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From the Terraces
Tagged:
Premiership, Middlesbrough
Football
FanCast columnist Rob Facey reacts to Gareth Southgate's
admission that he was under qualified to take over at Middlesbrough and wonders
what the future the holds for the Riverside
club.
Gareth Southgate has admitted that he may have
been a bit too inexperienced to succeed when he took over the job at the Riverside. The former
Boro captain took over from Steve McClaren in 2006 as the club came to terms
with a drubbing in the UEFA Cup after another season of mid table mediocrity.
However, his admission has made his understated
debut all the more disappointing as Middlesbrough are taking up one of 20
lucrative Premier League places with their bland and uninspiring brand of
football.
"In hindsight, I had no preparation for it at all," Southgate told The Mirror.
"During the first year I did think at times, is this for me? Is it what I want to do?
"It was an enormous challenge and a huge ask. I wouldn't recommend it. I didn't want to be a failure.
"You know there are a lot of people out there who would like to see you fail, saying: 'Oh, he should never have been given the job in the first place'. I didn't want to see them have the last laugh."
Southgate, however, knows that the club faces an uphill struggle to improve on last seasons finish.
"We have only finished in the top 10 twice in the last 15 years."
Boro have a remarkable record against the Big Four but against the rest of the Premier League they continually underachieve. Considering the amount of money the Chairman, Steve Gibson, has ploughed into the club is it not about time the club started to move from also-rans to European contenders?
Southgate is not under pressure at the Riverside but he knows that he must improve if he is to put the long suffering fans out of their misery. Last season he was uninspired in the transfer market and must make a marked progression this year. What is the expectation for Middlesbrough fans for next season? Who would you like to see brought in? Is Southgate the right man to make Boro' contenders in the Premier League?
Or for some alternative entertainment from Rambo...
Poll:
Yep I agree, we have been in
Yep I agree, we have been in the duldrems too long and its vital that we push on as a football club. I would love Southgate to succeed but I really feel we need an experienced head at the helm.
I think things are rosy at
I think things are rosy at the moment and we have a great nucleus of young talent. If Southgate can bring in some experienced heads to complement them then we have a great chance of a top8 finish next season.
It is the inconsistency that
It is the inconsistency that winds me up. How can you play like we do against the Uniteds and Arsenals and then struggle elsewhere. That is why i dont think Southgate is the man for the job.
If you look at the results
If you look at the results since Alves was fit then the football we played was attractive to watch.
Man City are not a top 4 side are they?
What was the score 8-1 wasn't it?
Yet another piece of completely uneducated and trash journalism on the part of Mr Facey.
He obviously hasn't got a CLUE about football and probably watched Boro twice all season.
" However, his admission has
" However, his admission has made his understated debut all the more disappointing as Middlesbrough are taking up one of 20 lucrative Premier League places with their bland and uninspiring brand of football. "
Bland and uninspiring ?? Did you ever watch us play under McLaren ??
A drubbing if you just look
A drubbing if you just look at the result but far from the truth if you actually watched the UEFA Cup final in 2006!
Boro are building a team for the future. Us Boro fans don't demand success over night we demand entertaining football every Saturday at the Riverside, which we are getting now. The next level will come when Southgate has the squad he wants. This takes time. Just look at Ferguson's team in its early days.
What a complete load of
What a complete load of codswallop. "Take us from underachievers to European contenders?" "Long suffering fans" The Boro have now been in Europe twice in the last 5 seasons. We've won a cup and appeared in the UEFA cup final - not to mention the number of domestic cup finals and semi finals. It's a very comparable record to anyone outside the top 4 or 5. Given where we were in 1986 I'm pretty happy with the journey we've been on. Southgate may not take us up to be a champions league contender but is that really realistic?
Let's have a reality check
Let's have a reality check here.
English football is dominated by big city clubs and their foreign billionare chairmen.
If someone told you that a small town club in Yorkshire, say Barnsley, were to spend 10 years in a row in the premiership, and regularly give the big boys a whooping, you would say they have totally played well above their level.
Yet thats what has happened with the Boro.
Only 5 teams have won a trophy and been in a European final in the last 20 years, you know who the other 4 are!
To say its time for Boro to step up to the next level is ridiculous. The fact that we are ahead of big city teams like Leeds, Forest, Wolves, Brum, Derby, Cov and the Sheffield teams shows we are playing above our level and its remarkable that we do this on a regular basis.
If there were 2 leagues, one for city teams and one for town teams, only Blackburn would ever be challenging us! (and they are only there because of Walkers legacy).
Yes, we could do with more consistency. Yes, we don't want to get beat at home by Bolton and Reading (don't mention Cardiff), but then a consistent team wouldn't beat the Arsenal, would they.
The whole beauty (and pain) is that Boro are like a box of chocolates - you don't know what you're going to get!
just ignore this idiot if
just ignore this idiot if thats his pic he needs to spend more time planning a haircut than commenting on things he clearly has no knowledge of.
Grade A T*****
I think it's crazy to
I think it's crazy to suggest we need to do anything...Middlesbrough football club can't finish 12th or 13th enough for me, it's not just about looking at ourselves and wondering how we can improve, we must be realistic about the competition.
What do the following clubs have in common? Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Newcastle, Blackburn, Aston Villa, Manchester City, Portsmouth. The answer is they have all had massive investment in the last ten years, and I'm not talking about the money that Steve Gibson has so generously invested into Middlesbrough, I'm talking BIG money. 9 of those teams have had big money take overs within the last five years and the other (Blackburn) are still benefiting from Jack Walker's bottomless pockets. My point is, there are ten clubs who Boro simply can't compete with unless we do an Everton and have a stunning season, Gareth Southgate is doing a magnificent job keeping Boro in the Premier League and I love the fact that Steve Gibson wants us to be in Europe more than we are out of it but that is as far as we should be looking, Premier League survival and a good go at the cups, something we have achieved in recent years. So no, it's not about time we stepped up anywhere, we're a 100 odd thousand town punching consistently above our weight and long may it continue.
As a sports journalist I get asked this question about Boro "underachieving" all the time, I can forgive it from my colleagues who don't know the club or the town but when our own fans start with it, it really winds me up...if you're really after short term success then go down the road, I hear St. James has a couple of seats going.
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