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THE ROCKLIFFE
FILES - PROGRESS OR REGRESS? 1-9-08
Toby Higgins
Sometimes, I wish football was played on paper. It’d
make gambling so much easier, for a start.
The topsy turvy nature of football, and the inclusion of a
ball, grass and players, means football can’t be played on
paper, and means that it can, sometimes, be quite interesting.
If football was played on paper though, this weekend would
have been mightily more enjoyable, and profitable.
Trying to surmise a season in the first three weeks is nothing
short of impossible – and yet every week, we sit here, trying
to swim against the tide of questions and theories and ideas,
in trying to figure out where it went wrong, what we did right,
and what we should do next time.
We do all this in the name of progress.
I feel for Southgate in many ways. We hear, particularly recently,
of ‘rookie’ managers taking on jobs within the football league,
whether it be Ince at the MK Dons, Keane at Sunderland, or
McAllister at Leeds.
The difference with each of those managers and Southgate is
the position of the club when they took over. Wimbledon, Leeds
and Sunderland have all had their halcyon days, their Cup wins
and European nights, and yet, at the time the rookies taking
control, none of the clubs were in the country’s top division.
Each was flirting with less fancyable teams, knowing they could,
and should, be doing so much better. Each was in the football
equivalent of a mid-life crisis, remembering the days when
they were the studs in this country. When Keane et al took
over, things couldn’t get much worse.
By contrast, Southgate took over at the most difficult time.
Not only did he follow the most successful Boro manager ever
(despite his distinguished unlikeability, McClaren was just
that), but his first game in charge, the 3-2 defeat at Reading,
was the first competitive game since the UEFA Cup final, Boro’s
biggest ever game. When Southgate arrived, we were the best
we’ve ever been.
It makes poking holes through everything he does rather easy
to do. As much as McClaren was unpopular, what he did for the
club and it’s status cannot be argued with, and Southgate has
had his work cut out to keep us there. It’s why many, including
myself, questioned his appointment almost to the point of criticism.
The big thing we’ve wanted from Southgate is to see progress – any
football fan wants to see it, or at least to feel it. Why are
West Ham fans booing a manager who in two years has saved them
from relegation and guided them to a top ten finish? Because
they don’t feel like they’re moving forward anymore.
Given what happened last season, we had plenty to improve on.
While we created many chances, we lacked a striker to convert
them, and had a nasty tendency to sit back on one goal leads,
and let them slip in the last twenty minutes after looking
so comfortable for so long.
If football was played on paper, we’d have trounced Stoke.
But it isn’t. And we didn’t. Even against ten men we conspired
to miss chance after chance, including Downing’s 63rd minute
penalty miss, and then, just into the final third of the game,
we gave them a lifeline. This time, we grabbed a late winner.
We won’t be able to do that every week.
So, is that progress? We didn’t look great, but won. Winning ‘ugly’,
and winning when you don’t play well, is how good teams achieve
things. We did that on Saturday. We rarely did it last season.
Progress? Yes.
On the other hand, the game should have been dead and six feet
under a long, long time before Stoke’s leveller, which was
in the last twenty minutes and which only came about because
of the aforementioned wasted chances. We did this often last
season. Progress? Honestly? Probably not.
Southgate has admitted that he is learning, particularly from
mistakes. About the decision to let Chris Riggott go out on
loan last season, ironically, to Stoke, Southgate said, “With
Chris, I learned a lesson that I need to pick players on form,
not reputation”
That was wrong. Southgate hasn’t learned his lesson at all.
Andrew Taylor, a solid performer during the opening weeks,
and indeed, his opening years in the Boro first team, was unceremoniously
ousted from left back to accommodate new arrival Justine Hoyte,
while skipper Pogatetz, a comparatively inadequate left back,
held took Taylor’s place.
The same goes up front. Mido, having battled against critics
and jeers from opposition fans as well as a sizable chunk of
his own, has scored three goals in three appearances this season,
while Alves and Tuncay hadn’t mustered one between them, and
yet Mido started on the bench.
The fact Alves and Tuncay both scored on Saturday does little
to deter from Southgate’s comments at the end of last season
about form and reputation. One of the pair, probably the more
expensive, more Brazilian one, should have been dropped to
the bench, because Mido deserved a start. If three in three
isn’t enough to get a start, it’s hardly surprising the Egyptian
is considering a move elsewhere.
Is that progress? Southgate said he’d learned a lesson, but
clearly, he hadn’t. He, and therefore, we, got lucky against
Stoke. Yes, we battled until the end, and yes, we might have
been a little unlucky at Anfield last weekend and thus due
a slice of fortune, but all the bad elements of last seasons
formula were still floating on the surface as we scraped through.
But scrap through we did, and that is the progress we all strive
for the club, and Southgate, to achieve.
Hopefully, this weekend’s team selection will have actually
taught Southgate something. If you haven’t learned a lesson,
don’t pretend you have, because when it comes to the test,
you’ll fail.
I bet if Mido reads this article he’ll feel that last May Southgate
made an empty promise not to pick reputation’s on form. If
it continues, keeping everyone happy might prove impossible.
Preaching to players that they must earn the right to play
is fine, so long as you’re prepared and are brave enough to
live up to your side of the deal should they live up to theirs.
That would be progress.
Until next time,
Up the Boro.
BACK TO THE ROCKLIFFE
FILES AND TotT INDEX
CREDIT CRUNCH RELIEF - A GUARANTEED PROFIT OF AT LEAST £43.60 ON MANCHESTER CITY v ARSENAL
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