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THE AWAY END - THROUGH THE SKY LENS 1-10-07
John Powls
If the team are coming off the back of a cup defeat, I'm coming to this off the back of my first appearance on Ali and Bernie's lunchtime Simply Red Sunday show on Century. I only found out about this on Friday evening - I am a late sub for someone who has had to drop out.
It's fun - and I am thrilled to be part of the same programme with John Craggs and also Billy Day who played on the wing in the era when my Dad first started taking me to the games and we had Peacock and Clough up front. Magic.
But, later, I can almost hear the jeers of 'part-time supporter' from my mate Ian as I tune in to the Sky coverage of Everton v Boro from the prone position, wine bottle nearby, on our DFS's-best sofa - well, there was a sale on!
On these occasions, I don't try to replicate the gristleburger with cheese and onions experience at home - you can't get the big griddle, burnt onion and e-coli effect - and even though there is a burger trailer just outside our local Halford's, it just isn't the same.
I've got the laptop near at hand so I can try the hack process of drafting while watching - but fail miserably.
The better news on injuries in the Saturday build up doesn't seem to stretch to Tuncay. With the return of O'Neil does this mean we'll be trying a 4-5-1/4-3-3 again? If we do go 4-4-2 then it must be Tom Craddock rather than Lee alongside Mido. Lee's evident frailty will be shown up even more shockingly against The Toffees.
Continuing to play him simply isn't fair to him or us.
This is clearly one of those games not involving one of the 'big four' that Sky has to cover in their prime Sunday afternoon slot because of the conditions of the franchise. Everton's form has been as dodgy as ours so they can't have been expecting much.
There is a nice feature on Gate doing his bit for the 'Sporting Chances' charity in the week.
The most telling piece comes when studio guest Sam Allardyce points out that we have been too open away from home (he could have added 'at home' too) and that, as we're all too aware of, you can't take thirty plus goals a season out of the team and not replace them and expect to thrive.
We also don't need to be reminded of our poor record on this ground, our lack of goals there or our poor away record in general - despite the fact it's all true. They are going to be short of a few first team regulars too and their form has been iffy but you can be sure that one name will be on their team sheet.
Are we to suffer from 'Return of The Yak' in this game - Veruka's already done it to us; will The Yak have responded to what we hear Moyes has been saying to him ('move your sad, lazy arse or you don't play, no matter how much you cost' seems to be the gist of it.) and punish us?
The Saturday press has had a depressing 'got-up' exchange between Gibbo, Gate and The Yak in an attempt to generate some interest in the game outside Teesside and the blue half of Merseyside. Sky try to ignite this again but it falls flat because no one will bite - including Moyes who admits he has dropped The Yak for not doing enough in games or training.
Talking of Moyes, I was quite impressed a season or two ago when we were away against Fulham to find myself on the same District Line tube as him on the way to the game where he was scouting players. He responded with great good humour to the ribbing about why he was 'slumming it' on public transport and entered into spirited footy discussion with Boro and Fulham fans on the tube. Good on him.
His teams seem a reflection of him, hard working, gritty, organised, nothing flash but touches of panache amid the graft.
The teams are displayed and I'm more than a little dismayed to see Lee in there again. Gate has gone 4-4-2 and he partners Mido. You can argue the rights and wrongs of the set-up but playing Lee again is totally wrong headed.
We start the game brightly and on five The Boat is fed through and only needs to control a sidefoot finish to put us ahead. He knocks it wide. The captain has set the tone for the side for the rest of the game.
They go straight up the pitch and force a corner. We fail to cover the front post header properly and Woody has to head off the line. He can only knock it as far as Lescott who is allowed an unchallenged header from three yards. Not surprisingly, he notches and yet again we have conceded the first goal early and have to chase the game.
We continue to drive forward and on eleven Mido nods down to O'Neil who dummies his defender well and then tries to place a shot from eight yards that he should have put his foot through. This allows Howard to pounce on the ball to save.
Yakubu is having the sort of inconsequential game for them as he spent most of the second half of last season having for us and he underlines it on nineteen when he gets the chance of a clear header from ten yards out as our defence goes missing again. He does the old '50p head' on it for which he used to get the mickey taken by his team-mates at Boro. It flies high and wide.
They aren't playing well and we continue to dominate possession and play pretty football. On twenty-five Lee illustrates again why we must not continue to play him. He is unmarked with a header five yards out that it must be harder to miss than score but miss he does by heading up and against the bar.
Having failed in two different ways away against Spurs in the midweek game we have now firmly set our sights on repeating the West Ham performance. Dominate possession, play attractively, keep their chances to a minimum and squander our many chances. Those who fail to learn (to use Gate's favourite word) are doomed to repeat the mistakes of their history.
The longer the half goes on the more doomed we look, the only notable event being Mido managing to talk his way into a yellow card. This makes his third already and us the team with the most yellows in the Prem to date. That may also come back to haunt us later.
Such is the feeling of inevitability about the whole thing that I can't even get angry about it. As my family would tell you, watching Boro on Sky often causes me to lose it spectacularly - screaming at the screen as though I could influence things other than my own blood pressure and launching an object or two - though usually I don't actually inflict damage - or occasionally racing round the room in celebrating a goal. Today, my good lady comes in to see if I am unconscious or passed out in a wine fuelled stupor because it's so quiet.
Half time gives Allardyce a second opportunity to repeat the dose about us being too open and not scoring when we're on top. I want to disagree and shout at the screen - but I know he's right. He and Gary Speed also point out the other truism that the next goal is key. Their crowd is getting restless and if we were to score you could see us not losing, at least. I have the old 'won't score if we're here 'til midnight' feeling, though.
No changes at half time to personnel, to systems or to what is happening on the pitch. We continue to dominate in possession and territory and manage to keep up the one way traffic towards their goal. Significantly, though, we aren't now creating clear cut chances any more and aren't troubling Howard at all.
Rocky now wants to get in on the 'get a stupid yellow card' act. He picks up his third of the season for flashing an imaginary card at the ref trying to get Arteta booked.
The game continues to follow the West Ham script. They get out of their own half for the first time in the second half on fifty-eight. Arteta gets the ball inside our box and the mere sight of this induces mass panic in our defenders who react like primary school kids in the playground and all rush at the ball leaving players free. Arteta give them the eyes and side foots to one of their two free attackers who scuffs in their second and his first goal since Noah was a lad.
How predictable.
They now decide on deliberately dropping back rather than being pushed back and we don't know what to do to break them down. Mido has a sharp volleyed attempt just after the hour that hits the rigging of the goal with Howard nowhere. But in taking the shot he's tweaked the hammy again.
Whereas we might have been able to take Lee off and replace him with Tom Craddock we're now forced to keep Lee on with Craddock and our chances of getting a goal diminish even further.
The Yak completes a poor afternoon for him by being subbed shortly afterwards and leaves to the derision of The Away End.
In desperation Lee is eventually given the hook after seventy-three and replaced by Riggott. This sees Wheats go up front and signals the death of the game. Craddock tries hard again, as he did at Spurs.
The last fifteen are played out in desultory fashion with both sides knowing the result is what it is. That's how it turns out.
Again, the Sky stats show the picture. We dominated possession, territory and chances - Schwarz had only one save of any consequence to make - and yet again, like at West Ham, we've lost to virtually the only two clear chances they had. Desperately poor.
The post match interviews are entirely predictable from them too - they've scraped a win they were desperate for and you can see the relief ahead of their second leg UEFA tie in the week.
Allardyce and Speed then tell us again how you can't not replace thirty plus goals and expect to do as well and that - just as I pointed out in The Away End after West Ham (and leave aside that their going ended up being inevitable) - if The Yak or Veruka had had the chances we created they'd have notched at least one between them. If that one had come before they scored or when we were only one down I don't think we'd have lost.
They also point out that whilst entertaining is one thing, fans aren't going to live with you entertaining and losing every week. Outside the top four who can sometimes afford to play the same style everywhere, the 'home' phenomenon means that you can set out to entertain there but away from home the first job is to make yourself hard to beat, keep a clean sheet and to frustrate the opposition - then, if you can nick a goal or two, so much the better. Play the percentages.
Allardyce owns up that they entertained yesterday at Citeh but that when he woke up this morning and read the newspapers they had still lost 3-1 and that if you asked their fans whether they'd have preferred the journey home with a point or three and less entertainment to what they actually got then he was pretty sure what the answer would be. I am too, being the veteran of many such fruitless quests in The Away End.
It isn't said in so many words but you can see that their conclusion is that we're in for a long hard season of struggle. As Ian, pointed out about a previous Prem season of ours where we entertained a lot and lost, the opposition fans would say, 'good game, you played well - thanks for the three points.' We were relegated.
You can't help, again, resenting the hell out of Allardyce and Speed but you also know they're right.
With Citeh, Chelski and Manchester United to come in our next three the 'ten game test' (where you are after ten games is a strong indicator of where you'll finish) may very well see us flirting too closely with the bottom three and maybe on a run of five consecutive defeats.
The style Citeh are playing this season is exactly suited to giving us a hiding next week if we play the way we did today and at West Ham.
My only hope of avoiding this is Ian's mantra that you always pick up a point or two where you don't expect to.
In his post match interview Gate is in his best 'Marvin the Paranoid Android' mode. Mrs Gate had better hide the tablets and anything sharp! OK, he keeps taking it on the chin, game after game, and owning up that we didn't deserve anything. He says that we lost the one on one battles all over the pitch - which, curiously, is one thing I didn't think we did.
He rightly refuses to accept 'unlucky' as 'a song we've sung too often this season already' but he offers nothing to explain why we're shipping goals by the bucket load and not scoring when we have chances or why he insists on playing the way he does which makes us easy to beat away from home and has seen us draw too many at home that we could have won.
He also doesn't offer anything about what he's going to do to put it right. If he plays Lee again next week, however many forwards we've got out, I'll be sure he doesn't know what to do. Then we really are in trouble.
The only two consolations I've got are that I didn't pay £70+ for tickets and the same again for transport and grub, even though I'd always prefer to be there as not, and that those who were in The Away End again did us proud with the volume and consistency of their support throughout.
We all deserve better from our team but those guys most of all.
The Away End will return after the Citeh game next weekend.
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John Powls is a published poet with five books of his work in print. He is a regular performer of his work at major literary festivals and exhibitions in the UK and America, often working with musicians, painters with photographer Carol Ballenger.
Check out Red Shoes 250 for more of John Powls, right here.
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