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PACKWOLF'S HOWL 24-9-04
Hi, hi. Welcome once more to this little den that I call home. It's been nearly a month since we last growled but there have been problems, I'm sure you'll understand. The inclement weather swept my den away which was annoying, and my second home in Boscastle was also curiously flooded, isn't fate an ironic mocker? Still, please sit down, the earth has dried out sufficiently so I'm sure you'll be fine.
I'll just go and get the tea although I must warn you about the flies, they're everywhere I'm afraid because it's harvest time and they just get clogged in your fur. Mighty irritating as well I may add but these farmers do have their benefits. After all they keep their chickens in one convenient place for us to eat, and the mice that come from the field at this time of year make for a tasty, if unsubstantial snack. So we can't complain. And most of the time they are never in anyway as they're all on 'countryside marches' or something, which, ironically take place in the city. Odd that. Still, not that we're complaining, we just take a picnic and sit on the farmland admiring the view- with the farmer's animals providing the picnic. Anyway, I digress. Please, sit down, it's not that bad, just a bit of blood, I'll lick it up right away. There you go, now don't be squeamish. It's been a good few weeks in the Boro's history and I'm sure my tales will take your mind off your reddening backside. So let's again look in the direction of our beloved and assess in the fading autumn light the last twenty days in the world of Middlesbrough Football Club.
New flood defences for Boscastle
Over a month in and we are in no position to really complain about the season so far. After our poor start in our opening two games, although granted they were against arguably two of the tougher teams we will face in the league, we turned in three impressive performances against Fulham, Palace and Birmingham to cement our place in the top six which is where we will hopefully be come the end of the season. This haul of ten points from our opening five games represents our best top-flight opening to a campaign in many a year and bodes well for later on in the season, which is traditionally our strong point. Indeed it appears we have comfortably and nonchalantly dismissed the idea that we are traditional poor starters almost as comfortably as we now score goals, and it is good to see Viduka and Hasselbaink already proving good investments with a combined tally of nine so far. Indeed it looks a fair bet that not just one, but both will score twenty in the top flight this season and this in itself should cement our place in the top six and represent a further improvement in the performance of the team.
However many people have pointed to our leaky defence which may castigate us to another season of mid-table mediocrity. On the one hand I can see their point. We have conceded ten goals from our opening six games this season and some of our individual defensive performances, particularly Riggott who had a nightmare against Newcastle, Arsenal and Palace are concerning. Furthermore Skippy has been called on more than ever to perform some first class saves which thankfully, he is more than accomplished to do. Yet Queudrue has been the player of the season so far and Southgate has been in his traditionally high form. Furthermore, the only change we have made in defence was Reiziger for Mills and considering the former is now injured, it is hard to fathom why such a tight unit last season has become so sloppy during this campaign. Yet last season may provide a clue to answer this question as it was noticeable that once we started to attack more, with the emergence of Zenden and Mendieta towards those final few months that we were leaving our defence more exposed. This appears to have carried on into this season as we now have an even more prominent attacking policy than was evident last May. This is displayed most clearly in the role of Boateng, traditionally a defensive win-the-ball type of midfielder who has probably taken more shots in the last two games - Ostrava and Everton - than he has done in his whole career. This further forward play of The Boat often leaves our defence more exposed and vulnerable to attack, particularly as Parlour is often failing to support him defensively by being employed in almost the same attacking style role. However, it is not all doom and gloom of course. We have conceded ten goals this season but five of those were at Arsenal where we had a makeshift backline and were facing the most creative and ruthless attacking side in the country. So if we discount this fixture, we have conceded five goals in five games, or one a game. This of course is not good enough to obtain the top six position that we crave as it often appears to be the case that we will concede at least one a game. Indeed, we have only kept one clean sheet all season and that was at Fulham, a side who looked like they couldn't attack a parmo in a decent fashion nevermind an established Premier league side. Thus it appears we have adopted the policy of scoring more than we concede, and the last time we did that was in a season which had a similarly good start and pre-season hype and which, ultimately ended in relegation. I hope that this season we actually fulfil the fixture at Ewood in a few weeks.
Which brings us to the fixture that induced the biggest hype on Teesside to date, the Banik Ostrava match. And what a fantastic match it was. To beat the Czech champions - repeat, the champions of their country, a country that reached the semi-finals of Euro 2004, remember - so convincingly, despite the expected nature of the result, was not only instilling of a great passion and pride, but also relief that we would not be the 'typical' Boro- losing to a team we were expected to beat. Shame we could not remove ourselves from the shackles completely, judging by the performance at Everton on Sunday. But that wasn't what I take from the game the most. What was was the southern press, the English commentators finally acknowledging the success of the club, finally complementing us on our achievements and finally supporting us on our European adventure because of some national fervour that I personally have always found hard to understand. But to hear the commentators on five screaming 'Welcome to Europe, Middlesbrough' when Hasselbaink opened our European account and actually saying positive things about us was refreshing and extremely heartening. They were Boro fans all along of course.
But seriously, there has been a lot of talk from the club about the raising of the profile of Middlesbrough across Europe - of putting 'Middlesbrough on the map' of world football. But this is not the important thing because what it has done has made our own countrymen, our own fellow English football supporters sit up and take notice of our side, to fear our side and to ultimately respect them. Charity begins at home and it is this carving out of a reputation on our own shores that is what this European campaign is doing for us. European prestige will come later but now domestic fans associate us with European football and there is a respect engendered with this. No longer are we the also-rans and no longer can the opposition be derisory. But for this derision to be completely stemmed we must remain in Europe for as long as possible, to give it a valiant, decent stab. If this occurs then the respect will stick but if we crash out early then we will be back to 'the club that nearly made it' rather than where we should rightly be. In this way the group stage can help us as with more television coverage comes more prestige as the non-Sky football watching audience - yes, they do exist - can watch it along with the rest of the country in their idle moments. Now Middlesbrough will finally be associated with football rather than smog and petrochemicals and that is why the win against Banik was so important. People saw a comprehensive victory against a good side and it made them sit up, made them pay attention and if we can put in a few more performances like this against tougher opposition then we can only increase the prestige of the club, and if we do nothing else this season, this will still be a worthwhile thing to achieve.
However the Banik match did highlight one major problem of this season, namely our erratic and often sloppy starts. Indeed I see it as no coincidence that of our 14 goals scored this season, only two have come in the first half of a match. Furthermore, it appears that our passing is more wayward during the opening forty-five and we often struggle to build up attacking moves. This often lets the opposition score first, (Newcastle, Arsenal, Palace) and means we are often in the position of needing to turn the game around before we start playing. This was best testified at Everton where we were dreadful for the opening seventy minutes, with us being able to put no more than four passes together in a sequence before that period and needing to desperately attack in the final twenty and still get nothing from the game. I can't help feel that if we had attacked from the off we would have worn their defence down and got three points easily. In the end, Skippy made a few tremendous saves and kept the score modest, much to our flattery.
And the other thing is McClaren can moan about his 'post European hangover' but reality is that this game had been postponed for 24 hours because of our UEFA Cup tie. It was a game that we knew we had and so should have budgeted for in squad selection and, most importantly, if he feared the lethargy of the players would compromise the Goodison result then why did he not make at least one substitution during the Ostrava match when we were comfortably winning? So to me this excuse doesn't wash, although that may be fuelled by some bitterness considering I made the journey over to Liverpool at great expense to witness such a pallid pathetic performance. Yet hopefully this is a one-off and we can be as impressive as we have been in recent weeks further into the season. I also accept however that we have had our fair share of luck, for example Jimmy's goal against Newcastle and the entire Crystal Palace game but in this business you often make your own luck and let's hope it continues. If we play anything like we did during the impressive display against Birmingham then with the Viduka/ Hasselbaink partnership flourishing, Zenden steadily improving and Mendieta still to get going (God he's been awful this season) then we should do very well indeed. This is also aided by the performances of both Job and Nemeth who, ever since competition has been introduced into the squad, look completely different to the imitation strikers they appeared to be last season, being a lot more sharper in front of goal. This too is very encouraging and hopefully we can take full advantage of it later in the season when the inevitable fixture pile-up will start to hit us more than it is doing so now.
With all this competition for the two primary striking roles I find it heartening to hear that Maccarone has decided to cut his losses and move on loan to Italian club Parma for the remainder of the season. Regular readers of this column will know that I have always rated the Italian and feel that it is just a matter of confidence as to the reason why he is not performing anywhere near to the potential he showed when he first joined the club. I think this move to an established Serie A side will help him gain the confidence that he needs, as well as give him valuable experience which will only help him as a player. This experience can, of course, be used next season should we play any Italian sides in the Champions League. Or maybe the Anglo-Italian Cup. This confidence is most likely to come through being selected for the team week-in, week-out which at Parma is a far more likely proposition than it is at the Boro, what with Viduka and Hasselbaink being our first choice strikers followed by Nemeth and the untried Christie. It is unfair on the latter player not to try him and thus, Maccarone really is vying for fifth choice striker along with Job, and even then Job probably has the edge on him. Yet what is most encouraging is to hear the determination in the Italian's voice on coming back to the Boro and doing well for the fans, to justify the money that has been spent on him. This can only help competition and improve the side, spurring us on to greater things.
Finally, whilst we may have a strong side, the same cannot be said for the marketing arm of the club, if the debacle of the new strips is to be taken as evidence. I understand the reasons for the initial delay, and I accept them, but to then sell out within the day they are released is unforgiveable, particularly when we consider this has happened year-in, year-out since the start of the Robbo era. This left many people disappointed that they were unable to buy the new strip and, after such a long wait in the first place, I cannot believe that the powers in the club could not assess and thus react to the prospective demand. It appears that every year they fail to learn the lessons of previous seasons and in the end, what would another week's delay have been after the length of time they took to get the shirts out in the first place? Still, the shirt is of high quality, with the 888.com logo sewn on to it rather than it being a transfix so we can't complain too much. Plus it has the white band. So maybe it was worth the wait after all. Bloody long wait mind.
Until the next ululation, keep it wolverine folks- it's the sign of the lupine...
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