By Tim Sigsworth
Here we are then. After what has seemed like less time
than the forty-five minutes Kike Sola played in a Boro shirt, the first
international break of the season is here.
On the face of it, Boro’s one win and six points from
their opening six games (seven if you include the ignominious defeat to Crewe
in the League Cup) suggests things have been far from rosy under Jonathan
Woodgate.
However, Woody’s lads have improved as the season has
gone on; late summer signings Marc Bola, Marcus Browne and Anfernee Dijksteel
are gelling into the ranks and our attack - so often muted under Tony Pulis -
is thriving despite Ashley Fletcher and Marvin Johnson playing in unfamiliar
roles.
Moreover, an initially shaky and overly keen defence,
along with holding midfielder Adam Clayton, appears more assured, balanced and
organised than at the start of the campaign, even with Dael Fry still to get
back up to full speed after injury.
As such, Boro’s start to the season has been a mixed one.
Although it would have been daft to expect anything else, the players who have
impressed and those who have underwhelmed nevertheless deserve analysis.
Paddy McNair
Who could have guessed that Paddy McNair would be a
half-decent midfielder? Pretty much everyone bar TP, of course.
Whilst Lewis Wing has been underwhelming (more on that
later), our Paddy has been a revelation since being transitioning from a right
wing-back who didn’t want to play there to a centre midfielder with license to
get forward.
In six successive starts, the Northern Irishman has made
220 passes at an accuracy of 81.8%, six key passes (passes or shots which
directly lead to their recipient shooting) and six successful dribbles as well
as scoring one goal (vs. Millwall, 24/08) and assisting another (Taylor Moore
OG vs. Bristol City, 31/08).
Though his defensive responsibilities, at least in the
traditional sense, have been lessened by his advanced role, McNair is required
to play a major part in Boro’s smoggenpress - Woodgate’s counter-press
which seeks to win the ball back as soon and as high up the pitch as possible
in order to achieve numerical and positional superiority in the final third. To
that end, he has made seven successful tackles (out of thirteen attempted) and
six interceptions.
As the below graphic shows, his importance up and down
the right-hand side of the pitch shouldn’t be underestimated, especially as his
positional interchanging with the right-back (usually Jonny Howson or Anfernee
Dijksteel) and right winger (typically Marvin Johnson) is central to opening up
space on the right.
Here’s to hoping he can keep up, or even improve upon,
his early-season importance as the campaign goes on.
Darren Randolph
Less surprising but perhaps all the more impressive than
McNair’s form is the continued brilliance of Darren Randolph.
The Irish international was one of the very few positives
from last season’s torrid campaign, one which would have been infinitely worse
without by his gravity-defying leaps and breezeblock shot-stopping.
Randolph has picked up where he left off in terms of his
point-gaining importance to Boro’s defence, marshalling the defence with barked
instructions, leading by example and making eleven saves, one of which − a
left-sided leap to tip over a top-corner-bound effort from Millwall’s Ben
Thompson −
was truly astonishing.
Without his assuredness between the sticks, Boro’s shaky
and somewhat makeshift ever-pressing back four would have undoubtedly been unable
to solidify as much as it has done as the season has gone on. To that end, he
is an irreplaceable figure.
Marvin Johnson
Marvin Johnson is probably one of Boro’s best examples of
hindsight bias in recent seasons. Signed for £2m in 2017, he started brightly in
red and white, impressing against Bolton Wanderers on his debut and at home to Queens
Park Rangers a week later.
However, he soon found himself out of the first-team
picture and hardly had a look in once Tony Pulis was appointed as Garry Monk’s successor
in December 2017. Loaned to Sheffield United for the 2018/19 season, he was
soon categorised as one of Monk’s worst signings and any sort of future at the
club was widely presumed to be long gone.
His start to this season, therefore, has been almost
entirely unexpected. As part of Woodgate’s unconventional forward line, Johnson
has played as an orthodox winger on what is to him an unfamiliar right flank,
with Britt Assombalonga through the middle and Ashley Fletcher as a false
winger on the left.
But despite this apparent attacking mishmash, and
although he only has one direct goal contribution to his name (assist for Ashley
Fletcher’s header vs. Luton Town), the 28-year-old winger has thrived on the
right-hand side of the pitch where Boro have looked so dangerous.
His positional interplay with right-sided centre
midfielder McNair and right-backs Howson and Dijksteel has been central to
opening up space and creating crossing opportunities for Assombalonga and
late-runner Fletcher, whilst his status as the only out-and-out winger in the
starting eleven has afforded him considerable importance as a direct and
dynamic carrier of the ball.
Such unexpected performances have seen popular opinion of
Johnson turn on its head; once a largely irrelevant footnote in the saga of how
it went wrong under a certain Mr. G. Monk, he is now well aligned with Boro’s full-flow-football
philosophy on the pitch and low-cost lower league recruitment policy off it.
When finally given a proper run in a stable team, he has
taken his chance and established himself as one of Boro’s most influential
creative players. For that, he deserves credit.
Lewis Wing
In contrast to the above, Lewis Wing’s start to the
season has been unexpectedly underwhelming.
So often Boro’s only shining light in his debut season at
Championship level last term, Wing was widely expected to get even better in the
new attack-oriented, creative freedom-giving system.
And even though he scored an absolute howitzer against Luton
and his, according to borostats.com, attacking threat score of 5.2 (how many
times per game he creates a goalscoring opportunity, wins attacking ground
duels or makes a pass into a dangerous position) is the second-highest in the
squad (behind Fletcher’s 7.0), Wing has undeniably underwhelmed so far this
campaign.
Alongside his minimal goalscoring contributions, he often
appears to burn out towards the end of a game and is a less effective presser
than midfield partner McNair, something probably down to a mixture of his
inexperience in a role with such defensive responsibility, his deeper position
in the midfield pivot and his aforementioned stamina issues.
However, he has been by no means awful and has evidently −
as the stats show − been important to the team’s attacking efforts so far
this season. It’s just that he could, and perhaps should, have contributed a
lot more given what he managed to do last season in a far more restricted
system.
Marcus Tavernier
Unlike Wing, Marcus Tavernier has hardly had the chance
to make an impact for Boro this season in the 29 minutes he has played in the
league. Perhaps, therefore, it is slightly unfair to include him in this list
when his opportunities to make an on-pitch impact have been so few and far
between.
Nevertheless, the fact that he hasn’t managed to get a
look-in warrants his inclusion in my opinion.
Although Johnson, Fletcher and Assombalonga have all been
in excellent form, Boro’s attacking options are limited. Marcus Browne has
hardly hit the ground running, Ste Walker is young and recovering from injury
and Rudy Gestede can’t be arsed.
Tav has the potential to feature on both wings and as one
of the two advanced centre midfielders, but that versatility has not been
utilised thus far. He doesn’t suit Fletcher’s false-winger role but there’s no
reason why Fletcher couldn’t move to the right and Tavernier, or Johnson for
that matter, could play as an orthodox winger on the left. His offensive
attributes suit centre midfield too, but there could be some concerns about his
ability to fulfil the defensive requirements of the role.
As such, his lack of involvement can probably be put down
to other attackers performing well in roles − and the team system as a
whole, too −
where there would be some uncertainty over his ability to make an immediate and
significant enough impact to warrant Fletcher, Johnson, McNair or Wing being
dropped.
Tavernier, and Wing for that matter, should be by no
means written off at such an early stage of the season when there will be so
many more opportunities for involvement and improvement. The underwhelming
thing is that he fits Woodgate’s pro-youth mantra yet has found himself out of
the first-team picture.
Rudy Gestede
As touched on above, Rudy Gestede is a player who can’t
wait to get away from Teesside. But only after squeezing every last penny out
of his contract whilst playing as little as possible, of course.
In a squad which has shifted towards a mix of
minutes-hungry youngsters and experienced grafters, Gestede is the sole
mercenary outlier, a hangover from our single season of desperate Premier League gluttony in
2016/17.
His tame running, languid positioning and poor finishing
have reduced his role in the squad to a mere ninetieth minute battering ram
emblematic of hopeless desperation and of ‘we’ve got nowt better to do,
gaffer’.
Undoubtedly one of our highest earners, his absolute lack
of desire and on-pitch impact, along with his reluctance to leave for a vastly
reduced salary, have left Boro burdened with a player they are unable to sell.
Because no one expects anything else from him at this
point, I was half-tempted to leave Gestede off this list. But that would be
doing him a service − being able to run down his contract and leave quietly
through the back door is exactly what he wants.
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