We were ok in the first half and won because we punished them for their mistakes.
However all the euphoria on here is unbelievable. Borough sat back and gave us room and so we got a load of possession but apart from the mistakes they made what did we actually do? We still could not finish them off. Second half was poor and as usual eventually not comfortable and we fluffed chances any other pl team would gobble up. Boro were not good and we did not demolish them. We were back to our slow sidey possession football except when lo celso Lamela or Tang had the ball. Dier creates sweet fa. Gazza was gazza. Sanchez was awful. Son was Mr Greedy, Moura headless chicken, And as for Ericshitsen ...words cant describe how ineffective and poor he was...World Cl ARSE player my arse. £8.5 million offer by inter...grab it Levy get rid of the poisoner!
We can take only lo Celso Lamela and Tang as positive from tonights inept performance against a poor championship team! Get real guys.....
A few observations on your comments:
In the first half they played with 11 men behind the ball for much of it, I don't care what division the opposition is in that is a tough tactic to break down; we should have easily been three up at half time if it were not for Moura's greed/red mist - he had the simplest of passes he could have made to Eriksen and it was 90% certain to be 3-0.
Given this was the first time we'd played this formation with the players available we looked pretty damn good for the first half and were cruising. It was good to see Lamela make the impact that he did; his energy was a big plus as was Lo Celso's class - even if both faded as the game went on.
Sanchez: The wind was a massive factor last night and the ball was doing some ridiculous things at times - unfortunately for Sanchez two of them were where he tried to take them in the air when he was being pressured by a near-by presence.
Second half we sat back and were clearly trying to preserve our lead, not add to unless they made mistakes - I'm 100% certain that was playing to orders.
There was no need to demolish them - extra goals would have earned us nothing but tired players, at a time when it is the last thing we needed.
It was a good win, we adjusted well without Kane or Son starting, our movement and passing in the first half was good, not great - get Eriksen out of there and we no know that the space he occupies will be readily taken by Lo Celso, or in a pinch - if he can stay fit for more than 90 mins, Lamela.
Jose learned alot and so did we; Son of ledley is even better than I told you all he could be - and frankly, I am stunned at how easily he's made the transition to RB when I always considered him to be a CB or a Defensive midfielder - and that's the only way I'd heard anyone at the academy talk about him - so strike one for Jose!