Fragile Boro Need To Face The Music... And Deal With It

The difference between us and every other team in the top six - where miraculously, we still are - was there for all to see after our fifth successive league defeat, the first of its kind in thirteen years, featuring the thirteenth league goal we'd conceded in the thirteenth year of the century. This isn't superstition, is it? No, it's just Boro, and their continuing habit of not getting the right breaks at the right time.

Let's not kid ourselves. Apart from a brief spell in the second half, we were ineffective against Barnsley. We deserved to lose. Our back line, and most of the rest of the team, have been made to feel like total strangers thanks to Mogga's baffling rotation policy and an alarming drop in confidence since New Year's Day. Yet with a little bit more luck, and with a little bit more concentration, it could have been so different. In all our home league defeats this season. Be it...

Leicester - with Boro's failure to build on an admittedly fortunate lead, Jutkiewicz hitting the bar from six yards out and a late deflected winning goal for the home side...

Bristol City - with the disallowing of the "phantom goal" that could have turned the game and the mist that could have led to the game being cancelled...

Watford - with the timing and easily avoidable nature of the mistake that turned the game and arguably Boro's form as a whole...

Or Barnsley - where we had 60% possession and two of the opposition's goals went in via deflections...

...there's always been a hard luck story to tell.

But no amount of bad breaks can hide the fragility or disorganisation in Boro's current set-up. I don't think I need to re-iterate the point I previously made about moving Rolls Rhys to the centre and playing a proper full-back at right-back, like Parnaby. Or failing that, giving Rhys a rest; then again, neither Hines nor Woodgate seem like good alternatives to partner Andre Bikey at the moment. George Friend seems to have lost his mojo, and half our midfield - Ledesma, Dyer - seem like passengers. Even Bailey coming back didn't help matters - rather, it seemed to exacerbate things, and no doubt played a part in Boro deciding to let him go at the end of this season. It remains to be seen if he can rediscover enough of last season's form to convince the club to make a U-turn, or at least help cement our place in the top six.

Because, despite all the "gloom", promotion, or at least a chance of it, is still there for the taking. The goalscoring return of Carayol and Main is proof of that, as are the good times we had under Mogga in the first half of the season despite all the injuries we had. (Never forget them!)

And what would be a better way for Mogga to win back the doom-mongers than a first ever Riverside victory over Leeds tomorrow night?

Here's hoping.