Reproduced in full: BBC pundit Steve Claridge's assessment of Boro's goal drought on the weekend's Football League Show highlights
One person clearly not impressed by Aitor Karanka’s tactics is television pundit Steve Claridge.
Following the Football League Show highlights of Boro’s 0-0 draw with Leeds, the former Leicester striker was asked about Boro’s goal drought.
For those who missed it (starts after 34 mins and 50 seconds of the show), here’s his forthright answer:
“They (Boro) are playing a system where the players clearly either don’t understand what is required or are not good enough to implement that.
“If you are a manager going into a football club, you go into that football club, assess the players and you try to work out the best system that suits those players.
“You don’t try and foist a system upon players who obviously can’t or don’t understand what is required to implement that system.
“They (Boro) passed the ball around and Leeds allowed them to. All Leeds had to do was keep their shape.
“They (Boro) can’t break sides down. They had a lot of possession in areas where they didn’t hurt Leeds.
"I can’t remember a shot in the first half from either side.
“And you look at it and think ‘they just don’t understand how to play this (system)’.
“Clearly the players don’t get this and yet they continue to play that way.
“I’m thinking ‘after two or three games and not scoring a goal maybe we need to change something, maybe I (Karanka) have to do something different’, but he hasn’t and it’s gone on and gone on.
“The game got better second half, they looked a little bit better in the second half, certainly with the introduction of Adomah and Ledesma, both forward thinking players who understand how to play wide in that system.
“But it’s been an awful long time and still they continue to go down that road.
“It does make you wonder what exactly it is going to take to make them change because clearly at this stage it isn’t working.”
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