Boro faithful will love Rob Edwards’ vision for how his new side will play
Rob Edwards has offered insight into how he wants his Middlesbrough side to look – with some key components that Boro fans will surely love.
How Edwards will set Boro up has been a big talking point since it emerged a week ago that the former Luton Town boss was the preferred candidate to replace Michael Carrick in the Riverside hotseat. Making the most of the players he had at Kenilworth Road, he played a very different style to the one Boro played under Carrick to earn promotion to the Premier League.
While Edwards didn’t want to give too much away about exactly how he hopes to have his Boro side looking come the start of the new Championship season – including whether he will stick with his preferred wing-back system – he did offer an insight into the kind of football we can expect under Edwards if he is able to get the team playing as he wants.
“I want to ask players to do what they’re good at doing and what they’re comfortable doing,” he said, suggesting his style will be adapted to suit the players he inherits on Teesside. “That doesn’t mean we won’t stretch them and challenge them – of course we’re going to do that.
“I want my teams to be aggressive and on the front foot. I want us to play with bravery. I want control; I want complete control ideally, but as far away from our goal as possible. Action. That’s what I want.
“I don’t know a fanbase that wouldn’t want to play with passion and emotion, working very hard and winning duels. Blocking crosses, sprinting forward, getting crosses and bodies in the box. Tackles, action, playing with passion. Of course, you have to control the passion and play with a tactical understanding as well.”
Edwards enjoyed immediate success when first joining Luton in October 2023. He spoke at the time of not changing too much mid-season, and instead building upon what was already working well for previous boss Nathan Jones in Bedfordshire. At Boro, he’ll have a bit more time during pre-season to put his own stamp on things, but pointed to how even his Hatters side evolved over time to ease concerns he’ll try and implement a style that suited the physicality of his Luton players but not necessarily those at Boro.
He continued: “I think when we got promoted at Luton a couple of years ago, we were a really functional team that utilised the strength of those players really well. We evolved and changed with recruitment as well as adapting to the challenge of the Premier League.
“We felt we were a team that was exciting to watch, even if we weren’t winning every week. We were scoring a lot of goals and competing against some huge club, when obviously we were pretty small. I’m proud of how we evolved and adapted to the Premier League.
“Inevitably after relegation, things change and it was challenging. But I want my team to be exciting, play with passion. Obviously they’ve got to play with their heads, but controlling the game by keeping the ball as far away from our goal as we can.
“I’m at Middlesbrough now and I don’t want to reflect too much about Luton, but I think everyone will have an opinion on Luton and the team we were. What I would say is that, we were one team that got promoted and then a very different team in the Premier League.
“For example, what Ross [Barkley] and Sambi [Lokongo] gave us in midfield, they were quality. We had 60% possession at Manchester United and 22 shots. We were all right. In terms of the players we’ve got here, it’s already a talented group and we can coach them to play some really exciting football, and then match that up with some real fight as well.”
The fight aspect is an interesting one which will be music to the ears of many Boro fans who grew tired of a Boro side who looked too easy to beat at times last season. Carrick refuted the claim, but his side looked soft-centred at times, and it’s something Edwards appears to already appreciate needs to change. In his club interview, he discussed adding steel to the substance.
Expanding on that in his sit down with the media, he added: “Unfortunately I wasn’t a very talented player so I had to have a lot of steel. I didn’t have much substance unfortunately. Because of that, steel is a big part of what I like. Our team, you’ve got to have that.
“I don’t even want to even just limit that to this area. That’s something everyone anywhere wants to see from their football players and their players. I don’t think I ask anything different or outrageous. Play with passion, heart, show fight, show spirit. You can get a long way just off that, particularly if you can be organised and have a good plan as well.”
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