The hegemony asserted so far away from home continued. ‘There’s only one Gareth Southgate’ boomed from the travelling support; Gaz was giddy enough to give an acknowledging wave, and for the time being, the mounting pressure on the Boro boss subsided. A positive result paves the way to a hopefully-productive international break – anything less than the full 3 points would have merely abetted more conjecture and pejoratives – weapons-grade ordnance lobbed from multiple angles. Louise Taylor proliferates on the story line from late last week, raising valid points that infer some of the flop signings – namely Mido and Afonso Alves – were engineered from above and imposed on the ostensible minority of the fabled triumvirate.
Gaz has earned notable commendations from Arsene Wenger, and even Thierry Henry suggested the panacea for Barcelona to unlock Manchester Utd during the Champions League in 2008: play like Boro (after the sizzling 2-2 draw that offered the brightest glimpse of Alves’ talents). You’d think a principled and generally respected young manager would be recalcitrant to work under such tight constrictions…full credit to him for not exploiting it as an excuse for circumstances leading to the current position. For now, the rancor is a bit muted – winning will breed that. There’s still a chance to get it right, but when you say that it’s your job to manage the club through crisis you cannot alienate and become adversarial.
After the break, Boro get an immediate chance to right recent home wrongs: visits from Watford and Derby County in a 3 day spell. Just 7 out of 15 points collected so far at the Riverside this season – future consistency and success is going to be based on home form between now and May. How many teams out there rake over 70% of points available away points? And any machinations of Andy O’Brien and/or Nigel Reo-Coker will go unfulfilled – Bolton won’t loan their centre-half and Villa rubbished any reports of the pugilistic midfielder moving north east.
October 6th, 2009 @ BA
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