Wasteful Boro Fail To Bridge Watford Gap

Let's be honest... were you really expecting anything else?

We had approached the Southampton match with trepidation, believing we had no chance. Our dreadful home record and flat display against Doncaster gave us no right to beat the soon-to-be-promoted-anyway visitors. Or so we thought.

But beat them we did, and our play-off hopes remained alive.

But, as has often been the case this season, that game was defined by three not so little words:

To what end?

Southampton knew that all they had to do was beat Coventry at their place to go up, and they rolled them over today without any difficulty. What we needed, merely to get into the top six at all, was much more - a win against Watford away in addition to hoping Cardiff slipped up at Palace.

And you have to admit we were setting ourselves up for a fall before kick-off. 2,000 Boro fans in great voice at Vicarage Road, lots of #Believe hash tags roaming the Twitter-waves, stirring songs to get us in the mood for the occasion... We were hoisting ourselves by our own petard, and nothing had happened yet.

Even when Palace took the lead against Cardiff, I remained relatively unfazed. It was tempting to argue that Wilfred Zaha could be Boro's Gary Mackay at that point, but I had remembered that Mackay's goal had come three minutes from the end, not thirteen minutes from the beginning. Cardiff only needed a point... and they still had the whole game to get it.

Forget about the Eagles and Bluebirds, I thought. It's more important that our own lads do their job at all costs - for no win meant no dream.

And Boro were doing their best - but Scott Loach was having a blinder. No matter how hard Robson, Haroun, Bennett, Jutkiewicz and Emnes all tried, Loach was in a position to keep their efforts out. Worse still, the local commentators warned us at half-time that the best of Watford was yet to come.

So too, alas, was the best of Cardiff. Two goals in ten second half minutes switched the Selhurst Park scoreline in the Bluebirds' favour. The news clearly got through to the Boro lads, despite Mogga's hope that it wouldn't, and Boro's early dominance was soon a thing of the past.

From the moment Chris Iwelumo scored, Boro's performance regressed into something dangerously close to the West Brom surrender, with Emnes' equaliser a rare moment of light relief in a really uncomfortable final twenty minutes. Cardiff held on for their win, Boro went on to lose a crunch match - again - and I was left to reflect on what might have been.

We'd had three times as many shots on target as the opposition today, and we were sucker punched by a late (well, if you call after the seventy-minute mark "late") goal for the tenth time this season. Ultimately, you could sum up this game - and indeed the whole of 2011/12 - in just one word.

Wasteful.

Something for the lads to remember next season...

That is why we haven't gone up this season. True, we have been betrayed, as Boro have been in the past, by a thin squad and injuries/loss of form to key players - particularly Bailey, Emnes, Bates, Williams, Haroun and McDonald. That, and our once untouchable manager has justifiably come under fire for some questionable tactics in the second half of the season, such as not giving more game time to the likes of Martin, Ogbeche, Halliday, Reach and Main. (Although, in fairness, Mogga hasn't been helped by a smaller substitutes bench.)

But I think, when we look back at 2011/12, what we will really remember is our inability to score enough goals. Brighton aside, our goal difference was the worst in the top ten. That's played as much a part in our awful form in the second half of the season - six wins in twenty-three matches - as anything else.

But hey, things could be worse... right?

More later. In the meantime, I'll cheer you all up with a classic TV commercial featuring a Boro legend from Watford. One that makes me want some pizza...

Read more...

We Still Believe...

Well.... well... well.

As Anthony Vickers rightly put it on Twitter: "What a crazy, cruel, perverse team this is."

Just when we had been led to believe that the Moggalution was more of a mirage than an oasis, that Nicky Bailey was not the player he was before Christmas, that this disappointment of a season should just hurry up and die already... it happened.

Less than a week ago, we'd only managed a goalless draw at home with bottom of the table Doncaster, leaving chuckling Cardiff knowing that a home win against Leeds, who had nothing to play for, would give them cause to prepare for another possible promotion party.

We needed some kind of miracle to keep our extremely slim hopes alive. But it came.

Minutes after Andy Taylor, of all people, was denied the chance to seal Cardiff's play-off spot - and our fate - Luciano Becchio* got his head to Paul Connolly's cross at the other end and we were suddenly back in the play-off hunt.

This was actually the first of several "miracles" on a day that really saw us get the rub of the green, with a few exceptions. Even after Cardiff had failed to beat Leeds, a home victory over Southampton was still a huge ask.

Everything was stacked against us before kick-off. For a team of supposed "promotion challengers", our form was wretched - just one win in ten, with one of the most lacklustre home records in the Championship. The Saints had also won three times and drawn once on their last five visits to the Riverside. (You have to go back to the eventually irrelevant Juninho-inspired 3-1 win in 2004 for the last time we beat the Saints at home.**) Additionally, they hadn't lost a game after going in front for eighteen months.

If you believed the Sky commentators, nobody - especially not Boro - would spoil Southampton's promotion party.

And, sure enough, it looked like everything was going according to plan when Billy Sharp - who's been everything for Southampton that Lukas Jutkiewicz hasn't yet been for us - scored after only 52 seconds.

Uncomfortable memories of Roberto Di Matteo's thunderbolt at the old Wembley returned, along with the now commonplace scepticism about our defence. Even the returns of Merouane Zemmama, Faris Haroun and Rhys Williams (as a substitute) didn't seem to inspire us early on. Sure, we were combative, and we'd had efforts on goal to speak of (Bailey's first half pass to set up Barry Robson for a shot that went over the bar was a beaut), but so had they, and it might have already been curtains for our season had Danny Fox and the normally dependable Rickie Lambert taken the chances that came to them.

They didn't, though, setting the stage for miracle #2 - Bailey's shot getting the deflection it needed to leave Kelvin Davis helpless and find its way into the corner of the net. It was just reward for the spirit of the team, and especially for Bailey, who was playing his best football in months. It also came right on the stroke of half time, forcing Nigel Adkins to change his team talk entirely... but, most importantly, it convinced our team of non-scorers that they could actually score again. And, just seconds after Bailey's goal, we very nearly did score again - but the offside flag cut Lukas Jutkiewicz's celebrations short. (A real shame, in my opinion - his finish was truly professional. Marginally offside or not, I've seen those given. It would have been an invaluable boost for his confidence.)

Turns out that said flag was one of the very few times our luck was out that day. Early in the second half, Sharp missed a chance that he would normally have buried, before Seb Hines fouled Adam Lallana clean through on goal and stayed on the pitch. Not for the first time this season, we were grateful to a Bates - Tony Bates, that is.

Once we had weathered that storm, however, the pendulum swung yet again, with Mogga pulling off a surprisingly clever tactical switch (by his recent standards), sending on Rolls Rhys for Robbo and Curtis Main for Scott McDonald. The extra energy, enthusiasm and pace, at the expense of Robbo's temperament, clearly unsettled the Saints as we began to create chances again... later culminating in the free kick and the delightfully familiar celebration that re-ignited our dream.

Now what we've got to ask ourselves is this: is it still too late?

You have to admit that it's still more than likely that the final play-off position will go to Cardiff. Their next opponents, Crystal Palace, have nothing to play for and have only won seven games at home (just one fewer than ourselves) while Cardiff have only lost four away.

Cardiff may have developed a reputation for dropping points recently too, with just three wins from their last nine games, but, against that, they haven't lost a match since March 13.

You also have to go back to March 20 for the last time Palace actually won a league game. They've managed just three points out of a possible 24 since then.

That, and don't forget that we still have a job to do against Watford! We're in major danger of losing our focus here. An excellent away record (by our standards) does not entitle us to a win when it matters most.

How cruel is it to be given hope just when we have resigned ourselves, as fans, to everything ending on a low note? Last week, I accused the team of "playing us for fools" all season - and they still are, taking us on a roller coaster ride towards a possible play-off finish that we could have, in fact, sealed a long time ago.

The season will be full of what if's and if only's if we fail to get into sixth place. If only we hadn't suffered crucial injuries at the wrong times... if only we could learn to see out games when it actually mattered... if only our capable strikers could actually put the ball in the net more often...

But, on the other hand...

Let's go back to November 1987. Bulgaria hadn't lost a competitive international match at home for five years. To qualify for Euro 88, they only needed to draw against an already-eliminated Scotland. But then this happened...

...And so, a glorious new chapter in Irish football history began.

It's situations like these that can help create a great new chapter in Boro's history as well. As Bulgaria only needed a draw, they were less inclined to attack on the night, which worked in both Scotland's (and, more significantly, Ireland's) favour. The same could be true of Cardiff next Saturday.

More importantly, since when does the form book really matter? Lest we forget, Cardiff had won five out of six matches before Boro came to town last year and gloriously shredded their automatic promotion plans.

On the other hand, Cardiff have choked on the big stage enough times in recent years. They will still be hurting from narrowly missing out on the League Cup earlier this year too. Surely they can't fall short again.

Or can they?

* * * * *

*Kind of makes up for his Elland Road sickener of New Year's Day 2011, doesn't it?

**That game now brings back sad memories, as our first goal was the last professional Middlesbrough goal Juninho would ever score.

Read more...

Flat Finale Threatens Boro's Future

Hmm.

I was tempted to hold off this blog until after the Saints match, when our promotion challenge is likely to be mathematically dead.

But a dismal showing like last night's inspires no confidence whatsoever.

And I'm not just gutted. I'm also very, very concerned.

Before the Doncaster match, I had called for Boro to show the spirit and mentality of Denmark at Euro 92. Instead, we saw something that bore a greater resemblance to France under Raymond Domenech - that is to say, flat as a pancake, with an ageing and unnecessarily temperamental midfield inspiration. (For Zinedine Zidane in 2006, read Barry Robson in 2012.)

Once again, we were presented with a golden opportunity to make the top six. And we failed to take it.

We really have been played for fools this season, haven't we? From time to time, following those halcyon days of August and September 2011, we've experienced a fillip; a win, a performance or even just a goal that we believe will "reboot" our promotion campaign. And every single time we've been tricked, be it for a few days or a few weeks, only to be brought back down to earth with a bang when it matters most.

The Doncaster match was no exception. Yes, their goalkeeper played a blinder. Yes, we hit the woodwork twice. But this is already-relegated Doncaster we're talking about. If we'd have approached the game with the right mentality and the right amount of bottle, we would have seen them off comfortably.

I'm not going to use lack of quality as an excuse, because quality is there. As poor as Hammill has been in a Boro shirt following his oh-so-promising debut against Portsmouth, he has proven in the past that he can cut it at this level. Robson, McMahon, Hoyte and even Bailey have all shown themselves to be capable of supplying our front line.

Furthermore, McDonald, Emnes, Ogbeche, Main and Jutkiewicz are all considerable Championship performers. Yet, apart from Emnes, none of them have reached double figures in the league this season! Why is this so?

When your team is struggling to score goals, you're left to point fingers at the organisation of the team - and it's here, alas, where Tony Mowbray must be deemed culpable. As much as I admire Mogga for going with a more adventurous formation for last night's match, a number of questions must be raised.

Why was Barry Robson, our most creative and tenacious midfield presence, replaced by the much more lightweight Adam Hammill? If Hammill was to be on the pitch then he needed another creative presence alongside him, and Robbo would have been it. And, wrong though it was for the fans to boo Kevin Thomson, he was not the kind of attacking, exciting substitution that we so desperately needed in the final ten minutes.

If ever there was a time to revert to McClaren-esque tactics, last night was it. With twenty minutes to go, my final formation would have been:

Steele - McMahon, McManus, Hines - Bailey - Robson, Hammill (for Arca) - Emnes, Jutkiewicz - McDonald, Main (for Hoyte).

And as a last chance saloon, with ten minutes to go, I would have brought on Ogbeche for McDonald. It makes more sense to go gung ho when (a) you have nothing to lose and (b) you absolutely have to win the game at all costs. That way, at least you can say you went down fighting.

At times like these I have more respect for McClaren's team in Eindhoven. Even if they weren't up to it, at least they had a go.

* * * * *

On December 31, Blackpool were ten points behind Boro. Back then, Birmingham would have needed four wins to catch up with us, while Reading would have needed two.

Today, Brum and the Tangerines are on the verge of cementing their play-off places, while the Royals' promotion party is already in full swing. All while just five wins and nineteen goals in twenty league games have virtually rendered this season meaningless.

If only that was our only problem. As Mogga has hinted, how much harder will a summer rebuild be? Barry Robson's already on his way, and Bates and Williams are likely to follow him.

Furthermore, the promise and momentum of last season is a thing of the past. The Joe Bennett of 2011/12 is a disjointed parody of the Joe Bennett of 2010/11. And the likes of Richie Smallwood, Adam Reach, Cameron Park, Curtis Main and Andy Halliday have not been given the amount of games they deserve.

With a cheaper, weaker and almost certainly less skilled squad, just how difficult will it be to mount a serious promotion challenge next year?**

It's as if 2011 never even happened.

**On the other hand, Reading managed promotion this year despite losing both their captain and star striker before the season began. So you never know... Read more...

Let's Do A Denmark!

Well, well, well. Boro have done it again!

Just when it looked like any hopes we had for yet another frustrating season were about to die, up popped Curtis Main with an absolutely brilliant finish. For all our endeavour, it was his priceless goal that was the difference between leaving a team with no hope and injecting a team full of hope... which we must now hope is genuine, and not a false dawn.

It's a common fact that football is full of swings and roundabouts. Yet few teams seem to conform to this particular rule of the game to quite the same extent that the Boro do. And that's what makes following them so infuriating sometimes.

But hey, we're back in the play off hunt. And after Saturday's display, few can say that our chance, however slim it is - realistically, we still need to rely on Blackpool, Cardiff or possibly Birmingham slipping up while not dropping points ourselves - wasn't deserved.

So what can we do to carry our new found momentum (or false hope? Take your pick) into the last three games of the season, starting with Doncaster tonight? Simple, really...

We can do a Denmark.

It's one of the great football fairy tales. Eleven days before Euro 92 kicked off in Sweden, Denmark's footballers were on holiday, having failed to qualify. But civil war had ripped Yugoslavia to shreds, and UEFA decided they could not compete. Hence, the team that finished second to them in qualification - Denmark - was left to take their place.

It happened so close to the finals that you would have thought the management would have no time to prepare a team. But it worked in precisely the opposite manner. All the other teams involved in Euro 92 had been caught up in the hype and build-up around the tournament, but the Danes arrived under no pressure whatsoever. They knew that every point gained was a bonus - after all, they weren't meant to be there to begin with - and with that in mind, they gradually went from strength to strength, to the point where they were able to record a convincing win over then World Champions Germany in the final.

Now... let's look at our present situation. Our form - just five wins since the turn of the year - is hardly inspiring. Nobody - especially not the pundits - is giving us much of a chance of breaking into the top six at the moment. So why not channel such low expectations into a great finale to the season, just like we did with those four straight wins last year? Especially away to Cardiff, when we convincingly turned over a side cocky enough to have prepared their automatic promotion lap of honour in advance.

That way, whether we lose the play off battle or not, we can at least go out on a high.

It would also be a great way for Lukas Jutkiewicz to finally prove his critics wrong. His hard working performance against Derby, coupled with his absolutely rotten luck in front of goal, has led me to conclude that he's suffering from Peter Crouch syndrome. That is to say, he's trying far too hard to impress, just like Crouch did in his early months at Liverpool before he finally found his way. The price tag (high by today's standards) and expectations ("He's the answer to our goal scoring problem!", thought everyone) haven't helped him, sure, but if he lets the pressure affect him a little less, and the team helps to take such pressure off his shoulders, who knows what may happen for both him and us?

* * * * *

As an aside, Si's Insights has learned that one of the best Boro blogs on the web - Mike Baker's Smog Blog - has reached the end of the line. This is sad news, especially considering how thorough, compelling and passionate Mike's writings have been over the years. In particular, his take down of Gordon Strachan's reign ("Goodbye Gordon. You were awful.") is a must read for anyone, as is his take on "The Year That Had It All", aka 1996/97.

I will also be grateful to Mike for publishing three of my own posts on his site, including the western-themed tribute to Mogga at the end of the gaffer's first year in charge.

So long, Mike. And thanks very much for your efforts!

You can read Mike's final blog post here.

Read more...

It's Easy To See Where The Problem Lies

The look on my face as a certain Matty all but Fry-ed (sic) any hopes we had of a late promotion charge was less like one of disappointment and more like one of resignation. A shrug of the shoulders, as if to say, "What's new? This is Boro we're talking about here." It was only in the immediate aftermath of the final whistle that the realities of the scoreline sank in, summing up this game - and indeed, the two matches prior to it.

Not for the first time in the Riverside era, a thin squad and loss of key men at the most inappropriate times has cost us dearly. For George Boateng in 2004/05 and 2005/06, read Nicky Bailey, Rhys Williams and Matthew Bates this season.

Not for the first time in the Riverside era, we have been mugged and made to pay for either not taking chances or sloppy defensive mistakes. And instead of taking collective responsibility, as we should be doing, we look at the biggest teams and think - they seem to be getting away with it, so why must we suffer?

Not for the first time in the Riverside era, we have been forced to sell or let go key players who might have been able to make a significant difference. Emerson, Mark Viduka, Lee Cattermole, Leroy Lita, Andrew Taylor. The list is endless.

Not for the first time in the Riverside era, on days when we have been expected to perform, we have frozen. The Cardiff debacle of two days ago was almost an exact replica of that horror of an FA Cup quarter-final that we'd rather not think about.

Not for the first time in the Riverside era, we signed a striker who was expensive (by our standards) and yet failed to deliver the goals we were looking for despite a "proven record". In terms of work rate, he can't be faulted, but in terms of goals, Lukas Jutkiewicz is looking like a cut-price Afonso Alves. And it's goals that count.

Yes, goals.

We have five capable forwards at the club - Jutkiewicz, Marvin Emnes, Scott McDonald, Curtis Main and Bart Ogbeche - yet they have scored a mere twenty-eight goals between them.

Truthfully, most, apart from the unproven Main (who reminds me more of Danny Graham), remind me of Typical Boro strikers - the kind that are not reliably consistent at the top level of any league they're playing in. They're the sort that either fade by Christmas, or around then (Yakubu, Beck in 1997/98), pick and choose their games (Tuncay, Viduka), are moody and potentially disruptive influences (Ravanelli, Boksic, Viduka, Yakubu, Mido), are unlucky with injuries (Christie, Viduka), are enigmatic (Ricard, Job, Maccarone, Nemeth), or are simply not up to it (Beck for the most part, Ricketts, Alves, Dong Gook Lee, Aliadiere, etc, etc.).

Whereas our "rivals" in the top five (and I use that term loosely, as we are slipping further and further away from the play-off places by the day) can command goal differences of +15 minimum (Southampton's is +36!!), ours is 0. That seems to say it all.

But, of course, it's not just about scoring goals - it's about scoring them at the right time. When it matters most. We can talk about that record-breaking 8-1 trouncing of Manchester City at the Riverside 'til infinitum, but the bottom line is this - it was City who got into Europe. It was City who got a massive cash injection. And it is City who are now challenging for the Premier League title. Boro? We merely made a disappointing season look a lot better than it actually was. Before long, three proven midfielders, our player of the season and the Riverside's best goalkeeper had all been allowed to leave - and we suffered accordingly for it.

How ironic it is that I am lamenting our inability to find an end product, when a mere three and a half months ago I was warning Bates, Williams and Emnes about deserting the Moggalution for teams with no end product. A Moggalution that, as I worryingly noted in a recent blog post, seems to have been derailed completely now. At least the Ipswich game gave us hope... which, as we later found, turned out to be false. 4 points from the last 24 has left the season in very real danger of petering out altogether.

It would, of course, be ridiculous to suggest that Mogga should go as a result of this. But what happened to the spark, the inventiveness and drive he gave us in his first season and slightly beyond? It appears long gone.  The team appear to be drained of ideas, self-belief and a spine - the very things that the Moggalution was built on.

As Boro legend Craig Hignett rightly put it on Twitter, the team has "forgotten how to win".

Mathematically, we can still make the play-offs.

Theoretically, would you want to bet on it? Read more...

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... Read more...

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? Read more...

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?

Read more...

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... Read more...

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.
Read more...

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!

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Burnt After Reading

"Back to square one."

That's exactly what I felt like saying on Saturday evening, before I went out on the town to wash the taste of defeat out of my mouth.

There isn't much for me to say that hasn't already been said. As is the norm with Boro, we failed to live up to expectations raised by recently resurgent league form. I have never worked out why so few teams can build up your hopes and then shatter them, or, failing that, come close to shattering them, like only the Boro can.

Both West Ham and Birmingham dropped points, leaving us with a great opportunity to consolidate a play-off position and keep alive our admittedly fading hopes of a top two spot. I am aware that Reading were, and still are, the Championship team of the moment, but knowing our propensity for upsetting the form teams this season (see the wins over Cardiff and Hull in December), surely we could have at least expected a close-run contest here?

Turns out it was anything but. Forget our large spells of possession - those were meaningless! All huff and puff with no end product gets you nowhere, and Mogga was clever enough to point that out in his post match discussion (although I'm not sure "not cute enough" are the words I would have used, but you see his point). He must realise by now, though, that this is nothing new for Boro in 2011/12. I have repeatedly clamoured our need for more of a cutting edge this season, because every single member of the current top six has a positive goal difference in double figures (Birmingham's is more than +20, Southampton's is nearly +30). Ours? A miniscule +4.

It didn't help that my fellow countrymen would have been more than happy at how the game turned out. Yes, we were undone by the Irish! Waterford's own Noel Hunt got the first from a flick-on from an Ian Harte cross, while Harte himself netted the second. Perhaps more embarrassing is that Harte comes from the Sean St. Ledger school of defending - his goalscoring and/or assists have always covered up his defensive naivete. Because Sean has never been the best of defenders, really. But wasn't that a cracking defence-splitting pass at Loftus Road?

Our problem is that we share Harte's and St.Ledger's naivete at the back - and we don't have the goalscoring or goal making skills to compensate for it! "Jiffy" made a good point on Anthony Vickers' blog about Mogga not seeming to have passed on "his experience of defending dead ball situations" to the side. He also grumbled at Mogga for preferring Hoyte to Tony McMahon - and again, he makes a very valid point. I know Hoyte has legitimate experience at the top, but why him at the expense of a local lad who doesn't need to prove himself? (His performances in the cup against Sunderland speak volumes.) If Mogga is not careful, Tony Mc could, as Jiffy says, move on to play for "someone who values him" like Andy Taylor did. (Lest we forget, by the time Mogga did appreciate Taylor, it was too late - and with him gone, a club who was once spoilt for choice with left-wingers has none at all.)

Had enough yet? Like Jiffy said, I too question Mogga's logic of playing Emnes in midfield. It nullified his new found effectiveness. Then there's the fact that a financially troubled club like us found up to £2 million to spend on Lukas Jutkiewicz, while a certain Derry man who cost a fifth as much is tearing up Premiership defences for fun just up the road.

What Tony Mowbray has done for Boro has allowed him to get away with a lot, but recent games, such as the Palace bore draw and this undramatic defeat, show how dangerously close his era is to resembling ones we were happy to see the back of.

In 2009/10, whether Southgate or Strachan was in charge, other teams slipping up and victories against Championship minnows conned us into believing we could either win the league or make the play off's. Then a true promotion contender - ironically, Mogga's old team, West Bromwich Albion - turned up to give us a reality check.

I wonder, could Reading be Mogga's WBA? Not quite, as we're still in with a shout of promotion - but it certainly feels like it at the minute.

* * * * *

Coming next on Si's Insights: I reminisce about much, much happier times... Read more...

Mardi Gras For Buoyant Boro

Well... we certainly made hard work of that one, didn't we? But how good it feels. A 3-1 away win against a side we would have struggled against under Gordon Strachan. Double Dutch Delight from once-again Marvellous Marvin. A very smartly taken First Boro Goal (for Malaury Martin, read Curtis Main). Successive victories. Five goals in two games. And, a key player has signed a new contract. It's like that spell in August and September, where we won five league games out of seven, all over again.

Fears that Boro would fall as flat as a pancake last night were quashed during the opening ten minutes, which almost saw the consistently improving Lukas Jutkiewicz net a hat-trick. Soon after, we got the lucky break we needed as Rolls Rhys's shot hit Marvin Emnes on the head and flew over the line. He followed it up more than twenty minutes later with a much, much classier strike that suggested that both him - and we - were back in business.

An important aside: I feel his first strike, which he probably knew little about until it went in, is the kind of deflected goal that any striker needs to get their confidence back. But in truth, I saw signs of an Emnes resurgence even before the Forest game. When he came on in the replay against Sunderland, he was running at the defence with real conviction, and didn't seriously put a foot wrong. All he needed to really get going again, I felt, was a goal - and he got it against Forest.

Alas... (you knew that word was coming, didn't you?) we were found wanting at set pieces again minutes later, letting Millwall back into the game with their first effort on goal in the entire match. It's this kind of set-piece marking, coupled with uncharacteristic defensive mistakes (like one from Bates in the second half that nearly saw Millwall equalise) that are as much to blame for our campaign not fulfilling its promise as the thin squad and injuries. Too many draws have seen us fail to keep pace with the top two - yet shockingly, if we win our game in hand we'll only be three points off automatic promotion.

Thankfully, this wasn't one of those "many draws", as we somehow weathered a storm we shouldn't have had to weather to begin with, before wrapping the game up with Curtis Main's first ever Boro goal. No doubt that The Main Man (methinks young Curtis is going to hear that headline a lot now) was delighted, but on reflection, I think Mogga, the squad and the fans were just relieved. Me? I was both relieved and delighted, for the win had put us back in the play-off positions and maintained our new-found momentum. The emergence of Main and the improvement of Jutkiewicz appeared to have strengthened our front line beyond belief. Come to think of it, maybe the fact that he has those two competing for his position has given Marvin a wake-up call...

On to Reading this weekend. And now that they're above us in the table, it will be a much tougher test than the 0-0 draw in October.

* * * * *

As another aside - I know you were all celebrating Pancake Tuesday yesterday, but there's additional cause for celebration today. Opinions of a certain ex-are more varied than you may think - indeed, Anthony Vickers has done his best to debunk the cult surrounding him on a few of his blog posts (here's one of them). And, in fairness, Vic has made some pretty convincing points.

But there's no doubt that said ex-player symbolises, like JJ Abrams' Super 8 and Michel Haznavicius' The Artist - and you might as well have called him an Artist on a football pitch - both the epitome of, and a lament for, a bygone era. In this case, a time when, as Vic said, Boro were "reshaping the dreamscape of possibilities". A time when anything seemed possible.

He played a major part in making me a Boro fan. He gave us so many memorable moments. Who will forget his tears at Elland Road in 1997, or the sight of him collapsing on the pitch at Cardiff in 2004? Certainly not me.

Happy Birthday, Juninho! Read more...

Boro's Own "Brady Bunch"

"The Brady Bunch" is not just a cult US sitcom, but also a term coined by Irish journalist John O'Brien. It refers to the players who were unlucky never to play in a major finals for Ireland, be it through poor officiating, injuries or misuse of their abilities. Quite a number of names - among them Jim Beglin, Mark Lawrenson and John Giles - popped up on the list, but the most significant was one Liam Brady. He may have been hailed as "perhaps the most purely talented player ever to emerge in the Republic of Ireland" yet he played no part in Euro '88 or Italia '90. A case can be made that this was due to injury, suspension and age, though the likes of Eamon Dunphy will keep claiming that the real reason was Brady refusing to wholeheartedly adapt to Jack Charlton's long ball tactics. Take your pick.

But anyway...

It's official. Barry Robson is on his way this summer, and I can't say I'm not disappointed to see him go. He has, after all, been a giant amongst our midfield this season, especially when Nicky Bailey hasn't been playing. On the other hand, his 34th birthday is approaching sooner rather than later, and it is probably best that he "quits while he is ahead", so to speak, rather than prolong his Boro career to the point where he is no longer appreciated. It just means that we have to work a little harder to find a good replacement now.

At least Robson has had the chance to establish himself as a cult hero. Others have not been so fortunate.

Yes, Boro have their own "Brady Bunch" - players who I believe never really got the chance to prove their full potential in a Boro shirt. To rub salt into the wound, some of them, though not all, have gone on to more than prove themselves at their future clubs.

Time to remind ourselves of what might have been, then...

Andrew Davies - Always a very useful player, be it under McClaren, Southgate or Mowbray. Injuries and inability to hold down a first team place never helped, though.
Lee Cattermole - The undisputed discovery of the 2005/06 season, and Boro's youngest ever captain. Most of the time, Southgate played him either on the right of midfield or not at all. For the most part, he has thrived in the middle for both Wigan and Sunderland.
Josh Walker -When Southgate called upon this guy, he impressed. He really did. And then there was that goal against Bayern in the UEFA Cup... Unfortunately he was also the victim of both a serious lateral ligament injury (against Sunderland) and Gordon Strachan. There was no logic in axing him so soon after an impressive League Cup display.
Danny Graham - Seeing his goals against Norwich inspired this column. What an inspiration he was for Watford. What a talisman he is for Swansea. What a waste he was at Boro.
Ross Turnbull - Okay, he wasn't enough of a presence in the box, but he was a very good shot stopper - and more reliable than Brad Jones! If only he had actually signed a new deal. If only we had handled his situation better...
James Morrison - An arguably better and more versatile version of his replacement, Gary O'Neil - and he was less expensive too. He's gone on to prove it at West Brom! Ironically, which manager signed him for WBA?
Chris Brunt - Failed to break into the first team at Boro. He didn't even appear as a substitute. Now, he's West Brom's captain and inspiration. His double in the 5-0 Riverside mauling still bites. And, as with Morrison, there's the irony of who signed him for WBA in the first place.
John Johnson - Surely he deserved more of a chance than Strachan gave him?
Nathan Porritt - Maybe he was over hyped, but he must have done something right for Chelsea to notice him...
Stuart Parnaby - It's a bit like the Gary O'Neil situation. As good as Luke Young was, did we really need to sign him? Parns had already proved himself in Europe, and had Boro in his blood.
Malcolm Christie - He always showed promise in training or on the pitch. I can't help but wonder how much more he would have contributed to the cause had two broken legs and a fractured foot not gotten in the way.
Jonathan Greening - Squeezed out by McClaren in favour of Ray Parlour. I still believe Jonno was a more durable player.
Mark Yeates - We were just starting to see the best of him when Strachan dropped him and packed him off to Sheffield United. His Adam Johnson impersonation in the 5-1 win over QPR does leave you wondering, "If only..."

All I can say is, thank heavens something similar didn't happen to Joe Bennett.

Feel free to comment if you think anyone else is worthy of inclusion on this list. Read more...

Boro Finally Fell Tricky Trees And End Weeks - No, Years - Of Hurt

We've been waiting for this moment for a long time. And it was well worth it. A cold city in the north* experienced a mixture of elation, relief and occasional uncertainty this Valentine's Night. But said night ended on a high, leaving everyone very happy and looking towards a brighter future.

No, I'm not talking about Derry and the opening of its new Ebrington Square. Though I could be. Because both Derry and Boro have had their fair share of trouble since the turn of the year. However, as a flicker of hope emerged again in the North West of Ireland, so too did one in the North East of England.

It really is impossible to overstate the value of Boro's victory over Nottingham Forest. We've gotten used to good results since Tony Mowbray entered the Boro hotseat - arguably too used to them. Hence it's easy to forget that before Tuesday night, we hadn't won a league game in 2012 - or beaten Forest in a home match since 1973.

What possibly could have inspired us to break such a hoodoo, one that we would have broken last year but for Dele Adebola's intervention (which still stings)? I have a few ideas.

Every Boro striker has their "Tuncay moment". You know the story - we sign a striker who seems to have quite an impressive pedigree, but either (a) he looks lacklustre on his Boro debut or (b) he goes days, or months, without scoring. It makes you wonder what all the fuss was about. But then, he scores a goal that diverts the course of his Boro career. For Tuncay, it was his equaliser against Reading in December 2007. For Lukas Jutkiewicz, well... it was that equaliser against the Mackems. It had to be. Yes, we lost, but I knew that to score a goal during such a well-attended game, against one of our bitterest rivals, would do the world of good for his confidence. And the Juke has built on that with resilient play, a good touch and another "hugely satisfying" (thank you, Andrew Glover), not to mention crucial, goal. It's too early to tell whether or not he will reach double figures by the end of the season, but at the moment, he is filling the void left by Scott McDonald's unfortunate injury very nicely.

I also have a feeling that the players must have been inspired by the return of Bates and Haroun from injury, as well as the imminent return of Robson and Bailey to first team action. It's kind of reminiscent of that never-to-be-forgotten trouncing of Jose Mourinho's champions just over six years ago, where, even though he wasn't playing to begin with, George Boateng's presence on the bench seemed to give the team an extra "kick". As has Jason Steele's form, Marvin Emnes's goal (deflected, schmeflected - think of what it could mean for his form) and the continuing rise of Curtis Main. (Pity he's from Newcastle.)

Of course, however, it did infuriate me that yet again, we insisted on making things difficult for ourselves. What if Adlene Guedioura's thirty-five yarder had gone in? Then there was Kevin Thomson and his sending off. After the Forest match, it's not hard to see why Thomson would enjoy playing for a club like ours - he never seems to make things easy for himself, nor has he consistently fulfilled his supposed potential. He's a perpetual case of "could do better". In short - Typical Boro!

But hey, since when have we done things the easy way? Ah well. We can only hope things will change for the better! And I'd say that after Tuesday night's result - not necessarily the performance - we have every reason to hope.

Onwards and upwards!

* * * * *

*Yes, I know Middlesbrough is not a city. But we'll call it one for the sake of this analogy. Besides, it could well become one in the very near future. Read more...

Boro And Ireland Fans Left In The Cold By Deep Freeze

Yesterday was not a good day to be a die-hard Boro fan from the island of Ireland.

Regardless of what was happening, or what may have happened, in yesterday's games, it is impossible not to sympathise with those who paid good money to support their teams on Saturday.

We had heard earlier in the week that icy conditions in both Suffolk and Paris respectively had placed the weekend's big football and rugby matches in jeopardy. (Although to this day, I'm still wondering, as Niall Kelly of The Score put it, how a stadium that is less than twenty years old has no under soil heating.*) To go ahead with one game and to virtually proceed with the other was naivete of the highest order on the part of match officials.

This was another one of those times when the right call was made - but at the wrong time. The real winners here were the transportation companies and sports governing bodies, who stand to make an extra profit from this situation no matter what. The Donegal Democrat's Alan Foley summed it up perfectly on Twitter yesterday: "Michael O'Leary 1, Ireland Fans 0". Meanwhile, Emma Robinson has just found out that Boro fans who had tickets to the cancelled Ipswich games will get half price tickets for the rearranged fixture - but there is no news of any kind of refund. How's that fair? Ah well, more money for the recipients, I guess.

There are those of you who will believe that abandoning yesterday's Boro match was a blessing in disguise, considering our post-Sunderland hangover. But was Ipswich's victory really as "inevitable" as Anthony Vickers has suggested? You can argue that they should have been hammering us, but the bottom line is, they weren't. And had we survived the first half, there's every chance that someone like Andy Halliday could have come on and helped us turn the game - in the exact same manner as last season's Portman Road fixture.

Anyway, it's in the past now. Onto Forest on Tuesday, and here's to ending a hoodoo against a team we haven't beaten at home for nearly forty years...

Si's Insights will return soon with a blog post about several Boro players who could claim to be "screwed over".

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* Kelly told me later that he has since learned that the Stade De France was built on an old gasworks site. Hence under soil heating would have been more than a little dangerous. C'est la vie... Read more...

Class Tells - But Let's Accentuate The Positive

"You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and latch onto the affirmative. Don't mess with Mr. In-Between!"

-- Johnny Mercer

So, Martin O'Neill has outfoxed us in the cup again, just like he did fifteen years ago. Only this time, there is no reason for us to feel devastated. In fact, fans are proud of the team tonight. And why shouldn't they be?

Yes, man for man, Sunderland were technically superior to us, so you could argue that it was only a matter of time before class told, even as we played out of our skins. Yes, they were swifter and sharper. Yes, they were less sloppy with their passing. And yes, when we left a couple of gaps open for them, they had players - on this occasion, Colback and Sessegnon - waiting to exploit them ruthlessly. It's enough to leave you wondering how different things might have been if we'd had a full team available.

Or if we'd wrapped up the game when we had the chance, at the Stadium Of Light.

But then, if we'd done so, we wouldn't now be hailing one of the most gallant cup performances from any Boro side in recent times. And I think that was very much due to the communal nature of the display, which saw eight academy graduates - plus a teenager signed on a free from Darlington - take to the field during the course of the evening. The all round strength, spirit and understanding among these players helped them all to play above themselves. In particular, Jason Steele's confidence, the sight of Joe Bennett running with the ball like he used to, Curtis Main's grafting and Adam Reach's crossing can only leave one optimistic.

Better still, our attack may not now be as much as a problem area as I feared it would be. Marvin Emnes is looking like his old self again, despite his lack of fitness, and Main was unlucky not to score. But, most significantly, Lukas Jutkiewicz finally got on the score sheet in a Boro shirt - and it was well worth waiting for. What a well taken goal it was - and it was scored live on national TV, in front of a big Riverside crowd, at a time when I wondered how we would possibly get back into the game. This could be an unprecedented boost for both The Juke's own confidence and the whole team's. (Indeed, I'm not ashamed to admit I over-celebrated a little when the goal went in. But didn't you?)

See, it pays to "accentuate the positive". Now, how about another listen to that song? Read more...

Insomnia, Injuries, Irishmen, and the Idiosyncracy of Boro

"Idiosyncracy (Noun) 1. A behaviour or way of thinking that is characteristic of a person.

2. A language or behaviour that is particular to an individual or group."

Those of you who read my tweets during the Crystal Palace match on Saturday afternoon - and no doubt, many of you did - will remember that they were absolutely laced with bitterness. Probably unnecessarily so. But it was certainly how I felt at the time.

It was bad enough that we lost even more key players - Barry Robson, Faris Haroun, Scott McDonald and Marvin Emnes - to the treatment table last week. It was bad enough that we conceded yet another sickening late goal. But to top it all off with something that I felt was more like a cure for insomnia really was the cheap frosting on a half-baked cake. I wasn't the only one who thought that way, either - I got a reply saying that pretty much every single one of our home games since November had followed a similar pattern. And yes, I know we haven't won a single match since Nicky Bailey (must I keep mentioning his name?) limped out of action, but it runs deeper than that. The September "spark", in which Marvin really was Marvellous and we won seven out of nine games in all competitions (with the only draws coming due to the usual late concessions!), has long gone.

It's easy to point the finger at Bailey, but if you think about it, we won just a quarter of our matches stretching from the Carling Cup elimination at Crystal Palace to the West Ham surrender at the end of November. On reflection, such a surrender was probably best for us - we bounced back with four wins and a should-have-been before the end of 2011, and have pretty much coasted on those results ever since. "Coasted" in that despite our recent relegation form, we're somehow still in the play-off places.

It's easy to say that injuries to key players have once again exposed our glory pretense - like they've done so many times over the years - and I'm just not taking it very well. And it's not necessarily Mogga's fault, either. It seems that no matter what manager we've had during the Riverside era - Bryan Robson, Steve McClaren, Gareth Southgate or Tony Mowbray -  we can never fulfil our promise. That is the idiosyncracy of Boro.

No doubt most of you will wish that I could be more optimistic. But all too often, I've had my fingers burnt through hoping that the lads will show that little bit extra mentality and concentration needed to fulfil the Boro promise. One thing I'll give Gordon Strachan credit for is that at least he virtually eliminated the idiosyncracy - it's just a pity he did away with almost everything else we liked about Boro at the same time! (Although we'll always be grateful for Robson, Bailey, McDonald and McManus.)

There are other ways of changing Boro for the better. News from the club and fellow fans tell me we have no money for players. So where were we able to find £1.5 million to spend on Jutkiewicz? Now, don't get me wrong - I like the guy, he's gradually finding his way into the team. But there's another way to bolster the squad that doesn't require quite as much money. And that would be...

Going Irish.

Kevin Doyle joined Reading for £78,000 back in 2005. An injury to Dave Kitson gave him his chance in 2005/06, and he grasped it with both hands, becoming the club's Player Of The Season as they got promoted to the Premiership. Everton's Seamus Coleman, signed for £150,000, was nominated for the PFA Player Of The Year Award in 2011. Derry-born Shane Duffy is just starting to make his name at the same club. 6 ft 3 in David Meyler, signed by Sunderland for just £250,000, is slowly finding his way into the first team again, thanks to Martin O'Neill.

But nothing has vindicated the "going Irish" policy better recently than the remarkable rise of James McClean. He was signed by Sunderland for a mere £350,000 back in 2008, as "one for the future", but he never played under Steve Bruce. Since Martin O'Neill gave him his chance he has gone on to become some kind of an "assist king", setting up goals for the likes of Seb Larsson, Stephane Sessegnon, and - most painfully - Frazier Campbell. (It's Robbo's inability to spot McClean lurking over his shoulder that explains why we're playing again tonight.) He has goalscoring instincts, too, that remind me of a slightly more gifted James Morrison - the kind of player we let go for a ridiculously cheap sum and never really replaced.

So that's the advice for the future. But what can we do about the here and now? Well, of course I was looking forward to tonight's replay after the Stadium Of Light game, but back then, I didn't anticipate the significant injuries.

All the more reason to have a go tonight, though. For after all, what have we got to lose? And we have a young, promising striker of our own ready to prove a point. Perhaps, as Mogga says, Curtis Main can become our James McClean. (Heck, they even rhyme.)

My gut instinct tells me, though, that Mogga may bench him and play Thomson, Smallwood and the returning Arca in the middle, with McMahon and Bennett either side of them. It would probably be best to move Hoyte to left-back, uncomfortable though he is there, and play Bates/Hines as an emergency right back, allowing McManus/Hines/Bates and Williams to play in the centre. That leaves the Juke on his own up front in a 4-5-1, with the option of reverting to a 4-4-2 if Main is brought on.

Of course, I'm still hopeful that Robbo and Emnes can make it, but I'm not counting on it...

Onto tonight then. And kudos to the 25,000+ of you who will be there! Read more...