Middlesbrough will be playing in the Championship next season. And it’s all part of the apparent 2 year promotion plan the club claims it’s been following all along. Year one ostensibly for protracted deliberation over who was to blame for the relegation mess, and year two to survive on the last parachute payment and re-mould [...]

Haven’t we been here before? A club recently incapable of stringing any sort of strong form together – something more ambitious than 6 unbeaten w/ 3 draws – are required to produce another miraculous feat to avoid an undesirable league position. Last year’s model had infamous results, and the current trajectory of a rebuild-on-the-fly project [...]

It wasn’t difficult to agree w/ Roberto Mancini. Boro did play very well – for large spells anyway. Immaterial really, since the quality of the final product remains abject. Gordon Strachan employed a five-man midfield to harry their elite opposition, even overcoming a devastating injury to Adam Johnson – which is becoming so redolent of [...]

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 [...]