appointment will also be someone who most thought could do it before they came to Chelsea.

This is so depressing.

 Bielsa even for a season just so the kid could learn what it like to be coach by a real coach and one would suspect the team would quickly have an identity even with multiple injuries as is the common excuse on here 

[CarefreeMuratcan]

1 hour ago, Sciatika said:

I am very simplistic about these things, but it seems to me from watching the games that our problems have much more to do with our defence than our attack. I think we blame strikers for missing chances because our defence is so porous that we need them to score every chance. So, to check this idea out, I looked at our record since last winning the title (yes, I know it is very simplistic because positions depend on the other sides). This is what I found:

I have extrapolated the figures for this season by taking the current total (after 20 games) and multiplying by 38/20. In other words, it shows where we would be if we carried on scoring and conceding at the current rate. We will have scored more than 2017-8 (Conte), 2018-9 (Sarri) and 2020-1(SFL and Tuchel), and in those seasons, we ended up in the top 5. However, by the end of this season, we will have conceded a lot more goals and, hence, dropped points and will probably end up midtable. I am happy to be wrong about this, though.

Interesting. Based on the naked eye, I think our problem is missing chances then puts more pressure on the defence and then makes the games harder for us because the opposition score and sit on it. 

Whereas if we score first, the game state changes and the floodgates open ideally and the confidence of the defence increases. 

If we were scoring our chances and taking the lead, we would have less goals conceded. 

[paulw66]

1 hour ago, Sciatika said:

I am very simplistic about these things, but it seems to me from watching the games that our problems have much more to do with our defence than our attack. I think we blame strikers for missing chances because our defence is so porous that we need them to score every chance. So, to check this idea out, I looked at our record since last winning the title (yes, I know it is very simplistic because positions depend on the other sides). This is what I found:

I have extrapolated the figures for this season by taking the current total (after 20 games) and multiplying by 38/20. In other words, it shows where we would be if we carried on scoring and conceding at the current rate. We will have scored more than 2017-8 (Conte), 2018-9 (Sarri) and 2020-1(SFL and Tuchel), and in those seasons, we ended up in the top 5. However, by the end of this season, we will have conceded a lot more goals and, hence, dropped points and will probably end up midtable. I am happy to be wrong about this, though.

Was going to respond but.........

27 minutes ago, CarefreeMuratcan said:

Interesting. Based on the naked eye, I think our problem is missing chances then puts more pressure on the defence and then makes the games harder for us because the opposition score and sit on it. 

Whereas if we score first, the game state changes and the floodgates open ideally and the confidence of the defence increases. 

If we were scoring our chances and taking the lead, we would have less goals conceded. 

I agree, it is not that black and white. For instance, score two of the many chances we squandered at Wolves in the first half, I don't suppose we end up shipping 2 goals, as you dont need to chase the game. The lack of clinical finishing not only puts enormous pressure on the defending, but it also encourages your opponent. 

Think last night, every missed chance was a shot in the arm for Boro. Increased belief as every shot went past the post. 

Likewise, if you keep a clean sheet, you can't lose any games, but I would suggest in 90% of the games this season that we haven't won, the fault lies with the finishing (in simple terms)

[Sciatika]

I can see the logic of both of those comments. I suppose that I am thinking about my nervousness when the ball is anywhere near our box. Our defence seems very easy to unsettle and not very solid. In some games, it is as if every time the oppo gets near our box, they score. I always played in a defensive position (and still do), and I see many silly mistakes being made. Players are getting on the wrong side, sticking a foot in when they have no chance of getting the ball, trying to play out when it's not sensible, not communicating very well, lateral passes across the pitch when under pressure, passing to a player under pressure and so on. Then there are basic skills like under-hit passes.

[ROTG]

 

[paulw66]

16 minutes ago, Sciatika said:

Our defence seems very easy to unsettle and not very solid. In some games, it is as if every time the oppo gets near our box, they score.

and those same defenders might have a bit more confidence if they weren't playing in fear that conceding first means game over.

 

[CarefreeMuratcan]

Poch absolutely has to be sacked if we don't make the final.

Boro play on the Saturday, so have 2 day rest before the Tuesday 2nd leg and we have 9 days rest after the Fulham game this Saturday. 

[chara]

5 minutes ago, CarefreeMuratcan said:

Poch absolutely has to be sacked if we don't make the final.

Boro play on the Saturday, so have 2 day rest before the Tuesday 2nd leg and we have 9 days rest after the Fulham game this Saturday. 

BUT...WHAT ABOUT THE BABY!!!!!!!...Forget all the Football rubbish..I for one am on tenterhooks waiting for news!!!!

[Mark Kelly]

Just now, chara said:

BUT...WHAT ABOUT THE BABY!!!!!!!...Forget all the Football rubbish..I for one am on tenterhooks waiting for news!!!!

Yeah me too !

[CarefreeMuratcan]

20 minutes ago, chara said:

BUT...WHAT ABOUT THE BABY!!!!!!!...Forget all the Football rubbish..I for one am on tenterhooks waiting for news!!!!

 

17 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Yeah me too !

Still not been transferred to Labour Ward yet. We are waiting in a room in the Antenatal Ward. As soon a space frees up in Labour Ward they'll hook my wife to the inducing serum and then hopefully we will make progress!!!