Too little, too late declares a dejected Boro boss

CHRIS Wilder hammered his Middlesbrough players after their 1-0 defeat at Reading, admitting it was “one of the most disappointing afternoons” in his time at the club.

Wilder called it “safe football”, “ponderous, slow and unambitious” as he lambasted the performance of his players in Berkshire.

After comfortably the tamest performance of the season, a clearly hurt Wilder said: “I’ll pull no punches, first of all, congratulations to Paul who will no doubt be delighted with a big win and a clean sheet to cap off a big week for them. We had the ball second half but too little too late in my point of view. The match started at 3pm not 4pm.

“There was just no spark about us, no intensity about us. You’ve got to believe me, I’m not sitting there and enjoying that. That’s not the way we set them up to play.

“It was backwards, safe, side to side, not getting out, nobody wanting to risk a ball forward – they just wanted to keep the ball.

“Reading sat deep and made it difficult for us. They’ve got experienced players and the shape of their team was really good. I should imagine Paul was delighted.

“When they had the opportunity to break and counter they did. What you can’t do with a team who sit in like that is concede a goal and that’s exactly what we did.

“They weren’t sat on the crossbar, but there was a real good shape to them and when you play against that you have to move the ball quickly. You have to overload and get higher up the pitch. The two ends never got high enough up the pitch, we weren’t ambitious, we were slow, ponderous, no risk, not taking opportunities to cross it.

“The goal didn’t even matter, they just seemed to think, ‘what we’ll do is just look like this really pretty side that keeps the ball and get 1,000 passes in but just going side to side and backwards. That’s how we looked. It was just unambitious and safe, and I hate safe football. I hate ponderous football.

“The hosts did enough to win a game of football, and that’s what we’re all in it for. We come away yet again without a win and you have to applaud Paul and his team for doing what they needed to.

“For me, it’s a really disappointing afternoon – possibly one of the most disappointing afternoons I’ve had as Middlesbrough manager.”

While the majority of Wilder’s gripe was with his own players, there was one with the linesman over Reading’s goal. Tyrese

Fornah’s effort rocketed past a Zack Steffen, but Wilder felt that Jeff Hendricks had impeded the view of his goalkeeper, while standing in an offside position.

The same linesman did spot the fact that Matt Crooks was offside as he was dragged down to the floor in the penalty area, with the referee pointing for a Boro penalty before spotting his assistant’s flag.