Play-Off Push Stalls

“Play to the bloody whistle,” screamed Mick from the touchline. The ref hadn’t given a free-kick; but there I was, 40 yards away from the play, whining about a decision going against me.

The other side didn’t score from that move, but I still got a rollicking from my coach. Rightly so. I mean, it was huge game after all – a top-of-the-table clash with Riverside Rovers in the Teesside Junior Alliance Under-14s Division Three.

We went on to get beat, while Rovers marched on to promotion. But for the remainder of that season – and the remainder of my fledgling Sunday morning football career – I would never stop playing until the man in black blew his whistle.

Lita celebrates a goal at QPR earlier in the season

Every 13-year-old is told the same. And presumably Leroy Lita was no different. Yet yesterday afternoon, the 25-year-old had a Michael Hunter circa 2000 moment.

He might have deserved a free-kick on the edge of the Forest box after Kelvin Wilson manhandled him from behind. But Lita, frustrated, stopped still and flung his arms in the air. If he’d put Wilson under pressure instead, the lanky centre-half might not have been able to pick out a teammate; and the home side might not have went on to create their game-winning chance for Chris Cohen.

Aside from that, it’s hard to criticise the team’s performance. A nil-nil would have been a fairer result, despite Forest crafting out one or two clearer openings. We were full of endeavour, and seemed a little more willing to get on the ball. Unfortunately, we found Forest’s rearguard too tough break down, much like the promotion hopefuls found Wheater and McManus difficult to penetrate.

The frontline of McDonald and Aliadiere – our 14^th different strike pairing of the season – was ineffective. They offer similar attributes – both relying on cute balls into the channels – and both would be more threatening with a big, bruising foil in the mould of Kiwi Chris Killen, who was on the bench after an injury niggle.

Despite his costly histrionics, I still rate Lita as our best striker. He’s strong, he’s quick, and he’s willing and able to fashion his own chances. Same can’t be said of Ali, who again had a lacklustre game along with Boro’s other one-time Premier League regulars.

Poor: Arca has barely shone in a Boro shirt

Pogatetz and, in particular, Arca, were guilty of slack moments down the left. The latter is fast becoming the pantomime villain among the Boro faithful – his every hopeless pass and missed tackle met with suggestions of a return to Argentina – and his days at the Riverside are numbered under Strachan if heartless performances like yesterday’s continue.

The play-offs are now an even more distant hope than they were at the start of the weekend. And as miserable as that might sound, we can console ourselves by remembering there are others who are worse off right now.

Deadline Drag

I wish this transfer window would hurry up and shut. Not just to stop our best player joining Man City's reserves, but also to stop some of the tripe potentially coming in.

What's City's motive for making a bid for Johnson right now anyway? They've got Petrov and Bellamy already vying for their left-wing spot, so you'd assume Jonno might have to re-accustom himself to a bit of second XI football initially.

Johnson spent years in the shadow of Stewart Downing

I don't blame him for wanting to speak to City - it's an exciting time on the blue side of Manchester at the moment - but I hope he declines for now. A move to Eastlands would not be of benefit to anyone or anything but his bank balance.

Don't get me wrong; I back him to be a success eventually. But Bellamy has been their best player this season in his position. Johnson will not break into the City side over the next six months and earn a shock place in Fabio's World Cup 23 (though I wouldn't against him featuring in the next major tournament). And Boro will be left even further away from appeasing increasingly disgruntled supporters.

His Riverside contract expires at the end of this season, at which point he'll undoubtedly move on. Only difference is, wherever he goes, he'll leave haven given his first club every chance of promotion - however faint our hopes might be.

Now I'm not naive enough to think Johnson will be worried about his legacy at a club which barely showed faith in him until its previous left-wing wonder left the club. He owes us nothing.

But his talent isn't going to go away in the second half of a Chamionship season. In fact, his stock can only rise as he's guaranteed to dismantle many more second-tier defences between now and May.

Lee Miller (left) is unlikely to solve Boro's striking woes

In all honesty, this blog post is more a plea than a rationale. But it's about as much as I can muster amid thoughts of a Boro side Johnsonless. His sale would be like pulling the last incisor from our near-toothless penetration in the final third. Also, it would also be another stick for supporters to hit the club with - more apparent lack of ambition at the top of the hierarchy.

To top the gloomy prospect of Johnson leaving, Strachan was today linked with Lee Miller, a striker whose last stint in English football yielded eight goals in 42 games. And that was in League One. Hopefully the same person who was charged handling the paperwork on Chris Smalling's proposed transfer last season is dealing with Miller's too.

Lost In Transition

Middlesbrough Football Club will still be playing Championship football this time next year. The good news for fellow Boro fans is that’s merely my opinion: the bad news is I’m probably right.

We were nothing better than average at Bramall Lane yesterday. Perhaps worse. Lots of endeavour and application but not a sniff of a goal threat.

What’s most frustrating, though, is that the opposition were no better than us in almost every area. But in the most crucial – making chances from which you might get a goal – they were.

Sheffield United: Ugly but effective

It would be a travesty if Sheff Utd were promoted this season. Not at our expense, of course; but at the expense of other play-off candidates. They’re such an ugly team to watch. I don’t know why they bother paying those lads to rake the pitch before each half because the ball barely touches it.

And when Boro did try to play a bit (which, admittedly, wasn’t a great deal) a Blades player was quick to blunt the move with a cynical foul. Twenty-two quid was the cheapest adult ticket for yesterday’s game - you can get something more attractive for that money down the Bongo International on a Saturday night.

While their approach might not be pretty, it is effective. The Blades grind out wins and are frustratingly difficult to beat.

The same can’t be said for Boro at the moment. We went one down and it was curtains. Again the team appeared to surrender. Sure, we might have had a penalty and Barry Robson spurned a half-chance from six yards, but that was our lot.

Boro have long been mentally brittle. We’ve taken only three points from losing positions this season – a 3-1 win under Southgate at Sheff Wed in September – and I don’t envisage that bouncebackability block easing soon.

Thing is, neither does Strachan. And I doubt he’ll be satisfied with his squad until it has been completely overhauled.

Mark Yeates has moved on after just six months on Teesside

Yeates is the latest of Southgate's flops to be shown in the exit door in a transitional period which is bound to have a negative impact on the squad. Only when this transfer window slams shut can we really begin to consider the virtues of Gordon's wisdom.

What’s curious, however, is how the Boro faithful have seemingly concluded that weak links like Arca, McMahon, Hoyte, Jones, Ali and Emnes are the most telling factor(s) in our downfall.

Yet these are the players who helped put us a point behind Newcastle on the night that Gareth Southgate was deemed surplus to requirements at the Riverside. (The Championship table didn't make for quite so dismal reading back on October 20, did it?)

Three months on and the chances of a top flight return for Boro have gone from uncertain to impossible.

Let It Snow

It’s a bit embarrassing, but I was well chuffed when Boro’s game with Swansea fell victim to the ice (or ‘the big freeze’ as the media insist on calling it).

The last thing my football team needed right now was to play a game of football. Especially against Paulo Sousa’s improving Swans.

This weekend's football programme was decimated by the weather

With Strachan’s scheme to change our home kit to green-and-white hoops taking longer than he hoped – not to mention Adam Johnson’s fresh injury lay-off – you can forgive Boro fans for feeling a tad relieved at the weekend off.

The rest of the chilly weather’s been a nightmare though, hasn’t it? I’ve been housebound all week because I’m scared of doing a Todd Carty down the garden path.

So, I thought, what better time to enjoy a week in front the telly? Unfortunately, there’s more of the white stuff on the box than there is outside my house. You can’t get away from it.

It’s all very well for kids, who seem the only section society enjoying the snap, sledging as they do along any section of road with a hint of an incline.

But for football fans across the country, it’s becoming tiresome. Match of the Day eked 60 minutes of highlights out of the Premier League’s two surviving games yesterday. I found myself flicking between that and the erotica on one of Channel 5's sister stations (pun very much intended). A remarkably sorry state of affairs.

Back to the Boro, and it really is important we make the most of the postponed fixture by strengthening the squad before a tough trip to Sheffield Utd next weekend.

It’s heartening to read that the boss is looking to bring in his Celtic comrades Gary Caldwell and Barry Robson. Both are tough lads who can add strength to our sometimes lightweight side.

I reserve full judgement on Willo Flood and Chris Killen, but from the bits and pieces I’ve seen of them they’re unlikely to transform the team overnight. Kris Boyd sounds like wishful thinking, while any move for Kevin Phillips will apparently have to wait until McLeish blows a bit of his £40m January kitty.

Still, it sounds like Strach is looking to make things happen and certainly has more room to manoeuvre now the unfancied midfield duo of Digard and Shawky are off the wage bill.

A fitting tribute: Shawky gets nowhere near the ball

Keith Lamb might have driven the latter to Teesside Airport (does anyone call it Durham Tees Valley?) himself after a woeful couple of years at the Riverside.

But, even after his free transfer to Turkey, Shawky’s still managing to disappoint. I got a touch over-excited when I saw this article on the MFC homepage. Having clicked frantically to read which Brazilian international we were linked with, I felt a mite daft when I realised the picture was used because it had the duff-tackling Egytpian lurking behind the yellow shirt.

No. The days of samba stars like Juninho, Emerson, and, erm... Ricardinho, are over. Nowadays we can’t even lure Englebert of Humperdink to Teesside.

Window Shopping

An important transfer window lies ahead for Boro and Gordon Strachan. The Christmas holiday weekend represented another false dawn to which the new boss has become synonymouse in his brief, faltering tenure.

Defeat at Barsley was a case of ‘typical Boro’ having brushed aside Scunny in a shock home win two days earlier.

Strachan is under pressure after only 11 games in charge

The Scot’s arrival was supposed to ignite energy both inside the dressing room and through the turnstiles. But two months on, the champagne football lacking in Southgate’s Boro is yet to flow, while there’s more murder suspects on Albert Square than there are fans at the Riverside at the moment – until we diddle the figures, of course.

In fairness, though, this isn’t Strach’s squad. There’s plenty of deadwood left over from the Southgate regime which the Scot clearly doesn’t fancy. Marvin Emnes, for example, is struggling to get the nod ahead of a lad fresh from having kick-abouts at break time.

The likes of Grounds, Taylor, Shawky and Digard might also be up for the chop this transfer window, which would be a shame in the case of the latter, who has shown promise when fit.

Priority for Strachan has to be a striker. You know you’ve got limited options up front when you’re begging a club to lend you Marcus Bent for another couple of weeks.

Marcus Bent celebrating a goal - no, really

Kitson might be worth having back, but only on loan. He’s likely to grab some goals if we create the chances, but he isn’t going to carve them out himself you feel.

In an ideal world, Gibbo would cough up the daft amount Leeds want for Man Utd-slaying hitman Jermaine Beckford. That’s if he’d come to us – at the moment, his League One club look a much more attractive prospect than bungling Boro.

Let’s hope Strachan has a few targets in mind. Because the current crop of players will get the club nowhere. And the manager’s honeymoon period – if there ever was one – is over. Not that he cares what I think.

Team of the Decade

You might well expect a proper Boro blogger to use the blogosphere to pick apart yesterday's demoralising Tyne-Tees derby defeat.

But as it's supposedly the season to be jolly, I'm going to ignore it and pretend it never happened - just like the UEFA Cup final. (For fans who can't help but indulge in self-loathing, Anthony Vickers aptly and bluntly sums up the feeling amongst the Riverside faithful here.)

Instead, in an attempt to lift the dwindling gloom, I'm looking back on happier times by picking my MFC team of the decade. After all, it has been a great decade in Boro's history - despite the painful final twelve months.

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Goalkeeper: Mark Schwarzer
No contest for the keeper’s jersey. Big Aussie Schwarzer was Boro’s undisputed number one before leaving for Fulham in 2008. Skippy kept ten clean sheets for the Cottagers in his debut season. Meanwhile, Gareth Southgate ummed and aahed over Brad Jones and Ross Turnbull as Boro leaked 57 goals on their way to relegation. A quality goalkeeper who commanded his area and inspired confidence throughout the team. What a distant memory that now seems.

Right back: Luke Young
Not an easy position to pick. Boro have had a different first-choice right back in almost every season of the noughties. But we’ve hardly been spoilt – Stuart Parnaby, Robbie Stockdale and Michael Reiziger to name but a sorry few. Young, though, was a class above his predecessors, as well as his successor, Justin Hoyte. His sale to Aston Villa came in the wake of Schwarzer and George Boateng’s departures. This exodus of experience contributed heavily to our eventual downfall.

Centre half: Gareth Southgate (captain)
Boro’s first captain to lift a major trophy. Boro’s first captain to lead the club out in Europe. And Boro’s first captain to marshal the side in a showpiece European final – you can’t help but think he might be the last. A textbook captain who led by example rather than discipline, and an absolute gent to boot. I’m still gutted at the way Lamb and Gibson disposed of him as boss earlier this year.

Centre half: Ugo Ehiogu
Big Ugo arrived for a big fee – £8million – in 2000, but went on to justify it as a key part of Steve McClaren’s Riverside revolution. The partnership of Ehiogu and Southgate was one of the best in the Premier League around the middle of the decade, but unfortunately peted out as injury niggles caught up with Ehiogu. He might have added to his four England had he managed to stay fit during Sven Goran Eriksson’s tenure.

Left back: Franck Queudrue
The Frenchman was unheard of when he signed on loan from Lens in 2001. But then boss McClaren was quick to make Queudrue’s contract permanent after the buccaneering full back became a fans’ favourite for his committed and energetic play. He lost his way slightly after helping Boro to the 2004 Carling Cup, and was displaced by Emmanuel Pogatetz as Stevie Mac sought to bolster his squad for the upcoming European exploits.

Right wing: Gaizka Mendieta
Mendi left the club somewhat acrimoniously when his lucrative contract expired at the end of the 2007/08 campaign after being frozen out of the first team by Southgate. But under McClaren the silky Spaniard showed glimpses of the class that once convinced Lazio to pay nearly £30million for his services. And Teesside’s admiration for Mendieta was reciprocal – despite the disappointing end to his Boro career, he still lives in the area after settling with his family in Yarm.

Centre midfield: George Boateng
Every good team needs a destroyer in the middle of the park. Boateng was never an attractive player to watch – he could barely pass the ball in a Boro shirt – but he was a mighty effective ball-winner. He was also a big influence on the rest of the team, his energy and enthusiasm often galvanising the squad and fans in times of difficulty. And it was that side of Boateng’s game, rather than the footballing side, that we never managed to replace in the signing of Didier Digard.

Centre midfield: Bolo Zenden
The left-footed Dutchman didn’t spend his entire Boro career in the centre of midfield, of course, and indeed spent much of his firts season on the wing. But Bolo was shifted inside to accommodate the emergence of Stewart Downing, and it paid off. No other Boro side of the noughties had a player who scored freely from the midfield like Zenden did. He was sorely missed when he chose to leave for Liverpool at the end of his silly one-year contract. Unfortunately, it was a bad move for the player too as he struggled to make an impact on Merseyside.

Left wing: Stewart Downing
Without doubt the best player to come out of Boro’s prized youth academy in the past ten years. It was clear quite early that he was going to become a big player for his hometown club, but not many might have envisaged him notching up 20 England caps before the age of 24. It’s a shame that England’s fans haven taken to him as quickly as the Riverside faithful, but they will when he inevitably makes his mark at new club Aston Villa.

Striker: Mark Viduka
He was sometimes frustrating, big Mark was. Lethargic. Moody. Unfit. Didn’t run his socks off. But I don’t care. He hit 42 goals in three seasons which were hampered by injury, and not many of them were tap-ins. He scored some memorable goals and was always a lovely player to watch, boasting beautiful close control and bullish hold-up play. His lethal partnership with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink in his first two seasons on Teesside now seem a figment of my imagination as I watch Leroy Lita and Marcus Bent lead the line for us in 2009.

Striker: Alen Boksic
Probably the most controversial selection in my XI. Boksic, like Viduka, wasn’t always in tip-top condition, and had certainly seen his best playing days long before joining us from Lazio in 2000. He was part of the squad which came close to Premier League relegation before El Tel’s salvage operation. Without him, though, we might not have survived. He scored some vital goals, and continued to do so under McClaren. A very skilful player – though in fairness, he mightn’t have justified his reported £65k-per-week wages.

What d'ya reckon - have I got it right? Probably not. So let me know who would be in your Boro team of the decade.

Worlds Apart

I watched two games of football at the weekend. The first left me envious. The second left me furious.

On Saturday afternoon, I boarded a shed of a Northern Rail train from Sheffield to Barnsley to see the Tykes take on our table-topping North East rivals, Newcastle.

It was an engaging game which - despite lacking in quality for large parts of the first half - was fiercely contested by Mark Robins' side against a below-par Geordie outfit.

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Newcastle and Boro are enjoying contrasting fortunes in the Championship
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But despite being below-par, they almost took all three points from Oakwell - a ground from which both West Brom and Cardiff had already left empty-handed this season.

Newcastle were only denied by a rather fortuitous late effort from Bobby Hassell, who told journalists afterwards he didn't quite know which part of his head the ball had come off before it nestled in Steve Harper's net.

Hassell also said he sees no team stopping Newcastle from running away the Championship this season. Regrettably, I agree with him.

Barnsley were close to their best on Saturday, while the Toon were close to their worst. Yet it was the home side who were relieved to have snatched a point come 5pm.

And that highlights a key factor behind the current gulf between the Barcodes and Gordon Strachan's stuttering Middlesbrough side. They can take points even when they're not at their best.

Twenty-four hours later, I watched through my fingers as Boro's homesickness again got the better of them against Cardiff.

Just five days after a shameful mauling at the hands of Blackpool, Boro barely did enough to merit a point and deservedly got nothing. We played no worse than Newcastle had at Barnsley, but we had neither the nous nor the flash of quality to eke out a result.

The Geordies did, though. Fan favourite Andy Carroll had a relativley quiet game up front, but still managed to set up two telling chances for his side which were expertly converted by Kevin Nolan and substitute Marlon Harewood.

Chris Hughton's game-changing bench was just one reason for me to watch on with envious eyes; as alongside Harewood sat the experienced Peter Lovenkrands and Shola Ameobi, as well as exciting teenager Nile Ranger.

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A day on, Gordon Strachan's trump cards on Teesside this weekend were Leroy Lita and Marvin Emnes; a pair of "strikers" whose form so far this season might be politely described as, well... varied.

Despite the gloom, the play-offs remain a possibility, owing slightly - no, a lot - to the unpredictable nature of the division.

Newcastle, on the other hand, might as well start preparing for life back in the Premier League. And it's through gritted teeth that I say it's no less than their fans deserve.

The travelling Toon Army accounted for over a third of the attendance at Oakwell on Saturday, taking up one-and-a-half stands.

They're a fickle bunch, the Geordies. And they've been a bit of a laughing stock in the North East over the past two years. But if we're not quick to arrest our slump, it's the Boro who could become an even bigger joke.

Strach Attack

We needed a big-name appointment in the wake of Gareth's dismissal, and Gordon Strachan is about as good as it could have been with our club where it is.

Strachan quit as Celtic manager after fours seasons in charge

There are a handful of Premier League chairmen who wouldn't hesitate in having Strach at the helm, despite his Celtic career fizzzling out last May.

When you're boss at one of the Old Firm, it ain't easy to win admirers. Trophies are expected rather than lauded.

But Strachan became only the third Celtic manager to guide them to a trio of consecutive SPL titles in 2007, while his European exploits - one home defeat in four seasons, that to Barcelona - weren't shabby either.

So the scores of Boro fans who bayed for Southgate's blood now have what they wanted - an experienced boss. That's promotion secured, then.

Gareth Goes

I SUPPOSE it's a bit late to ponder the question posed in my most recent blog. Gareth Southgate has been relieved of his duties. And blimey, I'm slightly shocked.

I bet there are even a few Southgate-bashers left flabbergasted by this evening's late news. Despite the year-long barracking to have the boss removed, I wonder if any of them thought Steve Gibson actually had it in him?

Southgate will be remembered fondly as a player

With the exception of Bryan Robson, it's Gibbo's first sacking in his 15-odd years stearing the club to semi-greatness and back again. And Robbo was an exception. After all, Gibbo didn't necessaily get rid of him. Rather, he told him to sit upstairs while El Tel got on with it.

I for one am gutted. But it's a strange sort of gutted. It's not because I reckon we've lost one of the country's fine managerial prospects. But because Gareth was a good bloke, and a Boro (playing) legend to boot.

There's no telling now whether he'd have guided us back up, but I reckon we wouldn't have been far off. I didn't want to chuck in the standard line about "strange timing"; but boy, doesn't it seem like strange timing?

Gareth must have been thinking his job was temporarily safe after putting Derby to bed earlier tonight. Just an hour ago, the Press Association reported the pressure easing on Southgate. (Damian Spellman might just be wishing he filed his copy a little late tonight.)

Boro fans will wake up in the morning in fairly unchartered territory: that of discussing the next manager. Early contenders? Steve Coppell? Darren Ferguson? Maybe Coops if he avoids the same fate as "football consultant" Alan Smith.

Whoever it is, it'll be a strange adjustment to a Southgateless dugout. Especially for fans like me who were praying he'd win over the Boro boo culture.

But, I never imagined watching Countdown without Carol Vorderman. Sometimes change is for the best.

Should Gareth Go?

Three defeats in three at the Riverside. All without scoring. The pressure is back on Southgate - if it was ever off - and there'll be fresh calls for his head.

Homesickness has heaped pressure on Southgate

We were unlucky against Watford, but the team needs to find a way of breaking down sides content to sit back and hit us on the counter.

And with crowds dwindling week after week, Boro can ill afford to allow this rotten home run to continue.

Will a new name above the manager's office help stop the rot? And if so, whose?

Break In Play

THIS international break has dragged its heels with much more labour than usual. But with England already qualified and their game yesterday only available via Windows Media Player, Nick Collins’ training ground reports were never going to be sparkling.

Unlike the last World Cup qualifying interruption when we had lost our first league game, this one came at a frustrating time for Boro. Having stopped the rot with a confident win at the Madejski last week, we’d have liked to follow it up with a game in quick succession.

Instead, the only Boro player in action this weekend was free-scoring centre-back Sean St Ledger, who continued his fine form in front of goal by scoring his first for Republic of Ireland in their agonizing draw with the Italians last night.

St Ledger celebrates a goal earlier this year for former club Preston

It’s quite a mark of the club’s decline that only two players were away from Rockliffe Park representing their countries this week. Rhys Williams, an unused sub in Australia’s friendly stalemate with Holland, was the other.

There might have been more call-ups from the MFC ranks if it weren’t for injuries. Emmanuel Pogatetz is, after all, the captain of Austria. But the likes of Brad Jones, Caleb Folan and Mohammed Shawky can scarcely be etched into the forefront of their respective managers’ minds at present.

In previous years, the club has been accustomed to losing a number of youngsters to the England-U21 squads. Now, though, that Messrs Johnson, Wheater and Taylor are no longer of age, there are slim pickings for Stuart Pearce on Teesside.

Jonathan Grounds, Seb Hines and Josh Walker are yet to make an impact this season, while teenagers Jason Steele and Joe Bennett are expected to leave their mark in coming years after playing big parts for the U19 squad recently.

So with such a shortage of Boro boys in action, what better time to take a glance around the lower divisions to see how a few former stalwarts are getting on.

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In League One, it was a weekend to forget for Graham Kavanagh, whose swing at clean air in his own area allowed Wes Hoolahan to seal a 1-0 win for Norwich at Carlisle. Kavanagh was subsequently yellow-carded and subbed mid-way through the second half.

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Cult keeper Mark Crossley, now 40, was keeping the bench warm for Chesterfied as they pulled off an impressive win at Bournemouth. The penalty-saving expert is a player-coach at Saltergate.

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Ben Hutchinson made it a hat-trick of ex-Boro players failing to make an impression in the third tier. Having been blighted by injury since making a dream switch to Celtic last year, the youngster will have been frstrated to last only 34 minutes for loan club Swindon Town.

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Meanwhile, in League Two, doomed Darlo named three former Riversiders in their match-day squad at Dagenham. But none of Noel Whelan, Gary Smith or David Knight could do anything to change the Quakers' fortunes. Steve Staunton looks like he's got a job on to salvage the mess left by Colin Todd and Dean Windass.

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John Johnson, still a Boro player but on loan to Northampton, managed the full 90 minutes as his surrogate club came back from 2-0 down to draw at Bury.

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And his former reserve side teammate Jason Kennedy, now no doubt relieved to be away from crisis club Darlington, was the only old Boro boy on a winning side this weekend as Rochdale edged to a 2-1 success over Barnet.

Welcome Back, Nige

SOMETIMES, when managers and players return to old haunts, they can be unsure what sort of reception they’ll receive.

At the Riverside Stadium tonight, there’s no doubt that one former Boro stalwart can be guaranteed a quite rapturous welcome.

Nigel Pearson captained the first Middlesbrough side I ever saw in the flesh. It was a side which sported ‘Dickens’ across its chest, launched long balls in to big Paul Wilkinson, and managed to scrape a 2-1 win against bottom-of the-table Notts County.

Pearson was made Boro captain after signing for £500k from Sheff Wed in 1994

Big Nige was its heartbeat, its rock, its lynchpin. He was a mountain of a defender who marshalled the likes of Steve Vickers and Derek Whyte on the way to 18 clean sheets in the 1994/95 promotion-winning season.

Pearson, an instant Ayresome cult hero, led us proudly into the Riverside era before bowing out on that sun-soaked afternoon in 1998 when Craig Hignett tore Oxford Utd to shreds to confirm promotion back to the Premier League.

As Gareth Southgate plots another return to the top tier, Pearson brings his stubborn Leicester City side to the North East hoping to add to Boro’s recent setbacks.

Having lost their 12-month unbeaten home run to Preston at the weekend, the Foxes will be looking to re-assert their play-off credentials.

They sit comfortably in mid-table and have been more than a match for the Championship’s big-hitters after winning promotion from League One at a canter last season.

And it’s good to see Pearson finally making his mark as a manger. He was desperately unlucky to be sacked by Southampton after keeping them in the Championship the season before last.

How the Saints must be wishing they held on to him now as they languish in the drop zone of English football’s third tier.

But Leicester’s title-winning campaign is not the only managerial masterstroke etched onto Pearson’s CV. On transfer deadline day of the 1998/99 season, Pearson secured the loan capture of goalkeeper Jimmy Glass. Apparently he went on to score a pretty important goal.

Away from the Pearson pleasantries, Boro must get back on track tonight.

The sickening last-kick-of-the-game equaliser on Saturday made the draw at Coventry feel more like a defeat, which was only made worse by the Geordies’ sweeping aside of Roy Keane’s increasingly rubbish Ipswich Town team.

Newcastle are beginning to look a cut above at this level and it is important Boro don’t lose touch with them early on in the campaign.

Magic Johnson

AS I watched Adam Johnson jinking and darting his way around Sheffield Wednesday’s defenders the other night, I could only pray there were no Premier League clubs looking on as well.

The wing wonder had an exceptional evening and was a constant thorn in The Owls’ side. He provided the cross for Darren Purse to nod into his own goal in the first half, before capping a fine night for Boro with a cool finish late on.

If any top division scouts were at Hillsborough on Tuesday, there can only have been one message to relay to their superiors: sign Adam Johnson.

The 22-year-old was a class apart and without doubt deserves to be strutting his stuff in the world’s best league come the start of next season whether it be in a Boro shirt or not.

Johnson representing England U-21s earlier this year

Let’s just hope his opportunity does not come as soon as January. Interested parties will hope the MFC hierarchy buckle under the pressure of a small bid bearing in mind Johnson’s contract runs out next summer.

But if we hold on to a player who is fast becoming our prize asset, the chances of a Premier League return are greater. And if promotion is realised, the club can then put Johnson’s future in his own hands.

He could easily take a big offer from a top seven club. But, by giving Johnson an option to stay, the club will avoid a fans’ backlash, which would be impossible if they accepted £3million bid from a Bolton or a Fulham in the next transfer window.

The last thing the club needs now, despite great back-to-back wins in the past week, is more disillusioned supporters.

Only 19,742 saw the 3-1 win at the Riverside against Ipswich. That figure will only grow if the club shows a willingness to hang on to academy stars such as Johnson. (And, of course, if the performances keep coming.)

Had it been David Wheater, for instance, who left for Stoke rather than Robert Huth, the outcry from fans a few of weeks ago would have been much worse than it was.

Wheater and Johnson offer the fans an identity on the pitch. These two will play crucial roles for the club this season: not only as footballers, but also as icons to what’s left of the Boro faithful.

If either were to leave before the promotion assault has run its course, MFC will have much more than just a first-team squad to re-build.

Ten Foreign Flops

HAS EVER the sale of a Brazilian international striker been met with such relief? The Afonso Alves transfer saga drew to a whimpered close over the weekend – a fitting end to his torrid stint on Teesside which yielded just 13 goals in 49 appearances.

Alves: Boro's worst foreign player of the last 15 years?

Boro smashed their transfer record to sign Alves from Heerenveen 18 months or so ago. But, like Mateja Kezman, he found the net a little harder to hit in the Premier League than in the Dutch Eredivisie.

It is believe the club lost £6.7m on the 28-year-old. Now, that might sound bad, but six million quid for a bloke who looks like Shrek and plays like Donkey is a cracking result. Thank God (and oil) for those bottomless Qatari pockets.

But where does Alves rank amongst MFC’s other overseas failures in recent years? Here’s my guide to Boro’s ten biggest foreign flops of the Riverside era...

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10. Jan-Aage Fjortoft (1995-1997): The Norwegian will be fondly remembered for some memorable strikes towards the end of the 1994/95 title-winning season after Bryan Robson shelled out a then club record of £1.3m to prise him from Swindon Town. However, the lanky centre-forward struggled to make an impact in the Premier League and was soon on his way to Sheff Utd after a certain Fabrizio Ravanelli arrived on Teesside.

9. Massimo Maccarone (2002-2007): Ex-Itailian U21 whiz kid who arrived at Boro with a reputation for hitting wonder goals for Empoli in Serie B. Unfortunately, the £8.15m man couldn’t re-create such form at the Riverside and was shipped out on loan to Italy after two mis-firing seasons in a red shirt. But Maccarone did return in the 2004/05 season to secure his place in MFC folklore with last-minute winners in the UEFA Cup semi- and quarter-finals.

8. Mido (2007-2009): Eight clubs in seven seasons tells you all you need to know about the Egyptian international. He scored seven goals in 32 appearances for Boro after Gareth Southgate paid £6m to Tottenham in the hope of plugging the void left by Mark Viduka and Yakubu. But Mido was injured too often and sulked when he wasn’t selected. The former Ajax and Roma player was loaned out to Wigan for the second half of last season where he fared little better, and is now back in his homeland playing for Zamalek.

7. Jaime Moreno (1994-1996 & 1997-1998): Originally a £250,000 signing for Robbo a couple of months after he represented Bolivia at the ‘94 World Cup aged 20. But the nippy forward couldn’t disrupt the successful little-and-large duo of Hendrie and Wilkinson, managing only three goals before moving to the MLS. And Moreno netted just once when he made a shock loan return to the Riverside two years later.

6. Christian Karembeu (2000-2001): The World Cup winner’s best days were undoubtedly behind him when he signed from Real Madrid in Robson’s final pre-season as boss. El Tel got a bit more out of him as Boro’s form picked up at the back of end the 2000/01 campaign, but Karembeu wasn’t missed when he moved to Olympiakos after we secured our Premier League survival. His presence wasn’t all bad, though – remember his missus modelling the away top?

5. Tony Vidmar (2002-2003): Clueless Aussie defender who made just nine league starts under Steve McClaren after joining on a free from Rangers. After five seasons dealing with the strike-forces of Dundee and St Mirren, the lanky left-footer perhaps wanted to test himself against the likes of Shearer and Henry. He must have wished – like most Boro fans – he didn’t. The team conceded a glut of goals when he was left to marshal the defence. So bad was Vidmar that he convinced many a Riverside regular that Andrew Davies was a promising centre-half. Nuff said, really.

4. Michael Reiziger (2004-05): Yet another seasoned international singed by Stevie Mac to last just one season on Teesside. As in Karembeu’s case, the 72-capped Dutchman had his best playing days behind him. By the end of his stint on Teesside, Reiziger was playing understudy to Stuart Parnaby for the right-back position. His woeful performances did have an upside, however – the Janet Street-Porter lookalike’s regular injury bouts paved the way for an 18-year-old Tony McMahon to get some useful first-team experience.

3. Branco (1996-1997): After snapping up the 48-year-old World Cup winner on a free transfer in 2006, Bryan Robson wrote in his programme notes: “I have rated Branco as one of the best left-backs for several years now.” I bet Robbo didn’t think the same six months later. The Brazilian – with about as much pace as Robbie Mustoe and the guile of Phil Whelan – looked as though he hadn’t played the game since lifting the Jules Rimet trophy a year-and-a-half earlier. At least his reputation as a free-kick specialist was true...

2. Carlos Marinelli (1999-2004): One in a long line of Argentines hailed as the “next Maradona” when Robson spent £1.5m to bring the two-footed “wonder kind” to the Boro. It didn’t take long for fans to realise the search for Diego’s successor wasn’t over. Marinelli started 18 Premier League games for the club before leaving on a free transfer. You always felt it was going to be difficult for Carlos to break into his national side when Allan Johnston was keeping out of MFC’s starting XI.

1. Afonso Alves (2008-2009): £12.8m. 49 games. 13 goals. No nouse. No physical presence. Just awful. So long.

*Notable omissions include Lee Dong-Gook, Paul Okon, Brad Jones and Szilard Nemeth