Heroes And Villains

So was that good for you?

It certainly was for me. We didn't quite Mackem Weep after all, and we had no Andy Halliday to work with (It just so happened he was cup-tied!) but we certainly made 'em work, and very hard at that. Nobody in defence and midfield (well, almost nobody) seriously put a foot wrong as we battled and scrapped our way to a hard earned replay. And with a squad as injury and confidence ravaged as ours, this was no mean feat.

Matthew Bates was clearly up for this one. His forward forays of last season were almost nowhere to be seen, but in every other way he seemed back to his best, showing excellent positional sense and a real willingness to battle for the cause. The same can be said of Tony McMahon, who arguably had an even better game. One of his second half tackles was worthy of Bobby Moore.

The confidence of the right hand side of defence spread to the left, with Seb Hines and an out-of-position Justin Hoyte playing better than they had any right to. (As an aside: I'll never understand the logic of playing Hoyte on the left, whether Bennett is in bad form or not. Where's Andy Taylor when you need him?) Then there was Danny Coyne, looking like the inspiration he was when we first signed him - calm under pressure, good at shot stopping and comfortable with crosses. Alas, his calf problem flared up again, leaving us with a bit of a 'keeper crisis once more. In fairness to Connor Ripley, he did okay barring a couple of uncertain kicks. But he's still too young to shoulder the responsibility of being the first-choice (something Manchester United should have realised with David De Gea). I wouldn't be surprised if Mogga goes hunting for the next Carl Ikeme or Paul Smith in the next few days.

Heroes abound in midfield too, with Rolls Rhys putting in a good shift and Haroun having possibly his best game yet for us. At this point, I would normally have been ready to wax lyrical about Barry Robson...half way through the match, I was praising his commitment, his intelligence on the pitch, his evergreen nature (he's 34 this year, but doesn't look it!) and, of course, his goal. What a goal. I'd hinted before the match that it was exactly what we needed, an early strike to stop the clear favourites for the tie getting into their stride, and so it did. Inspired by the extra knowledge that we've never lost when Robson has scored (thank you, Peter Drury), not to mention the unfortunate absence of Lee Cattermole in Sunderland's midfield (now they know what it's like to play without a key anchorman), we seemed set to nick a victory, despite a few disappointing misses.

But then... oh dear. Robson transformed from hero to villain in a matter of minutes when his loose pass was picked up by James McClean. To be fair to Robbo, he didn't spot McClean breathing down his neck, but I reckon he should have. For the minute the Derry man got the ball, I knew we were doomed. I saw the unforgivable gap between two of our defenders, waiting to be exploited... and that's exactly what McClean did, laying it on a plate for Frazier Campbell to score a shockingly easy equaliser.

Thankfully, Robbo was only the villain for that brief moment - like most of the team, he picked himself up and got on with the game.* Others, like poor Marvin Emnes, were not so fortunate. The once indispensible Dutchman and former golden boy of Boro has suddenly become the whipping boy of Teesside, and not without reason, alas. As hard as he worked, his final ball and finishing were wretched - and it was his poor pass that led to the Sunderland breakaway for the Campbell goal. Campbell, of course, had replaced Connor Wickham, who I'd identified as a possible weak link in the Sunderland team. (Indeed he was - but for his poor positional sense, Craig Gardner's illegal "goal" could easily have stood.)

It was this game that convinced me to stop using Nicky Bailey's absence as an excuse for our poor form. It was this game that renewed confidence in our defence and midfield. (They've clearly seen my alternative badge.) But it was also this game that made me realise that our real problem area was up front. At one point "The Juke" looked more like "The Joke" with a horrific miss summing up a difficult first half for our new front man. To his credit, though, he kept plugging away and became an important presence up front. Though like Emnes, he needs to work on that final ball. Think how much more we would achieve if only we were more clinical with our chances.

Still, a lucrative replay awaits. And an even more lucrative home tie against Arsenal does too, if we win it. I know cup runs can be double edged swords, but imagine how much good this run could do for our confidence and momentum, if we're able to prolong it.

Now on to Wednesday and the King Power stadium...

* * * * *

*I've since heard from Anthony Vickers that Robbo "threw his Man Of The Match champagne in the bin in protest and in self-disgust"... legendary!!

No More Excuses - Let's Mackem Weep!

On Wednesday, Colin Young of the Daily Mail popped up with a sentimental piece about how Julio Arca's slightly unfortunate sending off had forced him to miss a game he'd been looking forward to for weeks. It's not often I truly sympathise with our own tippy-tappy Argentine Land Crab, but this article genuinely made me feel sorry for him. Then came Thursday and Harry Pearson's typically smart column on our now traditional post Christmas slump, before Friday offered Tony Mowbray's thoughts on what I'd already known for a while - how the loss of Nicky Bailey had affected both the balance and confidence of the entire squad.

Maybe promotion and cup success, a la 1997/98, is just not meant to be, you know? Injuries and a thin squad have bitten us just like in 1996/97, 1998/99, 2004/05... countless seasons, actually. But just when it seemed like I was on the verge of joining the Boro Pity Party again, I remembered something that I had written last May:

"Key players – including Redcar Rock David Wheater – forced to leave because of low funds, the same low funds that seriously limited Mogga’s activity in the transfer market. The low attendances at the Riverside getting no higher. Discovering new star men, like Bates, Bailey, Lita, Emnes and McDonald, and then losing them to injury or suspension not long after they really find their form. The concession of very late goals in matches Boro played well enough to win, like Doncaster away, Leeds away, Preston at home and Forest at home.

But Mogga did not let any of this get him or the team down. Rather than dwell on what could have been excuses for relegation if we were to go down, his team kept plugging away. And slowly but surely, the tide began to turn. Before long we were becoming the muggers instead of the mugged."

These are the words that I hope the team have kept in mind before today. To be honest, I've gotten sick of typing the words Nicky and Bailey again and again in my blog. We hammered Cardiff - automatic-promotion chasing Cardiff! - at their place towards the end of last season without Bailey or Matthew Bates in the squad. This game, and a certain other game from more than a decade ago, have given me renewed hope for today's match.

I've no doubt that the majority of pundits and armchair fans were forecasting a massive or easy win for Cardiff last season, or for Liverpool against us in the League Cup in 1998. After all, we had nothing to play for; Cardiff had automatic promotion at stake. Liverpool were near the top of the Premiership; our promotion campaign in the second tier was faltering (just like it is today) and we'd been outclassed by Arsenal just days before.

Yet I'll always remember how surprised I was to hear the Cardiff result, and how impressed I was by our performance against Liverpool. True, we deservedly lost 2-1 on the night, but the whole team, especially the defence, excelled. We really took the game to them in the first half an hour too, at times passing them off the park during that period. It all culminated in Craig Hignett's superb defence splitting pass for Paul Merson's unforgettable goal.

I'm not expecting similar miracles today. After all, Sunderland have picked up 16 points from their last eight games in the league. Martin O'Neill is performing his own kind of revolution up there, transforming the Black Cats into a well-organised side who last week offered "a masterclass in clinical finishing", according to Ron Clarke of The Sunday Times. That's enough to make any Boro fan wonder what might have been if O'Neill, and not Southgate, had taken the Boro job following Steve McClaren's departure. (If what I heard at the time was true, would it really have been too much of a stretch to allow him to bring his own backroom staff?) 

Today's game brings local appeal on both sides of the Irish Sea. O'Neill and Sunderland winger James McClean are both Derry men, like me. (Well, sort of - O'Neill was born in Kilrea, in County Londonderry) It'll also be a case of old friends reunited - Bates and Lee Cattermole, both members of our FA Youth Cup winning side in 2004. I've always been in two minds about Catts - he repeatedly got into trouble in the town while he was with us, so a move was probably best. But seeing what the two Steves, McClaren and Bruce, have gotten out of him, let alone O'Neill, makes me rue the fact that he could never really fulfil his potential with us. I partly put it down to Southgate's misuse of him (mostly on the bench, or on the right) and failure to keep him on a leash. Although I guess it was such a terrier-like attitude that brought him to everyone's attention during those dark days in the middle of 2005/06. And no one will forget his season-transforming tears during that Villa game. It's such commitment to the cause that really epitomises the new Sunderland.

Do we have a chance against them? Remarkably, yes we do. Being the underdogs in both the Cardiff and Liverpool games helped us immensely, and I've a sneaking feeling it might do so again today. The key, for me, will be to try and mug them rather than letting them mug us, as has happened so often in the past. The late sickeners for Liam Miller (2007), Daryl Murphy (2008) and Michael Chopra (2008 again), to name but a few, still leave a very bad taste in the mouth, especially after we dominated two of those three games.

What we need is someone to pull a rabbit out of the hat, like Emerson did in 1997. Hence, in my opinion, the starting line-up today should be a 4-3-2-1:

Steele/Coyne; McMahon, Bates, McManus, Bennett; Robson, Williams, Haroun; Halliday, Emnes; Jutkiewicz.

What better time for Rolls Rhys to show that he can haul us back into games again, like he did against Leicester last year? What chance Andy Halliday - don't laugh - to do another Ipswich? Both him and Marvellous Marvin (okay, I know he's out of form, but what other choice do we have?) can provide a creative outlet either side of the Juke, who really will be desperate to prove a point today. And, if things go wrong, we can always call on the services of Scott McDonald or Malaury Martin. Every player in this starting XI, barring the 'keepers, has shown themselves to be capable of scoring an important goal. That's what could make today so interesting.

The downsides, of course, are numerous. Neither Joe Bennett nor Marvin Emnes are playing anywhere near like we know they can play. The balance of the team, as Mogga said, has been upset. We haven't been really tested against top class opposition for a long time. It's quite possible we could suffer even more crucial injuries today, which we really don't need. (Who could forget 2007, when the Black Cats hacked Mido, Tuncay and Arca out of action in the same match?) And with Reading's win yesterday knocking us down into 5th in the league, it's likely our minds might be on other things.

But we've got nothing to lose whatsoever. And I'm really looking forward to it.

Let's Mackem weep!

Nimble Nimely Exposes Mogga Magic - And More

It's an old cliché, but - how times change.

When I wrote my final blog post of 2011, I offered a warning to Rhys Williams, Matty Bates and Marvin Emnes about the perils of deserting a momentous revolution for an instantaneous Premiership Dream. If that wasn't enough, I illustrated my case with the examples of David Wheater and Tuncay, who hardly seemed to get a game at struggling Bolton, and Andy Taylor, who was then playing for a club below us in the league.

Of course, that blog was written before Nicky Bailey hobbled off against Peterborough. And our momentum went with him. Meanwhile, both Cardiff's and Bolton's was starting to build up. This weekend alone, Wheats was adorning the front of The Sunday Times' sport section after an excellent show against Liverpool, while Tayls is not only ahead of us in the league, but a mere ninety minutes away from Europe and silverware.

The Moggalution has really reached its nadir during the last few days. Coventry boss Andy, as his surname suggests, was a real Thorn in our side, outfoxing Tony Mowbray with his clever handling of the Lukas Jutkiewicz-Alex Nimely situation. He'd concocted a deal that ensured the Juke (as we'll now call him) could only play for Boro if he didn't play against his old club at the weekend - while taking full advantage of Boro's decision to release Alex Nimely. Thorn's bottom club survived yet another spell of wasteful early Boro dominance (how many of these will we see this season?) before claiming a comfortable victory. The previously well-oiled Mogga Machine now seems as functional as the USS Enterprise in Star Trek V ("I think this new ship was put together by monkeys!") and even our Scotty can't save us. Heck, by the time he'd scored, we'd already made Coventry look like Barcelona.

We've now lost three league matches in a row under the same manager for the first time since December 2009. And we have two utterly pointless suspensions (poor refeering or not) to contend with, further weakening an already weak midfield. It's enough to make any Boro fan feel Sky Blue.

Could it get any worse? Yes, it could. Mogga's come out and said that he has no money to spend unless he sells. And Alex Nimely launched what looks like a direct attack on Mogga's tactics in Monday's Sun, criticizing the boss for playing him out wide. "I'm a centre forward who creates and scores goals", he boldly stated - and that was exactly what he did on Saturday, after Thorn played him in the middle. Of course Nimely was also motivated to prove a point to Mogga, as I kind of felt he was treated in a similar manner to Dong Gook Lee - signed to make the squad numbers up, knowing he would never displace the first choice forwards. This, like Lee before him, must surely have affected his performances at the club. (How many of you remember that the South Korean hit the post on his debut?)

Everything that is going on at Boro at the moment is typical of a team in meltdown. I'm finally starting to believe that Nicky Bailey's injury has become the scapegoat for our season, leaving a hole in midfield that both the squad and manager believe is impossible to replace.


Help may be at hand in the form of the loan market. In our last successful promotion campaign, we called on Michael Thomas from Liverpool when the going got tough. And he did far more than make up the numbers. Sure, he wasn't very creative, but he complemented Neil Maddison and Andy Townsend very well, and mostly played his part in seeing we stayed in the top two throughout a very tricky period. It was once we let him go and signed Gazza that we lost vital ground in the promotion race - and we were very fortunate to regain it. A player like him is the kind of, you know, semi-creative anchorman that we need to temporary plug the Bailey-esque hole in the team for now. Ideally, of course, I wish we could bring back James Morrison. He'd repair the broken strings in our midfield. (Must resist bad puns... must resist... )


Plugging "the hole" is one thing. But what we really need is someone to pick us up and drag us back into games when things are going wrong. A true leader. Here, I turn my attention to Bates and Williams - and another Inbetweeners analogy.

Carli never thought of Simon as anything more than a friend. She took advantage of his strong feelings for her to boost her own ego, culminating in the moment where he finally realised he was being used. And I've a strong suspicion that both Bates and Williams are using the club in a similar fashion. That is to say, thinking of us as nothing more than a stepping stone, a boost to their own careers rather than the Boro's progression. It makes me wonder why they don't come out and say so instead of pretending they care, because they certainly don't look like they do at present!

Of course, I hope I'm wrong. But neither player is playing like a leader at the minute. One won't sign a new contract, and another has effectively said: "Promotion or else." It's quite probable that thoughts of larger pay packets are occupying their minds. Well, if they keep playing like they are, they won't be coming, from Boro or otherwise! They're not Premier League players by divine right. They're Boro players. So it's time they started acting like it! And that goes for every other player in the squad too.

It's time to stop singing "Bailey Come Back" to the tune of this 1990's "classic" and come together as a club again. Show the steely resolve that has epitomised Boro this season, Bailey or no Bailey. That is, unless you want our promotion dream to die.

Because I certainly don't.

Could We Ever Believe Again?

Boro have consistently given us reason to believe throughout my sixteen years as a supporter. The construction of a once state-of-the-art stadium, the arrival of numerous foreign stars, a successful promotion campaign, many memorable domestic cup runs, one domestic cup win and a European final appearance - we've really seen it all.

But what happens when said reason to believe is shattered? What happens when the famous figures we thought we could trust turn out to be less than trustworthy? What happens when it feels like we can no longer dare to dream?

For me, it's the moments where confidence, belief and satisfaction are so suddenly transformed into disappointment, or even betrayal, that stand out for me most.

And so, let me take you back in time through some of the most notable of these moments. In chronological order of course. Starting with:

THAT DISASTROUS DAY AT THE DELL

When we look back at the 1996/97 season, we like to talk about the Brazilian magic and Fabrizio Ravanelli's goals, rather than the imbalance of the squad, Bryan Robson's tactical naïveté and our mostly porous defending. We had kept the negative aspects of our squad hidden thanks to some simply amazing all out attacking play that had seen us into the European places by the middle of September 1996. I still remember the platitudes poured on us in those days, such as "Middlesbrough are red hot and nothing, it seems, can stop them". I can even recall my much younger self humming along to Shed Seven's "Getting Better" after every Boro win that month, and there were quite a few of those. Ah, those were the days.

Until Southampton exposed our weaknesses for all to see. I was able to write off an admittedly disappointing surrender of our 100% home record to an improving Arsenal, but the winless Saints completely pummelling us 4-0 the following week really was an eye opener, and for all the wrong reasons. At the time, I had no idea how we could sink so low after hitting the peak of our powers a mere week and a half before, but really, in the end, all Southampton did was do what the teams we had beaten during September hadn't done. They closed down our foreign stars, thus draining our attack of confidence and freeing them to pick holes in our leaky defence. From that moment on, our aura of red hot invincibility, our belief that we could challenge for Europe, ceased to exist in my mind. By the time we finally plugged up the holes in our defence, it was too little, too late - even for our Premiership status.

THE MAGIC MAN DISAPPEARS

I thought I understood Paul Merson while he was at Boro. Sure, he'd had drinking problems in the past. Sure, his very early days at Boro were a little nightmarish. But once settled, he became the outstanding player in the second tier, rarely having a bad game for us. All while regularly praising the virtues of the club. (A warning sign, perhaps?) I was completely convinced that he could lead us to even greater things back in the Premiership - even more so after he signed a deal committing himself to the club for life. All the more staggering, to me anyway, that he suddenly performed a U-Turn, began to talk us down, and became an Aston Villa player within a week. But hey, at least we made a profit from him, right? Still, the manner of his exit rankles with me to this day.

"McCLAREN TO LEEDS"

My former editor Steve Goldby once wrote, "(Steve) McClaren is not loyal to the Boro cause and is using us as a career stepping stone." Naturally, I refused to believe that during his first season, where he seemed to be laying the building blocks for a fine Boro future, talking positively of the club along the way. (Again, where have we heard that before?) It took a day, or a matter of days, for me to change my opinion almost completely. Not long after spending over £20 million of our money on new players - Maccarone, Boateng and Juninho among them - the Sunday papers reported that he was on the verge of joining our rivals, Leeds United, possibly taking Gareth Southgate with him. It was later revealed that it took an intervention from Steve Gibson to prevent this happening, meaning that McClaren was effectively forced to reaffirm his loyalty to us. From that moment on, me, and no doubt many other Boro fans, never really trusted him again. No wonder Gibson got much more applause in Cardiff.

THE AFTERMATH OF EINDHOVEN

To this day, I'm not sure why I hung around to see the lads pick up their losers' medals and watch Seville collect the trophy that we could have won. We had managed to paper over the cracks of what really was a very disappointing season in the Premiership - a 14th place finish - with two memorable cup runs and a couple of spectacular wins over the league's top two sides. Indeed, "papering over the cracks" and "timing" were everything to Steve McClaren that season. It just so happened that he was looking good at the right time - when the FA needed to appoint a new boss. Never mind that by season's end, he had left us with an ageing, disjointed, directionless side without European football for the following season - he still came out smelling like roses. Meanwhile, the damaging effects of his reign were sinking in, as I wondered how long it would be before we'd experience a European final again.

MY FIRST VISIT TO THE RIVERSIDE

A personal one, this. After all, the first time only comes once, doesn't it? That's the bottom line. And I can still remember my first drink in the Ironopolis, buying copies of Red Square and FMTTM before walking through the underpass, and turning round to take pictures of the Transporter Bridge with my small camera before finally seeing the stadium, the old Ayresome gates and the Boro Brick Road in all their glory. I have to admit I was actually bowled over by it all - well, wouldn't you be if you'd waited for eleven years to visit the Riverside? - and I still had time to pop into the club shop and buy my first (and to date, only) Boro shirt. That we played very badly and lost 2-0 that day is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is that I've been to the Riverside twice more since - and, regardless of the result, I've been a little disappointed on both occasions. Neither visit has captured the "feel" of that first time. Because it only comes once, after all. And I'm sure you feel the same...
 
THE CARDIFF DISASTER

It's a well known fact that the Boro always tend to let you down, but surely - surely - at home, with a full crowd to roar us on, we could take full advantage of our best ever chance to win the FA Cup against a side from a lower division? I genuinely think this was the day when our faith in both the team and Gareth Southgate was shattered, as the "occasion" came across as a feeble attempt to replicate the "magic" of the Steaua match without the depth of squad or, more importantly, the goals. Ah yes, where were they? The fact that the whole nation was watching us on the BBC deepened the embarrassment.

SOUTHGATE SACKED - AND GIBSON EXPOSED

I liked the guy. And I still do. But there's no doubt, in my mind, that Gareth Southgate was just not up to it as Boro manager, as much as we wanted him to be. It is the manner and timing of his departure that leaves such a nasty taste in the mouth. I had barely woken up the morning after that 2-0 win over Derby when I heard the words, "Southgate's been sacked". Great news for some Boro fans at the time (if only they knew who was coming next!) but it left me in a state of shock. After all, we had just won, and were near the top of the table. But that, of course, was only the beginning. An eloquent if selective exposure of Steve Gibson's actions by several writers, including Gareth's pal David Walsh of The Sunday Times, was to follow. Gordon Strachan had been approached to succeed Gareth as manager three weeks before his actual sacking, and Keith Lamb had the nerve to tell Gareth this to his face just after he was sacked. Poor manager or not, this was downright rude.

If only that was the end of it. Walsh revealed that we were crippled by a huge debt (a la Leeds!) and had been living beyond our means for years. And that all the major foreign stars - Ravanelli, Emerson, Merson, Boksic, even Juninho - had used us to make a buck. Up until now, we had had the consolation of Gibson's benevolence. But his, and Lamb's, actions, coupled with the realities of the Riverside Revolution, meant that we could never wholly trust in them again.

* * * * *

Now, can Mogga restore our reason to believe in the upcoming games? Starting with Coventry?

Steel Or No Steel?

Before the Shrewsbury and Burnley matches, I was contemplating the absence of Barry Robson and Nicky Bailey and asking myself, "Who'll play?"

Today, the question is: "What now?"

What now, indeed. A fortunate cup win over the spirited Shrews preceded a 2-0 choker against Burnley at the Riverside, which saw the Clarets do to us exactly what we had done to them back in September. Back then, of course, we were on a crest of a wave, wrapping up our fifth successive Championship away win. Marvin Emnes was in peak form, both Robson and Bailey were playing (with the latter scoring) and we had a confident Carl Ikeme between the sticks. Now, Ikeme's long gone, Jason Steele is sidelined with injury, and Emnes is looking a little like the lightweight we feared he was during Southgate's final year in charge.

Have we learnt anything from these last two games? Apart from that poor Connor Ripley seems to get a touch of Massimo Taibi Syndrome every time he goes in goal? And the fact that Tarmo Kink should never don a Boro shirt again, ever? As it turns out, we've merely been reminded of an old chestnut - Boro's lack of a Plan B in attack, especially at the Riverside.

Almost every time, an early goal, or two early goals, conceded at home has torn our game plan to shreds, and on nearly every occasion, we've crumbled. Countless times under Mogga, we've shown that we can recover from a single-goal deficit. But from 2-0 down? You need to go all the way back to April 2006 and the Spirit Of Steaua for that. (And no, the Leicester game last season doesn't count - on a day when both Southampton and West Ham capitalised ruthlessly on our misfortunes, we really needed to win.)

Simon Bird (no, not Will from The Inbetweeners) of The Mirror has, albeit reluctantly, joined in the negativity that engulfs Boro at present, predicting that we won't go up this season at all. It's too early to agree with him, of course, but it's hard to ignore the gloom. Marvellous Marvin is misfiring, and without Bailey's accurate long balls and break up-play, Robson's crosses or a fully fit Scott McDonald to help him, how is he to prosper again?

Before Saturday I would have thought Lukas Jutkiewicz - or Lukey Juke, because I still can't pronounce his name - might be the answer. But he will need time to settle into the pattern of our play. And while he will certainly add both height and presence to our attack, is he technically good enough to inspire a Championship promotion charge? Mogga certainly thinks so - but this will be the young striker's toughest test yet.

More importantly, who will service him? Robson will be back for the next game, sure, but there are plenty of alternatives within the team that either we haven't yet considered, or, as in the case of Justin Hoyte and Joe Bennett, really aren't performing up to scratch. Hoyte has really blown hot and cold this season - a bit like Scott McDonald - while Bennett's looking a shadow of the player he was in early 2011. Perhaps he's suffering from second season syndrome, a la David Wheater.

There's also Tony McMahon, but he hasn't offered quite as much in attack as I thought he would this season. Kevin Thomson (when he's fit), Richie Smallwood and Julio Arca have shown themselves to be capable of passing the ball well, but being forced to play as first-choice anchormen at the moment isn't helping their cause. One must wonder, too, if Arca's still got the legs to be both an anchor and a creative force, even at this level. As for Faris Haroun and Malaury Martin, they remain enigmatic.

I don't think I've mentioned a single winger amongst these players. It's starting to make me long for the days when we were heavy with options in that position, such as Downing, Johnson, Taylor. (Maybe we might have a use for Kink after all, if his statistic of 46 goals in 15 games for "Real Tallinn" is to be believed). But then I thought of Andy Halliday, due back from a loan spell at Walsall this month. He - in addition to Robson, Bailey, McManus and McDonald, of course - is proof that Gordon Strachan had a good eye for a player, even if he couldn't get the best out of them. My thought is - why not give him another chance? Memories of his super show at Ipswich last season, where he scored a goal and set up two more, still live long in the memory.

And speaking of giving players another chance - how about Stephen McManus? It would surely make more sense, to me, for Big Mick to return to the centre of defence in place of Rhys Williams. This, in turn, would allow Rolls Rhys to play in front of the back four, behind a three-man midfield - and would offer us an additional creative outlet at the same time.

There's more options in this team than we think. Mogga just needs to figure out the right way of using them...

* * * * *

Now, a few other things worth mentioning. First of all, well done to Chris Coleman for landing the job of Wales manager. I think the job that he did at Fulham was greatly undervalued, and to sack him when the club was effectively safe from the drop, in April 2007, was sheer madness. Worse still, Mohamed Al Fayed had Coleman's replacement lined up immediately, a move that eventually proved detrimental to both Fulham and Northern Ireland. (Ironically, Boro would suffer similarly two years later when they sacked Coleman's friend, Gareth Southgate, and appointed Strachan, but that's for my next blog post.)

A special mention too to all of you who helped save our near neighbours Darlington from extinction! £5,760.35 alone was raised by Boro fans before the Burnley game, money that helped meet the £50,000 total required by the Darlington Rescue Fund to secure the club's future until the end of January.

You can read the full story here. Let's hope that this is more than just a stay of execution for former Boro man Craig Liddle and his players. Be sure to follow the campaign to save the club on Twitter, at SaveDarlo.

Finally, one more special mention - for Si's Insights' first follower, cancer survivor and Deal Or No Deal jackpot winner Tegen Roberts. The manner in which she has battled back from Hodgkin's lymphoma is an inspiration to everyone.

I hope that a similarly steely determination can spread throughout the Boro squad during what's left of this league campaign.

So: Twenty league games remain. Two automatic promotion places are there to be won. What are the lads made of - steel or no steel?

Spoiling The Party?

It's ironic that I was trumpeting our "end product" on New Year's Eve. For as we enter 2012, we appear to have completely lost it. Both the second half against Peterborough and the entirety of the Blackpool match have been a reminder that we're not as good as we think we are. Again.

Fans will argue with me that there is no cause for alarm, as we've had wake up calls like this before. (I'll talk about one of those at a later date.) But there are hints that this may be more than just a simple "wake up call". 

Anthony Vickers has reassuringly proclaimed that, of the top four teams in the division, we are the "form team". Thinking about both Southampton and West Ham's recent slip-ups, and glancing quickly at the top two "form sides", should be enough reason for us to smile.

Boro - Won 4, Drawn 1, Lost 1. Points 13.
Cardiff - Won 3, Drawn 2, Lost 1. Points 11.

But look closer. Take away the last two games, and what do you get?

Boro - Won 4, Drawn 0, Lost 0. Points 12.
Cardiff - Won 1, Drawn 2, Lost 1. Points 5.

Quite a gap has been made up by the Bluebirds, hasn't it?

How I wish that was the whole story. Alas, it isn't.

A look at the last three games will tell you that for one and a half of those games, we had conceded no goals, however well or poorly we had played. In the next game and a half, we conceded four goals - and it will be very difficult for you to convince me that this wasn't due to the loss of Nicky Bailey half way through the Posh game.

Described by our own Jeff Winter last year as a "poor man's Phil Stamp" - oh, how he must be eating those words now! - Bailey has been transformed under Tony Mowbray, to the point where we can call him Boro's Roy Keane. Someone who rarely does anything wrong and, along with Barry Robson, inspires Boro to play above themselves.

As Big Jack said back in 1993, you can cope with most team situations, but when you start tinkering with the engine of a side, you're into potential trouble. Worse still, it's not a short-term injury - it's damage to his ligaments, one of football's most serious injuries. It may be up to two months before we see our midfield lynchpin again. And even then, will he be able to recapture the form that has helped us rise to such lofty heights?

If that were all, it'd be enough. Alas, Kevin Thomson's nagging injuries aren't leaving him alone. Arca and Zemmama have joined him on the treatment table. And to top it all off, Barry Robson has gone and got himself suspended for the next two matches, leaving us with a real crisis in midfield. To think that not too long ago, I was smiling at how much depth we had there - now we're having to recall Richie Smallwood and Adam Reach. And can we really expect them to show the kind of form they showed at the end of last season, when we were playing under no pressure?

The next few weeks - or months - are going to be a real test. And we haven't even contemplated the effects of the transfer window yet. It's time to bite our nails again.

Or is it? I have faith that Mogga will see us through this rough patch, even though it could well be the toughest test of his Boro reign to date.

Because we've already bounced back from the Southampton thrashing, the West Ham defeat, and losing Emnes, haven't we? Of course, losing an entire midfield is another matter, but we must remember that Mogga has already given us much to be proud of, beyond our wildest expectations. And if we keep the faith, then much, much more will follow.