Middlesbrough are cruising through their pre-season friendlies with the latest match ending in a 5-0 thrashing of Dumbarton.
Gareth Southgate gave some of his more experienced players an extra 25 minutes match fitness last night at the Strathclyde Homes Stadium.
Gary O’Neil opened the scoring after being put through by Didier Digard. Jeremie Aliadiere scored from the spot to make it 3-0 just minutes after the home side had gifted a second for us with an own goal from a Hoyte cross.
Southgate made changes just after the break bringing on Adam Johnson and he immediately had an impact scoring a wonder goal from 25-yards out. Hopefully Chelsea didn’t see that one.
Rhys Williams nodded in the fifth goal to cap off a fine defensive performance from the Australian international.
Gareth will be very pleased with the professional performance from his team and will be hoping for the same tempo against Carlisle on Saturday.
Can we expect to see another wonder goal from Johnson?
UpTheBoro
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Easy tests, hard tests and then there is no test at all. Followed by Carslile, ******** hell how about some half decent opposition.
Someone is a little disrespectful to Boro’s opposition. We can do all the moaning we want to when the season has started. After all pre-season friendlies mean nothing. The importance about pre-season games is match fitness and a chance to see new players.
That may be true TheSaven, but we at least need some sort of test to see how our players will cope against championship opposition. If we dont get a real test, then the players will get a big shock on the opening day of the season.
100% right slaven.
i can see both sides, you need the earlier games to build fitness, bread a winning mentality but i think that should be topped with a tough home fixture or two in late July early August. This is the bluprint most sides follow during pre season.
after getting relegated i think playing these ‘easy’ games will be excellent for us as a team after being relegated we needed to go out and get a few wins under our belt to build the confidence back up.