THE AWAY END
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY v MIDDLESBROUGH
John Powls, 16 Sep 2009
The Build Up To The Game
The websites in the last few days have been divided between the rumours on the possible 'all MFC can afford' incoming loans that have ebbed and flowed more regularly than the tide on Redcar beach, and the response to last Saturday's win against Ipswich.
For me, this showed the expected perspicacity of yer average Boro fan.
This was because they know the lever to Boro stepping up will be fashioned from two highly inter-related raw materials:
1) Consistent, high standards of team and individual performance and
2) Strengthening the squad in key positions, initially by loans.
At the eleventh hour, it transpired that all the rumours about St. Ledger - dicky knee and all - having waved goodbye at Deepdale on Saturday meant something! The Ireland international signed on loan and went straight into the Boro squad for this one.
Excellent news - we hoped a striker and midfielder would follow - but the concentration still had to be on improving team and individual performance.
Most, including Gate, agreed that improved performance was needed. The manager's praise for the win and the goals, rather than every aspect of the way the win was got, last Saturday against Ipswich was spot on according to posters to message boards.
But lots also agreed that winning when you are not at your best is a good trait to have and you can't argue with third place, thirteen points from six and a goal difference of plus six at this formative stage of the season.
The MFC website produced another little curiosity that drew our attention. In terms of marshalling Boro's limited existing resources, Joe Bennett had been held back from the U20's Cyprus training camp but Jason Steele, understandably, and Josh Walker had been allowed to go.
If Josh Walker was unclear what Gate was trying to say to him during the transfer window when he implied that he could go if he could find another club, this will have brought the message home with the greatest of force. The reasons why this is the case, though, are less clear.
Although he fessed up to being the 'Alves Numpty', The Count's appearance on Ali B's show last Friday caused barely a ripple. Was that because only I was listening and only a few more phoned in, including one lady who must have been Gate's Auntie?!
Phil and I discussed whether the Boro team could be 'at it', both individually and collectively for this one.
Would they take their chances like they did against Ipswich but stay organised, concentrated for the full game and 'on the front foot'? In Gate's words, could they 'get ruthless'?
If so, then we thought a point was well within their grasp and three were possible in front of what was likely to be more than two thousand travelling Boro fans in The Away End.
Column Continues Below...
The Game
The raucous chorus in The Away End that had been in good voice from well before kick-off was stunned to near silence in the opening moments by the sort of set-back that gave everyone time to reflect on whether the team had actually listened to Gate's words about concentration.
Wednesday striker Luke Varney is a product of the Dario Gradi production line at Crewe and a contemporary there of Nicky Maynard - Boro's tormentor at Ashton Gate.
Maybe it shouldn't have come as a surprise, then, that Varney's opener for The Owls had the same hallmark as Maynard's for Bristol a couple of weeks ago. Phil and I certainly suffered from the feeling of 'déjà vu'.
This time it was a striker using his strength and technique to roll Seb Hines - rather than Jon Grounds - out on the left. Varney lashed a powerful shot in off the bar above Danny Coyne. It was like a punch in the gut to The Away End and probably to the team too.
For the first time this season, and despite the quality of the finish, Phil and I had cause to muse whether the Welsh keeper might have done better and whether his lack of inches had cost Boro. Certainly, he never got near this effort.
But once The Tee-Tee-Teessiders had cleared their heads, both the young centre-back and the goalkeeper - with some smart saves and good organisation - were key parts of an effective rearguard unit that were more and more in control of the Sheffield attack the longer the game went on.
But in the opening quarter of an hour, The Owls front two - Varney and four-goals-in-three Tudgay - ably abetted by Jermaine Johnson, were lively as they looked to build on their lead. But it was another Johnson who had the next key moment in the game.
If last Saturday wasn't Johnno's day, this was definitely his evening, as both managers attested in their post match interviews.
Whether it was his set pieces, his driving runs stretching Sheffield's resources, or his relieving of the defence by taking the out ball and moving forward with several markers in close attendance - he was the class act.
So, it was no surprise that on nineteen the Boro left winger took a free-kick on the right wing. It was one of those wicked curling, driving efforts that flights, arcs and dips into the area and towards the far post.
The keeper can't come for it in case an attacker gets a head to it but he knows that unless someone heads it away, it's going into the corner of his net. Defenders are forced to try to deal with it by running towards their own goal and are both tempted and dared to make contact.
Darren Purse was the one who couldn't resist either provocation and, inevitably, headed unstoppably into his own goal past Lee Grant. Cue the E-I-Os in The Away End.
This was the sort of committed game that we are becoming used to in The Championship - a league that is short on quality but not on 'thud value'.
It was something of a surprise, then, that with both sides striving for the vital second goal, it was a clash between two Wednesday players that brought the evening's worst injury.
Lee Beevers was The Owls' only change from their previous game. He replaced the injured Richard Wood, who was sidelined with a groin injury.
He chased back to snuff out danger from a defence splitting Boro through ball and met Lee Grant coming the other way with the same aim. The two collided.
Even from The Away End at the far end of the pitch, you knew it was serious and there was a long stoppage whilst the Wednesday defender was treated and then stretchered off to generous applause from all the ground.
At half-time, Phil and I wondered whether Boro could 'get ruthless', get the next goal and go on to win - and whether The Away End would get the first glimpse of 'Ledge', as he's known apparently.
By the final whistle it would be full house, although there was still work to be done.
Gate had kept the same midfield from last Saturday and they duly stepped up their performance. Williams was quietly steady and effective again and Arca probed. Gary O'Neil was all energy and drive and seems to thrive on being the 'walking wounded'.
He picked up an extravagant bandage on a head wound for his pains, and Boro endured their most nervy ten minutes whilst he was off being stitched when The Reds were down to ten. But by then, The Teessiders were already ahead.
The newly muscled-up Jezza is surely trying to swap the 'Femmer Frenchie' tag for 'Gallic Goal Grabber' - well, just so long as it doesn't appear on a banner at the back of the South-East corner of The Riverside, which is the kiss of death to Boro 'goalscorers'.
Five minutes into the second period and for the second game in a row, he latched on to a perfect through ball to feet from Marvin Emnes. He turned and shot across the keeper into the corner.
It was delightfully executed, with the sort of technical skill that Elle Brunton gets so frustrated with him about for only showing us fitfully.
Wednesday tried to force their way back into the game but the harder they tried, the more organised and obdurate Boro's defending became.
Boro's travelling support got their first look at Sean St. Ledger when he replaced Tony McMahon towards the close. He slotted in well, without disrupting the strong defensive pattern led by The Redcar Rock.
McMahon had built up a reservoir of good will at Hillsborough from his time there on loan and his departure from the field was generously applauded all round the ground.
Despite not looking as though they would concede, a third Boro goal for insurance and to calm The Away End concerns was welcome. It came from Johnno and it rounded off his performance in just the right way.
The ball dropped to him on the left of the penalty area from a right wing O'Neil cross.
He controlled it, cut inside and across two blue and white striped defenders to work himself an opening that he exploited with a beautifully fashioned right foot shot around Lee Grant.
All that was left was for The Away End to have several minutes of unalloyed pleasure in a deserved win, a professional job well done by Gate and the team and - as news filtered through via tannoy and radio - second place in The Championship due to The Baggies having won by the same margin at The Hawthorns and The Barcodes not playing until the following evening.
But, boy, it felt good!
Later
Post-match, both managers had praise for Johnno's performance.
The self-styled 'best right full-back Boro ever had', Brian Laws, also took solace that Wednesday wouldn't have to meet too many teams of The Reds' quality in the rest of the season.
Radio, TV and written media commentators were equally generous - but in the less than generous coverage that Boro and The Championship attract. You had to wade through the subs awful owl and horse-racing punnery, though.
Gate said that, "You win on team performance and it had to be gritty and resilient but a couple of moments of class from Jeremie and Adam won us the game."
In 'The Build Up To The Game' above, I argued that the lever to Boro's season being successful will be fashioned from consistent, high standards of team and individual performance and strengthening the squad in key positions, initially by loans.
With on-loan Sean St. Ledger getting his first game time in a Boro shirt on the day he arrived and the rest showing those high standards, this was the best way to build on the Ipswich win.
It was also the best way to prepare for the visit of front runners, The Baggies, to The Riverside at the weekend.
More of the same on the field - and, hopefully, more loans of St. Ledger's quality up front and for centre midfield - should give Boro the kind of continuity and momentum they need for one of the key confrontations of the season and beyond.
The Away End will return after the Coventry game on 26 September.
