![]() ![]() "It is true, I like to switch him at half time so he is on my side," he said. It was noted earlier in the season that Traore always seemed to switch wings at half time and in February Karanka confirmed why that was the case. That can be illustrated in his treatment of Adama Traore, the pacey yet wild winger who often looks like he's part footballer, part child's party balloon that has been let off to fly around the room. ![]() Karanka is a manager who seems obsessed with control. In any case, why don't they know how to be more direct? Isn't it a failure of management that a team only knows one way of playing? Karanka's problem isn't just that they can't hoof it long, more that there seems to be no middle ground. "When you have thousands of people asking for long balls, in the end we have to play long balls, and it's a style we don't know to play," claimed Karanka after that West Ham game, but those unhappy supporters were not necessarily calling for route one football, just a style that didn't involve a minute of careful passing before they get anywhere near the opposition penalty area. Manchester City and Arsenal managed it in six. For reference, Crystal Palace, the team that have just leapfrogged Boro, reached that figure in their 13th game. The result is their alarming lack of goals: just 19 in 27 games. That might have worked in the Championship because defences aren't as good there. Their build-up play is so ponderous and deliberate that teams have as much time as they like to mass their defence, and Boro then don't have the wit or skill to break through. The idea that those fans should be delighted with how Boro are playing is a rather difficult one to swallow. He was unhappy with the supporters who urged the team to "Attack, Attack, Attack!" and those who left before the end of that loss, calling the atmosphere "awful" and accusing the support of having "a small memory." Since then, Karanka has repeated the rather sarcastic line that his players "are the best in the world," which he did again on Saturday.Īnd just to round things off, after the defeat to West Ham in January, he turned his ire towards the Boro fans. "Teams in our position are signing players for £14 million - we are signing players that didn't play in the Championship." "The club knew a month and a half ago the players that I wanted," Karanka said. After a start to the season that could be described as moderate, a January recruitment drive didn't go quite as planned, with forwards Rudy Gestede and Patrick Bamford, and midfielder Adlene Guedioura, signed. His apparent dissatisfaction with life didn't end there. However, in the end he only missed one game and ultimately guided them to promotion. Last season, a training ground bust-up led to him being suspended by the club and most thought heading for the sack. Karanka's situation has been relatively precarious for a while. Their defeat to Stoke, combined with Crystal Palace beating West Brom, means that's exactly where they now are. Last week, with Boro at that point only clear of the bottom three on goal difference, Karanka said there was no need to discuss the prospect of the drop until they were in the relegation zone. The surprise is not that the fans seem to have turned on Karanka, but that it's taken this long. They have just four victories all season, and only one of those - a 2-0 success over Bournemouth in October - came against a team not in the bottom three at the time. They haven't won a league game since the middle of December, and that was against Swansea at the nadir of Bob Bradley's ill-fated tenure. Saturday's loss was Boro's fourth straight league game without a goal and their 13th game this season in which they've failed to score. They were shouted down by another section of the away end, but after some months of growing but relatively low-level grumbling, this was the first time that frustration spilled over in any sort of significant, vocal way.Īnd it's easy to see why. ![]() A group of fans, until that point broadly supportive of their side's efforts, began to sing "Aitor Karanka, it's time to go home." There was a moment in the second half of Middlesbrough's flaccid 2-0 defeat to Stoke on Saturday that felt like a turning point. You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browserĮchoes of Mourinho's worst qualities as Karanka teeters at Middlesbrough ![]()
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