Author: Diasboro

The latest in a series of profiles and interviews, Orginal Fat Bob gives his personal view on the life and career of a footballing guest, before sitting down for a chat and asking a few questions. Our Diasboro special guests this week are Linda and Frank Spraggon.

1. The Overview – The Spraggons

This In2view is quite different to the normal singular questions and answers profile. Usually I talk to just one player or a person who has been closely associated with Middlesbrough Football Club. This time I have been talking with two people whose lives are intertwined, not only with each other as husband and wife, but have both lived and breathed the highs and lows of the Boro. They have seen the perspectives from managerial and coaching aspects of football and also from the playing field.

Linda and Frank Spraggon have both had a long association with Middlesbrough Football club and have many fond memories of the club

Many Boro supporters will remember Frank Spraggon as one of the famous Charlton’s Champions, which was one of the highlights of a long career at the club. Born on 27th October 1945 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, he signed for the Boro in 1962 and made his debut for the club on 2nd October 1963 at the age of seventeen, which was in a League Cup game against Bradford Park Avenue. Frank made over 300 appearances during his time on Teesside and later played for Minnesota Kicks in the North American Soccer League in 1976 where he played against the famous Pele. Frank returned to England and had a short spell with Hartlepool in the 1976/77 season before finally retiring.

When England won the World Cup in 1966,  a nineteen year-old Linda Spraggon had a very good reason to be proud as her father Harold Shepherdson was the England trainer at the time. She has always thought of him as the backroom boy to Sir Alf Ramsey and probably never received the plaudits that he deserved – though he did receive an MBE in 1969 for services to football. When England lifted the World Cup it was customary at the time that only the 11 players on the pitch at the final whistle were awarded medals. Although, this was rectified in June 2009, when members of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning squad who had not received medals, were presented with winners’ medals at a reception in Downing Street. Prime Minister Gordon Brown handed out the medals to the squad players and families of the backroom staff with Margaret Shepherdson receiving the medal on behalf of her late husband. She was accompanied by her daughter, Linda Spraggon, for whom football has played such a major part of her life.

I knew Harold personally for quite a few years, as part of the three-man refereeing team who worked with him, officiating for all the Boro trial and junior matches. Harold was always courteous and welcoming and whilst the facilities at the Hutton Road training ground were sparse, he ensured that we were well paid for our efforts. He also provided at the end of a match, a sumptuous tea, which was waiting for us when we re-entered the dressing room after the game.

Harold Shepherdson standing with his famous kit bag watches nervously from the dugout during England’s World Cup final triumph

Harold always asked if we had seen any promising talent during our travels. The only one I can remember him not following up, was when we recommended Mick McCarthy of Barnsley to him one Sunday afternoon. All three of us referees had been at Barnsley the previous day and one of my colleagues had been the senior assistant referee. Mick had been superb during the game and we had all been impressed. Our loss was Manchester City’s gain but Harold Shepherdson or “Shep” as he was fondly known certainly put the miles in to look at players. He was responsible for bringing in some key junior and senior players to the club including, Mark Proctor, Graeme Hedley, Stuart Boam, Craig Johnston, David Hodgson, Stan Cummins and many more.

What is a little-known story about Harold, is his success in attracting Graeme Souness to join the Boro. “Shep” had been with the England players for a game at Wembley and the then Boro manager Stan Anderson had asked Shep to look out for a young midfield player to join the ranks. “Shep” dutifully looked at all the available prospects and whilst in the England dressing room before the game, asked the players if they knew of any up and coming players that they could recommend to him. Immediately Martin Peters and Marin Chivers, who were both England and Tottenham Hotspur players responded in unison, “Graeme Souness.” Apparently, Graeme and Bill Nicholson the Spurs manager had a bust up during training and young Graeme wanted to return home to Scotland. “Shep” gratefully followed up the lead as he knew Bill Nicholson very well, had a chat with Graeme, pointing out how close Middlesbrough was to Scotland and the rest of course is history.

So following a long and enjoyable lunch that my wife and I had with the Spraggons at Middlesbrough Football Club last year, it was obvious that they both had interesting and historical stories to tell. After speaking with the male half of the partnership in Frank, it was  suggested to do a combined In2views article – though he assured me that it would probably be the female half of the partnership who would be taking charge of the answers! I agreed with him, thereby ensuring that the resultant responses would prove to give an enlightening view of what it has been like to be so close to the club, so, welcome to Linda and Frank Spraggon…

2. The Interviews – a quick chat

Linda met Frank when he was an apprentice at Boro and they later married and had a daughter Joanne – pictured here ahead of his testimonial

Linda Spraggon…

OFB: Linda, when did you first become aware of Middlesbrough Football Club and your father’s relationship with football?

LS: I can’t remember a time when football wasn’t in some way part of my life. As a very small child I would accompany my dad to Ayresome Park every Sunday morning, where he would be treating players who had been injured on the Saturday. I started going to matches when I was about five, my Grandad took me to every home game. MFC was part of my childhood and in fact has always been a big part of my life.

OFB: Did he teach, you to play football and what were the laws of the game?

LS: No, he never taught me to play football or what the laws of the game were, but I suppose I learnt a lot from watching games and then listening to him talk about them afterwards.

OFB: Did he take you to see any matches and are there any memorable games of football you saw?

LS: Yes, he took me to matches and after he was appointed England Trainer in 1958, I often went to England games at Wembley. One of my most memorable was in April 1961, when England beat Scotland 9-3. A Middlesbrough favourite of mine, Mick McNeil played Left Back for England, Johnny Haynes was brilliant in Midfield and Jimmy Greaves scored a hat-trick. After the match my Dad took me onto the team bus and I travelled back to Hendon Hall Hotel with the team.

OFB: Did Harold ever talk about football at home and did he ever bring players round for tea?

LS: Football was my Dad’s life, so of course he talked about it at home, but with three daughters to keep in check I recall our conversations were much more about keeping us on the straight and narrow and making sure we were doing well at school. Dad didn’t bring players home, but he often got the apprentices to come around and cut the grass or clean his car!

OFB: Who were his biggest friends in football and did you meet them?

LS: He had many friends in football as you would imagine and was in regular contact with them. Locally, Wilf Mannion, Micky Fenton and George Hardwick were great friends. Frank and I continued to keep in touch with them up until they died. Dad was also very friendly with Bill Nicholson, Bob Paisley and of course Alf Ramsey, his friendship with Alf continued long after they both retired from football.

OFB: Where did you live, were you always living around the Middlesbrough area?

LS: We lived in Southend, until I was 18 months old but when my Dad was appointed Assistant Trainer at Middlesbrough we moved to Grangetown, where we lived until I was 6 years old. We then move to Burlam Road in Linthorpe, before my mum and dad moved to Marton in 1967. I lived there for just over a year before we got married in 1968. Frank and I bought a house in Hartburn, Stockton, but then moved to Marton in 1971.

OFB: Can you remember the first football game you watched and how old were you?

LS: I can’t remember my first game, but I do know it was at Ayresome Park and I was 5 years old.

OFB: Did you ever see England play live?

LS: Yes, as I have previously said I have seen England play live on several occasions at Wembley and was able to take my Mother Peggy to see England play at the new Wembley Stadium in 2012 when she was 88, they beat San Marino 7-1 and we had a great day.

OFB: Did you meet the players who were associated with Harold and did you meet Sit Alf Ramsey?

LS: I have met all the 1966 World Cup Players and Alf Ramsey several times, many of the squad including Bobby and Jack Charlton, Alan Ball, Ray Wilson and Gordon Banks came to my Dad’s funeral in 1995.

OFB: Who was your favourite Boro player over the years and others that you watched?

LS: There are only two who I could say were my Boro favourites; Graeme Souness and Juninho, both world class and very special. Other players who stand out for me are Bobby Moore, George Best, Bobby Charlton and Alan Shearer all of them exceptionally talented and great to watch.

Linda gets a photo with one of her favourite Boro players of all time

OFB: How did you meet Frank?

LS: Frank and I met in Rea’s café on Linthorpe Road, he was 16 and I was 15. He used to train on a Tuesday and Thursday night with the apprentices and then go to Rea’s afterwards. I was there with a school friend and I liked the look of Frank, we made eye contact but didn’t speak. Next day I had a letter, hand delivered to me at school asking for a date. We met the following night to go to the cinema, but I didn’t dare tell my Dad as he had warned me to keep away from footballers as they were all womanisers, gamblers and drunkards!

OFB: When did you both get married?

LS: We got married on May 1st 1968 in Marton, we had to get married on a Wednesday to fit in with the Boro Fixtures and my Dad’s England duties. We went to London for a 2 days honeymoon, then Frank had to leave me and join the team on the Friday to prepare for their game against Crystal Palace on the Saturday, they drew 1-1. He played a blinder.

OFB: Did you go and watch him play football?

LS: Yes I went to all the home games he played and many away games. It was great when they won but miserable when they got beat. Frank always took defeat to heart.

OFB: When Frank played in the USA did you go with him and did you make friends there?

LS: In 1976 Frank had the opportunity to play in the USA for Minnesota Kicks in the NASL. We went as a family with our daughter Joanne who was then 5 years old. It was a fantastic experience, something I would not have missed for the world. Peter Brine and Alan Willey were also signed at the same time. We have remained friends with them and it was great to see Peter recently at the Charlton’s Record Breakers dinner in May this year. We also became great friends with Mick Kelly who was the ex-QPR keeper and Boro and England goalkeeping coach. There were so many top class players including Pele, Eusebio, Rodney Marsh, Bobby Moore and George Best playing in the NASL at that time.

OFB: Whom have you made friends with through football and do you keep in touch?

LS: We have many great friends in football all of Jack Charlton’s 1973-74 promotion side. We are in regular contact and love to meet up as often as possible, Jim and Sharon Platt, David and Maureen Armstrong, David and Sandra Mills are good friends as are Gordon and May Jones, Alan Peacock, Alan Foggon and Alec and Michelle Smith.

OFB: It must have been such a proud, yet poignant moment when you and your mother collected your father’s world cup medal can you tell us about it?

LS: Yes, it was a very special experience to take my 88 year old mother Peggy to Downing Street to receive a World Cup Medal on behalf of my late father. All the England Squad players who weren’t presented with a medal at the end of the 66 final were present, including Jimmy Greaves and Jimmy Armfield. In those days only the actual 11 players who played in the final received medals and of course there were no substitutes allowed. Alf Ramsey did not even get a medal after the game. We were guests of the FA and attended a reception at 10 Downing Street, hosted by the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. It was a very proud moment for all the family to see my Dad recognised for his contribution to England’s World Cup win, and an amazing opportunity to visit 10 Downing Street.

OFB: Finally, Linda, can you tell us what is the most memorable event that you can remember associated with football?

LS: I have 2 memorable events, probably both very predictable. The first being England’s 1966 World Cup win and the second memorable event being Middlesbrough’s 73/74 Division Two Championship promotion to Division One. To be closely involved with both of these events was very special and leaves me with wonderful memories

Frank celebrating winning the Division Two championship for Boro in 1974 and is pictured here lifting the trophy with John Hickton

Frank Spraggon…

OFB: You joined Boro in 1962, can you tell us how you came to join Middlesbrough and not another North East Club? also, who was the Manager who took you to Boro, and what was your relationship with him?

FS: Actually I joined in 1960 as an Apprentice Professional. I was 15 years old and left home in Newcastle to come to Middlesbrough and went straight into ‘digs’. In 1962 I signed as a full-time professional, I could have gone to Preston or West Brom but chose Middlesbrough. Sadly, Newcastle didn’t show any interest in me. Bob Dennison was the Boro manager who signed me, but I can’t say I had any relationship with him.

OFB: You were born in Marley Hill, so who did you support as a boy?

FS: Marley Hill is a small mining village just outside Newcastle I was black and white through and through and never missed a Newcastle game until I came to Middlesbrough.

OFB: What was it like playing for the club in the sixties, compared to when you left the club in the seventies?

FS: In the 60’s individuals were allowed to express themselves and play ‘off the cuff’ there was not as much emphasis on rigid formations. In the 70’s as the game progressed we were conditioned to make sure we didn’t lose at any cost. We spent more time thinking about the opposition and preparing for games in training.

OFB: Can you remember your debut for the club, and what were your feelings on it. Did you play well?

FS: My 1st team debut was in 1962 at home in the League cup against Bradford Park Avenue. I was 17 when I made my debut and was given very positive feedback from the manager Raich Carter but I have to admit, I was so nervous the game passed me by. My League debut was away to Huddersfield and I held my own and didn’t let anyone down and again was given good feedback.

OFB: Did you try and emulate your style of play, on any individual player who played in your position?

FS: Manchester United’s Duncan Edwards was my role model when I was a youngster; sadly he of course was tragically killed in the Munich air crash where a lot of players and staff lost their lives.

OFB: You played mostly in defence for the club, was this always your preferred position or did you want to play in a different position?

FS: Defenders always fancy themselves as forwards but I knew my limitations and defending was my strength, so I stuck with it. I always played wing half until I lost the sight in my left eye following a bad reaction to the anaesthetic after a cartilage operation. After months of rehab and trying to adjust, Jack gave me the chance to convert to full-back and the rest is history.

OFB: What was your most memorable game, your own individual performance and best experience with the fans? Was it with the Boro or another club?

FS: It was playing at home to West Ham in the FA Cup up against 3 World cup winners in Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst. In regard to my individual performance, I would say it was an 8 out of 10 and we won 1-0. My best experience with the fans was at home to Sheffield Wednesday when we won 8-0 in the 73/74 promotion season. Also, my testimonial against Dynamo Zagreb was well attended and I very much appreciated the fans support after being at the club for 15 years

OFB: Did you have any nicknames and why were you given them?

FS: Micky Fenton always called me ‘Fred’, why I don’t know but it stuck and all the lads called me Fred. When Jack came to the Boro as our manager, he got everyone’s name wrong and frequently called my ‘Craggsy’. (priceless and so typical of Big Jack! OFB)

OFB: Who were the best and worst trainers in the team at that time?

FS: The worst trainer I have ever experienced was Willie Wigham, the best was me! I loved training…

OFB: Who did you room with for away matches?

FS: I always shared a room with John Hickton, except on one occasion when I shared with Nobby Stiles and you would think a bomb had dropped on the room. He was so untidy, often losing his teeth or his contact lenses in the mess that he had created.

Like most defenders, Frank fancied himself as a forward, but unlike his room-mate Hickton, he didn’t make the switch permanently

OFB: Who was the joker in the team?

FS: Eric McMordie, an Irishman, say no more!

OFB: Can you tell us any amusing anecdotes or pranks that were played by the players?

FS: Too many to mention, but one of the best was when Cliff Mitchell, the Gazette sports writer, arrived at Darlington station to travel with us for an away game in London. He was very proudly wearing a brand new trilby hat. On the way home after the match, he left it the compartment on the luggage rack while he went to the buffet car. McMordie took the hat and bet us all he could throw it through the small open window of the carriage. We all put money in the pot convinced he wouldn’t do it, on his 3rd attempt, however, it sailed through the window somewhere North of Peterborough, Cliff was devastated and didn’t know how he was going to tell his wife. I don’t think he ever really found out what happened to his hat but he spent months contacting British Rail lost property without success. (sounds like this episode is well remembered by the Boro players – OFB).

Another prank I was involved with, was whilst as an apprentice and with two others. We were summoned to Bob Dennison’s office following a complaint from the Evening Gazette. I had to explain how the sponsored Gazette scoreboard at Ayresome Park had been changed to read “Game tonight cancelled, Bingo instead”. We were read the riot act and made to apologise to the Gazette and had to clean the boss’s car for the next 4 weeks.

OFB: What was your worst game or experience and why?

FS: Notts Forest away 73/74 season we lost 5-0 and every one of us had a nightmare of a game.

OFB: Is there a game that you wished you had played in, either for Boro or another team?

FS: Yes, in the 2004 Carling Cup final when Boro beat Bolton 2-1 at Cardiff, also I would have loved to have played for Newcastle in any game when Kevin Keegan was the manager.

OFB: Who was in your opinion the best manager that Boro have ever had to date and why?

FS: I have got to say Jack Charlton, he was a great leader and got us organised, made us hard to beat and had us all playing to our strengths. He was very popular with the fans and still is. I feel very lucky to have played for him.

OFB: Who was in your opinion, the manager that had the greatest influence on your career and why?

FS: Many coaches gave me help throughout my career, including my father in law Harold Shepherdson. As a manager, Jack had faith in me and helped me finish my career on a high.

OFB: I often ask some of the former players during these In2views, what it was like to play for the club during the great Jack Charlton side of the seventies so what was your take on it, and what was Jack like?

FS: As I have said, playing for Jack was the best, he had us playing for each other as a team, we knew where we stood with him, it was his way or no way. Jack was always right.

OFB: Which opposing team and which player did you fear playing against?

FS: I didn’t fear any team or any player but certain teams and opponents would be difficult including: Keith Weller – Millwall, Rodney Marsh – QPR, Hughie McIllmoyle – Carlisle, Ken Wagstaff – Hull, Bob Hatton – Birmingham, Duncan Mackenzie – Notts Forest, Malcolm McDonald – Newcastle, George Best – Man Utd and Steve Heighway – Liverpool.

OFB: Who was your footballing hero and why?

FS: Duncan Edwards, as I previously mentioned, he was a complete footballer and could play in any position.

OFB: Which opposing team and which player did you like playing against?

FS: Sunderland when we beat them. Although I only played against them once, it was fantastic to be on the same pitch as Pele when he played for New York Cosmos.

OFB: Did you have any pre-match superstitions?

FS: Yes, I wore the same clothes for every home game in the 73/74 season and would never shake hands with team mates before we went out onto the pitch, having been beaten twice before after doing this.

OFB: Who was your favourite Boro player of all time and why?

FS: Graeme Souness, a complete midfielder a great team mate, good friend and a genuine lad.

OFB: Now this is a question that may take some thinking about and needs answering diplomatically, but who in your opinion, were the best eleven Middlesbrough players you played with?

FS: Jim Platt, John Craggs, Cyril Knowles, Bobby Murdoch, Stuart Boam, Willie Maddren, Graeme Souness, Bill Harris, Hughie McIllmoyle, Nobby Stiles and David Armstrong.

OFB: What was your relationship like with Boro Fans, especially when you played so close to the infamous “chicken run”?

FS: I would like to think I had a good relationship with them and still do. The chicken run gave everyone stick especially Millsy! But it was all in good fun.

Frank left England to play ‘soccer’ in America in 1976 and is seen here competing against one of the legends of the game in Pele

OFB: When you left us in 1976, can you give us details of how you came to join Minnesota Kicks in the American soccer league?

FS: I was coming to the end of my playing career and Jack suggested I should go to the US, benefit from the experience and get a good last pay-day. Jack’s good friend the late Freddie Goodwin had been in touch with him wanting a left back and he recommended me to him. I loved my time in America and we got to the soccer bowl final, playing in the Seattle Kingdome only to be beaten by Toronto Metros, who had Eusebio on their team. Sadly I had to return home after 1 season because of a knee problem, but it was a great experience, and I returned to the US a number of years later to take up coaching roles in Washington.

OFB: I know you still watch the Boro, as we often meet, who is your current favourite Boro player today and why?

FS: George Friend, us full backs have to stick together! George is a good professional and an excellent role model for youngsters today.

OFB: How do you think the match day has changed from the time that you played professional football to the present day?

FS: Everything about football has changed not always for the better. The corporate hospitality at games now was never available when I played, but I must say I thoroughly enjoy it. Sponsorship has developed into big money for clubs, agents have a big influence and most clubs are run by business people who often know very little about football. Very average players can now earn mega bucks.

OFB: If you could be a fly on the wall, is there any dressing room you would wish to eavesdrop on?

FS: Newcastle United.

OFB: Do you have any regrets in your career, or missed opportunities?

FS: Not being able to stay longer to play in the USA. Not playing in a final at Wembley and not representing my country.

OFB: Whom have you made a lifelong friend through football and do you keep in touch?

FS: I hope I have many I can honestly say I have remained life-long friends with all those players I played with at Middlesbrough and in Minnesota and I keep in touch with most of them.

OFB: Finally, if you hadn’t had a professional career as a footballer, what do you think you would have done as a career?

FS: I think a career in the armed forces would have suited me. The opportunity to see the world, keep fit and be part of a team is the closest I can think of to being a footballer. Also I have the highest regard for anyone who serves their country. I do however feel very privileged to have been a professional footballer and an FA coach.

OFB: A huge thank you Linda and Frank, for taking the time to talk to Diasboro and our readers.

If you wish to leave a comment about OFB’s latest In2views article with Linda and Frank Spraggon then please return to the Week 38-39 discussion page

Championship 2018-19: Weeks 38-39

Fri 19 Apr – 15:00: Boro v Stoke
Mon 22 Apr – 15:00: Forest v Boro
Sat 27 Apr – 15:00: Boro v Reading

The bartender at the Last Chance Saloon on Teesside always has a smile for his regulars – indeed some would even say knowing. Although, as closing time approaches on another Championship season, business seems to have been a little brisker than usual with the need for a stiff drink never being more in demand. As Boro entered through those rather creaky swing doors just over a week ago, it seemed they’d only have time for their usual wayward loosener of Single Barrel Reserve before it was chucking out time – though after a few shots have surprisingly hit the spot, it appears the boys are still up for another round.

While some suspect Tony Pulis is probably more of a bitter man rather than one who indulges in spirits (especially when it comes to raising them) – others are still hoping he is perhaps longing for southern comforts. Although, he’s probably not the sort of guy who’s tempted by the fancy colourful cocktails of a whisky liqueur – especially as promotion is no longer the Slam Dunk it was anticipated back in September and has instead become more of a Paradise Punch to the lapsed six-packs of the faithful on the terraces. Indeed, few will be in the mood for happy hour if the season ends up on the rocks and the promotion party is once again put on ice for another year.

Nevertheless, the Boro manager is not quite ready to drown his sorrows and cry into his beer – that’s apparently the job of Steve Gibson, whose harvested tears from another expensive and potentially missed opportunity of a season are once again being prepared to homeopathically water down the complimentary matchday pints. As to whether the cost cutting next season will continue to serve more than a few halves of a somewhat flat and less than stout home brew of no specific gravity is at this point still uncertain – much will depend on whether the Riverside landlord decides to change rather than scrape the barrel this summer.

Still, few who enter the Last Chance Saloon will ever get to raise a glass in celebration – not even one that’s optimistically half full. Tony Pulis has been busy lining his stomach with his carefully controlled stodgy diet as he prepares for a drinking competition with his play-off rivals – although it will be a tough contest against the seasoned campaigners of Big Frank Lampard, Dean ‘Martin’ Smith and Lee ‘Marvin’ Johnston. With hostilities resumed on Good Friday, Boro will be hoping to avoid being left incapacitated under the Championship table – it may likely be more a case of spills rather than thrills as the Boro manager attempts to be the last supper at the play-off bar.

At least Boro have just about recovered from the mother of all hangovers brought on by the six-game bender that left their promotion chances all but in the gutter. Although, with the team still appearing shaky in front of goal, Pulis now has a defensive headache that will take more than a few aspirins to resolve. After George Friend was already ruled out for the season, he was joined by Dani Ayala after he was stretchered off against Hull and taken to hospital with what looked like a serious knee injury. The prognosis for the Spaniard is not good and the ligament damage means he’s not now expected to play again until the beginning of next season. If that wasn’t bad enough, Pulis then announced at his pre-match press conference that Dael Fry has torn his hamstring in training and will be out for three months.

Defensive cover was already down to the bare bones but that just leaves Ryan Shotton and Aden Flint as the club’s only specialist defenders in any of the positions across the backline. Boro have no senior recognised full-backs or centre-backs left and no doubt Paddy McNair will be preparing to fill in again if he can remember where he left his boots. Ordinarily, you would imagine Pulis would opt for a back four in order to cut the risk of losing another one of his three central defensive option – however, with Boro having no full-backs it would seem the manager may have to continue with makeshift wing-backs instead. Howson is likely to get the job on the right and it may be toss-up between Downing and Saville on the left – though it could perhaps be an opportunity for some of the youngsters to step up with the promising Nathan Wood having previously started in the Carabao Cup a possible candidate.

The defensive crisis comes at time when the Boro manager has little room to manoeuvre after also losing his midfield playmaker in Lewis Wing and he’s also been unable to rely on his profligate strikers to provide a safety net. It is yet another burden for Pulis to struggle with and it will no doubt be a heavy cross to bear for a man who seemingly prefers to focus on keeping out the opposition. As the season reaches it climax (anti or otherwise), we are reminded rather appropriately that Easter is a time marked by suffering and redemption – whether it will also be a time for salvation will depend if both the manager and players can atone for their previous sins of falling off the righteous path to the play-offs. So at this time of year, many on Teesside will hope Boro can draw inspiration from that famous story and at least try to look on the bright side of life – though few have been convince that Tony Pulis is indeed the real messiah.

Talking of false profits, Steve Gibson has seemingly come up with a Plan B as his sizeable investment in getting the club back to the promised land starts to falter. The Boro chairman is planning to raise the issue of the compliance of profitability and sustainability rules at next week’s EFL Stakeholders meeting. Gibson has claimed three clubs: Aston Villa, Derby and Sheffield Wednesday are in breach of the rules and should be facing a similar penalty to what Birmingham received – i.e. a nine point deduction. He argues that the clubs have not submitted transparent accounts and that they have circumnavigated the rules by using loopholes. Derby have said to have ‘sold’ their stadium to their owner Mel Morris and then leased it back to register a profit – whereas Villa reportedly made a £50m loss last season that is unlikely to be cancelled out by June after this year’s business dealings.

Gibson believes that the EFL need to enforce their rules before the season ends and not let clubs get the advantage of being in breach of the limits. We know that Wolves easily exceeded the spending rules last season and any subsequent punishment will not worry them now that they have reached the Premier League. Whether the Football League will be minded to hand Villa and Derby points deductions before the season ends is perhaps unlikely – any process that starts now will no doubt be challenged by the clubs and then what would the EFL do about arranging play-offs if either finished in the top six? The Boro chairman has also argued that Boro sold £40m worth of players to ensure they complied with the rules and it’s unfair if other clubs ignore the limits.

In theory MFC could have posted a £61m three-year loss this year (£35m + £13m + £13m) given they can include their allowance from a season in the Premier League – plus we know that Boro have also registered a profit of £18m in their previous two seasons so it would have been almost impossible to be in breach. In addition, the new sustainability rules mean that if a club breaches the £15m lower three-year loss limit it will need to agree a financial plan with the EFL to ensure their debts don’t become unmanageable and they can meet their financial requirements in the coming years – plus there are restrictions on the size of the wage bill relative to annual income. All of which means it’s more complicated to enforce and given provisional accounts are only submitted on 1st March, it means Boro fans (including the chairman) shouldn’t get their hopes up of rivals being deducted points this season.

So Boro must do their talking on the pitch if they are to get ahead of their play-off rivals and Tony Pulis hosts his old club Stoke on Good Friday. It’s been well documented this week that since leaving the Potters, Pulis has never lost a game to them with seven wins and seven draws. Nathan Jones took over the reigns at Stoke in January after replacing Gary Rowett and the former Luton boss has only won 3 of his 16 games since he arrived. It may be something in the air at the Potteries that effects managers but Jones and his team have had problems scoring goals – in fact Stoke have just recently come off the back of four successive 0-0 draws. It may be sign of what is to come at the Riverside but at least the Boro supporters on the terraces will get to see former player Danny Batth prove why they could have done with holding on to his services – especially given the defensive crisis.

Although, it’s hard to see why the recently relegated club have struggled this season as on paper they have quite a few ‘names’ in their side: Sam Vokes, Bojan, Joe Allen, Ryan Shawcross, Ashley Williams, Charlie Adams, Ben Afobe and Jack Butland – perhaps it’s the classic case of thinking that they’re better than the league they’re in. With 52 points on the board they are essentially safe from relegation with nothing really to play for – it’s the kind of game that Boro should win if they start with intent as Stoke will probably lose interest as they mentally plan their summer holidays. Still, at least Pulis may get the odd sensation of hearing some fans at the Riverside singing his praises for a change – albeit from the away end.

Easter Monday sees Boro travel to Nottingham with a chance to gain revenge for the 2-0 defeat at the hands of Aitor Karanka in the earlier fixture at the Riverside. Unfortunately, the Spaniard is no longer at the club after apparently asking to be released from his contract in January – perhaps something the club were expecting as they appointed Martin O’Neil a few days later. The former Irish national coach has also been joined by Roy Keane to keep their bad-cop bad-cop routine – it must be hard for the players to decide who is the most scary or psychologically damaged. Whatever their style, it hasn’t proved to have given Forest the boost they were looking for and the expert analysis from the pair of ITV pundits has only managed to produce five wins from their 15 games in charge. Any play-off hopes have drifted off into mid-table obscurity and the Tricky Trees have just fallen to three-successive defeats and seem like another team looking forward to their summer hols – perhaps another fixture that a focused Boro side could steal three points from.

Should Boro negotiate the Easter fixtures, then the following Saturday appears another less than demanding game against strugglers Reading at the Riverside. Having said that, the Royals have only lost two of their last eight games and indeed have won four of those. However, Portuguese manager José Manuel Martins Teixeira Gomes has fared less well on the road, winning just one of their four away games at bottom club Ipswich. With Reading only four points above a relegation spot, then they will most likely not be dreaming of golden sands and lounging by the pool. The hope on Teesside will be that the Boro players won’t also run onto the pitch in their flip-flops and sun hats – as it will probably have meant there was no Easter uprising and the play-offs will have already been fully booked.

So with three games in a week (or 8 days if you’re not Tony Pulis) then this is the moment of truth for the Boro manager and his team. Although, while the drinks may be flowing in the Last Chance Saloon, the Boro manager has been supping with the devil for most of the season and we won’t know just yet if selling his footballing soul was a price worth paying. However, should Tony somehow manage to turn the season around at the eleventh hour then it’s still not impossible to think the impossible could still happen. Perhaps the footballing gods have sent a message by removing most of the defenders from his team – the problem is that someone will still need to take the chances at the other end if time is not to be called on Boro’s season.

Championship 2018-19: Weeks 37

Tue  9 Apr – 20:00: Bolton v Boro
Sat 13 Apr – 15:00: Boro v Hull City

Somewhere amidst the strange world of hope and despair that sits at the very edge of a not so super but massively disappointing black hole on Teesside, the people stare at the distant non-event horizon that is the point of no return for Boro’s promotion prospects. As the club gets slowly drawn towards their inescapable fate, it faces the prospect of being pulled apart by the huge gravity of the situation. And yet, before this seemingly inevitable demise, there is still some evidence at the sub-atomic scale of quantum foam hands beginning to materialise. This singularity of purpose only exists in the deepest of space and is free from the normal rules of the material world, this is a place where nothingness resonates with steady hum for all eternity – it is the tune to which inner mind of Tony Pulis dances.

While some may find the idea that any neurons in the Boro manager’s mind are ever in the mood for dancing, it’s likely if they did occasionally feel inclined to strut their stuff then presumably they would dance like nobody’s watching – which I suspect if the current run continues there won’t be. Nevertheless, Tony’s recent jive talking has left many Boro followers hoping Steve Gibson is preparing himself for a gentleman’s excuse me after marking his card. However, the chairman may still be hoping Pulis’s team of hoofers will suddenly find their rhythm – though it’s certainly going to take some fancy footwork if they are going to get back in step and stop the slide. Boro’s sixth-successive defeat means it is the worse run experienced by the club since before both Pulis and Gibson were born and for those waiting for their fair share of wins, it’s also ironically the worse run since the year in which rationing ended.

Still, according to Pulis, supporters have been conditioned by watching programmes on the box to expect instant success: “We are in a society of reality TV, where success happens overnight. I believe that real success happens over a period of time.” As to what that particular period of time is wasn’t specified nor indeed was what constitutes real success. Maybe the Boro manager is right, we should perhaps be patient as promotion this season would feel just too unreal or somehow fake given many of performances endured – plus I’m pretty sure most football fans only accept success in its purist form and would rather skip those undeserved triumphs. Who wants to live with an undeserved victory? I suspect there is possibly one particular Welshman who could come to terms with one.

Although, the Boro manager is seemingly keen that supporters view matters on the pitch in a reasonable manner and finds it hard that some are being rather unreasonable or as he puts it “not right” for failing to see that poor results are masking a golden age of attacking football. Indeed, Tony Pulis has faced down recent criticism by proclaiming: “I have never managed a football team that has created so many chances in my life, ever.” A statement that could lead to the question being pondered of whether that ultimately means the nature of the current blip is actually a failure to convert chances or if the number of chance being created is beyond what it’s supposed to be.

Is Tony Pulis simply a misunderstood man? Are the impatient promotion-seekers on the terraces deliberately ignoring what is in front of their eyes and placing the blame on their powerless manager instead of the profligate players? It seems, according to the gung-ho gaffer that his chairman also agrees with his analysis: “Steve is disappointed in respect of us not taking chances” – which he added is because: “He is exactly the same as every reasonable person connected with Middlesbrough Football Club.” As to what the upper limit of being reasonable extend to for the club owner may depend on how long his manager can maintain the current run.

So as we enter the age of reason, it’s not just players who are seeking enlightenment in seemingly a world without ideas. The problem for those in the unreasonable camp who have lost patience with Pulis is that it seems the chairman and manager are trapped in a mutual admiration society. Tony never misses an opportunity to remind the media that Gibson is the main reason he is at the club and declared “I would not have come to this club had it not been for Steve because it is so far away from home.” He maintains their relationship remains as strong as ever and they chat about everything including their personal lives. It also emerged this week that both the club and Pulis have the option to extend his contract by another year.

While that unwelcome decision may look increasingly explosive for those on the outside to envisage, it’s possible that the narrative on the inside is one of a manager having to currently work with the ‘wrong kind of players’. While that may look less than a nuclear option for those in the Rockliffe bunker, the fallout in dropping that particular bombshell will be devastating for many on Teesside. Perhaps, Gibson will instead give his manager one of those new trendy ‘Flextensions’ that are all the rage in Europe, which means the deal can be cancelled at any point – although I believe all contracts have seemingly operated this way in the world of football for a very long time.

Indeed, Pulis has tried to create almost a ‘them against us’ mentality with Gibson and sees any criticism of him as also unfairly directed at the owner: “The man at the top of the tree is a top man, people tell me he has been taking some stick and I find that astonishing, I really do, he has put a fortune into this club and the area. He deserves credence but you don’t always get it today.” Others may wonder if the Boro chairman rather than being at the top is in fact out of his tree if he is contemplating to back Pulis for another season given the team’s performances this term. In some ways, the ploy of Pulis is possibly to make the ‘unreasonable’ supporters appear both ungrateful to Gibson and similarly unfair towards him for not seeing he too is almost doing the club and chairman a favour by being here. Even post-Swansea he continued with that angle “Like I say, I came up to Middlesbrough for Steve. He’s the man that counts.” – though by counts he presumably doesn’t mean managers out of door!

This repeated ‘in it together’ approach actually makes the decision to admit that the appointment of Pulis has failed into Steve Gibson’s personal failure – the Boro manager has basically declared that he’s only at the club because the chairman had asked him personally to come. This makes it harder for Gibson to not back his man if Pulis insists that he’s determined to remain in order to see out the job – especially as the Welshman has also made it clear he arrived knowing that he would be working in the context of needing to cut costs to meet Financial Fair Play limits. Plus Pulis has also been given the task by Gibson of running his eye over all aspects of the club to try and build a long-term strategy – which he could also claim the lack of are perhaps responsible for the overall failure to deliver.

Nevertheless, for all the spin on results and missed chances or eagerly counted crosses, it seems the majority of supporters are no longer on board with project Pulis. Most have seen enough to be not convinced that they want to watch his team play his brand of football for too much longer. The only conceivable way that Tony can turn the tide is by getting to the play-off final and that will only happen if he wins nearly all his remaining games. Few expect that is going to happen and some even hope it doesn’t so that the chairman has no choice but to seek his fifth manager in three years.

Although, despite all the doom and gloom, the mathematics still say that if Boro win at Bolton and Bristol lose to West Brom plus Derby fail to win at Blackburn on Tuesday evening, then Tony Pulis and his team of sequential losers will once more move to within one point of the play-offs. However, that the trip to the University of Bolton Stadium will prove to be academic unless Boro can finally enrol on a course of action that leads to victory. The much troubled Trotters are seemingly heading to League One and possibly administration, which under normal circumstances would make the Teessiders favourites to pick up all three points. In fact the game is only going ahead after the cash-struck club received funds from the EFL early so that they could pay for emergency engineering work last Friday to repair damage caused by a power surge to the CCTV and ticketing systems, which had seen the stadium’s safety certificate withdrawn.

Whether there will be another power surge when Boro take to the pitch remains to be seen but the performance at Swansea was less than electric and the only fuse blown was on the terraces when the team was announced. After all the pre-match talk of his team creating more chances than they knew what to do with, Pulis opted for a negative more defensive formation for a game his team needed to win. It’s these kind of tactical decisions that most infuriates supporters, who see a man that favours caution when the opposite was badly needed. The justification of these tactics were based on Swansea being a Premier League outfit last season, even though they were languishing in the bottom half of the Championship after looking anything but.

Many supporters expected to see their manager select a team who will at least pretend to trouble the opposition, not just nullify them. The exasperation will no doubt intensify after Pulis declared ahead of the Bolton game that crowd favourite Marcus Tavernier “deserves to have featured more for Middlesbrough this season.” If only the Boro manager had some kind of influence to select him, then perhaps he may indeed have featured. He is now tipping Tav to play in the Premier League – though didn’t seem to imply that would be in a Boro shirt. It appears the manager’s main problem with the youngster is “some days he comes in and he’s brilliant, some days he’s a bit lackadaisical” – though that doesn’t appear to have necessarily been a hindrance to others that get selected.

Given that Phil Parkinson’s team actually lost their last home game to bottom club Ipswich, Boro will travel in the hope of emulating the Suffolk strugglers – however, it should be noted that Bolton have at least managed two more wins than Tony Pulis’s side have in their last six games. Defeat on Tuesday would not be great and will leave Tony expecting nothing less than a frosty reception against the Tigers on Saturday. It may prove to be quite a difficult afternoon for the Boro manager as no doubt supporters spleens will be ready for venting after livers have recovered from the midweek medicated punishment of mending broken hearts.

In theory, Boro have not been dealt the toughest looking run-in to the season but after picking up just one point in the last seven outings all games now look tough. In fact it’s only that point that has kept Boro ahead of this weekend’s opponents Hull in the table – though the visitors have not fared well on their travels with several recent heavy defeats seeing them concede 16 goals in their last six on the road. Nigel Adkins is now reaching the end of his 18-month contract that saw him replace the Russian Leonid Slutsky shortly before Pulis arrived on Teesside – it’s looking doubtful that either will be offered an extended stay in their current jobs.

Of course for Boro, much will depend on how other results go ahead of that game against the Tigers – one point outside the play-offs and an end to the losing streak will possibly galvanise the support into thinking all is not lost. However, a seven point gap will not convince many that they don’t need to inform Steve Gibson in the most strongest terms possible that time is more than up for Tony.

Championship 2018-19: Weeks 35-36

Sat 30 Mar – 17:30: Boro v Norwich
Tue  2 Apr – 19:45: Boro v Bristol City
Sat  6 Apr – 15:00: Swansea v Boro

While following a football team like Boro has never been a decision widely believed to be conducive to personal well-being, those who have regularly turned up at the Riverside this season are possibly beginning to wonder if they are even feeling the full benefit of all that fresh air – indeed some recent performances have reportedly left many feeling decidedly unwell. Unfortunately, there also appears to be no known cure for the current malaise that has left the players on the pitch appearing listless and disorientated or those in rude health on the terraces becoming increasingly ruder. The situation has become so serious that the club have been forced to take action to deal with the trauma and have now taken the precautionary step of renaming the ground after the local hospital.

Having said that, those admitted to the James Cook this Saturday are unlikely to be treated – in truth they rarely are. Although, it’s possible some may need to be heavily sedated beyond their normal complimentary pint if they show any further signs of delirium. At least the recent outbreak of promotion fever seems to have now been contained to just a few isolated cases but that nasty rash judgement on making the play-offs may require another course of medication to completely clear it up. No doubt the chairman in charge of the local trust will regard failure to go up as more than a bitter pill to swallow – especially after administrating a massive injection of funds into the ailing patient after the previous relapse.

As the supporters await their team to assume the recovery position, it’s the inability to offer a correct diagnosis from the range of symptoms which have continued to afflict the team that is concerning. It’s clear that the problem of scoring goals is not exactly helping the hyper-tension in the stands and many long-suffering supporters are probably in need of a replacement for their rather worn out club-shop stress ball. It’s possible that keeping calm if Tony Pulis is told to carry on will not lead to a rebalancing of the systolic and diastolic scales on Teesside – even if it’s still in his current role as chief anaesthetist. With news over the latest health check on the club’s finances recommending they will need to take it easy next season, then a change of diet from the stodgy offerings currently being served up look likely to be what the doctor ordered.

Following the Riverside’s temporary renaming, Boro followers who now view the world predominantly through the distorted lens of social media may be relieved to discover Captain Cook is indeed on Twitter – though rather confusingly it is the primary school and not the erstwhile explorer. It’s left some of the puzzled Teesside Twitterati pondering over their belief that they thought it was actually Captain Birdseye who had a crew of under elevens. Still, it may be worth noting that battered cod pieces have now become the main evidence for the display of government displeasure at Geoffrey Cox since he gave his unhelpful Backstop clarification as Attorney General. Nevertheless, a quick pre-match Google on a smart phone while standing at the bar of The Navigation would reveal Cook was once in fact a sailor of quite some note. Although, some may still be unclear of how that immediately qualifies him to be now be branded with Middlesbrough Football Club – even if they are at seemingly in danger of missing the promotion boat.

Anyway, as the chances of making the play-offs risk disappearing, others have expressed the thought (sometimes out loud) that another local man of the seas, John Darwin, would have been a more appropriate choice. For those not familiar with this particular nautical hero, the origin of his specious disappearance evolved when his broken canoe was found in the North Sea off the Seaton Carew coast in 2002. After being declared missing presumed dead, his grieving widow, Anne, cashed in his life insurance policy and tried to comfort their sons. However, her ‘deceased’ husband was actually now living next door under the assumed name John Williams, where he was presumably busy practising his guitar.

They almost got away with their little ruse but four years later a photo emerged on the internet showing the supposedly dead man viewing a property in Panama, which was then subsequently published in the Daily Mirror. After problems over needing to comply with the country’s investor laws by having their identities verified by UK police, John came up with the cunning plan of returning to England under his real name and faking amnesia instead. Sadly for them, the Police were already on their case and the couple were subsequently arrested before making another disappearing act as they were sentenced to over six years in prison for defrauding over £500,000 in insurance and pension claims – though they ended up serving less than three years.

OK, there’s possibly far too much planning and creativity witnessed in that cautionary tale for the Riverside to be legitimately rebranded as the John Darwin Stadium, even if the public ever sought to demand it. Whether references of going missing, selective amnesia or unfortunate metaphors of finding canoes without a paddle is something Boro would want to be associated with it is another matter. So clearly on reflection, the Marton mariner, Captain James Cook, was probably the wiser choice of the two candidates to opt for. Nevertheless, with Tony Pulis remaining steady at the helm, if somewhat all at sea, he will still be hoping to get the good ship Boro back on course and hopefully emulate Cook by making some kind of discovery in the coming weeks. However, it will need to be quite an extraordinary one if he is expecting to be given any kind of monument after he’s gone – though it’s possible he may still be credited with presiding over something monumental if Boro’s season ends up on the rocks.

So as Boro attempt to get back on an even keel, they will also need to overcome the problem of having to deal with a nine-point deduction handed out to them before the international break after a failure to comply with Championship profligacy and suspect-ability rules. The club have been found guilty of failing to take their chances during their last three games and have been duly penalised. The charge of severely overspending in the transfer market on overvalued players was in clear breach of stringent regulations designed to protect clubs from themselves and they now face the prospect of a self-imposed transfer embargo when it comes to tying to sell these players in the summer.

Although, Boro are not alone in finding they are now short of what they expected to see after glancing at the table. Birmingham were deducted nine points by the Football League after posting a rule-breaking loss of almost £50m between 2015-18. The Blues were taken over in October 2016 by the British Virgin Islands based investment vehicle Trillion Trophy Asia, which is effectively run by Hong Kong businessmen, Paul Suen Cho Hung. Their impatience to get into the Premier League led them to replace Gary Rowett with Gianfranco Zola shortly after taking charge but he only lasted four months after chalking up just two victories. Needing two wins out from the last three games to avoid relegation to League One, they instead turned to Harry Redknapp, who apparently worked for free and kept them up. Redknapp was rewarded with the job on a full-time basis but left after just eight games and was replaced by his assistant Steve Cotterill, who was subsequently dismissed after five months as the club found themselves in yet another relegation battle.

During this period the owners had pumped in millions on transfers and wages to acquire players in helping them achieve their ultimate goal of getting to the top tier. It’s somewhat ironic that the manager now paying the price for the club’s previous spending spree is none other than former Boro manager Garry Monk – who is currently being blamed on Teesside for overspending on players and leaving the club’s coffers somewhat empty. The irony continued this week when Boro were named as leading figures among Championship members in pressing the EFL to impose heavy sanctions on those clubs who are found guilty of overspending. Boro reportedly claimed it “has led to an uneven playing field that hampers clubs who stick to the rules and encourages reckless risk-taking” – although, it could be argued that having the advantage of parachute payments has made them the beneficiaries of the playing field being far from level. It’s quite likely that Boro have spent far more on trying to gain promotion than Birmingham have, but even though that was done legally, it has perhaps equally contributed to the inflationary pressure on clubs in the Championship trying to buy players.

The international break also saw further rumours about the managerial position on Teesside with some tabloids indicating Jonathan Woodgate could be installed by Steve Gibson in the summer. Boro followers, who had previously been threatened with a new contract for Tony Pulis, are now conditioned to respond in the now traditionally expected manner of no deal was better than a bad deal. Others have already resigned themselves to the only prospect of fun next season would be running through a field of wheat, possibly hand-in-hand with Theresa May, in the hope that the grim reaper in the form of an on-coming combined harvester will put them both out of their misery – though the debate will no doubt rage on as to whether it was the hope or the threshing machinery that ultimately killed them.

Nevertheless, as despondent supporters look to bale out, it seems the reason that Woodgate has been identified was because of his impeccable credentials for the Riverside hot seat – in that he’s both cheap and from Middlesbrough. What other attributes would an ambitious chairman be looking for in a prospective manager? It’s hard to imagine what could possibly go wrong if Teesside indulges itself in playing football in its own particular league of gentlemen – local jobs for local people, it’s clearly the sensible way to go in a post-Brexit world. OK, it may well be that Woodgate could potentially be a very good manager – the point is we have know way of knowing given his lack of track record. Steve Gibson will be once again taking a gamble but history has shown us that his tenure at Boro is a mix of mainly appointing novices or old school managers like Pulis or Strachan – with the latter category seemingly just as much a risk.

Some could even start to feel a little regret at the prospect of Tony Pulis possibly being set to move on to bigger and better things – though he’d probably settle for anything that is in some form just generally bigger. Whether he’ll get the usually post-Riverside option of taking over the England job is hard to say – as surely the Ingerlund mob are getting bored of watching that post-waistcoat trendy hipster Southgate, churn out more of that unpredictable scintillating Guardiola-style one-touch dynamic interplay rubbish. They must be longing for someone like Pulis to take over the reigns so that they can unite behind a more traditionally acceptable English one-dimensional approach where a goal has more meaning if it eventually arrives. He’ll also hopefully send those young players back to their Premier League benches so that they can man-up, bulk-out and learn the art of first wearing out defenders with their dead-weight John Smith’s ‘Ave it’ no-nonsense physicality.

At least Boro have had time to regroup over the international break and prepare themselves for the visit of table-toppers Norwich City in the televised early-evening kick-off at the Riverside. In truth, it’s hard to imagine how Tony Pulis will react to the recent run of three-successive defeats, which has left the club clinging on to a play-off place just one point ahead of Preston in seventh. Indeed, if results go against Boro they could start the game against the Canaries as low as ninth place and out of the top six for the first time this season as we arrive at the business end. It’s now inertia rather than momentum that is shaping our promotion bid and that is perhaps best illustrated with the underwhelming fact that Tony Pulis’s team have picked up just 32 points from their previous 23 games. It’s been barely mid-table form during the last half-season and if you were to include the previous game (a goalless draw against Rotherham) it would give the simple symmetry of scored 24 and conceded 24 in the last 24 games – with no bonus points on offer for anyone who can work out the averages.

So therein lies the problem, any team that is unable to score more than they concede won’t be finishing in the top six. With just nine games to go, Boro will probably need to win six of them to have a realistic chance of making the play-offs. So Tony Pulis must decide on a plan to out-perform his promotion rivals and ensure it can be successfully executed on the pitch – with many suspecting he will likely decide on a team that can shut out the opposition rather than out-score them. However, it perhaps goes against the logic of knowing that most of the top six have conceded far more goals than Boro but we have instead scored 25-30 goals fewer. Pulis seems stuck in a circular argument of thinking the battle will be won by first stopping the opposition and then trying to beat them. That was the basis of his team selection at Aston Villa, where the supposedly £10m-rated Hugill was deployed as a lone striker tasked predominantly with physically wearing down their defenders so that he could bring on a goal scorer late in the game.

The issue for Pulis is that his side lack pace but what pace he does have is seldom selected – Tavernier is lucky if he gets three minutes, Downing’s contract impasse means he can’t start and Rajiv van La Parra has been conspicuous by his absence. Incidentally, the Huddersfield loanee made possibly one of the most telling contribution of any Boro player after he was omitted from the Brentford squad when he wrote on Instagram: “Don’t try to understand everything. Sometimes it’s not meant to be understood.” That could easily be the story of the whole season under Tony Pulis.

It’s possible the Boro manager will have conceived a Plan B during the break but with home games against Norwich and then the rescheduled game Bristol City on Tuesday, he will calculate that two more defeats will all but end Boro’s interest in making the play-offs. In contrast, Daniel Farke’s team have won their last six and now look destined for promotion as they sit a massive 20 points ahead of Boro. However, after winning seven games in a row, the Robins have started to flap a little as they have slipped down to ninth and are without a victory in their last five – though three of those games were against Norwich, Leeds and Preston. OK, Lee Johnson’s team are still only three points behind Boro with a game in hand and will arrive in the hope of relaunching their promotion challenge at the Riverside.

So as Tony Pulis would say, it’s going to be three games in a week or a busy eight days for the rest of us – with the third match being that long trip to Swansea the following Saturday. Graham Potter’s side have lost their last five on the road but are unbeaten at home since Boxing Day. However, Boro supporters will be hoping another visit to South Wales is in no way reminiscent of the last one and that unacceptable no-show at Newport in the Cup. If so, could it be a swansong for Tony’s tenure? It wouldn’t be a totally unexpected outcome if his team continue to add to the recent run of three defeats. Although, given MFC’s expertise in public relations, a few wouldn’t put it past the club to choose such a moment to announce his much rumoured contract extension – if so it would possibly be the biggest hospital pass of all time to those in charge of season card renewals!

Championship 2018-19: Weeks 33-34

Wed 13 Mar – 19:45: Boro v Preston
Sat 16 Mar – 15:00: Aston Villa v Boro

It seems the less than chirpy birds on Teesside have suffered yet another bout of premature chorus singing as they have once again fallen victim to another false dawn as Boro’s promised revival turned out to be little more than a rusty old Vauxhall Viva with a broken headlight coming over the hill. Even the feathered residents at Kirkleatham Owl Centre are now struggling to give a hoot as they’ve been left none the wiser over whether the new ‘exciting’ formation can actually deliver the much needed goals. Hopes that the manager had inadvertently stumbled upon a new way forward to make his team into a more potent force have been dashed as quickly as they they were raised and the fear is that Tony Pulis has now ‘proved’ to himself that such ideas are strictly for the birds.

Although, as the eyes of Boro followers on the terraces were inevitably rolled towards the heavens after witnessing yet another Riverside disappointment, they could be forgiven for imagining that the seagulls hovering above the ground had morphed into vultures and were getting ready to pick over the bones of a season that has become the carcass of an overly flogged dead horse of lame excuses. The latest cunning plan saw Boro play like an away side at the Riverside against a team who have proved largely ineffective on the road but have generally performed well at home when offered a chance to take the initiative. It didn’t seem like a tactical masterstroke to give a team who are comfortable on the ball nearly two-thirds possession and that became more apparent after the Bees left Boro on their knees with two quick goals.

So instead of looking secure for at least a top six finish and keeping on the tails of the Canaries and the Peacocks, Boro have now been left bobbing along just ahead of the Robins in seventh spot. While it’s not clear what kind of bird would best represent Boro under Tony Pulis, it perhaps would have to be a very big one – possibly an ostrich with its head buried in the sand. Still many will hope the club’s promotion prospects can be revived over the coming weeks but it may depend on whether, like the famous Norwegian Blue parrot, they are simply just resting rather than being deceased. Nevertheless, Boro’s less than nailed-on play-off hopes have now been left precariously perched with more than a few feathers likely to be ruffled should a shot at the top flight get plucked from our grasp.

After back-to-back victories with uplifting displays against the teams of Mogga and McClaren, renewed enthusiasm and expectation had permeated the consciousness of Boro followers as they began to wonder if a new era of total rather than totalitarian football was now upon them – the restructuring of the team under Pulis Perestroika was hoped to bring an end to a carefully controlled planned performances and a return to freedom of expression. Although, whether the dissidents under the current regime were likely to be coming in from the cold was far from certain.

The seemingly Damascene-style conversion of the Pharisee Paulis perhaps came as the no-nonsense disciple of discipline stumbled on his journey to the promised land of the Premier League. As the blindingly obvious flash of light entered his head a loud voice was heard unto him “Tony, Tony, why do you persecute the faithful with your brand of soulless football – now get up, go back to the Riverside and you will be told what you must do.”

Tony then picked himself slowly up off the ground and opened his eyes only to discover that he could see nothing – though seeing nothing was not something he’d ever feared and indeed it was positively encouraged. The story is recalled of how Pulis was then led slowly by his companions back to the Riverside through the old Ayresome Park gates before being seated at a large polished wooden table. A Short time later an unknown man entered the room and spoke “I’ve been sent by the man upstairs so that you may see again.” A confused Pulis asked who it was that was speaking to him but was only answered: “I cannot tell you but you must do as I say.”

It wasn’t quite the blind faith he’d been expecting, but while Tony waited to be told how his attacking vision could be once again restored, the reply came in a somewhat cryptic manner: “To see goals again you must once more start believing in the local messiah.” As Pulis started to argue that he thought Steve  Gibson was fully behind him, the man interrupted “No, he is not the one of whom I speak, I instead talk of brother Stewart.” It was at this point that Pulis recognised the voice and exclaimed “Brother Stewart! Though I think you actually mean brother-in-law Stewart?” Woody’s ruse had been blown and he quickly back-tracked “Sorry Boss, I promised my wife that I’d try and sort it – anyway, here’s your glasses.”

Whether any conversion actually took place, or if it was simply an illusion caused by the manager simply being short of natural defenders, is open to speculation. Indeed, that fleeting foray into free-flowing football may have merely been a consequence of not having had enough time on the training pitch to fully coach the defensive rigidity back into the new formation. Some wonder if despite the width and attacking options that were provided by having Howson and Saville as makeshift wing-backs, their manager would always be left unhappy with the defensive cover that they ultimately offered.

With George Friend once again fit, Pulis appeared like a man waiting for a reason to restore his captain back to his rightful position on the left of defence. Although it seems the Boro manager’s impatience with Britt Assombalonga was also a problem and he concluded it was time to redress the perceived imbalance of the new system. In fact it didn’t seem long before Shotton was also back in place as a right-back of sorts when Hugill was subsequently brought off the bench to chase the game after the shoring up of defence ended with two goals being conceded. It’s hard to say how much we should read into the substitutions against Brentford but many will fear a reversion to the tried and tested is where we are heading.

Of course, despite the experiment with the new formation, it still didn’t yield a similar return of goals that is seemingly firing our rivals towards promotion. However, with an automatic promotion place now 12 points away, Boro are no longer credible chasers and instead have become the chased. Will that alter the mindset of the manager as he now focusses on maintaining the gap between Boro and seventh place? Some would suggest that the mindset has always been one of caution and that his team were never likely to fully endorse a permanent shift towards playing on the front foot. The calculation may now be about needing 6 wins from the last 11 games with those against Preston, Villa, Bristol and Forest being seen as mustn’t lose rather than seriously going for a win.

Nevertheless, Boro are a side that have only managed back-to-back victories twice since August and that simply doesn’t shout that they are even a team ready to win promotion – let alone start competing in the tough world of the Premier League. It’s hard to perceive where the club are trying to head in terms of an effective playing style under Tony Pulis, who seems largely incapable of shifting his approach to suit the players he has rather than expecting them to adapt to what they are not. OK, he’s playing the percentages and with the fewest goals in the Football League conceded in just 26 we know the drill by now.

However, that record comes at a price and few will be surprised to hear that only Stoke and Wigan outside the bottom three have scored fewer than Boro’s 39 goals. While it statistically means Boro should have a greater chance of scoring more than the opposition, it becomes less clear cut since August with just 30 scored and 24 conceded. It basically means if the opposition score the odds are against Boro winning and it’s only happened on 4 of the 19 occasions that Boro have conceded this season – all away from home at Wednesday, Brentford, Birmingham and West Brom. Incidentally, in all of those games Boro scored the first, with two being late consolations for the opposition. In fact the victory over the Baggies was the only time this season Boro have come from behind to win a game after the Britt Assombalonga double saw Pulis beat his old club 3-2 – which was also the only time Boro have scored more than two goals in a game since that Riverside opener in August.

Likewise on the 8 occasions that the opposition has scored at the Riverside (out of 17 games) Boro have never won. Games at home have so far only yielded 7 victories and 2 goalless draws – with 4 of those wins being the first four played at the Riverside this season. That essentially mean Tony Pulis has only won 3 of the last 14 home games and it’s a record that won’t leave many feeling confident that fortress Riverside awaits if they somehow achieve promotion – especially if you consider those wins were against bottom club Ipswich, away strugglers Wigan and a QPR team on a record-breaking run of seven successive defeats.

And yet Boro are still fifth! It’s seemingly a paradox of a team that can’t win at home and one that struggles to score and rarely wins back-to-back games. Perhaps it tells us all we need to know about the strength of the Championship this season and the fate that possibly awaits anyone who makes it over the promotion line. Although, what it perhaps does explain is Tony Pulis’s belief that stopping the opposition from scoring is practically the only way in which his teams pick up three points. No wonder he is obsessed with the defensive duties of his team if conceding a goal has only resulted in four wins – perhaps it also explains why the players rarely play with freedom as the consequence of a mistake is presumably evident to all.

At least Boro’s away form has seemingly kept them in the chase this season – though their recent form on the road has looked not much better than average with the last six games providing two wins, two draws and you’ve guessed it two defeats. In contrast, Wednesday’s visitors to the Riverside, Preston, have won their last five on their travels and are in fact currently on a ten-game unbeaten run – only Norwich have bettered that during this period with just a single point more at 23. Alex Neil is currently in his second season at Deepdale and his side now sit just four points outside the play-offs in tenth place. However, with Preston top of the eight-game away form table and Boro just one point ahead of bottom-place Bolton in the respective eight-game home form table, it would appear on most measures to make the Lilywhites favourites to take all three points – especially if they score a goal.

We shouldn’t forget that Preston also finished in seventh place last season and will be looking to go one better this term. Indeed, this could be a crucial encounter for Boro and defeat would certainly add to the pressure as the two-week international break arrives after the weekend – especially as we resume with a game against leaders Norwich. Saturday sees Boro head to Villa to play another team looking to make a late run for the top six. Dean Smith’s side have perhaps surprisingly under-performed this season but they are potentially capable of putting a winning run together. However, Sunday’s narrow win at neighbour’s Birmingham was only their third victory out of their last dozen games. It’s hard to know what you’ll get at Villa Park as their last three games at home, all against top-six contenders, have proved to be a mixed bag with a 4-0 win over Derby, a 2-0 defeat to a now managerless West Brom and a 3-3 draw against automatic hopefuls Sheffield United. This appears to be another game where Boro will need to avoid defeat if they don’t want to risk being swallowed up by the chasing pack.

So after setbacks against Wigan and Brentford, Tony Pulis now faces the choice of whether to continue with developing a potentially more progressive formation or reverting to his seemingly more favoured no-frills solid-looking set-up. It appeared last weekend he was minded to shift back to a lone striker in order to give his defence added protection and only threw on another striker once his team were behind with less than a quarter of the game remaining. There are signs that the Boro manager never intended to be even on the road to Damascus, let alone be subject to any form of serious conversion. It was possibly down to an old faulty club-shop Garmin Sat Nav and he accidentally took a wrong turning and is now keen to get back on track to his preferred destination. Although, just where we’re heading is not clear but Boro supporters are more than aware that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions!

The latest in a series of profiles and interviews, Orginal Fat Bob gives his personal view on the life and career of a footballing guest before sitting down for a chat and asking a few questions. Our Diasboro special guest this week is Eric Paylor.

1. The Overview – the man and his career

Eric Paylor had his first introduction to Ayresome Park when he was a young reporter for the Hartlepool Mail. He was lucky enough to see a lot of Middlesbrough’s glory years under Jack Charlton. He later joined the Evening Gazette and subsequently progressed to chief sports writer until his retirement in 2011. He continues to write as a freelancer and I saw him in one of the Boro hospitality lounges, with a good friend of mine, the former Premiership referee Jeff Winter. Eric very kindly agreed to do this Interview and here are his responses to the Diasboro questions.

Eric Paylor’s name has been synonymous with reporting on Boro for over
40 years now and is still bringing Teesside his insights into the club.

2. The Interview – a quick chat

OFB: Did you play football before going to watch it as a spectator and what position did you play?

EP: I played Sunday football from the age of 17 right through until I was 34. I am a Hartlepool lad and started out with local team Expamet 67 in the South East Durham Sunday League, which involved teams from as far afield as Sunderland and Sedgefield. When the Hartlepool Mail formed a team and entered the Hartlepool Sunday League, I switched to the Mail. I was a striker/winger with Expamet and switched briefly to centre-back with the Mail. After that I was a full-back, playing either right or left. I also played five a side football with my Gazette colleagues until the age of 49.

OFB: What was the first football match you remember going to see?

EP: I discovered that Hartlepools United opened the gates ten minutes before the final whistle to let out the disgruntled fans. So, at the age of eight or nine, me and my chums used to time our return from a ship-spotting trips to Hartlepool docks to take in the end of the games. I’m not sure who were the first visitors I saw, but I have a feeling it was Stockport County or Southport. I first time I saw the start of a game was Pools against Peterborough United when Posh first were admitted to the Football League in 1960.

OFB: Why did you decide to be a journalist?

EP: I was a bank clerk with Barclays when I first left school. I had two very good pals at the Hartlepool Mail who told me there was a vacancy for a trainee journalist and that I must apply. I went for an interview and got the job. I took it, just to be working with my pals. It’s probably one of the best decisions I ever made.

OFB: Did you go to college at Darlington or learn “on the job”.

EP: I learned “on the job”, though I did attend two mandatory eight-week block release courses at Darlington college during my trainee years. I started in the Hartlepool Mail’s Peterlee office and one of my jobs was to report on Horden CW in the Wearside League.

OFB: Who was your favourite player when you started to report football matches and others that you have watched over the years?

EP: Most of my favourite players are from the Willie Maddren/Bruce Rioch era because I used to travel to games with them and considered myself “one of the lads”. The banter was great and there was a strong sense of camaraderie. I’ve always been very fond of guys such as Bernie Slaven, Tony Mowbray, Colin Cooper, Gary Pallister and Steve Pears. Later on I was quite friendly with Nigel Pearson and others during the Bryan Robson era. It’s great to see John Hendrie and Steve Vickers regularly at Boro matches while I bumped into Steve Baker and Tony McAndrew before the Luton game. In football terms, the best player I ever saw in a Boro shirt was Emerson, when he wanted to be! (I agree with that – OFB)

Eric’s most memorable game was the Carling Cup Final, the mental and physical effort he put into it actually left him ill for three days afterwards

OFB: What has been your most memorable game, your own individual piece of writing and your best experience with the fans?

EP: My most memorable game was the Carling Cup Final. I put so much mental and physical effort into it that I was ill for three days afterwards. As far as my writing was concerned, I was proud to write many exclusives for the Gazette over the years. I always had a top relationship with Steve Gibson and former chief executive Keith Lamb and they were very good to me in terms of giving me the inside stories. My best experience with the fans was probably after the win at Wolves in 1992 which secured promotion. Everybody was on the pitch and hugging each other.

OFB: Was your job as a sports reporter as glamorous as it sounds?

EP: It was great to watch the Boro home and away for 26 years. But the work was hard. I had to find an exclusive story every night, or at the very least put a new slant on an old one. I worked six days a week every week and made countless phone calls on an evening. I’ve had conversations with Steve Gibson at 11.30pm at night. You could never switch off. I’ve had horrendous run-ins with players, usually over misunderstandings. But hey, I could have been a bank clerk!

OFB: Did you travel to away matches with the Boro and stay at their hotels during your career.

EP: I travelled on the coach with the Boro in the early years and stayed in their hotels. On several occasions I’ve been up until 2am chatting in the hotel with Bruce Rioch on the night before the game. I didn’t dare go to bed before him in case I missed anything.

OFB: Did you travel with Boro to Europe and the rest of the world during your career.

EP: I attended virtually all the UEFA Cup games, though my friend and colleague Phil Tallentire reported on a couple of them in my absence. I didn’t go to Egaleo or AZ. However every season I accompanied the team on its pre-season training tours. I went on the same flight and stayed in the same hotel. I went to Italy, Spain, Holland and Ireland on many occasions.

OFB: Who were the jokers in the Boro team and can you recount some amusing episodes?

EP: The vast majority of them were jokers though fortunately they played very few tricks on me. Don O’Riordan caught me a few times with minor japes. John Hendrie is the obvious joker who springs to mind. He’s never lost that twinkle in his eyes. The well-known story is from an end-of-season trip to Spain when John fell asleep on his stomach around the pool. The other players pulled his shorts down while he slept, and he suffered such severe sunburn that he couldn’t sit down for the rest of the trip.

OFB: What was your worst football game or experience and why?

EP: Liquidation was the worst experience. I’d been covering the Boro for only 12 months. If the club went to the wall, then the Gazette would not need a “Boro man”. I had a mortgage to pay and a wife and two young kids to support. It was quite stressful.

OFB: What was it like during the dark days of Liquidation, did you think the Boro were doomed and were you kept informed of the developments?

EP: It was hard because the rest of the media were reporting that Boro were dead and buried. The Football League were insisting that all the old creditors had to be paid in full but there wasn’t the money initially to do so. I was fortunate that Steve Gibson got me on board from the start. When he was battling to save the club in 1986, he phoned me nearly every day to keep me informed of the developments. The information I was receiving from Steve meant the Gazette’s stories were not only written positively, but ultimately proved to be correct. The Gazette was the only media outlet which gave the fans real hope.

OFB: Who was in your opinion the best manager that the Boro has ever had and why?

EP: It’s a toughie. I don’t think we’ll ever see another era like the one we enjoyed under Steve McClaren, because the rich clubs are getting richer and the gap is ever widening. McClaren was 100 per cent focussed on being successful and in general his signings were spot on. It was a great time to be a Boro fan. But then I don’t think anybody else could have achieved what Bruce Rioch achieved from 1986 onwards. Without him we would have been in the third tier for years.

Eric rates the Steve McClaren era as the best the club had  and doesn’t think we’ll ever enjoy the like again as the gap between the wealthy just grows

OFB: Who was the greatest influence on your career and why?

EP: In journalist terms, I had a sports editor at the Gazette called Alan Berry who believed in me and supported me to the hilt. I’m sure he put in a positive word for me when I was interviewed for the Boro job. As daft as it may sound, Bruce Rioch helped me to become a better sports journalist. He talked regularly about achieving personal standards and how to maintain them. I learned a lot of life skills from him.

OFB: Which opposing team and which player did you fear the Boro playing against?

EP: I always hated playing Newcastle United. The rest of the North-east media seemed to put them on a pedestal. I disliked St James’s Park intensively. I could never understand why Alan Shearer was worshipped in the manner in which he was. Beating the Magpies was one of the game’s greatest pleasures. However, maybe I’ve mellowed with age. I wish all the North-east clubs all the best. The club which I really dislike now is Liverpool. All the old arrogance has returned.

OFB: Who is your current favourite player playing football today and why?

EP: I don’t really have favourite players any more. But as a fan I get a lot of enjoyment from seeing young players come through the Academy. I’m hopeful that Dael Fry will become a top player in the game – and playing for us in the Premier League.

OFB: Fans of a certain age (including myself) think that the days of our club under Jack Charlton were the best do you agree?

EP: No. I think the Steve McClaren era was better. (well that’s shot me down in flames – OFB!)

OFB:  How do you think the match day has changed, from the time that you started watching and being involved with writing and reporting on professional football, to the present day?

EP: It’s changed completely. In my time I was on the inside of the club. Now football reporters are kept on the outside. I’ve no sympathy when negative things are written about clubs. I found it difficult to write negative stories because I was fed information by the club on a daily basis, which in turn was passed on to the fans via the Gazette.

OFB:  Can you tell us of some episodes whilst travelling to away games in the Gazette Mobile?

EP: I think the story of the game at Brentford in 1986 is well catalogued. I left Teesside at 5am with Gordon Cox for an 11am Sunday morning kick off and the A1 was blanked out by a heavy snowfall. You couldn’t even make out where the road was. I had to get out on several occasions and help push the car back on to the road. But we made the kick off. Another hairy moment was running out of petrol on the M1 when Nigel Gibb was driving on the way back from Bournemouth. Fortunately we eventually flagged down an RAC van which just happened to have a gallon of petrol available. I once saw a dead body on the A1 after a guy had jumped off a bridge.

OFB: If you could be a fly on the wall, is there any dressing room you would have wished to eavesdrop on at any time during your writing career?

EP: One thing I would like to have heard is the time when Terry Venables sat down with Alen Boksic and told him to get his house in order. Venables was not a man to mess with!

OFB:  Do you have any regrets in your career, or missed opportunities?

EP: No, none. There were several occasions when people suggested that I might like to apply for other reporting jobs on other newspapers, occasionally nationals. But I couldn’t see past the Boro. I had a dream job.

OFB:  Who was the nicest person that you have interviewed and why?

EP: Nice is a strange word to use with regard to professional football. I’ve interviewed many honest and helpful people over the years. Bryan Robson, for example, went out of his way to give me his time when he often had other pressing matters to deal with.

OFB: Whereabouts do you live these days and what are you doing in your retirement?

EP: I live in Seaton Carew where I have lived ever since I was married. Believe it or not I can almost see the stadium from my house. I never actually fully retired in that I have continued to write columns, some of which appear in the Gazette and another in the Sunday Sun. Watching wildlife was always my passion away from the job. As soon as I left the Gazette, I started visiting RSPB Saltholme on a regular basis and now have a whole new batch of pals. I also write a weekly wildlife column for the Gazette.

Eric has many friends in the game but his biggest lifelong friend is radio  commentator Gordon Cox with whom he travelled to many Boro games

OFB: Whom have you made a lifelong friend through football?

EP: I can call on many former players as my friends but by far the biggest lifelong friend is Gordon Cox. I travelled with him for many years to Boro matches all over the country when he worked for local radio. Since he took up a role with the club I have remained in regular contact and we still go out for an occasional drink together.

OFB: Now this could be a controversial question, but it has to be asked. Could you name your greatest 11 Boro players for a first team? Go on then we’ll also allow you three substitutes!

EP: I’ll probably change my mind in a week’s time but my current team would be: Pears; Craggs, Southgate, Pearson, Ziege; Ripley, Emerson, Souness, Zenden; Viduka, Hasselbaink. Subs: Mowbray, Juninho, Merson. (Great choice –  OFB!)

OFB: Is it nice for you to think that you acted as an ambassador for the North East area and its people telling them about their football club and giving an insight?

EP: I never looked at it that way. I just wanted to get an exclusive story every day and make sure my employers knew I was doing my job properly!

OFB: Have you heard of our blog “Diasboro” and did you know that it evolved from Anthony Vickers blog “Untypical Boro?”

EP: I have to admit that I’d heard of Diasboro but never investigated it. I’ve always thought that Vic was an exceptionally talented writer (should have been political writer for the Daily Mirror). I see him at home games but the subject of Diasboro had never cropped up in conversation.

OFB: Finally, if you hadn’t had the career that you have had, what do you think you would have done as a profession?

EP: I’d probably have been an insignificant bank employee.

OFB: A huge thank you Eric for taking the time to talk to Diasboro and all our readers, posters and bloggers.

EP: Pleasure.

If you wish to leave a comment about OFB’s latest In2views article with Eric Paylor please return to the Week 31-32 discussion page

Championship 2018-19: Weeks 31-32

Sat 2 Mar – 15:00: Wigan v Boro
Sat 9 Mar – 15:00: Boro v Brentford

While some cruciverbalists sitting in the stands of the Riverside may wonder if histrionics could possibly sounds like it’s the study of over-reaction to past failures, the cross words among the Boro faithful would most likely be reserved for those who eventually become complicit in blowing another chance at promotion. However, there will likely be few tantrums at the supporter’s end of season conference should the shape of things to come in the remaining weeks be of the pear variety. The default position of expecting things will inevitably go wrong is an integral part of the local culture and I suspect that sentiment is usually expressed with a grudging acceptance, rather than anything approaching meltdown. Still, back-to-back victories and a couple of easy on the eye performances by Boro has at least reminded many that their team are still comfortably positioned in the top six.

Of course, the down-to-earth folk on Teesside are seldom impressed by divas (by which I don’t mean those who go down too easily in the box), but if pressed for an answer to the question posed in a song by one of the greatest as to who is ‘the greatest love of all’ – it would without a doubt be their beloved Boro. By coincidence, it seems someone at Hurworth, keen to impress on their manager that the academy graduates need to step in to fill the shortfall created by the financial constraints, may have possibly started piping that Whitney Houston classic of the same name into the office of Tony Pulis – well at least the opening few lines on loop.

It appears after several hundred loops of I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way… the message is starting to get through. OK, it’s unlikely the culprit would be Mark Page as there are no obvious signs that the Boro manager has been showing signs of severe deafness. However, the subliminal message has clearly been planted loud and proud in the deep subconscious of Tony Pulis as espousing the virtues of youth becomes his new mantra. This week, the former old-school lover of hardened pro’s emerged from the dark of the Rockliffe video suite with glazed eyes and Whitney seemingly still reverberating in his ears. After another session counting more crosses than Professor Van Helsing preparing to pack his luggage for a three-week business trip to Transylvania, he suddenly declared of the club’s youngsters: “If they’re good enough they play, it’s not about age.” – before adding “We’ve got a couple more that have joined in [training] as well over the past month who we’re really excited about.”

As welcome as this sounds to those who have advocated the inclusion of the youngsters, it almost sounds somewhat like a different man as he repositioning himself to a change in the financial landscape at the club. Although it now comes on the back of claiming Dael Fry was the best player on the pitch against QPR and giving a rare appearance to Marcus Tavernier, who many on Teesside had started to forget was still allowed to play. Of course, it’s been the youthful presence of Lewis Wing that has galvanised the team’s performance in recent months and it has vindicated calls by many supporters that he had looked ready to be in the side since August.

Critics had grown exasperated with the Boro manager for still not being convinced in seeing what looked obvious from the vantage point of the stands and that the young playmaker offered something the side was sadly missing. Although, it seems the Boro faithful have misjudged their manager as it turns out it was Tony himself who was instrumental in getting their new hero into the team. Pulis claimed that at the end of last season, after Wing returned from loan at Yeovil, he saw him on one of the training pitches and was impressed by what he saw: “It was just a freshness, his energy, his willingness to run forward, to pass forward.” It was then that he told his staff: “he’s not going out again, we’ll take him on pre-season” and after looking good in Austria offers for his services elsewhere were rejected as Pulis proclaimed on the start of the rise of Lewis Wing: “the rest is history.”

OK, it’s possible that history has become a little revisionist in the memory of the Boro manager as after some impressive performances in August, Lewis Wing was subsequently sidelined by Tony Pulis. The former Shildon player only reappeared at the end of September in a second-string team in the EFL Cup against Preston and his next competitive game was back with the youngster in the Football League Trophy at Walsall. Wing then made his mark by scoring a wonder goal to beat Palace in the fourth round of the EFL Cup on the last day of October. That goal at least impressed his manager enough to bring him off the bench for the the next three Championship games – albeit brief outings for the last 15 minutes and one seeing-out-the-game 87th minute appearance.

Then on the 27th November Lewis finally got another start at Preston but sadly a blow to the face saw him leave the field shortly after the second-half had resumed. Unfortunately, that saw the midfield playmaker return to the bench but he got an extended run out at the Riverside after a first-half Besic dismissal and a goal for Blackburn from the resulting free kick saw him enter the fray on the half-hour mark as Pulis was forced to reshuffle. Nevertheless, Wing once more returned to the bench to bide his time and then finally just two days before 2018 ended he got another start for the visit of the bottom club Ipswich. Lewis Wing took his chance and finally became a vital cog in the team and a  welcome antidote to a ponderous midfield that was struggling to create chances – so when Tony Pulis says “the rest is history” the player himself may have wondered if he indeed was. So, while Lewis is seemingly now appreciated he’s still kept on his toes by his gaffer: “Wingy is a good lad, I probably give him more bollockings than anyone else, but he’s a good lad.” – though one wonders what happens to the bad lads?

So clearly the Boro manager is a misunderstood man and he sees Lewis Wing as the kind of player who best suits his tactics, which he declared: “I’m a manager who wants to play forward. I prefer to play forward, that’s always what I’ve wanted.” The problem it seems for Pulis is the way in which young players are coached: “It’s very difficult today because kids are being brought up to play backwards, sideways, square – that’s the way the game has gone in the last ten years” – although some of the Boro faithful will swear they’ve witnessed some of that sideways and backwards stuff at the Riverside this season.

The Boro manager thought back to the days when he was a player and recalled: “When I played your first touch was always to look forward.” – which given he was a defender may account for the long balls that have often been seen floating over midfield. A point that seemed to be reiterated when he said “We were always told your best players were at the top end of the pitch so get them the ball as quickly as you possibly can”. Critics could be forgiven for thinking that definitely sounds like a justification for the long ball – however, the argument about having your best players up top appears to fall when that exists as a lone striker in the form of someone like Jordan Hugill or Rudy Gestede.

While it could be regarded as quibbling to complain when a manager ultimately ends up in the right place, it does sound like the art of spin may be at work. Perhaps we’ll hear in a few months time about how the Boro manager took the conscious decision to deploy Saville and Howson as wing-backs as the injury crisis that forced the decision slips from memory. History of course belongs to the victors and any manager who survives long enough to reap the rewards will no doubt rewrite it to prove that they were always heading in that direction.

Talking of victors, Boro are now officially on a winning run and while two games is not normally statistically significant it is just the second time since August that Teesside has enjoyed such a run. The optimists are now back in the ascendency and are busy extrapolating themselves into a frenzy of automatic promotion – meanwhile the pessimists are now somewhat depressed that it’s now possible to believe that all is not lost and have been forced out of their comfort zone by hope rearing it’s ugly head. Although, what is optimism and pessimism if it’s not two sides of the same coin where both attempt to ignore the evidence of a situation in order to think things are better or worse than they actually are.

Despite Leeds losing to serial defeatists QPR in midweek, the realists out there will tell you that the odds are still against automatic promotion but a play-off place is now looking more likely after Derby were defeated at Forest and Bristol City lost at home to Birmingham. Still it was a big thank you to the ex-Boro bosses of McClaren and Monk – with a special thanks to Karanka for his part in the timing of his exit from the City Ground. The business end of the season is now fast approaching and all Boro can do is keep trying to win games and hope some of their rivals falter under the pressure.

Tony Pulis takes his team to Wigan on Saturday for a game where they should be looking for all three points if a top two finish is still on the agenda. After promotion last season, Paul Cook has found life in the Championship harder going and his team are sitting just five points above the drop zone after only two victories in their last 14 games – one against QPR during their recent bad run and the other a surprise 3-0 win over Villa back in early January. The Lactics are actually currently four games unbeaten after drawing their last three following that victory over Steve McClaren’s Hoops – though those draws were against two of the bottom three clubs and Stoke, who sit just one place above them.

The following weekend, Boro welcome Brentford to the Riverside and it may be a further opportunity to bank another three points as the Bees have not been busy foraging on the road. The recent home form of Thomas Frank’s team has been excellent with 5-2 and 5-1 thrashings of Blackburn and Hull respectively, plus a 3-1 victory over Stoke and a 1-0 win against his former boss Dean Smith at Villa – as well as a draw against leaders Norwich. Frank was Smith’s assistant and took over when he left but was left reeling in November when his close friend Rob Rowan, Brentford’s technical director, suddenly died in his sleep of a heart attack at the age of just 28. It was a difficult time for the club and Frank was already struggling to adapt to life as a number one after losing eight of his first ten games.

Brentford have since recovered but they have only won once away from Griffin Park this season, with a 4-2 win at bottom-three club Rotherham. The Bees have lost their last two on the road at Wednesday and Forest since that victory, so it wasn’t the start of avoiding bumbling along away from home and getting stung. It will perhaps favour Boro that Brentford generally like to come out and play football as Tony Pulis’s side have sometimes struggled to break down teams at the Riverside. However, it is hoped that the new-look formation will continue to make Boro into a more potent outfit as two strikers seem to offer a lot more threat than one ever did.

So the next two games offer a reasonable chance for Tony Pulis and his team to apply further pressure on those above them. Can the players and the Boro manager write their own history as another former manager told his charges at the World Cup last year? Let’s hope Tony has done his homework and there is no need for some last-minute revision.

Championship 2018-19: Week 30

Wed 23 Feb – 15:00: Boro v QPR

The Riverside in recent months has been witnessing something of a footballing famine and the poor harvest of points at home has started to blight the club’s promotion prospects. The seeds of doubt planted in the minds of Boro followers has perhaps been bourne out of the frustration of witnessing another crop failure of ineffective tactics on the field. Nevertheless, Tony Pulis has continued to plough on with his low-yield subsistence formations and has grimly reaped what he has sown. However, with injuries and suspensions forcing the manager’s hand at Blackburn it demonstrated there is now a real prospect of cultivating some more effective displays with a switch to a less agricultural approach.

While Steve Gibson may firmly believe his manager is outstanding in his field, the same can also be said of a scarecrow – whether the Boro manager is the former or the latter may depend on whether he ultimately prevents the early-bird renewals from venturing back to the fallow piece of land that is the Riverside. Although, just as Tony Pulis has begun to be written off as a man of straw by many of the Boro faithful, they’ve been given a fleeting glimpse of a team that could play an exciting brand of football. The question being asked is whether Blackburn has become a turning point for the team as the manager has been serendipitously handed a spade to dig himself out of a hole and unearth a new positive way forward on the field.

It seems Tony Pulis is at his best when he has to improvise as it shifts his gaze away from his tried and tested defence-focused strategy and is perhaps an attempt to pose the opposition problems to distract them from a perceived weakness. The Boro manager may be stubborn but he’s not stupid and must have seen what nearly everyone else did at Ewood Park. However, the manager’s post-match comments seemed to indicate that he’s not necessarily convinced it’s the way to go. Pulis simply said “It was the right system to play against Blackburn, whether it is the right system to play against QPR, or in other games, but that system suited us today.”

While it may have convinced most of the onlookers, it will perhaps be much harder to convince Tony Pulis himself. Playing with two strikers has been muted by plenty of those who have grown tired of a lack of cutting edge. Indeed, many were starting to call for change as they lost their appetite for the unpalatable diet of watching wayward long balls floated in the general direction of a lone striker preoccupied with demonstrating his physical prowess with his back to goal in case he remembered why he was there. Although, the Boro manager appears primarily more impressed by work rate and commitment over invention and ability – he holds Hugill in high regard as he claimed: “Jordan has carried the team at times with his effort and commitment.”

OK, there’s no denying Hugill’s effort and commitment but at some point you have to take the overview that if you play a lone striker who rarely shoots then where do your goals come from? The West Ham loanee had 35 touches against the Blades but only one of them was a shot on goal. With Assombalonga and Fletcher playing as an attacking partnership they proved capable of providing more than just a target for long balls or a means to acquiring a free kick. What they did provide with their runs and movement were options for the midfield instead of a reason for defenders to launch a hopeful ball.

The other issue addressed against Blackburn has been a long-standing problem over the team’s lack of width. Boro have persisted with the idea that a full-back and essentially a converted central defender can be effective wing-backs but the level of service provided this season has been erratic at best. Ironically, it was possibly Pulis’s first act as manager in removing the wing-backs of Christie and Fabio from his team as his preference for a nice row of big units at the back was implemented. His admirable rehabilitation of Traore kept this switch from being a major handicap but the club have consistently failed to recruit the pacey wide players Pulis has seemingly demanded he needs. So in the absence of these missing wingers, Friend and Shotton have essentially become a permanent ‘makeshift’ solution that has not solved the problem. OK, what of Rajiv van La Parra you may ask? Yes you may ask but after two months without a start we can possibly brush that one under the same magic carpet that Carlos de Pena and the lad from Watford disappeared under – the so-called “leg beater” it seems doesn’t have legs.

If finding pacey players has proved problematic, Boro have been very good at recruiting central midfielders under Pulis and one wonders what formation that was meant to accommodate with so many high-ticket acquisitions. McNair, Besic, Saville and Mikel have been added to Howson, Clayton and the emergence of Lewis Wing. The defensive crisis has at least forced Pulis to consider the attributes of what is required at wing-back and while Howson has occasionally filled in on the right and Saville has sometimes ended up playing left-midfield, it appeared a very good fit at Blackburn. As well as supporting the strikers, both players can tackle, they have good engines to get up-and-down the pitch and have ability on the ball and can pass. It still leaves Pulis with five central midfielders for the remaining two or three slots. With the Mikel-Wing partnership in the centre looking as good as anything else in the division.

While American Jazz artist Gil Scott-Heron claimed in his 1970s song that “The revolution will not be televised”, the live broadcast of the game at Blackburn may turn out to have proved him wrong in the eyes of Boro supporters. The fear is that the revolution will simply be cancelled when Ayala returns from suspension and George recovers from his hamstring – not exactly the kind of mood music that will be greeted with much enthusiasm should that prevail at the weekend. Perhaps the only yellow vests we’re likely to see mobilised at the Riverside will be Adam Clayton and Paddy McNair warming up on the touchline as a cautious Tony Pulis prepares to protect a 1-0 lead on the hour mark.

It’s not even clear if the Boro manager sees a problem with business as usual as, when he spoke last week following the disappointing defeat at Sheffield United, Pulis declared of his team: “It’s a good group. It’s a very committed group and they give it their best, maybe just lack a bit of icing on the cake.” While many baked-off Boro followers may struggle to recall even seeing the cake, it’s a sign perhaps that the hunger of the entertainment-starved masses has gone unnoticed by the tactical absolutist ruling over them. At least a somewhat aloof-sounding Marie-Antionette Pulis stopped short of saying “let them eat cake” but that was mainly because he’d assumed that they’d already had their cake and all that was missing was the icing before they were prepared to eat it.

Despite the lack of a cutting edge this season, Tony Pulis has seemingly no intention of losing his head and is determined to keep calm and carry on as he still genuinely believes Boro are just “a couple of players short of being a very, very good team”. This was bold statement from the manager, especially on the back of the Newport no-show, the Leeds second-half retreat and the blunt Blades performance. This lead to many speculating as to which couple of players he was thinking of. As the debate raged, some Boro followers suggested Eden Hazard and Lionel Messi before realising they’d misread the quote as being we were “a couple of very short players from being a very good team” – a schoolboy error when it comes to the sizeist predilections of Mr Pulis.

If failing to win over the hearts, if not minds, of the Boro supporters has proved to be difficult for Tony Pulis, then he’ll be in good company this weekend as the Riverside welcomes back Steve ‘the magnificent’ McClaren. Despite winning the club’s only major trophy it was an uneasy relationship that regarded him as a man ambitious to advance his career on Teesside and he has failed to be given due credit for his achievements. In truth, despite being showered with money from Steve Gibson and barring those unbelievable UEFA Cup comebacks, he was often damned for producing mainly dull football and many were glad if not surprised to see their manager being snatched away by the FA . Though to be fair there was a very short list for the position of England manager and the job had become something of a poison chalice due to the tabloid hounding of Sven – McClaren got the post after Scolari had first turned it down, with Sam Allardyce and Martin O’Neill being viewed as loose canons by the suits.

Of course, the press almost destroyed McClaren and his career for taking on the thankless task of becoming national coach and after the infamous brolly departure he actually briefly coached Darlington before heading off to Holland to try and rebuild his career with Twente. As it turned out McClaren got lucky again and in his second season won the Eredivisie as Twente became Dutch champions for the first time in their history in 2010 – he had adapted so well to life in Holland that he even picked up the accent when speaking English and became the first Englishman since Bobby Robson to win a European league.

Sadly that was probably his high point and it’s been a familiar story of attempts to advance his career that have ended in disappointment before sheepish returns to the clubs he ditched. After winning the title with Twente he joined Wolfsburg in Germany but only survived six months – next came Forest but he resigned after just ten games – a misjudged return to Twente ended after just over a year as the ‘We love Steve McClaren’ T-shirts were discretely burned. After taking over at Derby he looked to be heading for promotion but his table-topping side suddenly nose-dived and as rumours of links with the Newcastle job emerged he was sacked. His stint with the Magpies began badly and never lasted a season but he surprisingly returned to Derby but it only lasted six months before once more being dismissed.

McClaren took up his latest and tenth managerial position at cash-struck QPR last summer after Ian Holloway was dismissed from the post. He got off to his usual bad start after losing his first four games, which included that 7-1 hammering at West Brom – but his team recovered and at were at one point one of the form teams in the Championship. The reverse fixture against Boro at Loftus road saw a rare defeat on the road for Tony Pulis’s team as the Hoops won 2-1. However, QPR have not won in the Championship since defeating Ipswich 3-0 on Boxing Day and Tuesday’s 3-2 defeat at the Hawthorns was their sixth successive defeat – so I’m sure Boro supporters will be hoping to pay homage to their former manager by making it a “magnificent” seven.

As to whether Tony Pulis will deem it suitable to play with two strikers at the Riverside against a team that has conceded 15 goals in their last five games is uncertain. We don’t know what videos or statistics have been compiled to justify whether or not Saville and Howson are suited to being his chosen wing-backs this Saturday. All the evidence and data will need to be weighed up before assessing whether the team should be set up as it was against Blackburn. My only advice to the Boro manager would be to Google the last time his Boro side had 26 attempts on goal and then try to imagine the mood at the Riverside if his team selection announces that the revolution has been cancelled.

Championship 2018-19: Week 29

Wed 13 Feb – 19:45: Sheff Utd v Boro
Sun 17 Feb – 13:00: Blackburn v Boro

In the world of football, Robert Burns was perhaps only ever quoted in the time when supporters sung the celebratory “Alde Lang Syne” at cup finals – though there is still no definitive evidence on social media that he was the unintended originator of the much loved phrases “sick as a parrot” or “over the moon“. Nevertheless, many in the game would do well to heed the sentiments of his famous words: “The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry. And leave us nought but grief and pain, for promised joy“. Not that I recall Tony Pulis promising a lot of joy lately but the unintended consequences of ill-thought-out plans can perhaps act a warning to both supporters, managers and those in charge of running the club itself.

So as Boro begin to re-adjust to a more modest financial future, there was no doubt some sympathy on Teesside when they heard about the suffering of fellow austerity-hit Spurs supporters this week. The shock news following continued delays to their billion pound (and rising) stadium has led to the board having to pull plans for a ‘Cheese Room’ in order to prevent costs further escalating. It was enthusiastically reported in a January 2017 presentation for executive supporters that clients would be able “to select their own specially sourced half-time cheeses”. Indeed, it was set to solve one of the long-standing problems of going to watch football as not knowing whether they’d be decent selection of cheese in the interval had often proved to be a massive distraction for genuine fans.

While we don’t know if cheeses such as Wensleydale had already being sourced, it’s thought one irate Spurs supporter based in Wigan (known locally as Wallace) is now said to be consulting with his dog and considering his options. Although, for those in charge of financing the imaginatively named ‘Tottenham Hotspur Stadium’ they’d probably now regard the wrong trousers as anything that wasn’t coloured brown. Still, despite the loss of the Cheese Room, I’d expect there is still no desire to cancel the construction of the Baby Bell bunker, with it’s plush furnishings and array of emergency glass cases that hold a range of the finest single malts and loaded revolvers – just in case somebody foolishly brings a calculator into the next board meeting to try and ascertain whether humanity will still be in existence by the time the vanity project reaches break-even.

As to which half-time cheese is highly sought after at the Riverside is not clear but the industrial processed orange glowing plastic square that is carefully microwaved onto burgers comes highly recommended by the burger stand maître d‘. Though for any cheese connoisseurs on Teesside worthy of the title, they are no doubt still awaiting news on whether the Parmo Lounge will get the go ahead at the Riverside. However, other cheeses are available and it is thought Boro’s cautious Welsh manager is believed to favour anything that involves Caerphilly – either thought out or planned. Nevertheless, unlike Spurs supporters, at least the Boro faithful don’t have to worry that Steve Gibson has secretly blown all the club’s budget on some ridiculously over-priced vanity construction project instead of using the cash to buy decent players.

There was further good news this week for desperate Boro supporters who may have received Dignitas vouchers in their Christmas stocking from an understanding relative – the UK government has just announced a ‘Trade Continuity Agreement’ with Switzerland that will ensure that the reticent remainers will have at least one place to escape from a post-Brexit apocalypse. Whilst the prospects of fresh fruit and vegetable shortages may not deter many hardliners from pushing for a healthy break from the EU, it does at least mean that there will be no need for diabetics to stock-pile Toblerone as they look for one last hurrah before their supplies of insulin dry up. It will also come as a relief to branches of WH Smiths who will now still have their triangular confection of choice to entice the travelling public to purchase a Sunday Newspaper and keep them sustained through all its 28 sections as they embark on a long train journey back to the 1950s.

Whether Boro’s strikers will be inspired by the latest Government message issued by defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, that Brexit can enhance our “lethality” will remain to be seen. Troop-rallying rhetoric perhaps but news they are to be replaced by unmanned drones may not be mentioned in the latest recruitment campaign that instead appear to be aimed at “selfie-addicts” and “phone-zombies”. Although before Teesside is encouraged to go over the top for the final push it may be worth noting that the Scarborough-born MP has been referred to as “Private Pike” by even the most circumspect in MoD circles, while others have simply declared “The man is out of his mind” after he proposed converting old ferries into landing craft and mounting guns on the back of tractors to save money. It may also explain why the government are considering installing a Don’t Panic room as the 29th March approaches.

As to what our own minister of defence, Tony Pulis, will contemplate converting to increase the threat of his team is uncertain. Boro’s unconventional weapons of mass disruption appear to have largely remained hidden for much of the season and despite the presence of UN inspectors there has been no evidence that the club are stockpiling anything remotely lethal. The tradition among Boro strikers is that they will first bomb before being dropped and despite Pulis favouring a move towards stealth with an unseen attack a 20-goal a season forward is still not on the club’s radar.

At least Boro’s much improved performance at the Riverside against Leeds has managed to keep the peace as tensions between the supporters and team had threaten to reach flash point after the players went AWOL at Newport. The failure to stand to attention and pass inspection at Rodney Parade by Tony Pulis’s troops had prevented Boro from marching on in the FA Cup. Several players were caught in no-man’s land between the lines of what is an acceptable performance and unsurprisingly came under fire from the drenched supporters after their unconditional surrender.

Despite Adam ‘Neville’ Clayton declaring to the massed ranks of the Boro faithful that he had in his sock a piece of paper, many were in no mood to be appeased. It was clear that the players would get no peace with honour from the travelling army and Clayton’s speech ended before he could add “We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.” Though he wisely decided against finishing with “Go home and get a nice quiet sleep” as few would make it back to Teesside before dawn – including the players themselves after their planned flight home didn’t even get off the ground.

Instead, the Boro hypnotist was busy on the long coach journey home erasing the game from the memories of the manager and players. At his pre-match press conference before Leeds, Tony Pulis simply stared blankly when the subject was raised and kept repeating “What happened on Tuesday” – whether he’ll be having flashbacks in the future is too early to say but he remains under observation in case his selective amnesia condition deteriorates. The players on the other hand were busy appealing if anyone had any recollection of Tuesday evening they should kindly post it on social media – which as it turned out was not as helpful as they had hoped.

Coming on the back of that less than super Tuesday, expectations for the visit of Leeds to the Riverside were understandably subdued. The good work from the West Brom come-back victory had seemingly been undone and Tony Pulis needed a performance from his players. Thankfully, his team were unrecognisable from the sticks in the mud seen at Newport and played with the intensity and energy seldom seen at home this season. Although, just when it was safe to come out from behind  the proverbial sofa, typical Boro struck at the eleventh hour to crush hopes of a much-needed victory – or the eleventh minute of injury time to be precise.

On reflection it may have been a tactical mistake for Tony Pulis, to not only bring on Mo Besic, but to hand him a bugle as he kept sounding the retreat as Boro sat deeper and deeper in the hope of hanging on. I’m also not sure why the Boro manager didn’t send on another piece of paper for Adam Clayton – though what should he have written this time: “Dear Adam, I’ve been meaning to mention this for some time but I suspect this relationship isn’t really work and…” sadly before he could finish reading the note Clayton had lost his marker and Leeds had equalised. Perhaps Pulis needs to introduce a more efficient emoji system instead that he can hold up from the touchline, with perhaps a sad face, thumbs down or maybe he could even create his own given that this week a new empowering emoji for menstruation has now been released – though it’s probably only a matter of time before some men give it an alternative meaning. Still, I’m not sure what a squeaky bum emoji would look like.

So with Boro’s automatic promotion hopes hanging from a thread, Tony Pulis takes his team to Bramall Lane on Wednesday to take on Chris Wilder’s third place Blades, who are cutting a dash for the top two. It would have been hard to imagination after the 3-0 victory in the reverse fixture at the Riverside that Boro would find themselves trailing their opponents in a bid for a Premier League return. Sheffield United have built on last season’s tenth place finish following promotion from League One and have recovered well from losing their first two games of the current campaign. The Blades have won their last four at Bramall Lane but lost the previous two at home to West Brom and Leeds. Whether they will still be smarting from conceding three goals in the last ten minutes at Villa last Friday to snatch just a draw from a nailed-on victory is a possibility – although it’s unlikely if they find themselves 3-0 up in the 82nd minutes many would risk placing a daft quid on Boro repeating the feat.

As we know, Boro have proved to be an effective proposition on the road and that seems to have coincided with the good form shown by midfielders Lewis Wing and George Saville with John Obi Mikel now adding a bit of poise and experience. Whether Wing will be fit for Wednesday after his withdrawal on Saturday is perhaps a concern and a tiring Saville was also removed from the fray. Interestingly, after all the talk of needing pacey wide players, Pulis seems to have now settled on a back five with a midfield four and just the lone holding striker. After six weeks van La Parra is seemingly still not deemed match fit and just how he gets to that stage without playing remains a mystery. Also after being almost an ever-present starter it looks like Downing is not going to get much pitch time while his “situation” remains unresolved – plus Tavernier has not even made it into the matchday squad after looking like he’d broken through with three important goals.

It appears that to impress Tony Pulis, a player must show they’ve got the defensive aspects of their game well honed before their attacking worth is further examined. Hugill gets the nod for his general physical hold-up play and chasing, even though his shooting boots still required further polish. Although, Clayton and Besic have perhaps found themselves benched due to their below average distribution skills and both have recently shown that they are prone to losing possession in dangerous areas. The worry for Boro supporters is without Wing, the current formation may become a lot less effective and the question is whether Pulis will need to compensate with a shift in tactics or will he prefer to persevere in the hope of something happening.

With both Bristol and Derby just a point behind, there is a real danger of dropping out of the play-offs for the first time this season if 5th place Boro fail to win at Bramall Lane. While that is nothing more than a psychological setback with a third of the season left to play, it’s probably not something Tony Pulis would want to be forced into forgetting about at his next press conference. However, with both Derby and Bristol both involved in the FA Cup this weekend, Boro will have an opportunity to consolidate their position when they head to Tony Mowbray’s Blackburn on Sunday. Teesside will instead be able to put their feet up on Saturday and see if Pep Guardiola’s team will be able to cope any better on Newport’s tricky pitch – so let’s see if City find a way to score!

Blackburn under the other Tony have proved to be a model of inconsistency this season and no doubt “it is what it is” will have been suitably deployed across the airwaves of Lancashire by the former Boro legend. Following the 1-1 draw at the Riverside in early December, they drew at home to Garry Monk’s Birmingham before losing three on the spin – albeit against Norwich, Leeds and Sheff Utd. However, they then beat West Brom to start a run of four consecutive victories to take them within three points of the play-offs before getting thumped 5-2 at Brentford, which was then followed by a 1-0 defeat at home to in-form Bristol City that left them squarely in mid table in 13th place. They’ve tended to struggle against the better teams and have lost as many as they’ve won, which is maybe to be expected of a newly promoted side. Rovers weakness seems to be their defence and they’ve conceded more than double the goals Boro have with only three teams having let in more goals (Ipswich, Bolton and surprisingly Villa).

I suspect the big cheese at the Riverside will be hoping that his manager can show his maturity and his team will display the kind of away form that indicates they have promotion running through their veins. However, a couple of bad results would certainly grate on the supporters nerves and as they start to see any lingering hopes of an automatic spot melt away. So will Boro end the week looking ripe for promotion or will it be a case of hard cheese Tony as our chances of staying with the pack begin to look a little awry? Time for the team to show that they are indeed men and not the mice we saw exit meekly from the Cup.

Newport County		Middlesbrough
Willmott Amond	47′ 67′
Possession Shots On target Corners Fouls	44% 16 4 6 4	Possession Shots On target Corners Fouls	56% 13 1 5 5

A Bridge too far

The repeat of the battle of the men from Pill took place tonight with the opportunity of a plum tie at home to Pep Guardiola’s Man City awaiting the Victor! For Boro at least it felt a bit like lose and you will get slaughtered, win and you will get murdered but one game at a time and all that. Leeds coming up on Saturday felt far more prescient than an away Cup Tie against Newport mid-week. The inconvenience factor aside the line-up for Boro would be interesting with most on Teesside expecting a second string and benchwarmer eleven against Michael Flynn’s eleven. Flynn himself had a few questions to answer having witnessed a very poor away performance against Grimsby at the weekend losing three nil. Despite their FA Cup heroics Newport have only won once in League Two over the last two months and haven’t managed to score since Matty Dolan’s late equaliser at the Riverside.

One thing for sure was that Antoine Semenyo would not be torturing Boro tonight as he was recalled by his parent Club Bristol City last week cutting short his season long loan and based on his Riverside performance it was easy to see why. That loss was a massive blow to the South Wales outfit and a bit of good news for the Boro defence whoever they may be tonight. There was also uncertainty if Joe Day would replace Nick Townsend in Goal for the Exiles as his wife was still keeping everyone waiting in the local Maternity Wing for the new arrivals.

Team selections saw just two changes for Newport from the Riverside encounter with Joe Day appearing in goal after all and Semenyo of course no longer at the club. TP surprised everyone by naming a no nonsense looking attack minded Boro side with both Britt and Hugill both starting. Wing was also a surprise inclusion in a midfield three comprising of Clayts and Howson. It was presumed it would be three at the back with Flint, Fry and Ayala with McNair and Friend operating as wing backs or would Fry be at RB and Friend LB with McNair operating in Midfield?

Lewis Wing got proceedings underway at Rodney Parade in the midst of a downpour on a pitch that was nothing more than a quagmire. The lack of a playing surface certainly suited the home side better as despite Boro having two strikers getting the ball played up to them was proving difficult. Boro did have two early efforts with a long range Howson strike and a Hugill effort from a rare break that hit the upright. That aside all the action was at the opposite end of the pitch and Dimi had to pull off a few saves to spare blushes. The Exiles continually launched balls into the Boro box a few of which had nerves jangling and for the want of better finishing Newport could have been two up in the opening twenty five minutes. There was a clear shout for a penalty for handball which would have made things even worse for Boro had it been given. Being honest it looked like a clear penalty to me for a Clayts hand ball and the home fans could consider themselves hard done to.

There was a total lack of any composure as County literally bossed and bullied Boro who looked like they were jetlagged from their delayed flight. Our Midfield was ineffective as the Amber coloured shirts piled forward outnumbering Boro creating a huge chasm between our retreated Midfield and Hugill and Assombalonga. It would have been more appropriate if the kit man had given Boro white hankies to wave to go with their all white kit (unlike the all red kit worn on Saturday this all white ensemble doesn’t have a happy track record).

Meanwhile Robbie WIllmott was ripping up our left side and in the thirty third minute he beat both Wing and Friend with embarrassing ease and fired in a powerful cross met by Amond forcing Dimi into a full stretch save to once again repel the Exiles. At some point those from Teesside were assuming that this was perhaps deliberate rope a dope tactics and Boro would come out roaring and firing on all cylinders ensnaring Newport into a false sense of security.

Watching Willmot you had to wonder why our scouts couldn’t spot and recruit from the lower leagues as the lad looked a class above his Championship foes on the night. On the fortieth minute Willmott put in another cross that was headed just over Dimi’s crossbar by Matt landing on the roof of the net. Newport were full of flicks and tricks while Boro looked leggy, weary and unable to hang onto the ball passing it around like a hand grenade as they were chased and harried. Had it been a boxing contest County were so far ahead on points the towel should have been thrown in to prevent any serious and lasting damage. As if to illustrate the calamitous nature of Boro on the night a harmless looking looped ball into the Boro box caused a series of panicked nervous headers which nearly ended up into the back of Dimi’s net but fortunately went out for a corner. Said corner ended the half when it was harmlessly over hit. It was about the only ball Newport did play badly in those opening forty five minutes.

Flynn would have been by far the happier of the two Managers, astounded by how his side hadn’t been able to take advantage of his side’s total domination and penalty robbery. Tony Pulis on the other hand had some thinking to do as it was clear his side were not coping with a pitch that was reminiscent of Derby’s Baseball ground from the early seventies. Actually the pitch was just one of a very long list of problems, I had a Cortina Mark II once with rust holes in the floor and a flat battery that needed push starting that was more reliable and dependable than that Boro set up.

When the sides came out for the second half Newport understandably didn’t make any changes. TP had brought VLP on for Paddy McNair (lucky Paddy) but apart from a bit of flustered rather than controlled activity in the opening seconds in the Newport box that was it from Boro for the nights efforts as Willmott then broke out from defence and crossed the half way line leaving Clayton in his wake and danced towards the Boro back line forcing a back stepping movement from Ayala to shoot from the edge of the box past a desperate outstretched Dimi to put the Exiles deservedly 1-0 up. It was coming all night and it was indeed fitting that it was Willmott who delivered the blow.

Four minutes after the restart Lewis Wing hit a dipping ball from the edge of the Newport box but it dropped down behind the net unfortunately summing up our endeavour for the evening. Dael Fry put a low cross in a few minutes after Wings dipper as Boro tried half-heartedly to find a response but it was cleared away. Boro were still struggling as they had all evening to find a white shirt on the swamp of a pitch due to a lack of pace and little to no movement or anticipation off the ball. It was like watching Statues play netball (actually statues would have had more perceived movement). Hugill limped off on 56 minutes for Gestede to make a rare appearance. Normally I would have said “worryingly Hugill limped off” but on that performance Jordan’s 80 year old Grandmother would have been more aggressive and mobile so to see him leave was exactly a worry or even a remote concern.

Rudy’s first involvement was to be flagged for offside as Boro continued their struggles to string any passes together. As it turned out I think that was Rudy’s only noticeable contribution for the remainder of the game. A couple of minutes later Fletcher came on for Assombalonga who had ran and chased but usually the ball got stuck between his feet in the mud and he ended up sat on his derriere. Fletcher’s first touch was a carbon copy of Gestede’s minutes previously earning the same response from the Lineman’s flag. Since his introduction at half time VLP had been spectacularly anonymous and hadn’t offered any outlet or threat whatsoever. I did wonder if he perhaps had been knitting Bootees out on the wing joining in with the anticipated arrivals. So poor was Boro’s showing had Joe Day’s wife actually gone into labour he could have nipped to the local maternity unit to welcome the arrival of his twins and popped back before the 90th minute and nobody would have noticed him missing. Actually he could have probably wet the babies heads as well and sank a few jars for all the difference it would have made, still at least had more than one reason now to have the cigars out.

Willmott who had drifted out of things just a little popped up with a luke warm shot which deflected out for a corner from a dejected Boro defender. Willmott himself took the same corner and in a clever well worked set piece, he saw Padraig Amond running from the far side of the Boro goal mouth to the near side of the Boro box to meet a perfectly weighted ball, he swivelled, he turned, he shot and despatched it into the top corner leaving Dimi rooted along with an entire box full of white shirted dummies. Our defending looked like those shop window displays during change over time when the mannequins have those white shrouds tied over them in various motionless poses. 2-0 and exactly what Boro deserved and exactly what Newport deserved. If there are any mannequins reading this I do apologise as I am sure you do a lot more than just stand there looking gormless. Our mobility was like the Post Office queue on pension day but with less communication going on.

A Wing corner was then headed clear, falling to Howson twenty yards out who inexplicably lobbed a soft ball straight into Day’s grateful arms. Come on now was this deliberate? I mean even we can’t be this bad surely? Another poor hopeful lob (rather than a cross) came in from Clayton but it was over hit and in truth Boro didn’t look like they were bothered any longer in any case with the remaining game time looking like a chore. A clever one two between Howson and Fletcher saw Howson running through to collect in the box but the return from Fletcher was so miscued that it missed Howson by several yards behind him when he was two foot away. At this stage I was really grateful that Demenyo hadn’t been available as it could have been really embarrassing by now. Plus the astonishment of all that low cost talent at this level could have resulted in out recruitment team causing a shortage of stents at Newport General. Not that there will have been any chance of any of them attending in case they spotted someone really useful that could be had for less than £200K and under £5K a week.

Anyway getting back to Boro’s rendition of that movie Cocoon (where those agile pensioners get up to all sorts of high jinks on beta blockers) Labadie had went off for Dolan as Michael Flynn gave the ex Boro lad yet another opportunity to embarrass his ex-employers. Fortunately Matty had some sympathy for the drenched travelling 500 or so from Teesside.

There was absolutely no zip or belief about Boro in fact they looked like they had spent the afternoons flight delay getting hammered in duty free because this was as disjointed and confused a showing that I have witnessed for a long time from any Boro side. Credit of course must go to Newport who despite the conditions were full of running and seemingly able to control the ball on the same heavy and sticky pitch. Since TP’s substitutions Boro looked even worse if that was possible. The three subs had been invisible whilst also displaying serious co-ordination problems as they seemingly lacked any control of their legs so bad was the hold-up play. A late Wing corner was wastefully hit low and easily cleared. The effort that went into that was a further indication of the lacklustre nature of tonight’s team performance. Then a short corner on the opposite side saw VLP dribble into the box but it rolled to Day’s near post and easily dealt with.

Willmott went off to a rapturous applause on the eighty fifth minute for Pipe to come on and take his place. As Day collected another lacklustre Boro cross the fourth Official held up three agonising minutes but the reality was that if this Boro side had another three years they wouldn’t have scored, collectively they would have set a Teesside record in the Bongo club. Boro didn’t turn up, didn’t look interested or remotely bothered to the extent that it made me think they genuinely didn’t want any more cup games and certainly not against Man City. Was it a case of more important fish to fry and they or TP at least would rather Newport get some glory and benefit than Boro get demoralised and battered next round? At least the FA can’t take three points off us on this occasion for not turning up.

MOM was 28 year old Robbie Willmott for Newport, there wasn’t a single Boro player worthy of any more than a 3/10 and that would be by far the most generous score. Let’s hope it was just a fitness training exercise with an eye on Saturday. The big worry is what Boro side will actually turn up against Leeds, the WBA side or the questionable showing tonight? The good news of the evening was that Joe Day’s wife was able to hang on until the final whistle as he sprinted off the pitch to be at her side which was more than Boro’s defence could manage.