Back In Time: Middlesbrough 4, Coventry 0, 1996/97

September sunshine. A packed Riverside stadium. Attacking wizardry on the pitch. Surely it seemed too good to believe? It was...

 

Ah, 1996. It's funny how we can be so selective with the benefit of hindsight. The way Boro fans look back on that year, you'd think it was a year to treasure, one that we would never see again. And in a way, they're right.

The then state-of-the-art Riverside Stadium was full every week, we were playing football we'd never dreamed we'd play, we were signing players that we thought would never come anywhere near Middlesbrough, the club was churning out quality publications like Riverside Red and Riverside Roar, and timeless music - that is to say, the best of Britpop, be it Oasis, Blur or Ocean Colour Scene - was blazing in our headphones and speakers.

Yet the fact is, we only won six league games that year. Was the division between our star players and more workmanlike pros too great to bridge? Were we too reliant on Nigel Pearson at the back? Was it Bryan Robson's largely wrong-headed tactics? Or was there something in the club's Christmas dinner of 1995? Take your pick.

Still, it's undeniable how memorable most of those wins were. And I'll start the "Back In Time" series by taking you back to one of those rare occasions where we lived up to expectations...

Coming off a 4-1 trouncing of West Ham in midweek, we were favourites to turn over Coventry, who had begun the season with just one point in four games. And turn them over we did, in a 4-0 victory that saw all three of our "foreign legion" excel. With no hint of the settling in problems that were to come, Emerson, described back then by The Independent's Scott Barnes as "arguably the most complete player in his position in the country", bossed midfield, while Juninho and Ravanelli got the goals. Of special note are the second and third goals - the kind that we probably took for granted in those days.

When I watch the game today, I notice how the foreign stars inspired our so called "ordinary" players to play above themselves. Watch again how perennial unsung hero Robbie Mustoe links up with Juninho for the second goal, and sets up Ravanelli for the third with a deceptively simple pass. And it does look like his long diagonal pass sets the ball rolling for the fourth goal too. This game was really as much about the unsung heroes as it was the Brazilian - and Italian - magic. On the surface, this was Boro at their best.

What the highlights aren't entirely telling you is that this game was also indicative of Boro at their worst. Remember the awful Phil Whelan (part of our defence that day)? No? Well, I'm not surprised... he was more than an inadequate replacement for "Big Nige", he just wasn't up to the demands of Premiership football, full stop. And he was part of a three man defence that three times let Coventry in for clear headers. Better finishers would have punished us.

Sure enough, there were other times during the match when we were almost punished - it took an excellent save from the much-maligned Allan Miller to deny John Salako at 2-0 up. Miller also turned a shot onto the post. And what if - what if - at 1-0 up, future Boro man Noel Whelan's "equaliser" had stood? Ravanelli might have been looked even more miserable than he did after his second goal.

Yes, I said it - miserable. Watch Ravanelli celebrate the second goal again, and you'll see he looks almost apathetic. He's just scored his sixth goal of the season, we're 3-0 up, and... this? It's as if he already senses things aren't well and is now playing the "I'm Now A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here" card that so many of our players have played over the years (see: Mark Viduka, Robert Huth). It's enough to vindicate The Sunday Times' David Walsh's point that these foreign stars really only came to Boro to make a buck. Is it any wonder Juninho was believed when he said he wanted to stay, while Ravanelli wasn't?

I don't mean to demean what was undoubtedly a memorable performance, one of breathtaking quality for the most part (at least up front). And it did put us joint top of the Premiership goalscorers chart for a week.

But we made a mistake on building dreams on a display like this, hoping that the virtuosity of our attack would be enough to compensate for a second-tier defence and wrong-headed tactics. Arsenal and Southampton would soon expose our central flaws... as would a relegation at the end of the season.

Deserve's Got Nothing To Do With It...

I guess if there's one thing I learnt tonight, it's that "We Shall Overcome" - incidentally, a popular song among us Derry people - is an equally popular song amongst the Boro lads and lasses for good reason. But more on that later...

It doesn't seem so long ago that no-longer-marvellous Marvin Emnes was everyone's favourite player, and Nicky Bailey was deemed indispensable. Heck, I even called him Boro's Roy Keane. Yet during tonight's game, against Ipswich, fans were repeatedly calling for Emnes to be substituted. And before the match, there were calls for sicknote Thomson to start instead of Bailey! What is this world coming to?

But hey, we're Boro fans. And as much as the team tends to flip flop, I guess we like to flip flop too. Here's a team that can run Sunderland extremely close with an injury hit side and then surrender to Leeds with a virtually full-strength team. Only we could have strikers that play like Wayne Rooney one minute and then Michael Ricketts the next (and not just Emnes - Aiyegbeni Yakubu, I'm talking about you!). And only fans like me could urge other fans to stay positive one minute and then lament about the team's conservatism the next.

And of course, the moment I, or any other fans, join the ranks of the boo boys, we produce a performance that is totally out of keeping with our recent form. One that fits the "We Shall Overcome" mantra to a tee - a triumph over both idiosyncracy and injuries to claim a moral victory, if not an actual one.

The Ipswich match was a game of many heroes, particularly Jason Steele, who silenced the boo boys once and for all with a vital penalty save, and Lukas Jutkiewicz, who bounced back from a horror miss to get us all believing again with a crucial goal. But perhaps the most credit should be reserved for Tony McMahon and Nicky Bailey, who performed admirably in their roles as makeshift centre backs against a side renowned for outstanding home form. It would appear that, as was the case with the Sunderland match, injuries to important players gave us the extra motivation to battle against adversity. To play above ourselves.

Alas, Grant Leadbitter ensured the evening didn't have the fairytale conclusion we hoped for, but considering everything - Ipswich's home record, our very poor form, further unfortunate injuries - it was a good result. Reminiscent of last season's 3-3 epic, too, in that injuries paved the way for unexpected heroics - for Halliday last year, read McMahon (or if you prefer, Jutkiewicz) this year.

There are those who will argue that on recent form, we don't deserve to be in the play off places - but, as the legendary Clint Eastwood once put it, "Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

The fact is, we are in the top six, and we are more than capable of consolidating ourselves there until the end of the season. We've proven it tonight.

Now all we have to do (!) is find a way to recall Stephen McManus and Jonathan Grounds back from their loan spells...

Conservative Boro Look Like A Spent Force

It was, as a legendary Scotsman would put it, "Shocking. Positively shocking."

I had expected Bart Ogbeche's stunning equaliser against West Ham to be a turning point, a catalyst. But was it really? Because, frankly, over-praising our performance against the Hammers would be thanking heaven for terribly small mercies. The truth is that the goal, and the five to ten minutes that followed it, very nearly made me forget the rest of the match - but not quite. In reality, for the most part we were even more turgid than Allardyce's surprisingly lacklustre side, with only the excellence of Steele and the profligacy of Matthew Taylor (seriously Bates, what were you thinking?) keeping us in the match. The fact that it took an unexpected "wonder goal" to wake us up against a side that were there for the taking really says it all.

We found ourselves in a similar situation on Saturday with an even worse performance against Bristol City. Again, the opposition were there to be beaten - at least statistically. They hadn't scored a goal away from home in 2012, and had failed to win ten of their last eleven games. A closer look would tell you that Bristol City had never lost at the Riverside, that we had only won twice at home in our last eight games - and, of course, that typically, Boro never win these sort of games anyway.

But Boro did more than just "revert to type" - they played in a manner that made us feel as if Tony Mowbray's "transformation" of the club never happened. We played like strangers. We played with a real lack of adventure. We played with no sense of wanting to progress. The momentum and excitement of the "Moggalution" has been replaced by tedium, repetition and predictability - in other words, just one slog after another. We're no longer flying to the moon - we're stuck on the launchpad, waiting for a refuelling that doesn't look like coming any time soon.

Of course, many outside observers would wonder what we're complaining about - we're 5th in the Championship table, and our last two goals - Ogbeche's, and now Malaury Martin's - have both been crackers.

Look again, though - far too many individuals, in particular Bates, Bennett and even Bailey, are seriously under-performing; an ultra-conservative midfield pairing of Bailey and Thomson is not one to strike fear into opposition sides; Emnes has become a parody of the goal machine he was last August; and Adam Hammill has already lost the spark that he gave to the team on his arrival. (If Wolves recall him, he won't really be missed.) The only players who can really come out of this dark spell with their heads held high are Steele, Hoyte (who has bounced back well from recent criticism, according to reports), Jutkiewicz, Ogbeche, Martin, Main (what's happened to him?) and possibly Smallwood.

It would help immensely if our under-performing players came together with our better players at this stage and took collective responsibility - that way, the absence of Robson, Williams, McDonald and Haroun would neither be so noticeable nor could it be used as a scapegoat for our poor results. (Besides, how bad a sign is it that we're still very reliant on an almost Canada-bound 33-year old?)

Furthermore - how much longer can we keep counting on other results to go our way? We're very fortunate that, apart from Southampton, no one really seems to want to go up.

But far worse than any of the above, as "Redcar Red" eruditely pointed out in a comment on Anthony Vickers' blog, is what's happened to Mogga himself. What has become of the manager who was never afraid to change tactics when necessary, didn't let injuries get him or the team down, and, most significantly, gave youth a chance? One of the most exciting things about last season was the development of Richard Smallwood, Adam Reach, Cameron Park, Andy Halliday (how much better has he looked under Mogga than Strachan?) and, to a lesser extent, Luke Williams - yet all five have been marginalised in place of "safer", more experienced players. The kind that you'd see on a - shudder - Gordon Strachan team sheet.

Yes, when you look at the class of 2012 today, they're little better than Strachan's play off failures of 2010. Back then, the incompetence of our rivals and the odd mini-revival, good goal or undeserved win here and there kept our hopes up. In the end, though, we were brought back crashing down to earth with a bang. And who's to argue that the same thing won't happen again?

It's easy to say "Keep The Faith", but I see a team bereft of inspiration, leadership, ideas and cohesiveness.

We need a spark. But where's it going to come from? And when, or if, it does come, will it be a genuine reignition of the Mogganaut? Or will it be just another false dawn?

Bartman Prevents Another Dark Night

As some band once sang, it only takes a minute...

I had tempted fate prior to the Birmingham match on Saturday by suggesting that things "could be worse". Sure enough, we'd literally hit a B(r)um note that afternoon as Chris Hughton's lads made a mockery of our supposedly impressive away record.

No point dwelling on Joe Bennett's "goal" - it was offside. And our defence was an absolute shambles. Even more agonisingly, I had to watch Marlon King - yes, that Marlon King - score against us again, and Keith Fahey offering further vindication for my "Going Irish" policy of several weeks ago.

Tonight, our defence and midfield were much improved (well, they had to be) with Hines and Bailey especially impressive. It was up front that was the problem area - for both teams. The absence of Robson, Williams and Haroun had robbed us of significant midfield creativity, but Carlton Cole, Nicky Maynard and even Kevin Nolan weren't posing that much of a threat either.

Yet they were more threatening than our front three; a pacy winger with no apparent pace or crossing ability on show, a £1.5 million (expensive by our current standards) forward who doesn't hold the ball up well or score goals (£750,000 per goal is a very poor return, Lukas Jutkiewicz!), or... or... don't get me started on the-no-longer-marvellous Marvin Emnes. It seemed that nearly every time he touched the ball, he either did nothing with it or gave it straight back to the opposition. (At one point, we strung more than ten passes together, then passed the ball to him. Not surprisingly, the move broke up.)

This all amounted to a turgid game which I felt would be settled by a freak goal. And, typically, West Ham got it. A hopeful ball was punted in the direction of our box and Abdoulaye Faye aimed to nod it across the area. It hit the back of Joe Bennett's head and looped crazily over Jason Steele. A real sucker punch, especially after all our hard work. But once you consider Bennett's blighted season, was it really going to go anywhere else?

It took a great save from Steele to prevent Tomkins making it 2-0, but by that point, me and many other fans were ready to give up on the team. We'd done nothing wrong, per se... it's just that, for eighty-four of the ninety minutes, there was no spark in our performance. No soul. But then...

Okay, wrong Bart. But you get the idea.

What a goal by Bart Ogbeche. And how it ignited the team! Suddenly we were playing with real passion and verve, and the dour solidity of the majority of the match turned into something very kamikaze, causing moments of nervousness in our penalty area during the closing minutes. But the reverse was more than true, with Jutkiewicz denied the winner only by a lick of paint, and a goalline intervention from George McCartney preventing Ogbeche from rewriting the headlines further.

Of course, it wasn't just down to Ogbeche. Impressive impact subs Malaury Martin and Merouane Zemmama (good to have you back, Mr Z!) gave us the extra pace and creativity that Hammill and Emnes were expected to provide, but never did.

Still, this was the Bartman's moment. And I wonder... will a goal of such excellence and importance inspire him to go on a real scoring spree? To convince Mogga that he is far worthier of leading our line than the now worryingly lightweight Emnes?

More later. In the meantime, how about a singalong?

It Could Be Worse

I'm sure a handful of you are probably still thinking that Boro couldn't possibly have sunk any lower after their latest TV embarrassment. A great chance to get in amongst the automatic promotion chasing pack, in front of the nation's eyes. And we blew it. Again.

But hey, we've "blown it" before. An FA Cup quarter final, a rare full house at the Riverside, second tier opposition in front of us, most "big teams" already out of the competition, live coverage on terrestrial TV... Boro being Boro, the stage could only be set for The Cardiff Disaster, couldn't it? Little to almost no threat up front, second best in all areas of the park. But it was worse than that, much worse. Cardiff, like Leeds last Sunday, won at a canter. They always looked like they had something extra in the tank, and the "Spirit Of Steaua" was nowhere to be found. To this day I've rarely felt more embarrassed as a Boro fan. But, as bad as the Cardiff capitulation felt, it still wasn't the debacle of April 2010 known as The West Brom Surrender.

After five draws out of six, and one very, very fortunate win during the months of March and April, we were ready to write off Boro's faint hopes of making the play-offs under the awful Gordon Strachan once and for all. But two wins out of two in the space of a week, coupled with results going our way, gave us renewed hope going into the final few games of the season. Then, in Anthony Vickers' words, we were about to watch the... 

Baggies Blast Brittle Boro's Play Off Pretence.

He really summed up our 2-0 defeat at the Hawthorns better than I ever could have:

"A shameful, embarrassing, meek one-sided surrender. There are no excuses for a lack of effort, fight, application or desire on a day when, even if results had conspired against us, there was still something there to play for. That so many players went out defeated before kick off is a disgrace."

What sets The Cardiff Disaster, and hopefully The Leeds Surrender, apart from games such as this one is the sense of togetherness and team spirit that such capitulations should inspire. Once something as bad as that happens, both the fans and the team normally unite to produce a great run of results. Sure, it didn't last long, but just days after that fateful FA Cup quarter final we were scaring the hell out of both Villa and Arsenal at their respective grounds. Not long after those games, Afonso Alves, who looked like he couldn't hit a barn door for much of the Cardiff match, came up with a brilliantly taken double against the soon-to-be-crowned Double Winners.

This game inspired no one, both during or after it. At not one moment during the match did you feel that Boro were going to take a hold on things - and they were playing against a side who had already obtained automatic promotion! What we saw at The Hawthorns on April 17, 2010 - and, in retrospect, in the weeks leading up to that day - was a club going nowhere.

Earlier that season, a friend of mine summed up Gordon Strachan's Bore-o in a nutshell: "It's not the club I fell in love with." But he had even more damning words to add that day: "I'm bored with Boro now. There was always the chance that we'd surprise before. Now we're predictable and one-dimensional."

Remarkably, we - and Steve Gibson - still had faith that once this man was able to build his own team, with his own money, he'd then be able to lead us to the Championship title next season. (Of course, we know how that worked out.) But others, like Chris Lepkowski of the Birmingham Mail, were smart enough to spot the warning signs in advance:

"(Boro) have gone backwards under the over-rated Gordon Strachan... (a man) so devoid of class and so full of his own self-importance... his players look as if they'd rather have anyone but him as manager... Few clubs have folded as easily as the Boro did..."

It got to the point where, the moment we went 2-0 down, I decided to switch channels and watch Doctor Who instead. And however excellent that programme can be, how often does a true Boro fan turn his or her back on their club, especially when he or she rarely gets to watch them live?

That's a true condemnation of the apathetic nature of Strachan's "reign of pain" if there ever was one. And believe me, apathy is far worse than genuine pain in defeat.

So, every time you think that Boro may have reached an ultimate low point against Leeds, remember - things could be worse. Much worse.

Now, onwards and upwards for the Birmingham match...

A Tale Of Two Jacks

On the same day we paid tribute to one Jack in Boro's history, we paid tribute to another Jack - and unfortunately for us, it wasn't in the way we hoped.

Two sides of The Jack Charlton Coin were on show at Sunday lunchtime when Neil Warnock's revitalised Leeds hassled and bullied us into making very costly mistakes, in the exact same manner that the legendary Leeds defender and former Boro boss's Ireland teams would have done. This season has seen Boro represent both the best and worst of Big Jack's Ireland - we have shown ourselves to be capable of competing with the best in the division and getting our fair share of impressive results, but once we go two goals down, or more, we have no answer. And The Leeds Surrender, as we'll now call it, was one of those really bad days. No, it wasn't in the same class as The Cardiff Disaster, or the unforgivable West Brom Surrender in April 2010 (my worst moment as a Boro fan, bar none!) - but it wasn't far off.

It was all too reminiscent of Ireland's 2-0 defeat to Holland in USA '94, where the Irish never really recovered from two costly defensive mistakes. Mistakes that, for both Boro and Ireland, did more than give away goals; they ripped the morale, cohesiveness and organisation out of the team. Even if, in our case, it wasn't really there to begin with.

But maybe the whole Big Jack comparison goes deeper than that (and I'm not just talking about the "attacking full backs" tactic which Jack is said to have pioneered - just look at Justin Hoyte, Tony McMahon, Joe Bennett and Adam Reach!). No, I will always be grateful for what Tony Mowbray has done for Boro, in the same way that I'm forever grateful for Charlton's contribution to Ireland - it's just, for the first time, I'm realising that maybe Mogga's management of Boro has been both an asset and a limitation to us.

Like Big Jack, he arrived during a very difficult period, when expectations were low, so initially it was enough for us that he merely stopped the rot and got us caring about the team again. But, also, like Big Jack, he's gone beyond that, awakening us to the possibility of success - and now we find that he might not be capable of providing it.

Technically, I shouldn't be thinking like this. Exactly one month ago I told a colleague that automatic promotion was a fantasy, if not impossible. But then...

Four wins out of five, the arrival of Adam Hammill, the return of Nicky Bailey...

Suddenly, the automatic promotion dream did not look like such a fantasy after all, despite the defeat to Reading.

Then... bang. Brought and bullied back down to earth by a self-styled "promotion expert". Warnock's from the Allardyce-Redknapp school of management, in that he is irritating, rude and controversial - yet you have to admit, his results speak for themselves.

How is it possible that our understrength team of "kids" could scare the living daylights out of Premiership Sunderland not so long before our virtually full-strength team (Scott McDonald aside) surrendered to a journeyman Leeds team?

In this context, I'm sorry to say, Mogga's "success" at Boro hardly differs from that of Paul Hart at Nottingham Forest, George Burley at Ipswich, and Lawrie Sanchez at Wycombe or Northern Ireland. Getting the odd good result against a "big team", and/or sustaining success for a short period of time is all very well, but what did any of the aforementioned managers actually achieve?

A more pressing matter is what Mogga should do about the current state of the team. Joe Bennett is looking nothing like the confident marauder of last season. Maybe the absence of Wheater and McManus has exposed him defensively. Or, as Brandon Arcuicci told me, Mogga's failure to give Adam Reach a place on the subs bench has given Bennett no competition, and thus no impetus to improve. Ditto for Emnes, who is always less likely to be substituted than Jutkiewicz due to his impressive, but horribly inconsistent, goal return.

Logic also says that Tony McMahon should clearly be played instead of Justin Hoyte - he is less prone to costly errors (we'll let Leicester slide), he scores goals, and above all, he's local! At least Robbo's impending suspension, silly though it was, should open the door for McMahon to return on the right of midfield. But even then, one wonders why both him and Andy Halliday have not featured more often this season - we've seen what they can do, after all. And even if the unfortunate Kevin Thomson is as high quality as Mogga says, can we really afford to keep a passenger on the books?

Maybe I should channel the anger a little, for there's still more than enough time to save the season. But what price we frustrate again? Will we build up false hope by going on another great run, only to be brought crashing back down to earth at the end of it all?

Hopefully, that won't be during the play-offs... if we get there.

Pompey Problems Cast A Shadow Over Boro's Victory March

With a new month came A New Hope, in the form of both players and results.

In the days between being literally Burnt After Reading and today's game, we got the rare chance to celebrate our Carling Cup victory of 2004 (which just happened to take place on a "leap date"). Then, hours after I had written, "a club who was once spoilt for choice with left-wingers has none at all", Mogga rectified that by welcoming the very talented Adam Hammill on loan for the rest of the season.

Cue rejoicing and numerous Star Wars-references on Twitter (yes, I know Luke Skywalker's name isn't spelt the same way, but it's still a good reference). I'm in complete agreement with James Stevenson when he says Hammill is the answer to Boro's lack of width. He may not be as gifted as our own Stewart Downing or Adam Johnson, but so long as he delivers for us at this level, who cares?

Most importantly, we got back to winning ways - and how. Nicky Bailey - or Boro's Roy Keane, as I once called him - returned, and with him and Hammill on board, we claimed an eventually convincing victory. "Eventually" in that despite forcing Portsmouth 'keeper Stephen Henderson to pull off a succession of good saves, and going 2-0 up through a Barry Robson penalty and a Matty Bates header, we nearly contrived to throw it away after Greg Halford pulled a goal back from the spot and Boro old boy Dave Kitson missed a golden chance to level. Same old Boro story then? Not quite... Marvellous Marvin was on hand to seal the points with seven minutes remaining.

Unfortunately, not everyone was smiling in the aftermath of the game. Rhys Williams' sending off, unfair though it was, was a minor problem, as he'll only miss one game. Ditto the behaviour of the Pompey fans near the end of the match, although there was absolutely no need for that missile to be thrown at Bates. What really leaves one worried is that the four points we've accumulated from Pompey (it would have been six but for Luke Varney's late, late goal in the halcyon days of August 2011) could yet be none if Pompey find themselves unable to complete the season. To quote the BBC site on Thursday:

"The BBC... understands that any advantage accrued by other teams in games against Pompey, including points and goal difference, would be wiped out by the Football League if the side do not fulfill their remaining fixtures."

I know how selfish of me it is to bring this up, especially since I have always felt sympathetic to the plight of Pompey. But would it be fair on all the teams, including Pompey themselves, if the efforts they exerted in the matches they played counted for nothing apart from the loss of revenue and the premature demise of a famous football club?

It is hoped that some kind of resolution can be found to what we'll now call, "The Pompey Problem."

Now, bring on Barnsley at the Riverside on Tuesday...

* * * * *

At this moment in time, my thoughts turn to another Boro legend, of sorts - Jack Charlton, who at present is in hospital recovering after a fall at his home.

Fans will no doubt remember him best for winning the Second Division by fifteen points in his first season as Boro manager, and then the three years of top flight consolidation that followed. Me? I like to think his tenure at Ireland boss was the main reason I got into football in the first place. For even though the football, to put it mildly, wasn't the best, he gave us many great memories. He certainly didn't deserve the excessive bile lobbed at him by one Eamon Dunphy.

Get well soon, Big Jack!