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THE FANS SPEAK - McCLAREN'S SWANSONG
'My personal thoughts on Steve McClaren are that even though I never really took to him, I have to admire what he did at our club' - JFH's Right Boot, ComeOnBoro.com Messageboard.
Never has one quote summed up the average Boro fan's view of our sonn-to-be previous manager so accurately. At a time when the national media descended on Teesside to gauge local reaction to a national story, the majority of people in Middlesbrough got on with their lives unaffected and largely disinterested at the events happening at their club.
Indeed if the events of Thursday are compared with those following the announcement of Bryan Robson's departure then last week was demonstrative by its sheer ambivalence and lack of emotion. Indeed 'ambivalent' is a word that has been used a lot by Boro fans this week to describe their reaction to the news that McClaren was to become the new England boss, almost as much as 'magnificent' was used by said manager whenever we lost a game.
This can partly be explained due to the uniqueness of the situation in which we currently find ourselves. The big story on Teesside at the moment has nothing to do with Steve McClaren leaving and everything to do with the UEFA Cup Final. That's been on all of our minds since the exhilarating comeback against Steaua Bucharest at the end of April and the atmosphere has been slowly building up in the town ever since.
And all McClaren leaving has done is to add to that increasing sense of occasion. Next season is a million miles away because we now stand on the threshold of European greatness. Only one match is causing the heart of the town to beat, so much so that even this Sunday's clash at Fulham was so incidental as to be practically non-existent.
Boro fans are not thinking about August. We're not even thinking about next Thursday. All we care about is winning the biggest game in our history against Sevilla on Wednesday. Nothing else matters, nothing else is newsworthy. We're all focussing on that Cup and that Cup alone. Everything else is incidental.
The ambivalence of the Boro fans to McClaren's decision also stretches to the Final however, with many of them believing that this as a great opportunity for Middlesbrough to make history. The prevailing attitude is that McClaren will be so determined to have one final swansong that no other motivation will be necessary, that it's all set up perfectly for a Middlesbrough victory, without wanting to tempt fate of course.
The players too will want to give him a good send off and McClaren knows that if he gave the fans of this football club such an unlikely prize then he could walk away from the club, job done. In a culture that is not looking ahead to next Thursday, let alone next season, the full ramifications of McClaren's appointment centre solely on Eindhoven. And if we should win that, I don't think anyone would be all too bothered about the vacant managerial position at the club. Not least until after the World Cup anyway.
Even if he does not win this Cup, by winning the Carling Cup two years ago, he still has the accolade of being the most successful manager in the club's history. A lot of fans recognise this but they also recognise the fact that he has been a very lucky manager too. To win that Cup we needed a last-gasp goal against Brighton and two penalty shoot-out wins against Spurs and Everton in previous rounds.
Similarly in the UEFA Cup this season - a sending off against Basel aided us in that match and two last-minute goals against the Swiss side and Steaua meant that we progressed to the Final. Indeed if we look at his League record over the past four years, and if we discount last season's seventh place finish, then it has been consistently mid-table and that was something that Bryan Robson could generally achieve every season.
Furthermore this reliance on luck has also prompted some fans to state that by leaving Boro now, even if we do lose the Cup Final, he still leaves on a high and that if he had decided to stay then next season could very easily look like one of underachievement. Maybe for his ego, this is the best thing for him to do.
Despite this recourse to luck however, McClaren does have talent. He has built upon the foundations laid by Robbo and has taken the club further in the right direction. In 2001 when the Yorkshireman arrived, we had a burgeoning squad that was full of deadwood. In his first season he trimmed away all of this, selling many of the poorer players to the lower leagues in order to cut wage bills. We had little strength-in-depth and when there were two or three key players missing, we started to worryingly drop down the table.
Now, through the development of the Youth Academy, instigated by McClaren and Dave Parnaby, our squad has a genuine strength-in-depth that we have never had before. Coupled with this is the fact that the majority of this depth is garnered from local kids who are not only on lower wages than those we had sitting on the bench before but also will hopefully have a sense of loyalty to the club that will enable us to become the new Manchester United in years to come.
Indeed McClaren has taken a lot of tips and experience from working with Alex Ferguson and put them to good use at the Boro. And it is starting to pay dividends - just look at our last two away results for evidence of that. Indeed McClaren's belief in the youngsters, by having no hesitation in selecting them should the need arise, has greatly contributed to the development of our Youth Policy in a way that did not happen under Robson.
Despite all of these achievements however, the fans still have had problems accepting McClaren and this may have more to do with PR than managerial competence. This was highlighted by his post-match comments after Boro's shambolic 7-0 defeat at Arsenal in mid-January. The comments made that day finally confirmed to many that he was treating the fans like idiots, that in his inability to say anything negative about his squad or players he passed over the game with mere platitudes and superficial comments such as 'magnificent' or 'we didn't get the rub of the green' when it was quite evident to the fans that the players had lost faith with the manager.
This then led the Boro fans to question his passion and his commitment, something that he vociferously defended after the Aston Villa debacle. That defeat was the low ebb of McClaren's tenure at the club, and since then the fans have started to come round again. But when that correlates with an improvement in fortunes, and where the use of the word 'magnificent' does accurately describe the performance of the team, then that is hardly surprising. This implies that McClaren may still possess that inability to relate to the fans and is something that I can imagine the rabid national press becoming increasingly frustrated about should McClaren go through a bad patch with England.
Another problem with McClaren that has consistently been raised by the fans is his penchant for the defensive, safety first style of football that Sven has adopted with the national side. Many Boro fans believe that with an aging defence that is becoming increasingly porous (see the worrying number of goals we have conceded this season for confirmation of that) this tactic is ridiculous, particularly when we have the likes of Viduka, Hasselbaink, Yakubu and even Maccarone gracing our frontline.
For every 4-3 European adventure or 3-3 draw against Spurs there is a 3-0 defeat against Charlton or a 2-0 capitulation against Sunderland never far behind. This is frustrating because the fans see a side that can raise their game for the big teams but then lose against dross. Again this could cause problems for McClaren as it has done for Sven - Sven's success rate against big sides is not too bad, but in losing to Northern Ireland last year, his reputation has been severely tarnished.
Tactical naivety has also raised its head in the view of many fans. And here too his frustrating inconsistency is highlighted. On Thursday James Bassett highlighted the tactical nous behind his change in formation against Basle and Steaua that allowed us to go on and win the match. But then you can also cast your mind back to the FA Cup semi-final against West Ham for a tactical decision that ultimately cost us the game. And there are many more that can be highlighted too, particularly in relation to substitutions. For every one he gets right, I'd say he gets two wrong. Is that the record of an inspired manager or just a chancer?
The same is true about some of his 'favourites' - players he seems to pick week in week out, irrespective of form. The continual selection of Emmanuel Pogatetz over Franck Queudrue is the main one highlighted by most Boro fans and the fear is that he would adopt a similar policy with England, playing certain players who are only seventy or eighty percent fit for the game.
If results are going against him this will only lead to criticism from the English press and cause discontent amongst England fans. This is particularly the case when it is considered that much of the English press are about as ambivalent as we are about his appointment, with one already diving into the lurid details of his personal life for reasons best know to itself.
These rumours were rife in January when we were performing poorly and may have contributed to our poor run in form and the lack of confidence the players clearly had in the manager, despite whether they were true or not. These too, I fear, have led to the ambivalence in the minds of the Boro fans on their departing manager.
Yet despite this negativity the general view is to give McClaren a big send off against Sevilla by chanting his name and guiding the players into winning that elusive trophy. And whether, under our new incumbent next season, we build upon McClaren's work or slip back a little, either way he will be fondly remembered as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest manager in the Boro's 130 year history.
So shout and cheer for the team on Wednesday and give McClaren the send off he deserves, because as Badly Packed Kebab puts it 'Never has one man so divided the Boro support, generated so much argument, drawn so much stick, and ultimately brought so much joy'. Good luck with England Steve. Thanks for everything.
With thanks to the following fans: Monty, TCider, Jam, Doriva's Mum, The Oort Cloud, Jasboro, Fiddler on the Smog, JFH's Right Boot, Toby, Vits, Juno, Badly Packed Kebab, Harry Callaghan and Mark the Boro Fan
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