Quo vadis?

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Sometimes dear reader(s), it feels as though all I do on these pages is moan. Post after post of errant whinging, as though Smog Blog is little more than an outlet for mine own frustration. Which, to some extent, is exactly what it is.

What irritates me most is that after three straight league defeats, which are linked directly to injuries and suspensions within the ranks, I’m being proved right in my whiny ways. This gives me no pleasure, not like turning the poor run into the odd victory in three would be a genuine mood lifter. I suppose I saw it coming, really. Winning games was great, especially when I thought we were due to pick up nothing but a long trip home (Cardiff, Leeds, Barnsley) and through luck/talent/oppositon imposion (delete as you see fit) strode away with the points sealed up in a big cotton sack marked SWAG. But back then, we had a more or less fully fit squad, or the lost players weren’t those who have turned out to be essential to the cause. Only now, we have a bit of an injury crisis, more suspensions following the Coventry defeat, and no one seems to know what we’re going to do about it. It’s as though Nicky Bailey was a powder keg – there’s always the possibility that he’ll blow up, but until then let’s just enjoy him rather than prepare for life without him…

Not that there’s an awful lot of point in going on to demand more players for the team. In the wake of Lukas Jutkiewicz’s signing, Mogga has gone on record to claim categorically that the spending has pretty much ended for this transfer window, indeed drafting in the Juke was a hangover from the bit of summer business we were unable to complete at the time. You can find your own reasons for the lack of funds – for me, the half-empty Riverside tells me pretty much everything I need to know. Mogga told the Gazette earlier in the week that clubs we deal with have a tendency to see us as the same moneyed bunch that once paid £12m for Alves, which is far from reality. Loan deals are the way to ease our way out of the malaise, apparently.

And that’s fine. I’ve heard comments over the last few days that the suspensions faced by Arca and Thomson after the Coventry defeat at least means Mogga doesn’t have to figure them into his team planning for Sunlun and can try something different. The hernia injury that will keep Zemmama out of the first team reckoning – which many might argue is the best place for him – adds to the headache, but in reality these players haven’t done much for the side in months. Thommo has been a particular disappointment. Long periods injured and brief hints of promise when he’s available, only to return to the treatment table when a gust of wind pushes his knee from its socket… Suddenly, here he is to save our season, and… he’s rubbish! Or misused. You decide, though my feeling is that his recent deployment in matches demands him to provide the basic, meat and drink service you’d expect from any central midfielder and it’s just not happening.

There are times when I find myself forced to revise the year of Strachan – given what Barry Robson, Nicky Bailey and, to a lesser (not to mention less consistent) extent, Scott McDonald, was there some method in his madness? Well, not sure. Robbo and Nicky have been excellent, but the £3.5m we shelled out for McDonald still sounds like at least two mill too much. And then there’s Thommo, who more and more appears to be a busted flush of a signing. Costly in terms of the amount of time he’s been out and, when he does show up for a string of matches, the basic ability to string a pass together looks to be beyond him. He cost us how much? £2m, you say? Sometimes, we’re really like one of those gullible, wealthy women walking, Amex in hand, into Harry Enfield’s Notting Hill antiques shop, aren’t we? I mean, bloody hell…

So an apology of sorts – I wasn’t going to bother after Coventry, in fairness. I knew it would be a bit of a moany rant, whatever my intentions when starting the piece, and it is one. Maybe it’s the case that we’re just not ready to go up this year, that Mogga will have to do some more selling/giving away in the summer in order to free up funds for his own players. Perhaps this is one of those post-Christmas slumps that used to be all the rage in the 80s/90s. It’s possible, probable even, that we’re just not as good as our league  position might suggest. Or all the above. I simply see a great first half of the campaign unravelling, which is a shame, though on the other hand there’s a suggestion it’s all we deserve. After all, the improved results haven’t converted into more bums on seats.

30. Lukas Jutkiewicz

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Nationality: England
Date of Birth:  28 March 1989
Height: 6′ 1″
Weight: 11st 8lbs
Signed from: Coventry City (£1.3m, January 2012)
Position: Striker

Boro finally got their man in January 2012 when a £1.3m deal was completed for the capture of Coventry striker, Lukas. The player had been on Mogga’s radar since early in the season, especially after he scored against us and demonstrated the impact of his physicality and height, two qualities lacking in our current complement of attackers. We attempted to push a deal through before the summer transfer window closed, but without success, and little time was wasted in securing his services in the New Year.

What are we getting for our money? The Southampton lad started his career at the Saints Academy before being cut and spending several years in the Southampton and District Tyro League. Swindon reintroduced him to the Football League, and after helping his new team gain promotion to League One he joined Everton for £1m. Various loan spells followed, including a highly successful season with Motherwell that attracted the attention of Coventry’s Aidy Boothroyd, who signed him from the Toffees in July 2010. Boothroyd didn’t last at the Ricoh, but Lukas went on to make a fine impression and in the first half of 2011/12 was a rare bright spot in the Sky Blues’ otherwise troubled campaign.

Mogga arranged Lukas’s introduction to the Riverside as part of an emergency loan deal ahead of his permanent move, such was our desperation for players ahead of the Burnley game. Little difference he made on this instance, but there’s a definite need for him in our otherwise pint-sized ranks. As the manager explained, we have few players who can head in from balls being pumped into the box, and Lukas potentially gives us that.

For a further view, here’s a comment lifted directly from the excellent(ly bitter and frustrated) Sky Blues blog…

Needs to work on his composure in and around the box, as he struggles to get his shots away either down to panic or lack of technique, but there’s certainly a good player there and he’s going to be particularly important to us this year. No defender will fancy playing him.

16. Bart Ogbeche

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Nationality: Nigeria
Date of Birth:  1 October 1984
Height: 5′ 10″
Weight: 12st 4lbs
Signed from: Free Agent (October 2011)
Position: Striker

Ogoja-born Bartholomew is one of those classic squad players – here to make up the numbers, to augment a slim surfeit of forwards, and of course carrying that inevitable ‘X Factor’ that means you never really quite know about him, do you? The signs are there that Bart could develop into an unlikely star, particularly if he sustains the training levels that have forced him into the first team reckoning already, and with a decent level of return.

Boro is the ninth stop on Bart’s club football career, a journeyman’s route that has seen him take in France, United Arab Emirates, Spain and Greece. Starting at Paris Saint-Germain as a teenager, his prospects developed to such an extent that he was selected for the Nigerian World Cup squad in Japan and South Korea and played in their group games. Towards the end of his time in the French capital, it became clear things weren’t working out as the loan moves testify – ultimately he moved on to UAE’s Al-Jazira for a season before spending four years in Spain. A ‘stop start’ time with Alaves, Valladolid and Cadiz ended with a term at Greek side FC Kavala, which resulted in further trouble when the club was one of a number involved in the Koriopolis match-fixing scandal and relegated.

Released and back on the search for a new home, Bart’s trail eventually led him to Teesside, where Mogga had been watching a ‘warts and all’ DVD of the forward. Given a two-week trial, the striker’s hard work in training and a superb display in a friendly versus Blackburn (where he scored two goals in seven minutes) led to him being offered a contract that covered the 2011/12 season. We were warned by Mowbray that Bart doesn’t come as an off the shelf star striker, but there are signs of ability that and he’s being given the year to show what he can do. So far, his talent has produced a goalscoring turn in our 3-2 away win over Cardiff, though so far his appearances in the first team have been as a consequence of injuries elsewhere.

Then again, you never know, do you? Boro’s record with African footballers is patchy. Bart’s pre-MFC career hardly hints at latent greatness. Perhaps he will develop into what he was signed to do and provide that ‘warm body’ who can come on and do a job in the absence of others, which is really all he’s done to date. Or maybe, just maybe there’s more to come.

Danger – Risk of Capsizing!

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I don’t know about anyone else, but I expected little from the Burnley game and wasn’t the least bit surprised when that’s exactly what we got. All the signs were there – injuries and suspensions biting, the remaining players being square-pegged into our first eleven, an opponent that has the capacity to leap on any weakness. The result was a total walk in the park for the visitors, a first half that saw them stroll to victory and hold us at easy arm’s length during the second. It was a contest (or lack thereof) to place our pretensions of promotion in real jeopardy, even if we were all fully aware that results might slip once we lost one or two key players. That’s just what has happened and we’re paying the price for having a small squad that can’t really compensate for its injury rota.

The worst bit about this one was how easy we made life for the Clarets. They’re a decent outfit, but the sort of team we need to do better against if we are serious about going up. Here, the options available to Mogga were severely limited. Shorn of Bailey and Robson, forced to replace Jason Steele in goal with the fresh-faced Connor Ripley and asking Kevin Thomson to provide a service for which he’s already proved he isn’t suited, we had little chance of doing anything but open the gate for Burnley and letting them stroll through our ranks. The first half, watched by a small Riverside crowd that shows no signs of increasing over the coming weeks, was an abject lesson. By half-time, the damage was done and our Lancastrian visitors took the afternoon off, relaxing in their own half and swatting aside our puny forays on the rare occasion we mounted anything that approximated an attack.

Chances were few and far between and Scott McDonald mucked up a gilt-edged opportunity laid on by Justin Hoyte just before the break. In the second half, Mogga threw on new signing Lukas Jutkiewicz, which at least added a little presence in attack, though this wasn’t a day for miracles. Lukas joined on an emergency loan basis so that he could be eligible for this fixture – one has to wonder over the ‘frying pan and into the fire’ thoughts that went through his head as he realised we weren’t much of a cut above Coventry City. Still, the acquisition should become permanent this week as £1.5m heads to the midlands for a striker who will provide the height we lack currently.

Whilst the lessons of the past suggest I shouldn’t be moaning about spending money unduly, it seems clear that Jutkiewicz should be the start of a trickle of new faces. The lack of presence in midfield is a massive worry – I’d start by clearing out Kink and possibly Zemmama and attempting to nail down those players who can add presence on the flanks. Without Bailey, who will be out for some weeks, we look slow, permeable and utterly lacking in urgency in the heart of the side – this must be resolved before the month is out, or I fear that by May we’ll be thinking about what might have been instead of being in with a realistic shout of going up.

A trip to the Ricoh, home of Coventry City, awaits before our big cup jamboree. That’s two weeks to get things resolved rather than simply sit on our hands and hope for the best. Serious teams are proactive, and that’s what we need to be. I realise I write this when the club has already lavished precious funds on a striker, but this deal is looking like just the tip of an iceberg – as noted the other week, we don’t need to spend millions on these players, just buy cleverly. QPR did it last season, so why can’t we?

Talking of money reminds me of a book I’ve been working through on the family Kindle. You are my Boro, by former FMTTM contributor, Christopher Combe, is an account of MFC’s champagne seasons under Robson and McClaren and for me has revived some very nostalgic memories of a time when the manager spent freely, international players revolved through the Riverside doors and we were Premiership perennials. All this seems like it happened a very long time ago, and what shines through is that whilst the ‘good times’ were indeed a world away from what we’ve got currently (and had beforehand), we still could have done more. I recall the years when we were so close to touching glory, only to bollock it up again and again through (i) managerial incompetence (ii) jamming fax machines (iii) the team going to sleep once our league safety was assured (iv) players losing interest *cough* Boksic *cough* and vanishing for weeks, and so many more reasons. The book is well worth a read – it’s available from Amazon for just 49p. You can’t even buy a Mars Bar for 49p these days, so get online and pick up your copy…

Wafer-thin Boro ease past Shrews

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Given our team’s noble history of collapsing in the third round of the FA Cup, beating Shrewsbury 1-0 at home must be seen as a result. If we hadn’t been doing so well in the league, I’d have viewed this one as a definite banana skin in the making; as it was we survived our jitters, netted one amidst a raft of misses and soft shots, and managed to hold against a side that’s playing well in League Two.

But if there are Shrews fans who argue they deserved better, then perhaps they have a case. They had the better of us for much of the game, whilst we looked like what we were – a hastily reshaped line-up after injuries and suspensions took their toll, and a midfield that played as though its members didn’t know each other so well. No Barry Robson, who was serving the first of his two-game ban after picking up his tenth yellow card. Bailey, Arca and Zemmama were all in Crockshire for this one, leaving Mogga with little option than to go with Kevin Thomson and Malaury Martin, both of whom rated as ‘doubtful’ beforehand. Richie Smallwood made up a midfield trio that offered most of the match’s ills, with misplaced passes and the ball treated like a hot potato that had to be gotten rid of at the earliest opportunity.

You kind of know things are bad when Tarmo Kink is brought on, and they were. As it was, the Estonian – a forward in any other line-up than ours – put four strikers on the pitch, McDonald, Emnes and Ogbeche all in from kick-off. That they remained says everything about the lack of options in attack. Clearly, a bunch that dredged up one goal from 23 scoring opportunities was preferred to the possibility of giving Curtis Main a rare run-out in the first team. Warm that bench, Curtis. Polish it!

Not that any of this really matters as posterity shows us easing past a potential embarrassment. Shrewsbury were up for it, played as well as a team achieving its first Third Round appearance in yonks might suggest, and the most important thing, regardless of the score, is the fact we don’t have to travel to Shropshire and bite our nails all over again about the possibility of picking up yet another injury. We didn’t escape here unscathed. Jason Steele‘s removal from the game with a thigh strain means we might have to dip once again in the loan market (Paul Smith pur-leeeez!), but this match is a clear sign that Boro’s squad is wafer-thin and cries out for warm bodies to prop it up. I mentioned on Si’s Insights that the Bailey injury, whilst key, represents an opportunity for Smallwood to assert himself, but what if it goes wrong? The options on the bench are minimal and we’ll play better teams than Shrewsbury before too long. I worry, for instance, about Saturday’s visit from Burnley, currently in mid-table but always a threat.

In the meantime, the road for a striker goes on and on. The latest link is with Ipswich’s Jason Scotland, who’s in a sort of non-playing hell thanks to his contract – if he turns out once more for the Tractors, he’s guaranteed another year on the books and by all accounts no one wants that. I think we once had a similar situation with Gary O’Neil. Now 32, the Trinidad and Tobago international is steadily winding down, though it isn’t so many years since he was the star turn in Swansea’s promotion to the Championship. Encouragingly, the majority of comments on the Ipswich board suggest they’d far rather he stayed, that he is in fact the best thing they possess in attack and they would prefer it if we took Michael Chopra off their hands. What, and deprive him of the pleasure of scoring against us next time he faces the Boro?

Reality bites at Bloomfield

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Happy New Year, readers! What’s happy about it, you may well ask, as Boro snatched a total of one point from the two fixtures shoehorned into the long weekend. It could have been worse – somehow, we’ve emerged from a ‘reality check’ winless two-hander still just a couple of points off the very top of the table. All right, we’ve conceded third place to Cardiff, but the Championship shows signs of fluidity this time around – Southampton don’t convince, and even West Ham (who really ought to walk it) aren’t the dominant force we had when Newcastle and QPR were holding court at the business end. The 72 suggests this is the closest promotion race since 1992, and we all remember how that one ended, don’t we?

Optimistic squeaks aside, there’s still the sorry fact we only drew with a Peterborough side we could have put ten past and were then humbled at Bloomfield Park. Both teams have the air of bogey about them, but that’s no excuse and the reality is you can do so much with a fine yet small squad that is capable of taking few injury losses before they start to matter. A case in point is Nicky Bailey’s knee. Once he was subbed against the Posh, we weren’t as good. Puff pastry Kevin Thomson can’t boss the midfield in the same way. Neither can Richie Smallwood, pitched in against Blackpool as the knocks started to bite into our ranks. I have high hopes for young Richie, though the emphasis is still on the ‘young’ and, had Bailey been available, there’s little doubt who would have played.

The Blackpool match highlighted beyond any doubt the perils of having such a thin surfeit of players. There wasn’t much wrong with the starting eleven, but when we went two down and found ourselves really chasing the game, who could we hope to bring on? Well, there was Marvellous, still returning to full fitness, but the sight of Adam Reach and Seb Hines taking the field was evidence this one was lost. No disrespect to either substitute, more the lack of options available. Also on the bench yesterday was Danny Coyne, a rarity in itself as Mogga normally doesn’t name a spare goalie in these days of reduced substitutes, and Curtis Main, who was surely present to make up the numbers. No Zemmama. No Arca. No Thomson. And this isn’t an injury crisis but the kind of seasonal toll you’d expect from a heavy fixture list, only we don’t have the alternatives.

What can you do? We’ve all been well drilled with the realities of Boro’s finances and, so far, we’ve more or less got away with it. But I think we’ve reached a point in the campaign when there has to be some serious talk at the club’s highest circles about where we are going. I thought several teams were going to own the 2011/12 Championship, whilst the rest – including our good selves – watched on, licked our (financial) wounds and had fond memories of times when we was fab. Clearly it isn’t going to be that way. We have a very real chance of finishing the season strongly and as good a claim as anyone else. But this can only happen if there is some investment*, a firm decision to bolster the ranks so that if further injuries chew into our ranks – which they could, at any time and with little or no warning – we’re not left with our thingies in the wind, falling away from the pace and with another transfer window of losing some very good players to look forward to.

If we don’t show the required ambition as a team, then it’s only fair to expect the players with high hopes and matching talent – Matty, Rhys, Marvellous – to go elsewhere. We can stop that from happening, but we can’t leave it to chance.

*This doesn’t have to break the bank. QPR’s title winning side in 2011 was augmented with free transfers and loan signings, all of whom played their part in taking them up.

Mogga opens the Window

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We’re nearly into 2012, readers, and what a difference a year makes. Remember this time  in 2011, when all we had to look forward to was hauling ourselves bodily out of the relegation zone and being resigned to losing our best players? David Wheater and Gary O’Neil were nailed on certainties to leave as new manager, Tony Mowbray, was charged with the twin dilemma of getting results and selling off the club’s gems. A certain Scottish striker with a fondness for deep-fried confectionery was being told to up his game because the manager couldn’t score his goals for him. Rhys Williams was more or less a forgotten man in long-term injury limbo. Attendances were down. Mogga was still enjoying his honeymoon period, helped along because he surely couldn’t be any worse than the bloke who came before him, but the nostalgia-fuelled favour he held with the fans could only last as long as he engineered improvements within a side short on confidence, making mistakes, leaking late goals and entering a period of austerity.

What a difference a year makes.

Apart from the vast improvement in our league position, the most refreshing change is that this time we’re looking to buy rather than sell. Many Championship clubs seem to spend every season struggling desperately to hold on to their prized assets and if that was us we’d be weathering the storm against offers for Emnes and Williams. But it isn’t. I guess every player has his price, but clearly we would be looking for splendid, ‘we can’t refuse’ sums of money for these players and in any case neither has made noises about wanting away, whatever the tabloid muck raking relating to Rhys has suggested in recent weeks. Instead, we’re clearly in the market for fresh faces, which is pleasing as it signifies the club is ready to take Mogga’s promotion challenge seriously by underwriting it with hard cash.

This could make January an interesting month for Boro. There have already been a number of links with players we’ve been apparently sniffing around in the past – for some reason, we’re perpetually after strikers if the stories about Ishmael Miller and Lukas Jutkiewicz are anything to go by. I couldn’t care less about Miller, quite frankly, but I’m warming to the idea of Jutkiewicz as he’s been a rare bright spark in Coventry’s otherwise awful season. Both players fulfil the ‘big lad up front’ role that is vacant at the Riverside, though I fully expect the window to be concentrating on additions in midfield, specifically the flanks as Mogga attempts to give us those long-awaited wide players. What a late Christmas present that could be – if the manager really can find a genuine, out-and-ought right winger then it’ll be yet another reason to fete him. Is Stuart Ripley too old to don the boots..? (Yes. Yes, he is).

In the meantime, our league progress is of the sort that makes following this team a pleasure, as opposed to the usual mixture of frustration, pain, masochism, torture, etc. In third place, level with the Hammers and five points clear of Cardiff, it’s very nearly the stuff of dreams and we have even proved capable of beating the other challengers. All right, the Hull match was a bit of an exercise in escapology at times and there was the small matter of that penalty that wasn’t to break turkey-riddled sweat over, yet it’s about time we sprinkled a bit of luck in with the other elements we need in order to get promoted, and there was just no arguing with Barry Robson’s fine winner. At times one of our most frustrating squaddies (at least until Tarmo Kink and Merouane Zemmama get involved), Robbo’s majestic when his tail is up and that time is now. I just hope Mogga can stop him from turning into the bad tempered, card-chasing troublemaker he’s been in the past.

It’s the Posh today, a three points banker to the unwise and to everyone else a perpetual over-achiever that could cause trouble for us today. One of the scarier statistics about Peterborough is their relatively high scoring rate. Despite being ten places below us in the table, they’ve found the net ten more times than we have and the goals can come from just about anywhere. Grant McCann looks like he could bring on some significant defensive headaches from central midfield, though the one I’ll be watching is George Boyd, their Scottish left winger. Gordon Strachan once tried to sign Boyd for Boro, back when we  were in for pretty much anything tartan that moved (and Lee Miller). As wee a recommendation as that sounds, look at our current squad and the number of Strachan purchases that have come good for us – maybe, just maybe he did have an eye for talent, yes? In Boyd’s case, I’d love to see him turn out for us, though I imagine the price tag will remain a sticking point, just like it did for Gordon.

A few webby recommendations to finish off with, if you please. Friend of this site and occasional contributor, Simon Fallaha, has set up his own Boro blog following a long spell of posting columns for Come on Boro. Si’s Insights is a view of our fine club from Derry, where Simon continues to develop his reputation for penning well written, thought-provoking comment, you know, the sort of thing these pages are relatively free from. I would also like to signpost you in the direction of The Two Unfortunates, which along with The Seventy Two remains a bastion of brilliant coverage where the little known divisions below the Premiership are concerned. TTU has been linked from here for years, of course, but they’ve finally moved away from the tyranny of Blogspot, which is brilliant news for me as they no longer fall foul of the web filtering at work, which doesn’t like anything using the Blogger platform. Especially now the BBC have decided they can no longer afford to produce The Football League Show (though they can presumably keep up the salaries of Messrs Hansen and Shearer on the increasingly lazy and complacent Match of the Day), these sites are utterly invaluable.

A Return to Form

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It’s been a while.

More apologies and that below, but for now it’s good to be back and following a Boro side that looks set on staying in the top six, with a little luck, especially on the injuries front. In truth, it’s been kind of surreal. Matches I’ve seen as nailed on defeats and draws have produced unexpected three point returns. Where we should have won, and comfortably, we’ve scraped a tie. Only our games against the top two have I got right, mostly because I’m a pessimistic bugger and live by the mantra that they’ll always let us down. Hey, years of supporting this lot do that to a man.

All the while, I’m reminded that back in August I thought we would do well to infiltrate the top ten this season. My reasons still make sense to me. We’re in transition. Players have been lost and either not replaced or exchanged for cheap/free signings. Things shouldn’t be as good as this, and I have to put it down to the calm wisdom of Anthony Mowbray. Little wonder he’s been named the North-East Sports Personality of the Year; it’s richly deserved. At a time when pride and even hope are in precious short supply around Teesside, the club is performing its ultimate duty and forcing us to dream. That matters. It really does.

As for those new arrivals, they’ve done better than I dared hope. Faris and Malaury have both popped up now and then to remind us that, once upon a time, they were considered to be prospective future top class footballers. Bart Ogbeche was a signing that frankly sank my heart, given our spotted history with African footballers, yet he’s turned out to offer a genuine fresh dimension in attack, one that relies too often on the slight builds of McDonald and Emnes. He supplies a greater presence up front, and by all accounts has trained so hard and with such a will to succeed that Mogga had little choice but to give him his nod in the Cardiff game, with consequences we’ve already celebrated. Good on him.

Elsewhere, it seems we just can’t have it both ways – either Boro shuts up shop, keeps opposition defences honest and builds the stingiest defensive reputation in the division, or we open up and both score and concede more. The M&Em combo we’ve gone with most often in attack is too lightweight to operate in isolation, though both have developed into capable Championship strikers when they’re given the opportunity. We still lack presence on the flanks, as per usual, with the side crying out for wide men if we are to put our hands in our pockets during the January transfer window, particularly on the barren right. Mind you, this is such a long-running problem that I suspect either (i) it will never be resolved; after all the last genuinely fine right-sided midfielder we had – James Morrison – was sold on the cheap and reverted to a career in the popular music business (ii) there are no good right wingers (Ben Elton-esque ‘bit of politics’ satirical statement not intended, well maybe a little).

Defence presents the biggest question marks of all. On paper, it all looks sound enough, but if we sell Matthew Bates or – heaven forbid – Rhys Williams, the cracks will soon appear. The transfer window will be most interesting in this respect. I can see Mogga using a bit of the Jutkiewicz cash we apparently had, but prudence is the key note, and the irresistibility of someone slapping £2m on the table for a bit of Bates (having seen the internet pictures) might be too tempting to turn down. We all know he’s out of contract in the summer, so why not cash in now? With Rhys, the issue is money. The Australian was tied to a lengthy deal in the summer, so interested parties would need to come up with a more appetising offer to bring Boro to the table. Rhys has added to the fun by making noises that he might start looking elsewhere if we don’t get promoted in the summer. Personally, I think it would be disastrous if he went, as it is whenever you lose your best player.  And besides, what’s in it for them? The warning from history that is David Wheater’s Bolton debacle should offer sobering evidence that moving to a Premiership club doesn’t necessarily make all your dreams come true.

Speaking of cracks, Jason Steele seems to have developed into the boo boys’ target in recent months. It’s a shame Paul smith and Carl Ikeme turned out to be such good loanees, really; had they not, we’d have been relieved to get him back to full fitness. Not that Jason’s anything like as bad as some make him out to be, and neither is he likely to go anywhere but into Boro’s starting eleven, such is the high regard the manager has for him – as has been proved so often, Mogga knows.

Anthony Vickers said that the four matches beginning with Cardiff were crucial ones. He asked for eight points; Boro are ahead of schedule with three. Home ties against Hull (doing far too well under the caretaker management of Nick(y) Barmby) and Peterborough (score a lot; can we have George Boyd please?) await before an away trip to Blackpool, which presents a string of challenging but not un-doable confrontations. Vic is of course right. It’s a critical time, the moment when we ask whether we really are going to be challengers or the also-rans we appeared to be before the hostilities commenced. More people going to the games would be nice. This is a far bigger problem than carntbearsedness on the part of the Teesside public, but a winning team is the best reason for going without a case of Stella that evening and supporting the lads instead. Perhaps the answer could be a relaxing of the purse strings on the part of Sir Steve. Return to the vibe of 1994, Mr Chairman, and show us you mean it. Blind, happy spending solves nothing, as we know only too well, but the ambition to underwrite our promotion charge with cash for players would send out a clear sign.

Still, mustn’t grumble, which takes me on to an apology for the last four months. Work’s been tough, but I’ve made time to update the site when I’ve wanted to in the past, whatever else has been going on. I guess the enthusiasm hasn’t been there. It ebbs and flows and obeys no logic according to what’s going on at the club. I’ll try to do better, and before I check the site’s mailbag might I apologise also if people have tried to get in touch, only to eat static. Hey, you get this stuff for free, you know…

Merry Christmas everyone – hope you have a brilliant one!

Top of the World

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Okay, so our place at numero uno in the Championship lasted a pale twenty four hours, but how good did it feel to be there? Even so early in the season, no one finds themselves top through sheer dumb luck and so it is with Mogga’s Boro, thanks to those four away wins that have made us deadly on the road. I was reading somewhere that we haven’t been in pole position of any division since September 1998, when Robbo’s newly promoted Boro lumbered briefly into first via some prosaic tactics and the grizzled, greybeard defending of Pallister and Cooper. How different it feels now.

Thinking back to the transfer window, it now seems like a very good thing that so little happened. I had it on reasonable authority that Matthew Bates was more or less on his way. Not so. Similarly, the rumours surrounding Marvin Emnes turned out to be nothing more than that, which is brilliant as he scored again at the weekend and the fees being discussed in August might look like small beer by January, when hopefully we can (i) fend off any new suitors (ii) clinch some kind of Adam Johnson style deal that gives Mogga the cash to buy a new squad if he so chooses.

We’ve even picked up our loan striker, sealing a three-month term for Alex Tchuimeni-Nimely. Who hell he? Well, when I heard we were borrowing a striker from Manchester City, I immediately thought that Carlos Tevez had been doled out in Mancini’s latest effort to teach his forward some respect, or something. Then I wondered if it was Adebayor, but of course he nicked off to Spurs. Roque Santa Cruz? Mario Balotelli, perhaps? Nope, it’s the 20-year old from Liberia (a country that might as well be George Weah’s Liberia, for all I know about it), by all accounts a forward with bags of promise but with one appearance in England to his name since joining City in 2008. This hasn’t stopped him from being called up for the England Under-20s, after he effectively defected from the Liberian youth ranks by virtue of having a British father, where it’s hoped he’ll continue his developing reputation as something of a goal machine. We could do with a bit of that action too, particularly at the Riverside where our home record looks decidedly shabby against what we can do on our travels.

Nimely will be in the squad for tonight’s match, one of those fixture oddities that see us travelling to Selhurst Park for the second time in three days to take on Crystal Palace. Before losing to us on Saturday, the Eagles sealed their place in the Carling Cup third round by defeating Wigan 2-1. I suspect I should rather play the Latics right now, especially with Palace no doubt on the sniff for vengeance, though in truth we’ve already beaten them once even with ten men for the last fifteen minutes. All this comes amidst efforts by the manager to sign yet another forward on loan, a more experienced figure to shore up the numbers. In recent seasons, this has meant Marcus Bent (eeuuuwww) and Dave Kitson (no thanks!) so the words ‘experienced striker’ aren’t an automatic cause for celebration, but as I’m increasingly discovering, in Mogga I trust.

Transfer Window – the Aftermath

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Transfer Deadline Day turned into something of a damp squib for Boro as deals went on elsewhere, particularly among Premiership clubs, yet our sole transaction was the loan move of Jonathan Franks to Oxford United until January.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. An avalanche of business? Loan deals fired here, there and everywhere? Tony Mowbray converted into some sort of Varys, with his little birds keeping him informed of what’s happening to his own ultimate gain? In the end, any incoming players depended on the move of Matthew Bates, a target for Swansea City yet one of many defensive balls they were juggling. It’s believed that Brendan Rodgers  pushed up his offer to a million – Mogga wanted two, and the impasse meant the Swans ultimately went elsewhere, winding up with Lens centre back, Darnel Situ, at an initial outlay of £250k. With the mooted interest from other clubs (Villa, Bolton) in Rhys Williams and (QPR) Marvin Emnes turning out to be no more than that, deadline day was a quiet one for us. Matty needed to leave for cash in order for us to make our own offer, which was a suggested million-pound tilt for Coventry striker, Lukas Jutkiewicz. When the Swans didn’t buy, we too cooled off.

A little flat today, perhaps, but if I had the choice between Matty Bates and some striker who frankly doesn’t sound like Mr Fantastic, then I’d take our injury-riddled defender any day, even if he’s in the last year of his contract. As for drafting in a striker, which we still must do, the loan market for Championship clubs runs from 8 September until 25 November and that’s where we’ll probably do our business. A couple of tasty names – James Beattie, James McFadden – emerged yesterday as possible loan fodder, and there are others out there who didn’t play for Everton at some point, so no doubt something can be worked out, and probably already is behind the scenes.

Elsewhere, I was a little non-plussed over Arsenal’s pursuit of Mikel Arteta – a good player, to be sure, but the world beater they were after? I’m not so sure, though his commitment to looking as though he wears eye make-up on the pitch is commendable, and surely the big questions are over whether Everton have any sort of squad whatsoever now, what with Vaughan, Beckford and Yakubu also exiting. In the north-east, Newcastle picked up the signing of the summer, for my money, in the shape of Inter left-back, Davide Santon, though embarassingly the Codes missed out on all their forward pursuits. Sunlun got their man, if by ‘their man’ what they were after was an occasionally brilliant, Walter Mitty type in the shape of Arsenal’s self-styled legend, Nicklas Bendtner. They also offloaded Anton Ferdinand, which sounds like a good bit of business from their perspective.