So who was the mystery party on the other end of Gordon Strachan’s mobile long after the final whistle yesterday? Stood serenely in middle of the barren, darkened Oakwell pitch whilst AV and his media cohort awaited to fulfill their post-match responsibilities, the speculation is rampant. Fortunately our dire league trajectory and continued result ambivalency [...]

Some Boro conjecture overheard during post-Christmas lunch: So what about Aliadiere? Is he fit? Nah, plus Strachan thinks he’s rubbish – didn’t even play him during that loan spell w/ Celtic… So it went that Jeremie Aliadiere not only furtively recuperated enough to not only make the squad for Scunthorpe, but actually start up front w/ [...]

It was a mercy killing really, not just a ‘rubbish laptop’. The plug was pulled under circumspect conditions, but we still followed it until the end – another dreadful display under the bright – or more appropriately snow swept – gaze of a nation. A single text to our Newcastle supporting mate read: ‘That was [...]

The eloquent and erudite Dave Kitson said it during the week: some club was due to get a ‘right spanking’. His prescience was augmented by the immediacy of it – QPR the victims in a 5-1 mauling Saturday at Loftus Road. The chances lamentably missed over the last 5 plus matches were bagged with class. [...]

If the sanctity of at least your afternoon doesn’t ride on this result then why bother paying attention? That sagacity courtesy of TheProphetBob – chatting on AVs live blog from Selhurst Park – for providing perspective as Boro endure a worryingly woeful slide whilst adjusting to the revised coaching cabal. Gordo, the players, the fans, [...]

To effectively mould his new side into genuine promotion contenders Gordon Strachan will need time. And patience. And a large sum of cash. All aspects were abundantly – painfully so – clear in another bumbling home under-performance v Plymouth Saturday at the Riverside. Additionally, the new gaffer must decipher the ubiquitous park-the-bus approach adopted by [...]

Call it the residual impact of the previous regime. Another shriveling display late on allowed Preston to claw back for a 2-2 draw yesterday at Deepdale – not as damning as the Coventry capitulation, largely due to the Lilywhites continuing consolidation in the upper tier of the league. Gordon Strachan has a few tasks to [...]

It’s not just the points wasted, or the failure to make up critical ground whilst the other promotion candidates falter, it’s the inability to reward the home fans and make a concerted effort to win back affection via results. For a change, Boro did incessantly pressure the opposition goal – 17 total shots and 15 [...]

Was it an apparition? Did we hallucinate that sequence where Clinton Morrison, while turning Justin Hoyte, caressed a floating ball on his right arm, let it drop and beat Brad Jones for the first of two late Coventry goals? And surely we were lucid when last-man Elliott Ward impeded Leroy Lita and, after a lengthy [...]

The potential for trouserings like that weren’t supposed to go off until after we made it back, surely never before it, not this season. The prototypical Championship sides we’d become familiar with might elicit the odd scare, or even inflict a few wounds as we traipsed back to the top. No one imagined the swift [...]