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Is there anything more cringe worthy than a football cliché? But clichés are clichés for a reason and the New Year’s Day clash between Middlesbrough and Preston was truly a game of two halves.
Boro were fortunate to be only 2-1 down at half time after being played off the park by the home team, only for a change of formation and some inspired substitutions to help turn the game on its head.
In truth, Preston still deserved something from the game and will have left Deepdale wondering how they lost a match in which they registered twenty shots, almost three times as many as the visitors.
Given how terrible 2017 was, anyone with a Boro allegiance will have been happy to pick up the win regardless of the circumstances, although the performance still leaves a number of questions for Tony Pulis to answer.
So swiftly onto another cliché, the New Year’s Resolution list…
Favoured Formation
Garry Monk tried almost every formation possible during his disastrous days as Boro manager. As a result, the players often seemed unsure as to what role they were expected to play and displays were disjointed. Pulis’s experiment with 4-3-3 at Preston backfired as the Lilywhites ran amok in the first 45 minutes.
However, Boro looked much more solid when reverting to the 4-2-3-1 which gained them promotion during their last Championship campaign. The majority of the squad had this system ingrained into their consciousness in the Aitor Karanka days; reverting back to it may be the way forward for Pulis and in doing so it could also cure another big Boro curse…
Contain the Crosses
Boro have been the Championship’s Dracula this season, with teams simply putting in a cross to the back post to drive a stake through the heart of the club’s defence. It was hoped that a manager as defensively minded as Pulis would put paid to that tactic, yet Villa and Preston have plundered three goals using that simplest of strategies.
Will Pulis opt for a tactical tweak that looks to prevent the cross being put in, or will it be a question of adjusting the positional play so that balls into the Boro box are once again blasted away by the foreheads of Ben Gibson and Daniel Ayala?
Siphoning the squad
“It’s a big squad so there are players there I need time to look at and assess”, Pulis shortly after the 1-0 reverse to Aston Villa. With the transfer window open though, time is in short supply. A number of players have been tested by Pulis in the Villa and PNE games, so the FA cup derby against Sunderland looks like a final audition for some.
Adam Clayton and Adam Forshaw were starring in the Premier League early last season but haven’t had a look-in under Pulis. Britt Assombalonga has been subbed in the last two games.
Promising youngsters Fry and Tavernier, one of the only bright spots of Monk’s reign, are yet to feature for a manager who stated during his time as Stoke boss that he would rather spend the academy budget on a squad player. Expect the January sales to start soon at the Riverside.
Backroom boys
Normally when a new manager arrives he comes with an entourage of coaches, scouts and analysts. Initially Pulis was the only person to replace Monk and his team, although a goalkeeping coach and his long serving assistant Dave Kemp have since been announced.
Monk had to do without an assistant manager thanks to Boro’s very own Lord Lucan, Steve Agnew, who has now surfaced at Villa, but can Pulis really manage this team with just his two additions plus Jonathan Woodgate for support?
The length of Pulis’s deal has not been disclosed by the club, so perhaps an agreement is only in place until the end of the season which makes Steve Gibson reluctant to cough up for support staff. If that is the case, then questions over the at the club will arise again, particularly if Boro are looking for their fifth manager in two seasons come summer 2018.
There are plenty of posers for Pulis to ponder. With pressure on to get the results desperately needed to keep Boro in pursuit of promotion and the clock already ticking on the January transfer window, we can expect plenty of activity on and off the pitch in the coming weeks. It certainly promises to be anything but that word so frequently associated with Pulis, dull!