WHAT stage of the season are we at? A frustratingly familiar one.
One where Aston bloody Villa come here and twist the knife with a St Valentines Day Massacre or a drubbing that sends the Red Books flying and makes Catt cry.
One where the annual Mogga bandwagon starts to creak into motion fuelled by a potent two stroke mixture of rampant sentimentality and rising desperation.
One where people hope Gibbo still has El Tel's number on his mobile.
One where the gulf between boo-boys and rar-ras opens up and all ambitions for the season fall through the gap.
One where the main defence against the increasingly vitriolic and pained denunciations of the manager is to weakly ask who the alternatives are, a mitigation that rests on the idea that the team are listing like a cruise ship that failed to dodge the iceberg and no one worth their salt would come here anyway.
One where the only hope is to start a pathetic search to find three teams worse, shut our eyes and hope for the best.
There is an emotional maelstrom gripping the Riverside. Rising numbers of supporters are hurt. Angry. Powerless. Resigned. Frustrated. And frightened.
Frightened at the prospect of a dark abyss looming, that the whole thing could collapse into a squabbling mess of disunity and recrimination and relegation that could lead to a headlong retreat into the past, that the glory days are over, that relegation would kiss goodbye to the big time, that the crowd will implode into bitter squabbling, the disillusioned will walk away - and that Gibbo may be one of them.
I'm gutted. I never expected a win, but Jesus wept.... after two scrappy but spirited displays and two hard earned points that should have been a platform for a season saving revival, Boro unravelled again.
It is no good trying to take positives from being the best team for 44 minutes, or matching good sides for an hour if the team are going to lose focus, lose shape and lose heart when a goal flies in. And it will. And the crowd are just as fragile.
Good intentions and conscious efforts to urge the team on soon lose steam and become negated into angst as soon as Boro are behind. Just when we most need to be united and strong.
We've been here before. The current rudderless malaise is worst than last year. The debate is now raging as to which season the current one most echoes.
I did a Time Warp in the Gazette this week looking back to the same week in 1993-94, Lennie Lawrence's final season when the impetus of the Rioch revival was spluttering out but the real Gibson cash injection and Great Leap Forward to the Riverside Revolution was yet to kick in.
We are not that bad, either as a team or in terms of the corrosive apathy on and off the pitch that strangled the season.
Neither, despite the publicly espoused commitment to attacking football undermined by defensive frailities or unbalanced and thin squad and is this like 1996-97 because back then there was a zealous and unstinting support from the crowd that held the disintegrating team together and ensured that whatever happened we would bounce back, a confidence alarmingly lacking today.
You could argue that we are at a watershed moment the importance that will not really be felt for years to come, a re-run of 1981-82, with Southgate in the Bobby Murdoch role as former heroic pitchside leader elevated unexpectedly to dug-out but dealt a bum hand by finances and the tide of history.
In that scenario Eindhoven is acting as the historic high water mark in place of the Wolves quarter-final, a pivotal point which could have been built on but which instead sparked an alarming bout of belt tightening, squad trimming and retreat from ambition.
I am not convinced of that apocalyptic view because now the economic foundations are far stronger, the infrastructure of the club is sound and the leadership remains determined.
For me this season smacks of the last campaign under Bryan Robson in that glaring weaknesses in the squad with a potentially fatal lack of pace or variety had gone woefully unaddressed in the Summer and after a bad start there seemed to be no plan B.
Moreover, the bubbling discontent in the crowd from the previous season - Robbo had been booed in the 'lap of honour' after the drab final day draw at home to relegated Watford - had been allowed to fester as the club hid from the mounting political problems and spilled over into the new season with renewed bile and ferocity.
The team was one dimensional and under-performing, the manager seemed powerless to change it and the crowd were deeply divided so soon after the glory days of Wembley trips galore. The entire project was in real danger of collapsing.
It was the worst start in the Premiership - worse even that both the relegation seasons. The worst that is until this year. It was at this stage of the season, heading towards the first week of December - and, it must be said quite unequivocally, heading for relegation - that Gibbo made the fateful phone call to Teesside Tel.
Boro must start winning soon - Reading is a must win next week then, after the mandatory drubbing by Arsenal, it must be three points at Derby too - because if not it will be hard to head off an all out fans' revolt and Gibbo's dialling finger will get twitchy.
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