Blues boss Mick McCarthy admitted his side were second best and deserved nothing from their 2-0 defeat at Middlesbrough

“Second best, got nowt, deserved nowt,” was the Town manager’s succinct summing up of his side’s performance at the Riverside.

He said the players were understandably down after such an under par display: “The atmosphere in the dressing room was as you’d imagine, pretty sombre and not very buoyant after that, not buoyant at all.

“Disappointment as much as anything about the way we played. We didn’t compete, not like we normally do.”

Why was that the case? “If knew why that was I’d put it immediately right,” McCarthy continued. “I could give you a whole host of reasons: we’ve had players away, we’ve had a bit of a broken week. We’ve travelled up, but I never believe that because we have to travel anyway.

“But I actually think they played well. Before the goal there wasn’t much in it but once they got the goal, I thought they played well. They got on top of us and didn’t let us play at all.

“I would also say that they’ve got a fair few quid in that team, I have to be honest. They’ve just signed Lee Tomlin and Danny Graham was being sold to Swansea and Hull in the Premier League, and then there’s Mustapha Carayol, they’ve got Albert Adomah on the bench, who they spent a million quid on.

“So, they’ve got a good side, Grant Leadbitter, who we couldn’t afford to keep, Nathaniel Chalobah is on loan from Chelsea.

“They’ve got a good side and to stop that we’ve got to play well and we didn’t. I guess I should give them some credit because I thought they did play well.”

He was disappointed with his side's defending for both Danny Graham’s goals: “We had the best chance through Tayls just prior to the first goal.

“It wasn’t like us, not like my team, not like us to let Carayol wriggle out of that and then come on the inside and shoot. Unlike us, but I don’t want to detract from them because I thought they played well.”

McCarthy was unsure whether keeper Dean Gerken ought to have done better: “I haven’t really seen that again. I don’t know how difficult it was to stop, so I’ll have to have another look at that.”

As for Graham’s second, a header from a Leadbitter corner, he added: “It was awful marking, that’s not like us.

“Bad day at the office, I go back to my first comment — didn’t get owt, didn’t deserve owt, second best. You can ask me to put meat on the bones of that but I think it sums it up fairly.”

Frank Nouble was substituted at the break, but McCarthy says he could have replaced any of his frontmen.

“He put in as much effort as anybody, I could have taken any one of the three of them off, to be fair,” he continued. “But I was going to go 4-4-2, see if we could get something back and he was the unlucky one who had to come off.

“I thought I’d leave Tayls where he was and see if he could replicate some of last week’s performance, and I don’t think he did.

“Murph looked like he’d been away and hadn’t had a week’s training with us. It could have been anybody.”

The Town boss says centre-half Christophe Berra is OK despite receiving treatment after kicking George Friend’s foot in a strong tackle in the second half: “He’s all right, he’s very lucky, he could have been carted off with that challenge.”

McCarthy confirmed that Anthony Wordsworth missed trip with the back problem he suffered in training on Thursday and said skipper Carlos Edwards was left behind as he wasn’t going to be in the 18: “Carlos wasn’t going to be on the bench, so he stayed and trained with a view to Tuesday and Saturday.”

Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka was relieved to see his side score after drawing seven consecutive blanks, a total of 12 hours and 14 minutes without a goal.

“Finally the goals arrived and I’m very happy,” he said. “The first thing is our supporters deserve to see us scoring goals and winning, and the second thing is for my team because they were working very well in the last game at home and they deserved to score goals.

“[I said that] if we played as we are playing at the moment, the goals would arrive and finally they arrived.”

Photo: Action Images

Bobby_Petta added 20:11 - Mar 8 Like how he knocks down Taylor, I thought I'd leave Tayls where he was and see if he could replicate some of last week's performance, and I don't think he did. WHAT ABOUT TABB! awful every week! Means Taylor will be dropped Next Game. Again Negative Team selection . Williams and Anderson should have started for Green and Tabb. Please more attacking and creative for Yeovil.

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oscarwhiting added 20:12 - Mar 8 usually i dont rant in the comments but today that changes. im fed up of us being beaten by such average teams and after the game mick always trys to say that the other team is a good side. The fact that all the new players sign and say" with micks teams u need to play well to be selected." This is a absoloute joke. we see players like tabb & Nouble play cack week in week out. mick clearly has his favourates. I fail to see the logic behind bringing on a defensive player when you are 2-0 down. dont get me wrong i think Hyam a good player, and the team has missed him from time to time but hes not the type of player you bring on when ur 2-0 down. lets hope its different on tuesday against an inform yeovil team. COYB

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Hiltzkooler added 20:37 - Mar 8 Walkthewalk..exactly what the wolves fans said in the dying days of Micks reign.....out of date....it sums it up today.....
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1RWR added 20:41 - Mar 8 So then, all of you screaming out for Taylor to start, in case you missed it he did.........and what did he do apart from miss a certain goal scoring opportunity..............nowt dear people, nowt! Perhaps MM does know his players after all?
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bohslegend added 20:57 - Mar 8 Right I'm officially finished with this clowns forum. What's being said on here is not supporting the team. Its moaning, plain and simple. Too many fickle idiots here. I hate the fact that you have anything to do with the club I love.
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blueherts added 20:57 - Mar 8 I have been an MM supporter through the last months but at 2-0 to take a striker off andf bring on a Def mid defied logic We may as well have lost 4 -0 than 2-0 at least give it a go Mick Williams came on loan and we all got excited - rightly cos he offers an attacking threat we do not posses - but no - Boro , not scored in 11 hours and Graham not scored in over a year .... Poor and very Niave tactics If someone can explain them great - cos it would baffle most

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Chicago_Blue added 21:05 - Mar 8 oscarwiting - totally agree with you mate.
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NoelTheDub added 21:24 - Mar 8 bohslegend.......Sad to see you go as i am to blame for been fickle idiot,an idiot who asks why get Green in and play him on the wing,Chambers at RB,Mick talks how good Williams is leaves him on the bench he was with wales in mid week,every week Tabb and Nouble start we can only take so much of this crap we are mid table thanks to Mick but would like to take a small step forward.Playoffs was never on as we all know but he never gave it a crack and what he says on a fri he dosent do sat fact.You cant say this is not bad thinking on Micks behalf after all the good work he has done the foundation he built but you have to build on it by giving every game a good shot his good work is petering out and that should not be the case..

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JWM added 21:38 - Mar 8 I forgot noelthedub you are a professional football manager who has won promotions and all that malarkey! We'll maybe on football manager at least. Who knows you might get a crack at being the next town manager as you obviously know more about the game than anybody else!
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bluelodgeblue added 21:56 - Mar 8 sorry guys , when it comes to the facts if you are looking for anyone to blame it is ME not MM. At long last we have an organised manager but no financial support, we need to get real because who else is out there without an awful lot of risk????
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NoelTheDub added 22:27 - Mar 8 JWM ....Answer my weekly questions WHY Green wide right ,Why Chambers RB,Why Tabb wide left,WHY no goals Nouble ,WHY bring in Richardson WHY bring in Williams and not play them at all,WHY put in Hymn today at 2 0 down.WHY fear everyone that we play home and away,IM now a sunday league manager after playing for 30 odd years and i would be hung drawn and quartered if i done half of those crazy choices and Mick is getting well paid..

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blueboy1981 added 23:40 - Mar 8 ........... unfortunately the whole scenario is becoming / has become - a huge joke. Where we go from here is anyone's guess - so much going on in the way of tactics, team selection etc; which defies logic and common sense thinking. As for entertainment - don't even mention it.
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Simonds92 added 23:47 - Mar 8 Basically we're quite cr*p to be quite honest. Fed up of watching dull mundane football where we sneak a 1-0 after camping in our own half for the last 20mins. Sheffield Wednesday at hillsborough was when the writing was on the wall for me, spent the whole second half kicking the ball out for throw ins on half way, the best I've seen us play in a long time was against qpr and we got comfortably beaten! It's just trying not to get beaten every week, surely we're safe enough now to really have a go rather than bringing on a defensive midfielder for a striker? Tabb is terrible but he was just as bad last season for me. Green is exactly the same as every other midfielder we have. Big frank has all the height and athleticism but I'd genuinely question whether he can actually kick a ball properly, he's a worse version of Danny Haynes for me. Gerken is not ever overly convincing and can't understand people's fascination with Anderson, he is a 'winger' who is more comfortable running towards his own goal than the oppositions. Mick constantly criticising Taylor and we're probably going to end up losing him in the summer when he is the only one with a bit of quality who looks like he might create something and likes to take the game to the opposition. For me he's the only one who might make it worthwhile for fans to spend their money every week, moving out of the boring regimented lines mick likes to keep to so strictly. Have a season ticket and look forward to going every week until about 20mins in and get completely fed up of watching exactly the same every week!

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clint_eastwood added 05:47 - Mar 9 Mick is starting to sound like David Moyes!! Not a damn clue with his tac-tic!! I'm always behind Big Mick but for ffs.....get someone in to work with you with tac-tic will ya??!!
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pennblue added 06:47 - Mar 9 This has to be one of the biggest overreactions ever on this board! We are still 4 points off 6th.
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stevelincsexile added 08:36 - Mar 9 Now for an independent view point. I was at the game with some boro fans and having a meal with them afterwards I asked their honest appraisal of our performance. Firstly we are not the worst team they have seen these season but we are quite away short of the best. We were to negative on our approach to them which them the opportunity to push players forward a luxury they do not normally get. We lacked the tactical knowledge to assess the problems and correct the them. We are one of the slowest teams they have seen no pace out wide and to slow to support the front men. We are more intent in defending than attacking. As for the players:- Chambers has to be the worst full back in the league, no pace no vision no ability to get forward we is a real waste because he is a talented centre back he would be better replacing Smith as Berra was the better of the two. Cresswell is not the player they have watched before for some reason he has gone backwards. In midfield Tabb was hardly in the game and seemed disinterested.It looked like he was always waiting to be subbed. The rest of the midfield were slow and we did not have a decent wide man on either flanks we had no one to light the spark. Hyam was involved more in the second half than the rest of the midfield were all game having said that he did not really do much. Taylor looks as if he could be good but his final ball was poor although often the team was to slow to support him. Murphy was pretty ineffectual all game. In conclusion they felt we needed a right back and they both agreed Richardson could do that job,we needed two wide players and that Hunt should have been on. We need more pace in the team and should offer more of an attacking threat. Finally they agreed that when we consider where we were a year a go we should consider it a job well done to be in play off contention this season they have been up and down this league like a yoyo for the past few seasons and it has not always been pretty to watch.

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Bergholtblue added 11:13 - Mar 9 For all of those who questioned the Hyam sub..... Chambers was getting skinned every time that Boro' attacked down the left. That had to stop. That meant reverting to a 4-4-2 formation. MM's mistake was not that he brought Hyam on but that he didn't change it sooner. Listened on the radio and they predicted Boro's second goal long before it happened. In my opinion it is all Alex Mathie's fault! WE never play well when he summarises. Someone pay Mick Mills to travel to the away games, please!

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brittaniaman added 11:45 - Mar 9 National Sunday paper. Gerken 4 Chambers 5 Berra 3 smith 4 cresswell 5 green 4 SKUSE 5 tabb 4 nouble 3 murphy 3 taylor 4 WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED MICK YOU HAVE GOT A LOT OF BOLLICKING TO DO BEFORE YEOVIL ??????????????
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TimmyH added 12:34 - Mar 9 I hope we're all braced for Tuesday nights game against Yeovil, Mick has already warned us that they're 'no mugs'! - Better start 4 defensive midfielders for that one then!
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MicksZzzTactics added 13:55 - Mar 9 Nice post StevelIncsExile! Always enlightening to hear what other "honest" people/fans objectively thinks about our way of playing football under Grandmaster Mick. So to sum it your Boro friends made these ultra shrewd observations: - "We were too negative on our approach to them..." - "We are one of the slowest teams they have seen, no pace out wide and too slow to support the front men." - "We are more intent on defending than attacking." - "We lacked the tactical knowledge to assess the problems and correct them" LOL, well that sounds PAINFULLY familiar.... and covers pretty much my own general views - and many many other regular goers BTW - although I would like to add ITFC's obviously manager-endorsed affinity for Hoof Ball, whenever I have spent my Saturday afternoon watching Grandmaster Micks super entertaining tactics & starting selection of Tractor Boyz!!!

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afrodids added 16:10 - Mar 9 Same old same old MM. We are a team going nowhere stop playing these dross player's sort it out or ship out.
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Elizabeth added 16:41 - Mar 9 Let's face it , we desperately need some quality players . In all my time of supporting ITFC this is the worst team I have encountered .. We used to have young players coming through the ranks that were proud to wear the first team shirt .. This has all gone now and we have to rely on below par footballers and loanees to make up a team .. Doesn't work .. We have enough evidence of this over the last few seasons. Watching the rugby this afternoon .. So entertaining!!

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TimmyH added 17:11 - Mar 9 God even the Rugby was dull...so predictable, penalty, penalty, Wales drop ball, penalty etc. so I don't agree with you on that @Elizabeth but probably entertaining compared to the drivel we're seeing most weeks at ITFC.
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theobald1985 added 18:43 - Mar 9 mcarthy may be the most boring manager in the world. it is truly awful and i dont think his style is appropriate for our club. do we really want to be known as a boring defensive long ball side-its taking us nowhere and i think mick has not moved with the times and should proberbly call it a day. the financial constraints cant be used as an excuse he has brought in ebanks blake mcgoldrick berra hunt skuse anderson etc but he sets us up to defend-he has a 1.5 mil player in taylor who he wont give a proper run to and we play so negativly that hes never in his correct position. no excuses mcarthy do us a favor and end this miserable football we have to endure

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corunnaviking1759 added 19:12 - Mar 9 I was embarrassed to be a Town fan at the game yesterday!!!!! One day we might get a Manager who will sort it out and bring back Big JR, he done very well with our Team and with No Money!!!
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