Karanka v MON & Keane

[stirred]

Any argument that contains the phrase “Rome wasn’t built in a day” is always off to a bad start!

In the same way that there was overreaction to the defeats, let’s not overreact to this win either. Great performance, we should’ve scored 5 or 6 but Boro were dreadful. Yet boro may well finish 6th still. Does that not show that the squad we had was perfectly capable of challenging?

MON has made some mistakes and done some good things but the treatment of carvalho was the sticking point always for me. Sidelining and making an example to fans of our record signing, most talented player and fan favourite was foolish. I’m not having that not playing him helped him this weekend either, lack of match practise never helped someone get better before.

I didn’t like the attitude and I still don’t but if he’s willing to admit his mistake and find a way to build around this kid then maybe he can still win people back. We invested £13m into him, he’s a big asset to the club and should be treated accordingly by the management. If he doesn’t fit your formation find one that does.

I respect his change this week even if it was too late. If he’s willing to build the team around the talented players we’ve got and supplement it with a few new signings then there’s still hope. I don’t want to see the squad taken apart again though. This team is nearly good enough

I think the thing I find most frustrating is that MON has clearly not watched back many of our games for earlier in the season. If he had've done he would have seen how good Carvalho was at times under AK's formation. He also mentioned once after Grabban returned from injury that he hadn't realised that Grabban could play the lone striker role so well. Why hadn't he realised that? If he'd watched back some of the games then he would've seen that we won many tight games (Sheff Utd H springs to mind) by staying tight at the back and nicking a goal. 

He's either chosen to discard AK's system because Carvalho is burnt out/lacking confidence etc or he's completely missed how effective Carvalho can be in that system. As i say, watching back and looking in detail at a few of our games would have highlighted that.

But, having said all that, we are where we are now and I continue to believe that MoN's experience and ability to challenge players will come through for us.

I thought Carvalho wasn’t used properly under AK, it was too defensive for me. Not enough forward options when a team sat back and allowed us possession, and his central midfield partners were too deep in matches when we battled for control of midfield. Such a relief to play a set-up with a more attacking and ball-playing emphasis, I just hope we keep it!