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THE AWAY END - FIELD MILL 28-1-08
John Powls
The Build Up To The Game
The websites this week have continued to be dominated by transfer window sagas. The Alves and Fred show rumbled on. Events in Holland resembled a very poor episode of Judge John Deed, only without the sex, but by the end of the week we seemed to be back to "normal" negotiations around the Alves move. No chickens counted yet, though.
Meanwhile in Lyon/Bedrock it looked like Fred was staying put (with Dino).
We weren't out of the woods either on the "Parmo or Pretzel for Stewie" saga. It was said that Gibbo and Stewie met on Thursday to settle his future. Phil and I hoped that Gibbo had been at his most persuasive and that a deal had been done to keep him at Boro. What point was there in trying to sign a "top gun" striker if you've sold your ace, and usually only, bullet maker?
Toward the end of the week the almost forgotten man - Woody - looked set to remain both out of sight and mind. This was not just because of injury but also because he was said to be on the move with the choice of parmos, pretzels or stotties.
Rumours also surfaced that Hutchinson had been snatched from under our noses by Celtic. If true, it was another one of those contract debacles for which MFC has become notorious.
Gate confirmed that he had sunk The Boat from his job as Captain to "allow him to concentrate on his football". That reminded me of politicians wanting to "spend more time with their family".
But The Boat seemed to have got his toys back in the pram and there was nothing more about him going from his agent. Good luck to Julio Arca who was Gate's choice to take the responsibility.
On to the business in hand. The third round of the FA Cup was for Boro, as it should have been, something of a break from the disappointments of our league campaign.
If you're a Premiership side against a lower league outfit then you must put on a professional display, get into the game and cope with the conditions. However you must then make your Premier League credentials tell. At this time of the season, you win at the first time of asking, if possible.
So job well done against Bristol City. Same again against Mansfield.
Just like the last round, we had been singled out as "banana skin in waiting" and for that reason we were live on BBC1, but with their "third team" of commentators and pundits out. Elsewhere, Lawro for once had backed us to win two nil. Phil and I hoped this wasn't a bad omen.
By my calculation, even without shocks, there could be as few as six Premiership clubs in the fifth round draw so this may be a good year for a Cup run.
Had we learned the lesson from the last round - not just from our game but from others who were less successful? Despite the six-pointer against Wigan only a few days away, would we play our strongest side at the start and do a professional job?
Would we actually see Mido and his fabled pubic bone at some point in the game? Last week, he played forty-five minutes against the Barcodes' reserves at Synthonia's ground. This was at more or less the same time as he would otherwise have been playing against Cameroon in Ghana with Shawky - sublime to cor blimey, or what!
On the positive side of Woody's absence, would the Boro Beckenbauer rifle in another match winner having loped up untracked from the back?
Who, and which Boro, would get off the team coach today?
On a bright but windy day, it was another sell out of The Away End at Field Mill and the Boro Boys were in good voice. Together with the home crowd, they made for a good atmosphere.
Mansfield had a decent but sloping pitch. My supplier of local intelligence, my good mate Ian from Derby, told me that they have frequently been the first Notts team to postpone due to wet weather so, given the recent monsoon conditions, how would it play?
Only three sides of the ground were open and Ian says the organisation has sometimes been pretty poor over people sitting in the wrong seats. They have Michael Boulding up front who scores all their goals and has been pretty useful in his time - even being linked with Boro a few years ago. The rest haven't created much and their league position told its own story. But this was the FA Cup and we've slipped up before.
The Game
With O'Neil not fit, Woody shuttling between Tyne and Thames and Tuncay rested, Gate started with the same 4-3-3 set up as against Bristol City in the last round but with what the Beeb commentators rightly said was a weakened side with Simba and Johnno up front with Aliadiere, and Catts and Rocky with Arca in midfield. Interestingly, though, Southgate kept our strongest defence.
It looked unlikely we'd lose - but how would we win? Maybe the answer lay on the bench where Stewie, Mido and his pubic bone lurked!
Well, overall, you've got to say that only the result matters in these games. We won and we are in the hat for the next round. But, despite some joy for connoisseurs of "thud and blunder" - of which there was no shortage in the home crowd and The Away End - this was poor stuff.
They were ninety-first in the league rankings and played better, as was expected. We were thirteenth and played like we aspired to be ninetieth. Admittedly the bumpy pudding of a pitch and the strong, blustery wind didn't help but from a pretty early stage we abandoned Premiership class in favour of "sleeves rolled up and get stuck in".
We didn't get out of our half much in the first fifteen minutes and looked like we just weren't at it. But, gradually, we adjusted and started to press. With virtually our first foray up field we forced corners. With Aliadiere and his marker blocking their keeper and a vicious Johnno in-swinger mayhem ensued in a packed box.
It looked like the Boro Beckenbauer would poke it home but he did a Boro Bambi. The ball shanked left to a space vacated by their ball-watching defence where Simba stood alone. You wondered how we was going to contrive to miss it but his usually unerring goal shyness momentarily deserted him and he shot home from five yards to give us the lead.
You might have thought that we'd relax and assert ourselves. We tried a little and that resulted in lots of possession but led to us going nowhere and giving the ball away. Johnno was particularly at fault. Mansfield redoubled their efforts so Huth tried to dissuade Boulding by attempting to disembowel him with his studs.
The Away End held its breath. It was an awful challenge - a straight legged follow through after Huth had cleared the ball - and totally unnecessary in the cause of the game or indeed in protecting himself from a player half his size. He could have seen red but in the end it was yellow. That warning didn't stop him careering about looking for trouble until Gate clearly had a word at half time.
Nor did it stop Boulding either. He was allowed to run unchecked towards our box and produced a shot good enough to force a fingertip save from Schwarz on to the bar and over. From the resulting corner he was given time and space to shoot again but again Schwarz clawed the shot out from just under the bar.
From that point on our defence decided enough was enough and The Boro Beckenbauer reverted to being the Redcar Rock and joined the Berlin Wall alongside him to make sure that Mansfield didn't seriously threaten our goal for the rest of the game.
The only other noteworthy event of the half was when Simba - as if to re-assure us that the foundations of our world hadn't been undermined - tried to rival Tuncay for miss of the season, knowing he'd never challenge him on Goal of the Month.
Catts produced one of those passes which you know he has in his locker but uses too infrequently because he'd rather be a headless chicken than a predatory hawk. It cut out their full-back and found Aliadiere's clever run. He raced to the by-line and chipped a perfect cross on to Simba's head, five yards out. His header almost went for a throw rather than a goal kick.
Yet again Simba had shown his technique to be lamentable and his overall display, despite the goal, was embarrassing against a League Two defence who he was also no physical match for.
At half time our sixty-eight percent possession had got us only one goal and we had spent most of the time in our own half.
We lost Pogo at half time. It wasn't clear what the problem was and we could only hope that his removal was precautionary. We need him back for the Wigan game. We guessed what the problem would be for Boro when Arca went to left back.
The second half was an undistinguished battle with challenges flying in from both sides and the ball in the air all the time. The worst of the tackles, unsurprisingly, saw Catts booked. We missed Arca in midfield and he looked like we all remembered him at left back - like a fish on a bicycle.
As Gate said later, "We could have played better" but though they huffed and puffed, our central defenders in particular were sound and held out. Schwarz had no more serious work to do.
Gate introduced The Boat, Stewie and, for his long awaited return, Mido. Stewie and Mido showed enough touches of class to illustrate what we, and the game, had been missing.
As the game was petering out, Stewie found space on the left and galloped goalward. The Boat floated a raking cross from the right that stranded the aged Muggleton and was destined for Stewie to finish from a yard out. Buxton threw himself in the way and couldn't help himself netting an own goal.
Relieved though we were in The Away End it was a shame for Buxton who, along with Boulding, had been stand out on the day for Mansfield. And so, in the end, we edged through, into the draw for the next round and off to prepare for the vital six pointer against Wigan on Tuesday.
For the second time we had robbed the Beeb of their banana skin and they were suitably peeved. Stick to the ballroom dancing, love, the bitchiness comes off better there.
Later...
MotD relegated us, again, to their "naughty step" - the goals round up at the end - for having the temerity not to slip on the banana skin.
Lessons learned for Boro? I am indebted to Ian and Phil for providing this summary:
Arca gave a memorable display when he went to left back, certainly in keeping with the standard he set at Sunderland and for us in his early days. Drag backs, shimmies, clever flicks - he got them all wrong; poor positioning, silly passes. All of course with no cover behind him. Never again, please.
In the same way, Lee showed the difference between an international class striker and one from Korea.
Catts doesn't seem to learn.
Jinky is not yet a Stewie replacement. Get that contract sorted soon, please.
Aliadiere might be French for "better as a right sided provider" when we get a striker.
The Boat is still a random passing machine but is still trying (and sometimes very trying!).
We know where all the pies went. We have someone who can fill the surplus stock of Ricketts' shorts but at least the ball stuck and there were some neat lay-offs. Welcome back, Mid-o!
Young, Wheater, Huth and Pogatetz could have the same ring about it as Craggs, Boam, Maddren and Spraggon. As the epithet goes, "I don't know what they do to the opposition but, by God, they terrify me!"
"There's a load of balls on the pitch" can be both a description of the game and the Mansfield fans protest against their Board and Chairman.
"Boro creep closer to Alves deal" was a headline I read on Sunday morning. Which creep were they talking about, I wondered.
'Yerjokin'aren'ya' Quote of the Week
"I did not know anything about it. I did not see it."
Arsene Wenger's least surprising comment after the 5-1 defeat by Spurs, the rest of which he had perfect recall of - though he probably wished he hadn't.
The incident? Adebayor headbutting Bendtner, splitting his nose open, followed by Gallas shoving the Dane around under the guise of "breaking up the confrontation".
The Away End will be back after the Barcodes game on 3 February.
John will also be filing "One window closes, another slams shut in your face", a transfer window closes special on 1 February.
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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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A GUARANTEED PROFIT OF AT LEAST £41.20 ON PORTSMOUTH v FULHAM
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