Wilder is looking for More after a defeat to Braga
MIDDLESBROUGH head to Morecambe for their penultimate friendly of the summer tonight.
The Teessiders will be looking to bounce back against the League One side after defeat last time out against Braga in Portugal.
The new season is less than a fortnight away and Boro have ramped up their preparations after being away in Portugal for seven days of warmweather training last week.
They will be hoping to take another big step towards being ready for West Brom at the Mazuma Stadium.
From team selection to select performance issues and talking points, we take a look at some of the considerations and things to look out for tonight.
Boro’s response to Braga
Chris Wilder was disappointed with his side’s performance against Braga.
Sure, the Portuguese side is a very good team who reached the last eight of the Europa League last term and is far more accustomed to the heat in which the game was played – but the Boro boss still felt his players underperformed.
The key now is bouncing back. They are only pre-season friendlies and so there are no points at stake but nevertheless Wilder wants to grow a winning mentality at the club and Boro want to go into the new season in the best form possible.
Game time after Braga
Boro took a step up in terms of game time against Braga.
Darragh Lenihan, Isaiah Jones, Jonny Howson, Matt Crooks, Marcus Tavernier, Ryan Giles and Riley McGree all completed the full 90 minutes on Friday evening.
Saturday to Tuesday turnarounds are common in the Championship and therefore starting again could be useful to conditioning them for that.
They will be wary of overloading them as well, though, potentially risking muscle injuries.
It will be interesting to see who plays what at Morecambe, the club having some of the game’s finest medical staff at its disposal to take advice from and make decisions based off that.
Finding a finishing touch
Boro have had a positive pre-season overall and have played some good stuff at times.
The introduction of Giles seems to have added that attacking impetus needed on the left to balance with the right side and even against Braga, despite what the scoreline suggested, they created plenty of opportunities.
However against York – where their win was tighter than it ought to have been because they did not take their chances – and Braga where they did not make use of their dominant period to get back into the game, their lack of a finishing touch is really evident.
As the season draws closer the players will be doing more technical ball drills while their sharpness will hopefully improve to help them be more clinical.
New strikers would help too, of course.
Midfield dynamics
With the wait for new strikers going on, Wilder tried to experiment with McGree at number ten behind the lone striker against Braga.
Under the cosh, though, the boss changed it after just 20 minutes and overloaded the midfield by making McGree a third eight alongside Tavernier and Crooks.
It will be interesting to see how they line-up at Morecambe and whether he tries the number ten experiment again, this time against a side they will be expected to dominate the ball and control the ball against.
Defensive partnerships
Throughout pre-season Boro have experimented with different variations of their back three.
It is difficult with no left-sided centre-back signed yet, with that another position Wilder is clear he wants to recruit in.
Interestingly though, as he played what looked as close to his strongest XI for the West Brom game against Braga, new boy Lenihan started in the central role with Dael Fry, who cemented that role last term, moved on to the lefthand side.
There is going to be interesting competition for places this season if Wilder can secure one more left-footed centreback this summer.
It will be interesting to see what formation that back three starts with this time out.