S25/26 | The Official Match Thread | Middlesbrough 1 Swansea 0 | Att: 26,035 (Away 685) | 3pm | Saturday 9th August 2026

[Pentyrchjack]

This shite won't last. Nor the manager if he insists on us playing like this, and picking this team. Utter shite

You can't make a chicken curry using chicken shit.

 

[Londonlisa2001]

After solid enough first half second half was very, very poor.

Vipotnik is simply a waste of time. Cullen in the first half at least showed some ability to win a ball and hold it up. Vipotnik is constantly in the wrong place, has awful movement and can’t be bothered to stay onside.

Widell looks very very lightweight and ordinary at the moment. Can’t quite believe I was watching a full Swedish international play. No better than academy products at the moment.
Inoussa looked more promising.

We have absolutely no creativity whatsoever. We could have played for two days and not scored. And quite what’s with the lumping it up I don’t know. There was no one in midfield who showed any drive.

On a brighter note Casey was assured when he came on.

Midfield and up front. Urgent. And some sort of system that isn’t just hit it and hope would be great.

 

[magicdaps10]

Come on And. Don't care what players you've got, we didn't string a pass together and created literally nothing.

Absolute shite and don't care if it's first game

We haven't done as much training with as much detail with passing and receiving the ball, it was clear with the amount of long balls over the top and players being offside from them.

 

[LeonWasTheDogs]

That was like a Luke Williams performance, albeit slightly more solid at the back. Expected goals 0.09 , not that we need stats to know we could be there until next Sat and still not threaten them. A lot of work needed on the training ground.

 

[Ringwood]

They say pre season results don't matter

Well that was exactly a pre season performance

Did we actually have an attempt at goal apart from Ronald's effort?

The shape and formation was questionable and tempo was slow

Lots of long aimless balls to who ??

Crosses to who??

The game resembled a school yard kick and rush in midfield and we couldn't string passes together for the most part.

Sheehan needs a striker and a formation which creates chances.

Positives - They hardly opened us up and Innousa looks like he could be a real handful

 

[eteb]

We haven't done as much training with as much detail with passing and receiving the ball, it was clear with the amount of long balls over the top and players being offside from them.

Why not though? Not good enough ans very amateur if that's the case

 

[Jackareme]

It was good to get this one out of the way first game of the season? lets be honest.

We always lose by a single goal up there and it's just grim.

Yes now we concentrate on the cups!!

 

[Swansea93]

Just the 6 offsides for us today

 

[Darran]

This shite won't last. Nor the manager if he insists on us playing like this, and picking this team. Utter shite

I’m not disagreeing with you Rog but he hasn’t got much else to pick.

 

[FearOfAJackPlanet]

Definitely missed LOB, or anyone who could bring the ball forward in the center of the pitch and bring others in.
All 3 midfielders picked were playing way too conservatively.

Inoussa looked lively though, so there's a positive.

2 completely toothless teams who barely created anything between them. Of course, the player who breaks the deadlock is a defender who hasn't scored in 3 years.

Football's back baby!

 

[Resolvenjack]

Except he hasn't though.

Casey only arrived the other day, and anyone can see we're still crying out for another midfielder and a proper striker, ideally two. That's why we're not ready.

I'm not making excuses for today's game btw, I'm just pointing out that you can only do so much with what you've given.

But he still hasn't managed to 'bed' in the 5 or 6 new players he has had early on in the close season.

Casey is an afterthought due to Santos injury so can be discounted.

 

[Longlostjack]

We were competitive the first half but the second half it was like someone drugged the half time tea

The midfield had no energy in it at all, no movement and no combinations, so the passing was slow and pedestrian. I feel sorry for Burgess, his distribution and long balls were excellent but there was so little movement ahead of him he was left having to float hopeful balls into the channel rather than the pinged balls directly to the wingers that he was doing earlier in the game.

Ultimately for me Sheehan got the substitutions wrong

Widell should have come in as CAM with Wales and Inoussa on the flanks and Vipotnik up top.
Instead we ended up with Widell on the wing and a knackered and ineffectual Cullen as CAM

Good post

 

[cmajack]

That's just an easy roll out to not wanting to hear the issues at hand from today's game.

You would probably be smack on if it didn't stand out like sore thumb today.

Let's not kid ourselves, it hasn't been great in pre - season, did everyone think we were just going to turn it on today? That was a shocking performance, in line with what has been shown in previous friendlies. Why are we never ready for the start of the season, same last year, now this today.

 

[Andrew - North Hill]

Come on And. Don't care what players you've got, we didn't string a pass together and created literally nothing.

Absolute shite and don't care if it's first game

I don't think the performance was quite as bad as you saw it, in the first half we were quite competitive. I agree it was an awful watch though, esp second half.

The problem we have is that we simply don't have enough quality in the final third of the pitch. I've been banging this drum for the past year, our forward players can be slotted into two categories: slow and sluggish (Vipotnik, Cullen) or flimsy/inconsistent (Ronald, Eom). So far Inoussa and Widell look to be in the latter category, although it's early days.

If we replicate that performance for 46 games we will win enough games by narrow margins to be mid table, but it won't be enjoyable.

The only thing that'll change it is if the owners go wild this week and get some top quality in, but we all know that's unlikely.

 

[Michu78]

They say pre season results don't matter

Well that was exactly a pre season performance

Did we actually have an attempt at goal apart from Ronald's effort?

The shape and formation was questionable and tempo was slow

Lots of long aimless balls to who ??

Crosses to who??

The game resembled a school yard kick and rush in midfield and we couldn't string passes together for the most part.

Sheehan needs a striker and a formation which creates chances.

Positives - They hardly opened us up and Innousa looks like he could be a real handful

I am so disappointed and deflated with that performance. This one performance alone is enough to raise alarm bells about Sheehan and the rest of the season.