THE TORONTO-ON-TEES COLUMN 9-10-08
Tom Mack

Firstly, let me make a public apology to my boys in Toronto, who were aghast last month at being portrayed as tucking into beers at 10:30am on the day of the Boro v Liverpool game.

So I hereby formally apologise for painting them in such an appalling light. They started at 9:30am. Sorry boys.

Anyhow my bags are packed, the flights are booked and the city awaits.

From the 6th, I’ll be hauling myself out of bed at 9am on a Saturday morning and stumbling through the -30C winter to find a sports bar brave enough to ignore the ice hockey, basketball and NFL to show the Boro in all their glory.

So, where to begin? Since my last column, everything seems to have lurched towards the all too familiar.

The excitement of that early victory over Tottenham, the commendable display against Liverpool and the newly innovative and expansive philosophy all seem to have hit the skids somewhat.

And I wrote the majority of this passage before the West Brom game, so now I’m really worried.

Let’s look back on what’s been happening this month…

In defeating Stoke, I found myself happier with the boys than the performance on the day warranted. Granted, we laboured to defeat a side not only hotly tipped for relegation, but who were reduced to ten men for the majority of the game.

Our finishing was as lacklustre as last season, with our forwards spurning chance after chance, and, in Downing’s case, a penalty.

We also had our usual quota of defensive calamity – Hoyte scoring an own goal on his debut.

But what gave me such grounds for satisfaction was that last season, we’d have probably lost or drawn that game. These were odds in our favour as against lesser opposition we had become accustomed to disappointment.

So how good was it to see us dig in and pull off a victory? Finally, I thought, we’ve proved, not only to everyone else but more so ourselves, that this year we’re not going to be the boys who’ll take apart the top four teams one week and underwhelm against Bolton, Fulham, Sunderland the next.

And then we went and lost to Portsmouth. But getting a win at Fratton Park is a tough proposition. Given that we seem to accept that Pompey are a realistic measuring stick of where we want to be in eighteen months, we can’t expect a result there.

Of course it’s hugely frustrating to surrender a lead but on reflection, it was still a fairly encouraging performance.

The Sunderland result not only shocked, appalled, sickened and revolted me, but also planted the first seeds of genuine concern.

I really can’t articulate just how frustrating it is to see us play our local rivals off their own pitch, only to lose focus in the final third and let them steal it from under our noses.

It was the same old issues yet again. We were creeping back into last season’s modus operandi – showing tantalising glimpses of form only to spurn chance after chance, bottle penalties, switch off and become panicked by the occasion.

I know that looking at the bigger picture, we have to be confident that we are moving in the right direction and I have no reason whatsoever to criticise Gareth or his coaching staff. I’m a huge fan of his school of thought, his vision for the future and the style he is trying to implement. And I’m equally confident that we’ll finish higher than Sunderland – it just stings, that’s all.

West Brom – what can I say? WE NEED GOALS. GOALS GOALS GOALS. FINISH YOUR CHANCES. Same old same old.

I feel genuinely sorry for Turnbull, who really has risen to the challenge over the last few weeks and again pulled off some splendid saves. He just has a nasty habit of dropping a clanger to make you forget the good stuff. But I saw Schwarzer concede worse, so I won’t be clamouring for a new keeper just yet.

Other than that, what can be written about that game that wasn't written for most of our fixtures last year? That, in itself, is the biggest frustration of all.

So I’ll elaborate on the points of concern.

Firstly, let’s address the need for goals. Now I know that, when filling in my writer’s predictions for the season, I spoke confidently about how Alves would be our top scorer given a little more time to acclimatise.

And I still think that he’ll do that. It just irks me that we’ve already seen him waste a fair number of gilt-edge chances – at Sunderland when in a one-on-one against Gordon and missing several sitters against Stoke, for example. I’m just not seeing the killer instinct quite yet.

He strikes a beautiful dead ball and has some beautiful touches but we bought him to be an out and out goalscorer and that’s what we need. The West Brom game threw up several chances that you’d expect your average poacher to tuck away automatically and we’re just not getting that.

Mido made a great start to the season but he’s ridiculously injury prone and still carrying some extra weight.

I love Tuncay but he’s not an out and out goalscorer, nor is Aliadiere.

So it’s essential that we have someone who we can rely on to bury his chance nine times out of ten.

As it is, when Alves and Mido are firing blanks, as was the case on Saturday, we don’t really seem to have a reliable or effective plan B to fall back on.

Another big issue for me seems to have been temporarily remedied by Pogatetz’s horrific challenge in last week's defeat to Manchester United.

For me, Pogatetz should not be our starting centre back. It appears to me that Gareth views his defence as something of an embarrassment of riches and has tried to accommodate every player in some way – hence his decision to deploy Wheater at right back and use Poggy and Huth in the centre.

I don’t think I’m alone in wanting to see Wheater start in the middle ahead of Poggy. The guy was our best performer in that position last season and should be an instant starter.

The selection of a capable right back should not be an issue as we were told that in selling Young, the club had a first choice replacement lined up. Hoyte should be treated as such.

Leadership is another worrying factor. We’ve always been used to having a captain who is capable of leading by example, someone able to grab the team single handedly and drag them into the game. Boateng, Southgate, Pearson are such examples.

But it’s becoming apparent that, for all our youth and creativity, we seem to suffer from a lack of on-field command.

Remember how Arca’s form dipped when he was handed the captain’s armband last year?

Downing doesn’t seem capable of filling the role at the moment, especially with his recent dips in confidence, and he’s too valuable an asset to lumber with unwanted responsibilities.

Pogatetz is a fiery character and seems to be most suited to the role, but the captain should be a regular first XI starter, and, as I’ve said, I don’t think Poggy is.

What I’d really like to see is Huth or Wheater rising to the challenge – a big defender of proven pedigree and equipped with the physical attritubes to stand up and be counted on a weekly basis.

Until someone of this nature steps up, I can see, with a few more defeats, the players beginning to flag and feel sorry for themselves. This cannot be allowed to happen.

And now our monthly update on the Boro boys blazing a trail in the MLS.

Marinelli is still dazzling the crowds at Kansas City, running out fifteen times this year and scoring a grand total of zero goals. Kansas are simply rotten, almost as bad as my boys Toronto.

Just above Kansas sits Jaime Moreno’s DC United, for whom Moreno is on fire, knocking in twenty-one in twenty-three starts. Neither side looks particularly capable of challenging for play-off spaces, particularly Kansas.

So that's it for another month from me. I’m off to Toronto.

Join me next month to find if my status on the site rewards me a place in the notoriously selective Boro fan cub of Canada, and, if successful, whether I survive the initiation process, which I’m sure will involve some act of buffoonery targeted at some Liverpool fans.

Up the Boro!

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