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THE AWAY END - EWOOD PARK 21-1-08
John Powls
The Build Up To The Game
The Boro e-transfer rumour mill was in overdrive - always presuming you dodged the endless speculation on non-Boro websites about who was going to oversee that train wreck known as The Skunks before Keegan stuck his head in the noose again.
The only really eligible candidates for that job must - like in Catch 22 - have to be certifiably insane. Keegan is going to have to change his name to Yossarian, particularly since it's his second tour.
I was a bit sad for Big Nige (though for no-one else in black and white - I was too busy laughing) having to explain the 6-0 hammering at ManUre. Why don't you pop down the road Nige? You know it makes sense.
There was some fun to be had as The Ex tried to promote himself as a candidate and to link up with Round again. If they'd thought they had problems with dull football under Fat Sam...
My only real interest in all of this was whether the now faded speculation about Mark Hughes and The Barcodes would unsettle him and his team for our game. Unworthy? Maybe, but hey, we needed all the help we could get.
There was also the farce that is the transfer window. If we weren't so desperate for goals we would surely be happy to see it all over. Phil and I wondered whether it would be parmo or pretzel for our Stewie by the end of January. How could MFC even contemplate letting him go?
We have been continually linked with Afonso Alves, though who signed which contract with whom and which of the organisations, football clubs or Joorabchian Inc, we were going to sign him from got murkier as the week progressed.
The whole thing got a twist with the "was he/wasn't he" picture of him on the Riverside turf with Gate and Gibbo and another with the KNVB hearing which delayed things again while it failed to sort out the mess.
We've also been linked with the man with the most prosaic Brazilian monicker ever - Fred. Where have the days gone when they use to call themselves Socrates or some such?
Rumours were that if we failed with Fred, The Count might have approached another Brazilian he'd heard was a mate of Fred - Dino. (If you need me to explain, you're too young!)
All this fevered speculation, and the mixture of excitement and frustration it caused, had somewhat overwhelmed consideration of the bipolar feelings that we all had about the Liverpool game.
To sum up the postings - good result and performance. If we had had a striker we would have taken all three points. We coped with (yet another) rash of illness and injury and as a result we discovered a new Academy graduate.
BUT look at where that has left us in the league - one point off a relegation place and in a clutch of other strugglers. A defeat or a draw at Blackburn - where we have not usually done well - could see us in the bottom three again if other results went the wrong way. Lawro (thank goodness!) and all the Sky panel backed us to lose.
It just went to show the slippery slope that our first half of the season results had put us on. What was more, we were at the bottom of the slippery slope, nearest the abyss and at the point where it was steepest and at its most slippery. Getting traction to move up and away would be hard but we needed to get something - actually three somethings but definitely not a nothing - from this game.
One other talking point on the websites was the size of the crowd at the Liverpool game. Where did the extra seven thousand come from all of a sudden? For all the speculation, I haven't yet seen an explanation for it, very welcome though it was.
In all the hoo-ha Mido had almost become the forgotten man. Would that stir him and his pubic bone off the treatment table? No.
There was other good news about fitness but you never can tell until the team runs out, or at least gets off the coach.
And then, of course, Woody didn't even get on the coach let alone get off it. With the form of Huth and Wheats, he stood a chance of becoming a forgotten man too. I hoped Gate has told him so.
The Game
Well, we would have all settled for a draw before the game but at the end it felt more like a defeat, although it could have been worse.
Boro played well. It was one of our best away performances in a season that is becoming notable for such and we should have won.
But we could have lost because they had people who could score a goal from few chances and we had people up front for whom "cow's arse" and "banjo" seemed to have been invented.
MFC couldn't blame anyone else for that. Everyone knew it in August and we didn't do anything about it. We were now more than half way through January and we still hadn't done anything about it. We have scored fewer goals than anyone except Derby so, no surprise, but it hasn't stopped Boro fans rightly being frustrated at results like this.
The was a healthy Away End again but in the vast expanse of blue plastic desert that was Ewood Park it looked, as always, isolated and half-full. But the noise was good.
The Boat has clearly shot his bolt with Gate as Arca was captain.
They were treated to an opening that was as much freestyle Greco-Roman wrestling as football. Not a surprise on this ground against a Mark Hughes side which always seemed to take the "you have to win the battle first" more literally than most. And that was even with Savage gone.
With defences on top it was a surprise when the "Boro Beckenbauer" loped forward into the box and wasn't tracked back by Roberts, with whom he had, up until then, been trying to share a shirt. Wheats met (yet another!) Stewie pinpoint dead-ball cross without breaking stride at the back stick and we were one up.
The goal livened up the game and both teams became more urgent and "have a go". Blackburn were encouraged by Schwarz doing his best Eddie Scissorhands (his agent should have talked to Tim Burton about the sequel by now) and Ooijer almost profited. Santa Cruz's recent reliability in front of goal also let him down twice.
Boro gave as good as they got and refused to sit back with the outstanding Gary O'Neil, not for the first time, involved in most of the good stuff. He gave Tuncay the first of many opportunities that he would squander.
The meaty challenges continued and Arca was on the end of a couple. He was clearly suffering as half time approached.
So was the referee's performance. Mr Stroud was losing his grip on the game and his inexperience in Premiership games showed. By half time he had the distinction of being booed by both sets of fans!
Arca didn't make it out for the second half and was replaced by Rocky in midfield and by Pogo as captain - so far has The Boat fallen from grace in this respect. That may be so but tossing the armband round the side as sometimes happens with late subs didn't seem right. In my view O'Neil, as the best on field example, should take the role permanently.
Boro started the second half well and also started the most amazing sequence of missed chances. "Profligate" hardly did it justice. Aliadiere started it, then Tuncay had one of those "harder to miss" moments when he inexplicably tried to take a tap in with his right foot instead of his better left.
A Rocky piledriver free kick came back off Friedel's chest and we couldn't take advantage. Hughes made a couple of substitutions that were some indication of the way he felt it was going but it made no difference to start with.
There was further indication of the official's loss of control when a couple of beefy challenges provoked a row on the pitch and a confrontation between Gate and Coops on one side and Hughes on the other, separated by the fourth official. Later, Gate said that it was never going to go any further because Hughes was "too big for both of us" and Hughes also laughed it off as being like taking on two centre halves he'd enjoyed tussling with when they were playing.
Luke Young has also said that he and other players from both sides had had words with the referee at half time and full time about his performance. I understand the comments may have been sufficiently inflammatory to be headlined in the Monday newspapers. I hoped that that doesn't have repercussions for player or for club.
Again, the Boro Beckenbauer strode forward in a carbon copy of his goal but thudded this header against the bar and we didn't pick up the pieces. That disappointment seemed to make Boro's heads drop for a moment but that was as much as Blackburn's forwards needed.
Roberts, who kept trying though he had been shackled all afternoon, caused the ball to break free in the area to their substitute Derbyshire. He had broken hearts at The Riverside earlier in the season and this time he gave us another lesson in finishing - one chance, one shot on target, one goal, one point.
Phil and I worried that they would go on to win but, truth be told, either side could have taken it. Eddie Scissorhands had our hearts in our mouths a couple of times scrambling after long range efforts, whilst at the other end, a Stewie header was cleared off their line and Aliadiere managed to head a bouncing cross over from three yards out.
In his post-match interview Gate rightly said that they should have been dead and buried long before they scored and that he was disappointed with a draw. Quite. But what had been done about it or what would be?
I also heard an interview with Wheats who was slightly embarrassed with the "Beckenbauer" tag but was justly forthright in saying that the team shouldn't have to be relying on his goals and that not scoring enough was putting too much onus on our defence. He was directly critical of our strikers by name for not taking their chances.
Phil and I wondered if Gate would talk to Hughes about Roberts over their post match glass of wine. If not, why not? If that succeeded then we could blow Fred out publicly and put the pressure on Alves and his representatives to sort out the contract mess in Holland.
Later...
Phil said, rightly, that the Premiership had now neatly divided into two halves. After the Sunday games there was an eleven point gap between us and the Hammers in tenth. We're not going to make that up.
Our only Premiership goal now, beyond survival, is to finish top of the "Bottom Half League". The first priority, however, is six wins for forty points and with as many of those wins (and certainly no defeats) against the teams also in the BHL. A win in this game - particularly with the results around us - would have given us a little breathing space but with a draw it was still too close for anything like comfort.
We need to start against Wigan in a week's time. MFC must make sure that Boro start that game with two strikers who know how to put chances away! Wigan's defence under Mrs. Doubtfire's management is still dodgy but they have plenty going forward and are quick and strong. We should be able to cope with their attack but, dodgy or not, you still have to convert what you create.
We could supplement that BHL struggle with a cup run. The fourth round draw means that there could - without too much stretch of the imagination - only be nine Premiership teams in the hat for the fifth round. We must make sure against Mansfield - no weakened team and subs only when we've won the tie at the first time of asking.
A win would do us the world of good but a humiliating defeat or even a draw and a replay could harm our Premiership BHL prospects. It is live on BBC so they clearly expect us to slip on the banana skin. We must not give them the satisfaction. It would also be a good chance to blood a returning Mido and any new strikers before the Wigan game.
On MOTD the disgraceful fawning over Keegan continued with The Barcodes non-event of a game given top billing. It was supplemented by Lineker and Hansen brown-nosing Shearer who was clearly miffed at having not got the job.
Typically, we were shunted down the bill again, despite our game - unlike The Barcodes - having actually had goals, chances and some action worth showing. This was all the more odd as Lineker revealed that the MOTD Editor was a Boro fan! He had, according to Lineker, been replaying Tuncay's miss over and over, not having been able to believe it.
A little piece of history was made when Tuncay's sweep volley against Derby was made Goal Of The Month - our second month in a row. Lineker clearly didn't agree as he said to blame Lawro for the choice.
"Yerjokin'aren'ya" Quote of the Week
"He's not the Messiah - he's just a very bad manager."
Freely adapted by The Times from The Life of Brian captioning a picture of Keegan with Terry Jones. They might have added that the Skunks crowd will begin by demanding miracles and will end up wanting to crucify him. True to form, though, Keegan will walk away whistling "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" before they get the chance.
The Away End will be back after the Mansfield Cup Tie on 26 January.
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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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