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PARTNER NEEDED WITH PASSION AND PRIDE 8-11-06
Peter Holmes
Depending on the outcomes of various summit meetings with Premier and FA bigwigs, this article could be about as meaningless as a Eunuch going to hospital to get the snip.
Topic of discussion, between bouts of smoked salmon butties and caviar, is the future of Gareth Southgate specifically continuing as manager of Middlesbrough. Will the great and powerful allow our man to flaunt the rules any longer or will they enforce them to the letter or will they change the law to suit the needs of the game and Middlesbrough?
Bollocks, I've written it now and I'm not redrafting it as I have beer to drink so, here we go, here we go, here we go....
Good old hindsight, that ability to be a know-all expert after the fact by grandiosely exclaiming; "I told you buggers last August this would happen!"
We all know the type, the stereotypical know-all tosspot lurking at the bar of pubs and clubs around the steely metropolis of Middlesbrough. Boozy venues which are full of these non-believers, plonkers who are on the bandwagon when times are good, told-you-so's when times are bad. Well, much as I hate to do it, I'm going to be a version of those A-grade wankers now.
Personally I think the malaise our club is mired in has lasted far longer than the tenure of the Managerial apprenticeship of our glorious ex-captain. This all started when the present England manager was at the helm of the good ship Middlesbrough and I highlighted his under-achievements in one article, pointing out graphically in figures how his overall record was no better than the man before him who we sacked, Bryan Robson.
In his time in charge, McClaren set in place a team of minions to carry out his master plan at Rockcliffe and the Riverside and, that system obviously still exists being pushed by the same hackneyed personnel.
Change of that system and the comfortable backroom brigade is long overdue. 'All hands on deck' should be the war cry but no bugger is rowing with too many passengers sleeping through the journey and the ones who are awake are so bloody lazy that we are going back out to sea against the tide.
It's time to act and that's a classic understatement of Tony Blurr proportions.
I don't totally blame Southgate, allowances have to be made for a greenhorn but I feel that he needs help and needs it now, not next August as we start a fourty-six game slog in the whirlpool of the physically demanding and extremely competitive Championship.
There have been many prolific and extremely successful partnerships within the frame of the team game and I reckon that's how Southgate works best, in a partnership, in tandem with another complimentary soul who he can trust and has confidence in.
He has formed some formidable partnerships on the field at every level and I reckon he'd benefit from a like-minded ally in his new position. Presently that bloke appears to be the anonymous Steve Round and rumours of him possibly taking the mantle from Gareth leave me as cold as a male penguins knackers in Antarctica.
The supposed partnership is not working and it never will because Round is McClaren's man. He has not got the commitment to this club that is required and much less the passion. The team that is in place behind Gareth is the team that Ginger Mac left behind and thus the methodology is ingrained, hackneyed and systematic of past League mediocrity and failure.
Anybody who reads my ranting and raving on a regular basis will not be surprised that I was glad to see the back of Steve McClaren but I thought, and still think, that McClaren is a good coach but putting it mildly is a very poor manager.
They are two distinctly different functions within a football club. A manager must have that inbuilt ability to motivate players, instil confidence, coax ten-tenths from his charges and have the energy and belief to get his players to turn a game around. Obvious cliché maybe but lose your players and you lose the club.
Last season's glorious historic heroics as we swash-buckled our way to the final of the UEFA Cup, confounding the critics in the process, well they are a very distant memory to the point that you may be asking; "Did it really happen!?"
The stark reality is that Middlesbrough's performance in the Premier League before all that happened had been abysmal and for longer than I care to remember we've flattered to deceive. Doing a little bit of detective work, a smidgeon of on-line research to confirm my suspicions, I discovered that all this mediocrity and shite has gone on too long. What I collated does not make very palatable reading if you are a die-hard Boro fan.
Take time to look at the overall performance of this club since the latter part of 2005 to the present day. The results were collated from November 6th last year to the latest load of bollocks at Watford's 'Elton John Tunnel of Love Ground'. To make it relevant to a season, I went back over the last thirty-eight EPL games, to give a reflection on how we are sitting. Sadly, the resultant compilation is not for the faint-hearted and our present form reads relegation at best, border line nails gnawed to the wicks with shit filled underpants - escapology by the skin of the teeth!
Our present form trends from the lacklustre beginning to this season indicate a final position extrapolated as eighteenth. And well, hello Chumpionship!
The facts are very stark my fellow sufferers. We have played thirty-eight and only won eleven of those games, we have gained only fourty-one points and have therefore dropped seventy-three points. The magical margin of fourty points to avoid relegation will not compute during this season of a six to eight team in a desperate dogfight to survive.
| P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
Pts |
Avail |
| 38 |
11 |
8 |
19 |
42 |
59 |
41 |
114 |
It's more than the cold logic of mere facts and figures, far more. There is a malaise that exists at the Riverside, one which smacks of the classic four P's. Passionless Piss Poor Performance.
BUT, and there is a but (now here comes the rabid Boro fan in me) while there is time and football to be played we have the opportunity to turn things around mainly because there are some very ordinary teams in this so-called Premier Division.
There, that felt better, plus I didn't blubber the verb hope once.
I advocated the job should have gone to Tony Mowbray when Ginger Mac went South. He's a fine catch for WBA and will prove his worth as a manager of some acumen some time soon in the EPL. I still stick by that opinion but I also went on record as stating that I thought that Gareth would need time to settle but he too would eventually become a good manager and be his own man. I now advocate that he should be forming a partnership with someone who could never be accused of the 4 P's, Colin Cooper.
I think that it's time to bugger-off all those ex. MaClaren backroom refugees and I mean specifically Steve Round and Steve Harrison. To see Southgate in his whistle and flute wired and obviously taking orders from somebody I suspect to be Harrison in the stand over-viewing the game isn't on.
Bollocks to the technology, get the fucking mikes off, get Cooper in there, kick those overpaid arses and give youth it's head, clean the free-loaders out of this club and let passionate revolution take hold because it's too late even now for evolution. It quite simply isn't going to be quick enough Mr.Gibson.
I think the world of Steve Gibson as he's a living breathing hero so I am loathe to criticise him but I think his admirable loyal nature has to be put to one side and he's going to have to get hold of the dog by the lead and take it back to the basics. In truth, if we are going to go down to the chumps league we'll have to have a huge clearout anyway and most of these free-loader wannabees who are not performing now will not have either the balls, guts or humility to get stuck in and dig out our club during a crisis.
Colin Cooper has his team sitting proudly on the top of the Northern section of the Premier League Reserve league in an extremely competitive section which is very dynamic in nature due to the priority of simply getting players match fit for the first team.
Thus, with the usual revolving door of players coming in and out of the squad, juniors and seniors, the team is very dynamic in nature and the coach has to adapt quickly and make the players mould to his ideas. In other words, a very testing grounding for bigger things.
Cooper would provide the edge to Southgate's measured approach and he would certainly provide a verbal encouragement from the sidelines and a verbal bollocking if required. In essence, the pairing would probably mirror in reverse one of the greatest partnerships of all time, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. A routine which was arguably one of the most successful partnerships the game has ever seen, two opposites who complemented each other which provided a balanced approach to their preparation and the result was success at the highest level.
The present mindset that has been allowed to fester at Boro for too long and the present backroom staff are as responsible as any single individual for allowing that to permeate through the fabric of the club so that it becomes the norm. Change is needed.
'The Class of 86', the book about Rioch's stalwarts, has recently been launched and they as a team were light years away from this present squad in every respect but, I'd rather have those blokes any day of the week with their collective passion, will to win, never say die, backs against the wall, fuck you mentality.
The by-line says it all;
"Boro have been an established Premiership side for many years now - twenty years ago they were thirty-seven minutes from liquidation and the rest is history!"
Do you think the present Middlesbrough FC could achieve that?
Rhetorical question I know but, echoing deafening silence with the downcast negative shaking of thirty odd thousand heads is the answer!
Enough Said,
ErimusRed
BACK TO PETER HOLMES' LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA INDEX
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