Aitor Karanka reveals that he gave his boys a real mouthful when they came back to the change room in the mid-break of the Sheffield Wednesday game and he was glad that his angry words made some impact on their body language as they showed tremendous aggression when the play resumed.
One particular reason of Karanka’s frustration was the Smoggies’ inability to test the skills of an inexperienced shot-stopper Joe Wildsmith whom Sheffield had fielded for the game.
Wildsmith is no. 3 in the pecking order of Sheffield and it was the first appearance of the season for him. So, Karanka wanted some pressure to be created on him, but, it was not happening as Middlesbrough was not getting any of the shots close to the post.
The young man was having an easy day between the sticks and Karanka didn’t want him to get away like that. So, he reminded his team of Wildsmith’s inexperience and urged them to try and get him in the thick of things and try and see if he had got sufficient potential or not.
Karanka was quoted as saying after the game, “I indeed emphasised that there was a young man in charge of the opposition’s goal and we didn’t know about his capability because we were not able to throw any kind of challenge to him till that time.”
“I thought it was brilliant from Grant to get us the opener, it was skilfully done and then we never turned back from that stage even though we immediately had a setback in the form of Dani’s red card. Everybody was so committed that we got over the line even with a reduced team and I must appreciate the boys for turning the corner like that.”