It's in the eyes

I looked two proper Middlesbrough fans in the eyes on Tuesday Evening. There was a twinkle. This is the one. This is the man. This is the messiah. Tony Mowbray is Boro’s Shearer. The absolute embodiment of all that the fans hold dear about their club. He has more chance than anyone else in the whole world of unravelling the mess at Middlesbrough. Mowbray looms large over the history of the club. The modern history at least. He was the local boy who got chucked the captain’s armband at Boro's darkest hour. The team he led is rightly revered by the supporters. It seems to me that for Boro fans of a certain age, the Bruce Rioch double-promotion boys are the favourites, the ones that meant the most. Even taking into account the Carling Cup winners and the UEFA Cup finalists. That’s probably because it was a Lazarus tale. A story of a club coming back from the brink. Well now Mowbray’s back and Boro are on the brink again. It’s not the same as the days of the padlocked gates at Ayresome of course, but it still feels like the club is teetering on the edge of something deep, dark and nasty. It’s 4 years of steady decline. It’s the decaying squad that McClaren left behind. It’s Southgate, battling so hard, but struggling to swim against the tide. It’s Strachan, misjudging everything during a miserable 12 months. They’ve come full circle and they’re now in danger of slipping back into the depths that Tony Mowbray helped them escape from a generation back. So what better time for the man from Saltburn to once again switch on the light that burns in his Boro heart. It’s perfect. Almost too perfect and, of course, everyone must realise that there are no guarantees. No divine rights, even for football’s righteous men. He’s inherited problems and they are legion. But if anyone can do it, Mogga can. It’s in the eyes. I looked in his eyes on Tuesday as well. He wants this to work as much as the fans do. Call it destiny. Call it closure. Call it unfinished business. It was in the eyes. Tony Mowbray will have the encouragement and the support of all who carry Boro in their heart. If willpower can move mountains then Mogga is halfway to the moon already.

Goodbye Gordon.

“It’s been bloody awful”. Not my words, Steve Gibson’s words, as he summed up the last two or three years at Boro and particularly, the failure of Gordon Strachan. And failure it was. Complete failure. Underachievement on a grand scale. “We got it wrong” added Gibson. Yes Steve, yes you did. But you shouldn’t burn for that. The Middlesbrough Chairman’s heart was, is, and will always be located in the right place. Strachan SEEMED ideal. It all SEEMED like a good idea. It just didn’t work out and sometimes that’s the way it goes. The outgoing manager still had the support of the majority in the dressing room and some of his players, especially the ones he signed, will miss him. But many at the club will not miss Gordon Strachan. Nor will the media and crucially, nor will the fans. His parting gesture will come to be seen as the best thing about his reign. Waiving his right to compensation was a magnificent, magnanimous gesture from a strange and interesting man. It saved the club millions and it proves Strachan has great integrity. He held up his hands, admitted he couldn’t work out why it had gone wrong and decided he didn’t want to be rewarded for failure. That’s great. Well done. But it doesn’t solve any problems.

Cards on the table at this point. I witnessed first hand Strachan’s awkward, condescending and sometimes downright rude dealings with the media. I received some surly and unhelpful responses to questions that I considered reasonable. But I never really got both barrels. So I’ve got no axe to grind in that respect. I just felt he didn’t trust, or believe in, the whole process of press conferences. As a seasoned football man he’s entitled to his opinion. But it was naïve to think that it didn’t matter. Rightly or wrongly, fans nowadays form their opinions about a football manager based on what they see, hear and read in the media. That opinion, that relationship is important. But Strachan didn’t care. Or maybe he just didn’t get it.

It’s not the only relationship he got wrong. Steve Gibson praised Strachan for all the hard work he did behind the scenes during his year at the club. Fine. But with the benefit of hindsight he didn’t put much effort into original thought. His time at Celtic was constantly referenced. His playing staff was gradually transformed into a Park Head tribute band. He seemed to think that if it worked at Celtic, then of course it would work at Middlesbrough. The pressure of working for the Old Firm was a familiar theme, as if he was saying that Boro was a walk in the park after navigating the mean streets of Glasgow’s football culture. But Middlesbrough’s not Glasgow. Boro aren’t Celtic. The fans share a similar passion, but they support their teams and experience their football in a different way. What works in one place won’t necessarily work in another.

It didn’t work. I thought it would. But it didn’t. Strachan never connected with the fans. He never filled the Riverside with a sense of enthusiasm and he never assembled a team capable of winning on a regular basis. Now he’s just another footnote in Middlesbrough’s chapter of decline. From the high tide mark of Eindhoven and the UEFA Cup final, the fall has been painful and rapid. The appointment of Gareth Southgate was a leap of faith that, in the end, didn’t work out. The appointment of Strachan was supposed to rip out the problem pages and write a new manifesto. But it’s only made things worse. Your next appointment Mr Gibson, now that really is important.

Goodbye predictable, hello volatile

When will this fog clear ? It's the middle of October and I can't see the shapes on the horizon. It's exciting, but also a little scary. Goodbye predictable, hello volatile. Where are the certainties ? Where are the reliably good and the regularly awful ? Apart from the matter of who’s going to win the premier league title, which already appears screamingly obvious (Chelsea), it's suddenly a lot harder to second guess where this thing's going. Which certainly makes a change. By now you can usually pick out at least one nailed-on certainty for premier league relegation. The resoundingly hopeless newcomers or the crumbling institutions heading for financial armageddon. But the usual suspects are suddenly lurking in the shadows. Liverpool are this year's Portsmouth, no one's putting their hand up to be this year's Burnley and so the landscape is shrounded in uncertainty. The promoted sides are all doing rather nicely in their own different ways and so the soft, established underbelly of the Premier League is looking nervously over it's collective shoulder. Someone's got to go, and if you can't even rely on Blackpool then who can you rely on ? Wake up and smell the risk and reward, because someone's going to do very badly out of this and someone's going to do very well.

It could be our lot, for better or worse.

Sunderland have done good business so far despite a brutal fixture list. But it's all very well standing up to the heavyweights, the Black Cats need to prove they can knock out the lightweights. Bossing Man United around is lovely, but why can't the same group of players take the initiative against West Ham ? Or Wigan ? Or West Brom ? Answer that question and Steve Bruce will have cracked it. But it's a two part question, because first he has to unravel his tactical puzzle. The players clearly enjoy the whole 4-5-1 thing, but sometime soon Bruce has to work out how to fit his record signing into the starting line-up. Clubs like Sunderland don't pay the thick end of 15 million for an impact substitute, so Gyan's going to have to play. 3 at the back anyone ?

Newcastle are, of course, the poster boys for the rollercoaster ride and it's reassuring that the Magpies have been gloriously unpredictable. They've basically won the hard ones and lost the easy ones. Sometimes it's seemed ridiculous that they were ever relegated in the first place, sometimes they look like nervous newcomers who don't know when to stick and when to twist. Like the neighbours, they'll be doing some thinking about tactics. The tried and tested 4-4-1-1 is working brilliantly away from home, but they've got bogged down at St James Park. Chris Hughton could change the system, or just switch players around within the same system, but he knows they can’t afford to lose too many home games. He had a tactical ace up his sleeve, but sadly it's a card he might never get to play. Hatem Ben Arfa was a mysterious little sprite who was all set to become the new darling of the Gallowgate. But not now. Think what you like about the circumstances in which the Frenchman's leg was broken, but basically it was just a crying shame. Ben Arfa may still represent the future, but it's the here and now that matters for Newcastle United.

Life's just as unpredictable in the Football League. Especially at Middlesbrough, who are currently searching for reasons to explain their failure to launch. The optimism of August has been replaced by the uncertainty of October and because they were scorching hot pre-season favourites, every bad result seems a whole lot worse. I have no explanations for this, except to say that it's more evidence of the decline of Scottish Football. But that's just a cheap shot and it doesn't really explain anything. Something's up. Something's wrong and Gordon Strachan needs to locate the problem and solve it. Quickly. Crowds are drifting away, the promotion race is taking place somewhere else and the manager's position is coming under mild scrutiny. He's not bothered about that of course, because Mr Strachan genuinely doesn't care what the media thinks. But at the moment most of us think his team should be doing better, and I bet he agrees with us.

Life's deliciously unpredictable over in Cumbria where Carlisle are starring in their very own Ugly Duckling story. The unheralded Blues are threatening to blossom into a beautiful swan. I saw them dismantle Hartlepool the other week and they were really, really good. Greg Abbott rolled the dice in the summer and freshened up the squad. He's also freshened up the way they play and they've even coped with the departure of Old Father Time (Ian Harte). The table says they're promotion contenders - the manager urges caution at this stage. But a good start has put steam in their strides, they've got some serious fans behind them and a land of opportunity opening up in front of them.

Hartlepool need to make their mind up, about a lot of things. For a start they've had a Caretaker Manager for too long now. All a caretaker can really do is keep things ticking over. Mick Wadsworth's been doing a fairly decent job of that and if he's their man then why don't the club just give him the proper job title and let him get on with it ? It's probably going to be a bit of an uphill struggle this year, but there's no need for them to get relegated, as long as the owners decide where they want to go and who they want to get them there.

So when WILL the fog clear ? I'm not sure, but I'll hazard a guess that it might happen round about four o'clock on Halloween Afternoon as Newcastle United and Sunderland return to the dressing rooms at St James Park. Trick or treat ? We'll see.