RIGHT, IT'S time to channel that anger.
Yes, many are still seething, smarting and seeking a way to inflict some kind of painful revenge on the players. We have written screeds of vitriol on the message boards, ranted on the Legends and kicked the cat. We have sworn down dead that we will nor renew if a penny of it goes into the prima donnas' pockets and angrily picked fights with the lily-livered fans who are not as outwardly hostile to the spineless side who surrendered so spectacularly and cost us our best ever chance of glory. And we have scratched out the Gazette predictor in a fit of poison penned pique and got Boro relegated by miles.
Now it is time to move on. We must put the recriminations on the back burner. There are games to be played - MASSIVE ones. There are precious points be secured and we need at least seven and possibly nine from the remaining 30 to guarantee top flight safety. It may make us feel better but there is no advantage to be gained from vilifying, crucifying or heaping public dersion on the players that we now need to get ten big performances out of.
Not that we should just forgive and forget the disaster of Sunday in that trite touchy-feely "its only a game" way that those who are not engulfed by the great passion seem to think is good advice. In fact it will be more like a 'take this pain and push it deep, deep deep into the padlocked box marked 'Typical Boro' in collective psyche to come back and damage us years down the line in a emotionally dysfunctional timebomb' exercise. But that's what we need now.
We need to put aside our own emotional and psychological need to lash out, or for an apology and instead think about the bigger picture that is framed by the compelling need to now scrap our way to survival by all means neccessary. And if we are to do that we must do it with the current players. You might have your own scapegoat-in-chief for Sunday, the under-performers, faint-hearts and bottle jobs you want out the door the second the season ends - but right now they are the very players who we are relying on to keep us up. That means they need support. We need to channel the anger into demanding performances in a positive way that gets results.
A self-destructive gauntlet of hate from the Boro crowd in the six pointer relegation rumble with Derby may make some feel better but it won't help in the long run if we punish the players now but undermine performances and Boro go down (and that certainly won't punish the players because they will be on the phone to their agents to find a new club before we even get away through the underpass.) It is fortunate that Boro are away tonight and on Saturday and there is time for the anger to subside and reality to reform from the debris of our dreams.
The manager and chairman need to channel their anger too. They are closer than us to the players and will be just as frustrated - if not more - by the historic missed opportunity. They too will have their marked men who will play the price in the summer but for now they must lift, motivate, encourage and demand a response. Gareth Southgate fronted up to the press and took responsibility for the defeat. He took the full brunt of the backlash. That won't be because he doesn't think that the the players deserve both barrells - he was seething too.
And the players too. They must channel their anger. They must take the humiliation of the defeat, the scathing reviews in the press and from the Match of the Day pundits and the heart felt booing from the Riverside crowd and must be encouraged to take it out on the opposition.
They need to restore their own professional pride and takes some swift steps to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of the supporters with a string of stirring displays. They owe us. They owe the supporters, they owe Steve Gibson, and especially - after he shielded them from the mob - they owe the manager. It is time for them to stump up.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »