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THE STORY OF OUR SEASON 21-4-08
Toby Higgins
It seems that the smallest thing has suddenly become enough to drag me away from the keyboard and whereas once upon a time I would have found an excuse to sit down and type frantically about those in red ‘n’ white, the tail end of this season has seen my enthusiasm wane.
Some of the excuses for not writing are valid. I’ve spent a huge amount of time writing essays which, much to my disappointment, don’t write themselves. Revision has also taken over my life.
I’ve also become an uncle for the first time, which is cool, and has left me little time to think about the Boro, were that possible.
I can’t help but think about Boro all the time though. Not in a gay, lovey-dovey, ‘oh-my-God-I-think-I-love-you’ way but in a loyal, excitable way.
The problem is that since the Cardiff game, things haven’t been sitting right. Every time I see us play, or watch a highlight, or speak to a fan, I get an underlying sense of hurt and regret about how close we were to achieving something truly great.
It’s wrong to assume that everything that has gone wrong since Cardiff is because of Cardiff.
It’s probably not the best thing to be still talking about Cardiff at all. The mention of it appears to benefit nobody and one suspects that the game will become a lot like Eindhoven in that the immense disappointment is something that we will bottle up and forget about in a desperate attempt to move forward.
The problem is that the Cardiff game isn’t our sour performance in an otherwise glittering season.
We’ve let so many games get away from us this season because of some truly woeful displays and the stats show that the results haven’t been any better.
Thus far we’ve played seventeen home games and scored seventeen goals.
We have won only five – the same number of home games we haven’t score in.
We haven’t scored more than three in any game all season and three times we have let in a last minute goal at the Riverside. This has cost us a total of five points.
Our goal tally is truly embarrassing and the fact that Stewart Downing is our leading scorer with seven adds to the accusation that our strikers have not been pulling their weight.
In fact, nobody in the team has.
Downing aside, we have five midfielders (Arca, Rochemback, Boateng, O’Neil and Cattermole). They have made 145 appearances between them and have scored only four goals. Some stats don’t need a lot of words and this is one of them.
So after a season that can be considered a total let down, the club launchs an ‘offer’ to fans for a three year season ticket, with the reward of plaque on your seat for your good support.
It was bad timing really, given the outcome of the game last weekend.
Had we got something from the game, people’s attitudes may have been a little more optimistic and maybe masses of fans would be flooding to the club to part with hundreds, maybe thousands, of pounds for the next three seasons.
But I don’t think so. In fact, I think that even if we’d put six past Bolton, nobody would have been signing up for a three year season ticket.
The ‘deal’ offers no discount for what would be a mega cash layout to thousands of fans. Plus, with absolutely no guarantee that Boro will still be in the Premiership in three years time, the deal scheme doesn’t seem to have been thought through in terms of its appeal.
That the price of U18 season tickets has been reduced is certainly an encouraging step and for all the three year idea seems redundant already, the other prices seem respectable.
Really though, it’s not all about money. If Boro were playing good attractive football every week, then the stadium would soon fill up.
Unfortunately the displays from the first minute against Blackburn until the last minute against Bolton this week have been poor and there is no guarantee that season ticket sales will be good.
The games in recent weeks have told the story of our season perfectly. After giving Manchester United a good game, we wasted a hatful of chances at Spurs and conceded a soft goal. We then lost at home to a side in the bottom three. What could have been seven or nine points has become two.
The similarities between the Bolton game and the game at home to Reading fifty days earlier were uncanny.
We started seven points off the bottom three in each of them and we lost both games 1-0.
We blew the chance to open up a ten point gap and instead saw our lead reduced to just four.
On both days, the strike partnership of Alves and Tuncay looked as toothless as my seven day old nephew and aside from a ten minute period in each game, the performance of the team was ghastly.
This season (like the one before it and probably the one after it) has been branded a season of development and learning for the relatively young squad and management team.
At times, it feels like Southgate isn’t learning from his mistakes or, even if he is learning from them, he’s not able to do much to correct them.
Not being able to motivate the players against sides below us in the league is a Boro trait that seems to have rolled over from Steve McClaren’s reign, when Southgate was captain.
The captaincy this season has provoked much debate, so much so that Southgate has suggested he won’t be using a captain next year and will instead expect the players to motivate each other on the field and share the responsibilities off it.
This, aside from being an untried policy at the top level, is probably not Southgate’s greatest piece of man-management.
In telling the media of his plans, Southgate has told his current squad that none of them are fit to be captain. This must knock player confidence in situations like the team found themselves in on Saturday, when they need to rally and get something from the game.
Whether Southgate sticks with his proposal, or signs a player in the summer to come straight in as captain, as McClaren did when he signed Southgate from Villa, remains to be seen.
However, it would be interesting to hear what Southgate believes it would have done for his confidence had Steve McClaren stripped him of his captaincy and shared the responsibility amongst the rest of the senior squad during his tenure as a player.
Same time next week.
Up The Boro
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A GUARANTEED PROFIT OF AT LEAST £41.00 ON THE FA CUP FINAL
Did you know that it is possible to win money on Saturday afternoon's FA Cup Final clash between Portsmouth and Cardiff, whatever the result?
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Open an account with Extrabet
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You have temporarily laid out a total of £129.00 on the FA Cup Final. I stress, temporarily... Now sit back, crack a beer open and enjoy the match.
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Also, before you place your bets, you should check that the odds haven't changed. If they have, let us know by mail or phone us on 01642 223229 and we will rework the bet for you.
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Please note that the bonuses are valid for new customers only so if you already have an account with one or more of the bookies we are using, you won't be able to do this. If that is the case, mail us or phone us on 01642 223229 and we'll create an alternative bet for you using different bookies.
This method of betting was used very successfully during the 2006 World Cup and you can read all about how it was done right here.
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It's understandable that some people will not believe that it is possible to do this. "What's the catch?" I hear you asking. My answer to that question is that we have been publishing arbitrage bets for four seasons now and literally hundreds of people have profited from following the advice on these pages.
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The only stipulation here is that you must click on the links on this page to be eligible for the refund guarantee, not that you'll be needing to claim anyway. Just enjoy the profit and stay posted for many more of these throughout the season.
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