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SPUR US ON TO BOLTON 8-11-07
Udayan Mukherjee
As we walked away with sullen faces after the Spurs match, it was difficult to see any positives.
The joke that was the insipid first half performance brought about a crescendo of boos that emphasised the growing uneasiness about the state of Middlesbrough Football club.
It has to be said that we were much better in the second half. Luke Young's first goal for the club was out of the top drawer and truly deserves to be the goal that kick starts our season.
Unfortunately, you do begin to worry when the overwhelming feeling you get after Boro score is simply one of relief that we got a goal. Not a victory, or a point, but a goal. This is something that in recent games we have simply not looked like offering, at least to the degree that we did in the halcyon days of the Birmingham game.
The problem is that our first team, without quite being good enough for a European place, would certainly trouble the top ten. Unfortunately, losing even two or three players rips that team to shreds, with only rookies and rubbish left over to deputise.
For example, when Julio Arca gets injured (how costly was that Sunderland match?), we lose all ability to connect the defence with the attack. One player.
The daft thing is that Arca wasn't even signed as a midfielder and has become the only player either willing or physically able to regularly get forward into the box or play balls beyond the opposition defenders.
It has been frustrating to watch whoever has been paired with Rochemback sit ridiculously deep and invite pressure. It has to be said that Cattermole does at least make the effort and has been known to score a few goals.
Mido's injury and lack of fitness has also proved costly. Our other two main 'strikers' are gifted footballers with skill and invention but with a scoring pedigree in England that is slightly poorer than Steve Vickers.
Aliadiere scored a great header against Manchester United and since his arrival on Teesside has looked to be a very good player, albeit one that will not get you that many goals.
The main disappointment has been Tuncay Sanli. He is a player who seems to show at least one or two moments of brilliance every time he is on a football pitch. The sad thing is that he plays the other eighty-nine minutes within his shell.
The problem may be multifold. I would like to draw comparison with a certain Oswaldo Giroldo Junior, or The Little Fella, as he was commonly known. Juninho showed flashes of class in the first season but never really looked like reaching the heights he did the following season.
His position was behind the hole, and it was almost preposterous to play him outside of his favoured position as the team would not benefit.
Juninho was tried all over the shop during his Middlesbrough career. He was played on the right, up front and as an out-and-out central midfielder.
Yet the only times that he played anywhere near to his full potential was when he was played in his favoured, specialist position of the hole.
I feel Tuncay is the same, although he is possibly slightly stronger than TLF. No one, least of all Gareth Southgate, seems to have worked out what his position is. It seems that he is played to the left or the right of a three pronged attack.
Unfortunately, as with playing in the hole, this is a position that does not fit into the rigid 4-4-2 system that we are currently employing. He is not suited to playing on the right or up front in this formation.
Perhaps given Tuncay's undoubted pedigree we could accommodate a three pronged frontline and hence a three man midfield.
It's only what Gary O'Neil and Stewart "For F**ks sake Stewie don't cut in" Downing seem to be doing anyway!
Unfortunately, we are in such a position that experimentation may not be possible. The good news is that, as we saw for around half an hour of the second half against Hot Spurts, we can dig in and we can score goals.
We must go to Bolton now and win. No excuses. The time has come for our international class players to step up to the plate and show us what they're made of (I'm looking specifically at Woodgate and Downing).
We need our players to battle and scrap as we know Bolton do. We need to cut out the silly mistakes and worry Bolton.
Put plain and simple, we are a better team than they are, bar Nicholas Anelka and possibly Kevin Nolan. We have finally stopped the rot by getting a point against Spurs so now let's show some Teesside steel by getting three more points on the board.
Up the Boro
Udayan Mukherjee
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