November 2008 Archives

I DON'T know about you, but with the credit crunch biting like a half-starved pit bull there has been some serious trimming of the household budget. Daily living costs have been trimmed and all major future spending plans revised radically downwards while luxuries and personal extravagances are a no-no. We're not quite at the stage of stockpiling tins of beans and taking the telly down to Cash Converters yet but the assumption is that next year could be what politicians and employers like to describe as "challenging."

Just as individuals and companies are tightening their belts and digging in for the duration, so too are football clubs. Or at least, those with the foresight to see that the era of unlimited spending built on the all-seater sell out boom and the crazy satellite cashcade is over are. Luckily Boro are among their number.

OF THE last nine matches straight after England international Boro have lost eight and drawn one. One point from 27! No matter how you look at it that is abysmal.

And it gets worse. In 15 games hot on the heels of the England sideshow in the Southgate era, Boro have won just one. One! And drawn three. So, six points from 45. That is more than just a statistical freak. That is a self destructive habit that must be quickly broken before it wrecks Boro's lofty ambitions of top half status.

"WE must make sure we build on this now" .... "We have done well on our travels, now we must do it at home" .... "If we want to push on and challenge for the top eight these are the games we need to win".... "There are some very winnable games coming up"....

It was scripted really wasn't it?

OH NO! Stewie Downing in England Man of the Match shocker! Two assists in a display of energy and invention. How will the tabloid hunter-killer robo-hacks cope? And Tuncay scored a cracking 20 minute hat-trick against Pogo-less Austria too.

That's both of them being dusted down and shoved into the shop window in January by the self-appointed recruitment agents and big club groupies then.

BORO'S away day heroics at Euro-hopefuls Aston Villa and Everton were built on foundations of solid rock. For the second week running Boro travelled to an in-form outfit above them in the table - and the pundit's tips as the teams most likely to break into the Champions League quadropoly - and passed the test.

RESPECT! It is the watchword of the lawless urban ghetto as blinged up, brain dead wannabe alpha males with aggressive haircuts and body language impose their position in the status quo by primitive posturing, foul mouthed invective and surrounding isolated authority figures screaming gansta patois threats in their face.

If the FA's Soho Square Posse want respect they should respond in kind, take offence at their homies being dissed and ice the worst offenders in a drive-by. West Side!

BORO salvaged a draw against West Ham which by my reckoning makes it five dropped because it was officially the first six pointer of the season. The first but definitely not the last. Oh no, this is going to be the longest, most gruelling, emotionally draining, tense, fraught and fractious white-knuckle ride of a season that is more likely to bring Boro fans to the point of fisticuffs than any since Robbo's final chaotic campaign.

BORO got out of jail with a turbo-charged second half that kept the good form and top half place intact. Some timely much needed changes stopped West Ham's right of way through the middle and then a show of power and pace and a flurry of chances in the closing spell had the Riverside rocking and believing it was a game that could have been won.