Boro - Back to where we belong

Boro - Back to where we belong

Index

Honors

Good luck!

nice love championship storeis

Good luck, brilliant team choice.

@captainbrickarms, ipswich knight and jonaldinho thanks buddys, hope it will work out, love this team!

#1: Start of a new era!

The Season started with a bang! The Manager had been sacked and it was a hugh surprise for everyone, the Team, the Fans and even for the media.
The only one who wasn't surprised was Middlesbrough Chairman Steve Gibson.

Gibson had a new Manager, before Karanka had been sacked. The new Manager of FC Middlesbrough will be no other then an iconic former Boro player and English international: Paul Gascoigne!

Gazza in action at the UEFA European Championships in 1996

Gazza brings young talent to the Riverside

His first Action is to loan out a young promising player from Aston Villa: Jack Grealish
The young irish winger is one of the most promising players in the United Kingdom and it was a coup for Boro to loan him out, as he was also linked to some Teams of the Barclays Premiere League.
Crystal Palace and QPR wanted Grealish really badly and QPR offered him to double his wages for the time of the loan.

Grealish told at his presentation at the Riverside, that he wanted "to join Boro for -at least- this Season and try everything to gain promotion with this team.
A reporter asked Grealish, if he could imagine to stay here for good.
I really want to play in the BPL and if we gain promotion, why should i leave?

#2: Transfer movements

At the Start of his reign, Paul Gascoigne already brought Jack Grealish with him. On the other hand he also terminatet 3 loan deals, because the loaned players didn't show that they have it to gain a squad place at the Riverside.

Patrick Bramford and Jamal Blackman moved back to Chelsea London. Ryan Frederiks moved back to Tottenham Hotspurs.
All three players are young english players and the fans are a little bit cautios, because they fear that the transfer movements lead to a point, that there could be only a few players from England in the Squad.

Two players had to leave until now. Albert Adomah left the Riverside for a fee of 5 mio.€ to Leicester City and Andrew Halliday moved to Preston North End for a fee of 300 k €.

The squad size was reduced by 5 players in the first few days of Gazzas reign and he brought a few players into the squad as well.


Roman in action for Barcelona B

Two young spanish players joint Boro from spanish giant FC Barcelona.
For a fee of 1.5 mio. € Alex Corredera and Joan Roman joint the squad and from the affaliation club Chelsea London joint young english midfielder John Swift for half a milllion €.

#3 Pre Season in Brazil!

The team had been in Brazil, right after the FIFA World Cup was held there and they spent 2 weeks in South America to be away from the home press and they could prepare for the new Season without any troble at all. At least that what you should think!


The Squad on the training ground

The team wasn't in the best shape. With only 4 matches held in Pre-Season there was only one win, a draw and two losses.


The team was really looking to get used to the new tactic and that was the main porpuse for the training camp, as it wasn't about geeting the right results.
The new players had to integrate into the squad and it looked everything really good.

Ledesma causes trouble!

Emanuel Ledesma was called by his Agent and he told him that Leicester City and Velez Sarsfield are looking into the possibility of signing him.
Ledesma went directly to Paul Gascoigne and told him, that he would do everything to leave this team and join Leicester.
Gazza seems to be the wrong kind of man to put under pressure.
Gazza wants to deal with everything back in England and it will be interesting to see how he deals with this issue.

#4 Transfer window round-up and First competetiv games

After already having brought 4 new players into the Squad, Paul Gascoigne wanted to bring in one more player. Two players where one the line to loan out by Steve Gibson. In addition to that one more player had to leave the Riverside, as he failed to impress. The only decision was, whom will it be?

Emanuel Ledesma was about to leave Boro to , as his agent already made out a deal with Leicester City. Paul Gascoigne stopped this transfer, as he sees in him a first team regular.
Ledesma had to stay and despite his unhappiness, but the squad chemistry hadn't drop with him beeing in the dressing room.

Emilio Nsue was the one who had to leave and it was quite a surprise, that Premier League team Aston Villa wanted to sign Nsue. The winger was loaned out for a fee of 750k€ and Villa also got a transfer clause of 1.7 mio. €!

Haris Vukcic and Ante Coric both agreed to join Boro, but only Vukcic was signed, to have more options in the attacking line.
With Kike, Jelle Vossen and Haris Vukcic Paul Gascoigne has three great options to choose of.

Sky Bet Championship on the run

As one of the top favourites for Promotion, FC Middlesbrough started into the 2014/15 Sky Bet Championship. Can they live up to the expactations or will they fall badly?

It will be interesting to see, if Paul Gascoigne will be able to bring back success to the Riverside!

Player of the month

Belgian international Jelle Vossen impressed on his first games at the Riverside at scoring 4 goals and 1 assist in the first 5 Championship games.
The striker didn't need any time at all, to pay his money back!
Will his form continue on this level?

#5 Personal Problems again?

Manager Paul Gascoigne had severel personal issues over the last few years and only months before he joined Boro as their Manager, he was on rehab.
Did he solve his issues? It seems that he still has them!


Gazza in his better days

Gazza was always one weird person. He had some issues, while he was on his playing career and he always made everything hard for himself.
He could've achieved much more, if he would've had made some other desicions.
Gazzas personal life went downhill right after he retired from active football, he quickly went to become an alcoholic and used to take drugs.
A few rehabs are already behind him and he had fought for his life not even a year ago.

The last few months had been one of the better ones in his last few years, as he seemed to get his personal life back together and with his role as the Manager of Middlesbrough he stepped back into the football business.

Last weekend, pictures had been leaked, which really looked like Gazza had a very long and hard night.
Everyone is now discussing, does Gazza did too much at once? Was it a step to big, in his situation? Is Gazza playing with his life?


Gazza after his long night out

#6 Mission accomplished!

At the beginning of the Season, the Middlesbrough board wanted to move at least into the 3rd round of the League Cup.
But even moving up into the 3rd round is a hard task, so early in a Season with a new Manager and a new playing style!

Shrewsbury Town 1:2 FC Middlesbrough

The first round was a quite simple tast against Shrewsbury Town, at least you should think that!
Emilio Nsue made his debut in that match and it would be his only match, as a Boro player.
Nsue scored the opening goal in the 17th minute, from the penalty spot and he saved Boro from beeing humiliated against a lower league team!
Nsue scored the final 1:2 in the 84th minute with a really lucky goal, as a Shrewsbury defender wanted to clear the ball, but only hit Nsues back and the Ball dropped back and went into the net.
Boro got lucky with that one and moved into the next round and had been drawn against...

FC Middlesbrough 1:1 Millwall

The second round was a game against Championship opponent Millwall.
What a game that was! Loads of good chances, but both Goalkeepers had been outstanding and saved their teams severel times from conceding a goal.
Millwall was the better team over the 120 minutes and only had to go into the extra time, thanks to an own goal from Shaun Williams, if it wasn't for that one, Millwall would've moved into the third round after 90 minutes.
The extra time had been played without a goal, so the teams headed directly into the penalty shootout, at the end of the 120 minutes.
Boro started the shootout and they missed. It was the last shoot from Millwall which changed fortune around.
Boro scored every following penalty and moved into the third round and accomplished their target, which was set in the Pre-Season.

FC Middlesbrough 1:2 FC Chelsea London

What a matchup! Middlesbrough had been drawn against the probably best team in England! An incredible hard task for the Boros.
The Post-Game interviews said everything about this game. Jose Mourinho for example said himself, that "a Team which is playing with so much passion, like Middlesbrough showed today, has nothing to lose in the Championship! Teams like that need to be in the Premier League! Their Fans sang, cheered and pushed their Team over their own limits.
Our own fans have never showed so much passion for Chelsea, as the Boro fans."
Londons goalkeeper Petr Cech said, that "I would rather see Boro and Leeds in the Premiership, than QPR. Have you seen them perform today? Have you heard their fans? They brought us on the edge of a loss!"

The early two goal lead from Chelsea followed a goal from Adam Clayton even before half-time. In the second half Chelsea didn't had a single shoot on target and were really lucky to move into the next round.

Former Boro-Player offers help for Gazza!

Gaizka Mendieta - former Boro player of the great 2006 era - offers his Help for Paul Gascoigne.
Gascoigne seem to have personal Problems again, as he was seen drunk severel times.
Gascoigne hadn't missed a single daay of work, but it is clearly for almost everyone, that he is in a worser shape every week and medias are already specualating that he might be out for a few months in the next time to attend in a rehab center in the United States.

Mendieta said, that he "wants to keep up the work Gazza has done and would allow him to gain his health and strength, he needs to have to stay a long time in the business.
As soon as he would regain his strength, I would step down and maybe had made myself interesting for other clubs or could work side by side with the Middlesbrough Managers in the youth area.

Middlesbrough released a press-note, that they would talk with Gazza, Gaizka and the Board to sort out every Problem there is around the club.

#8 Championship seems to be really dramatic

After a few months have been played in this years Championship campaign and the leading pack is really hugh!
Bookmakers favourite Norwich City are some way leading the pack by 5 points and seem to get away from the chasing clubs, like Derby County, Watford or Middlesbrough.
Cardiff, Bournemouth, Wolverhampton, Millwall, Bolton Wanderers or Blackburn Rovers could move into the Playoff positions with only one win, this fact shows that this years Championship campaign is really close and that over a dozen teams could win promotion.
And teams like Reading, Leeds, Birmingham or Fulham are really struggeling and lay around the relegation zone.



The outstanding league player up to now is Middlesbroughs' Emmanuel Ledesma, he scored 11 goals and 7 assists this Season and is leading the league in both statics.
He needed only 14 games for his 18 scorer points!
He made himself very interesting for other clubs, as his contract is about to expire at the end of the Season.

#9 FA-Cup insanity at Riverside!

"Can you do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke?", that is a famous quote, which almost every Premier League fan knows. For the Sky Bet Championship you have to ask from now on "Can you do it on a cold, rainy night at the Riverside?"
It was Januar the 3rd, when FC Middlesbrough hosted the FA-Cup third round match against Sunderland. It was a rainy night and only 2° had been on that night, every Middlesbrough fan will remember!

Sunderland, who played without a manager, scored an early goal to show that they mean business. Connor Wickham scored a well placed header in the 3rd minute and brought Sunderland the lead. In the 5th minute he added a second one, unfortunatly he was offside and the goal hadn't been given.
Sunderland really dominated this game in the first 15 minutes, but what then happend, no one could believed.
Goalkeeper Vito Mannone gave the ball to Middlesbrough striker Kike, who hadn't had a problem at all to bring the ball into the net in the 20th minute.
And only 5 minutes later, Jelle Vossen scored a beautiful goal, a goal which could be the goal of the year.
Adam Clayton passed the ball to Vossen, he nutmegt his opponent and hit a strike from about 35m right under the woodwork. No Chance for Mannone!
Another 5minutes later Vossen again scored, this time it wasn't a beauty, but it was the 3:1 for Middlesbrough.
It only took them 10 minutes to change the result from a 0:1 to 3:1!
Will Sunderland turn this game around another time?

Surely not! In the 42nd minute it was Adam Clayton who scored another one and the game had been decided, before the half-time whistle had even gone!
Connor Wickham was only capable of bringing one goal back at the end of the game and Middlesbrough moved into the next round of the FA-Cup and already achieved the goals the board had set at the beginning of the Season.


Stoke, Tottenham and Hull City had already been eliminated in this years FA-Cup 3rd round.
And with Sunderland it already've been 4 Premiere League teams up to know.
Arsenal only played a draw and need the extra game, to be able to procede to the next round.

Player of the Match

#10 Riverside is an unbeatable fortress!

Sunderland was beaten in the FA Cup third round at the Riverside with an outstanding performance from Middlesbrough by 4:2. In the fourth round it was the Hammers who came to the Riverside, after a 1:1 in the first game, for the fourth rounds replay match.
And it was again a cold and rainy night in Middlesbrough. Will we see a repeat of the third rounds game?

We will!
And it was again a spectacular offensive show from Middlesbrough, as they scored 5 goals in this game!
Middlesbrough showed that they want to move into the next round, as they scored in between the 19th and 37th minute an incredible amount of 4 goals!
The first one was scored by the teams top goalscorer Emmanuel Ledesma, with a well placed shoot from around the penalty spot.
Only 120 seconds later it was the other Goalscorer, Jelle Vossen, who doubled the lead and brought Boro a comfortable situation.
Jack Grealish and Grant Leadbitter scored two more goals in the first half (35., 37.) and Paul Gascoigne was able to make three substitutes to the half time, to rest his players.

Enner Valencia and Mauro Zarate scored two goals for the Hammers , to bring them back into the game and they put up hugh pressure on the Boros.
Alex Song, Barcelona loanee, scored another goal, that wasn't given, as he should have played the ball with his hand, but it was a wrong desicion by the referee, as it should've been counted.
The Free-kick from this handball, was quickly played and lead into a counter attack, which Adam Reach used to score the final 5:2!
Sam Allardyce, West Ham United Manager, was outragouius and denied to attend at the Press-Conference, as he was about to call the FA Authorities to appeal against that match!

Players of the Match