|
|
TEESSIDE EXPECTS 5-8-05
You can just about hear the faint echoes of Pigbag in the distance. The countdown has just eight days to run now and a week tomorrow, the talking stops and the action begins. Thankfully.
As exclusively revealed on this very website sometime last season, the new Premier league season kicks off this month and there is no reason why Boro cannot make some serious headlines during August.
And that is good news for those of us who are tired of fabricated transfer rumours and tales of 'exclusive briefings' but it's even better news for all Boro fans everywhere because realistically, we could be in the top three of the Premier league at the end of August.
Our fixture list for August offers eight points on a silver platter, even after several long hard looks at the schedule.
We should settle for no less than six points from the Charlton and Birmingham games and despite Liverpool's European success and Tottenham's 'pile em high' transfer policy, we really have nothing to fear from either side.
We do need to squirrel away as many points as possible during August because September contains three potential banana skins. More on that over the next few weeks.
The Liverpool fixture in eight days is not exactly a grudge match but it is one that we need to win for the sake of local rivalries. After all, we may have to spread our horizons a little further in 2006/07 due to the possibility of our fixture list for that season containing no 'derby' matches at all.
But back to this coming season and we have a lot to look forward to. For a start, at least two great new signings will be on view and I would bank on Yakubu breaking the mythical twenty Premiership goals barrier this campaign?
Add to that his tally in the three cup competitons and come next May, we could have a new legend within our number.
And I wouldn't bet against either Mark Viduka or Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink matching him in the scoring charts. Mark will feel as though he has something to make up for after last season's injury calamities and with his Premiership time running out, Jimmy will surely want to establish himself in Teesside's hall of fame.
And just in case you had forgotten, we have a World Cup looming at the end of this season. Potential candidates for a place in the England squad such as Stewey Downing, Tony McMahon, James Morrison and Colin Cooper will be all out to prove what they can do to England manager Steve McClaren and his Swedish assistants.
And aside from the Premiership campaign and the effort to regain our Carling Cup - yes, OUR Cup -
Boro will be fighting them on the beaches in Europe again this season. There's been a lot of talk about progress over the last few years and the measure of how far we have come is best summed up with this fact;
We are the north-east and Yorkshire's sole representative in Europe this season.
How good does that sound? Our catchment area is expanding dramatically and despite the squad being a little light in places, we are good enough to achieve big things, if the queue outside the treatment room remains at a reasonable level.
Eleven weeks ago in my last column, I stated that there are limits to what we can achieve in 2005/06 but only those that we saddle ourselves with. So have we done the right things this summer?
Yes, of course we have. Lack of transfer activity? We were first out of the blocks in May, securing the services of Yakubu before the window had even opened. How did we do that? It must be down to Keith Lamb, one of the top chief execs in the whole industry of football. Middlesbrough would not be so far ahead but for his sterling work.
Bemoan the lack of new signings all you want. It's a deflated market right now and nobody else barring Spurs and Chelsea have made any major waves in the market this summer. We start the season on an even playing field with our competitors.
Now seems like as good a time as any to regain the momentum that we had leading up to last December. If we can get back to those times when we feared nobody, then we could be in for some serious entertainment this season.
But its never been a secret that Boro are walking a long and winding road that leads us to a status that we have never been previously adorned with. Who knows when we willl get there? But we will.
All paths that lead to glory or fate are strewn with many obstacles along the way and we have overcome many.
This season could bring us our highest ever league position and even our second major trophy.
It will go down in history if we can look back on it and say that it was a season where Boro took another step towards becoming a major player on football's biggest stage.
Until next week.
Steve
BACK TO STEVE G INDEX
|
|
|
|
