Another Middlesbrough defeat and with it growing dissent and increased pressure on Michael Carrick. Can he turn this around? The signs weren’t positive against Watford on Saturday.
Against a side woefully out of form, Boro lacked ideas and, worryingly, looked shy of any real belief, firing a blank against a team that had kept just one clean sheet since the end of November.
With chairman Steve Gibson in attendance, Boro’s latest defeat saw them slide to 11th in the Championship table. They’re now four points adrift of sixth and a place in the play-offs is looking increasingly unlikely.
The numbers make for grim reading. Boro have now lost six in their last seven in all competitions, have won just three in 15 and have only kept one clean sheet in their last eight.
Boro were booed off at full-time. Carrick shook the hand of Tom Cleverley and headed down the tunnel.
TEAM SELECTION BACKFIRES BADLY
Carrick’s team selection was…interesting. And it backfired.
Changes were always expected after the poor midweek display at Sheffield United but there won’t have been many predicting the starting XI Carrick named. It had the feel of a manager desperately scratching around for answers. And he didn’t find them.
Ryan Giles could have no complaints at being dropped after his showing at Bramall Lane and the same could be said of Finn Azaz and Samuel Iling-Junior. But Delano Burgzorg has been Boro’s best player in recent weeks, so his omission was surprising to say the least.
Carrick tinkered with the shape, with Ayling moving across as a third centre-half at times and Morgan Whittaker playing as a right wing-back. Kelechi Iheanacho and Tommy Conway were both central with the advanced Hayden Hackney supporting and Dan Barlaser playing alongside Aidan Morris in midfield.
It didn’t work. Boro looked disjointed and muddled in the first half and other than a couple of routine saves for Egil Selvik, didn’t trouble the Watford defence. They lacked spark, urgency and attacking ideas and were booed off at half-time.
Carrick rarely makes half-time changes but had no choice here, replacing Barlaser with Burgzorg, who should never have been dropped.
ANOTHER DEFENSIVE GIFT
Watford headed for the Riverside having won just one of their last 10 games and on the back of a 4-0 hammering at home to Leeds United in midweek.
The ideal opponents to get back on track? Perhaps that’s how Watford will have viewed Boro. After having less than 20% of the possession in the first 10 minutes, the visitors grew in confidence and threatened before their opening goal. Edo Kayembe should have hit the target at the very least after Moussa Sissoko’s cut-back.
It was Sissoko who opened the scoring five minutes before half-time and, predictably, it was a gift – a free header for the defender who escaped the attention of Borges and powered in Imran Louza’s corner.
The goal and the half-time change failed to spark Boro into life. In fact, it was Watford who looked the more likely to score the game’s second goal early in the second half, Giorgi Chakvedadze twice denied by Travers.
Boro at least started to ask questions in the last half an hour or so and it was Burgzorg who was the most threatening, highlighting just how bizarre a decision it was to leave the forward out. He forced three good saves out of Selvik before Rav van den Berg headed against the post from substitute Finn Azaz’s corner.
