Yes, it was against ten men. Yes, it was against a crisis club with a manager and board at loggerheads and the fans in open revolt. And yes, it was the last day when there was nothing to play for and with no pressure on. Who cares! It was a glorious goal glut the memory of which will be handed down in Teesside folklore for generations, with each and every strike getting better with every telling. It offered sublime skills, magical movement, a string of sizzling goals - and it offered hope that next year can be far more rewarding than this.

The City fans had been brilliant all game - noisy, funny, passionate and essentially good natured - so the scenes at the end were shocking and totally out of kilter with the tone of the day. There is no excusing seats being ripped up and thrown, boozed up XXXL semi-retired terrace warriors wobbling down from the back row to join the scrum, fat lads in Hawaiian shirts grappling with police and the sight of grown men in six foot comedy banana costumes throwing punches in an outbreak of hand-to-hand Fyfeing have no place in the game.

But, remember, it is only a couple of weeks ago that Boro fans were on the wrong end of some indiscriminate heavy-handed tactics at Sunmderland that sparked similar scenes that were widely condemned by Boro fans and the media. We all know that when it comes to policing fans all too often the first instinct is to go route one.

Whatever is said about the City fans now it should also be mentioned that their eighties retro Imre Varadi inflatable tribute and some lively chanting helped raise what could have been a very flat last day atmosphere. The chant to the tune of Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick In The Wall' ("We don't need no Phil Scolari, We don't need Mourinho, Hey! Thaksin! Leave Our Sven alone!") is sheer genius. To be fair, Boro's response whenever Sven appeared in the technical area - "sacked In the morning, you're getting sacked in the morning" - was very funny too.

Some stats and facts:

Biggest win at Riverside ever

Biggest Premier League win since 1999 (Man U 9 Ipswich 0)

First time scored eight since a home win over Sheff Wed in 1973-74

First time scored eight in top flight since an 8-0 home win in 1950 v Huddersfield

Alves hat-trick was the first since Hasselbaink away at Blackburn.

And the first at the Riverside since Branca in a 6-0 v Swindon in 1998.

It was the first hat-trick at Riverside in top flight since Ravanelli v Derby in 1997.

First time this season Boro have scored three goals - avoiding an unwanted record of being the first season EVER the club have failed to score that many goals even once.

What is it with the Riverside micro-climate? It was tropical when I set off from Acklam at 1.45pm. I'd naively slapped on the factor 15 and brought my shades and given the shirt-sleeve order of the fans mooching outside listening to the band by the Ayresome Gates, everyone else had been bussed in from sunnier climes too. Yet as soon as we walked in the ground the temperature dropped, the wind chill factor kicked in and at one point in the second half as the mist started to creep over the East Stand roof I thought we were set for a repeat of the night at Ayresome park when a match against City was played out in eerie muffled foggy mystery. Brrrr.

The enigma of Fabio Rochemback is deepened. A brilliant display of hard work, incisive passing and excellent assists topped off with a sizzling free-kick fit to grace any stage. Now he does it! Just when everyone is resigned to him zipping off back to Sporting. By taxi, naturally. It has probably come to late to rehabilitate him though. There have been far too many poor, frustrating performances of sloppy distribution, over-elaborate and wasteful fancy-Dannery and costly cheap free-kicks conceded in dangerous areas. But if he goes at least he goes with a bang.

Likewise George. Another sterling display from one of Boro's great servants. Great industry, some sublime passing and - as usual - a moment of totally unorthodox control, this time a flying ninja touch of mid-air kung-fu high kicking in which the Boat sprung eight foot in the air, twisted and extended a leg out behind him to pluck a high ball down in a move that defied gravity. And defied logic too as it was going harmlessly out for a Boro throw.

If he leaves - and I for one hope he doesn't as he clearly has another year in him as a squad player before leaving for Feyenoord on a lucrative Bosman - it will be those moments (dropping to his knees at Arsenal to chest down a low ball that he could easily have stayed upright and controlled calmly with his feet was another) and his forthright microphone style that will be missed most.

Finally the parade.... kid watch report.... Mark Schwarzer and Boateng saluted the crowd with nippers in tow, which as we know is always a sure sign that the getaway car is revved up by the exit door. Worryingly, the boss had his kids out there too and Emanuel Pogatetz was also accompanied by a child - gulp! - although with the Mad Dog there's always a possibility that the ankle-biter was just a high carb, raw meat post-match snack.

****

BORO LEGEND Frankie "Bam Bam" Boynton made his return to the Riverside after a long illness. The Bam, a vocal, colourful and highly visible character who has kissed and cuddled every individual who has ever stood on the Holgate, died for eight minutes, was in a coma for two weeks and then was nursed back to health deep in enemy territory in Newcastle. He has missed most of the season while convalescing but was back to see the hammering. It will be a great tonic. Welcome back Bam!

The signs to look for are veteran Aussies bringing their kids onto the pitch with them for what seems an overly enthusiastic waving session to each and every stand. After last season's finale against Fulham Mark Viduka brought his brood along to see him do more contractual obligation waving than the queen before clearing his locker and handing in his car park pass.

This time round it could be Mark Schwarzer in the Viduka role at the head of a queue of players saluting with a cheery smile as they shuffle slowly towards the exit door for the last time. Much maligned Schwarzer is out of contract but the serial transfer requester says he is willing to talk to the club about a new deal (stop me if you have heard this one before) while his agent suggests Bayern Munich are keen to swoop for the Boro youngster as they look to finally replace stroppy septugenarian shot-stopper Oliver Kahn.

Schwarzer has his critics, there is no getting away from it. In fact he has never really won the hearts of the crowd and has been accused of poor kicking, a lack of presence in the box and, ironically, a lack of loyalty throughout his ten years at the Riverside. True, he is not the Premiership's top keeper but he is certainly in there in the gaggle of second string goalies who are pretty much interchangeable and who are all equally under fire from their own short-sighted fans who see the mistakes close up on a weekly basis while advocating their replacement by identikit individuals whose clangers go almost unnoticed.

Time may be up - even his biggest fans will admit his powers have been waning and for a spell earlier this season almost every shot on target from outside the box seemed to fly in - but Schwarzer's is arguably the best keeper Boro have ever had, and that includes Pearsy and Jim Platt. His dramatic decade between the sticks has coincided with a golden age of Wembley trips, the club as a star-studded top flight fixture, the glory of Cardiff and the great European adventure that culminated in Eindhoven. He has put in some brilliant displays of shot-stopping with UEFA Cup performaces away in Rome and Bucharest that were simply awesome.

Of course, in cultural shorthand he will forever be "the greatest Australian hero since Ned Kelly".

But there could be a few others waving farewell for a final time too. Almost certainly Fabio Rochemback, possibly George Boateng and, who knows, maybe Gary O'Neil, homesick for the South Coat and Julio Arca, homesick for Washington, and even Lee Cattermole too as 'no more Mr Nice Guy boss Gareth Southgate looks to strip, completely rebuild and fine-tune his mis-firing engine room. Watch out for anyone bringing their kids onto the pitch.

Eternal optimist Kevin Keegan has spoken a great truth: that the Big Four have the Premier League stitched up like a kipper and that even with sustained spending "the eighth biggest club in the world" are still light years away from catching them. How does he think we feel?

Speaking after Newcastle were brushed aside 2-0 by Chelsea at St James' Park the now world weary supremo cut right through the spin that surrounds the greatest league in the world with a clinical analysis of the political and economic paralysis that has made it a moribund set-up devoid of drama, competition or the possibility of change.

He described the effects of a decade of sustained spending that has created a 'Premier League within the Premier League' made the Big Four untouchable and, more depressingly, the glass ceiling that prevents even a club with Newcastle considerable financial muscle having any realistic ambitions of ever breaking the shackles they now find themselves in. Fifth is the best even the most ambitious challengers can dream of.

I could have written that any time over the past decade (and I have, many times, believe me) - but I am a dangerous radical, a doom-monger, a sentimental nostalgist looking backwards to a mythical golden age, a Luddite, a powerless samizdat propagandist swamped by super soaraway sizzling small screen satellite soccer, a naive idealist on a fruitless quest to restore the quaint Corinthian notion of equality of opportunity that underpins any sporting endeavour. When I say it, it is just webzine whinging.

But when a current manager, and the manager of a club with genuine financial muscle and aspirations to make the ever more elusive breakthrough, says it then it is dynamite. Keegan's statements, and they were deeply considered, articulate and compelling arguments and not just an emotive discharge, is an important break from the dug-out protocol that promotes the collective lie that the Premier League's lifeblood - TV cash - is good for the game. It isn't.

He has outlined the bleak reality that most 'small' club supporters long ago recognised. That a normally upbeat manager from one of the league's most overtly ambitious second tier sides has gone public on his personal frustration at banging his head against the fortifications of cash is a sign of the growing discontent at the distortion of a once great game.

The money has killed the game as a spectacle. It has concentrated the key resources, players, support and political and economic power in the hands of ever fewer hands. It has created a Big Four juggernaut that is far too intimately entwined with the broadcasters, which has neutered the power of the Football Association and which has crushed any notion that the game is for the mug punters who pay to watch it in stadiums. It has created a cynical industry geared entirely to opening new revenue streams and in which the big brands are cemented at the top.

Keegan is right. The Premier League IS boring. We knew in August which four teams would hog the Champions League trough. We knew which team was definitely going down and we knew broadly which five or six others would be battling to avoid joining them. The rest of the season is just jockeying for position in the unseemly squabble over the crumbs from the top table.

Unless there is a political revolt against this institutional imbalance the game as we know it - a competition between two broadly matched teams in a contest where the dramatic tension comes from the fact that the outcome is unpredictable - will be dead.

And Tuncay also got in on the act, scoring another from early in the second half, making a well timed run from 12 yards out to get to Stewy Downing's in-swinger. Boy can he celebrate. He loves every single goal and has a smile as wide as the Transporter when he hits the net. That took him to eight, level with Downing as top scorer (a fact that may just take a little bit of the pressure on Stewy to both create and score).

Tuncay worked his nuts off. He runs and harries and scampers all around the pitch, following the path of the ball and closing in and yapping around defenders' ankles like a hyper-active Jack Russell in Albert Park. He must have been knackered after the game. His relentless energy and willingness to chase lost causes forces the opposition in mistakes, unsettles them, puts them under the kind of pressure that they should really - but rarely - get from Boro's slo-mo midfield. No wonder he is adored by the supporters. With a season under his belt and a beefed up engine-room behind him he can finally be 'spectacular' next season.

It was a strange game. Boro started slowly: the midfield was the least pacy possible option and given the way Boro had ripped into Bolton in the last home game it seemed crazy not to start with Aliadiere on the right and opt for steady and solid Boateng instead. And on the left Mad Dog seemed out of sorts in the left back role - a string of early Portsmouth attacks scythed through that area and twice Baros went close leaving the Riverside crowd groaning inwardly and there were some audible yelps as the nerves kicked in.

But after 15 minutes Pompey suddenly realised that this wasn't the cup final and decided to save themselves for the real thing. No matter what professionals say, or their manager's insist, you can't tell me that two weeks before the FA Cup final these lads will risk getting crocked or sent off in a 50/50 challenge in a nothing match. And having done enough in that opening spell to assuage any guilt about lack of effort they eased off just enough to let Boro take control.

The players relaxed. The crowd relaxed. And Boro actually played some neat football at times. Downing looked lively on the left, Young was getting forward and over-lapping the Boat on the right to put some good balls in, the ever-frustrating Rochemback had one of his better games and was playing his high-risk flicks and tricks on the edge of the right box and Tuncay and Alves looked to working well together, although despite that Boro still struggled to either pick a way through with the final ball or beat the Land of the Giants backline when crosses came in.

After Riggott scored there was only ever one outcome.Tuncay's second capped it and there should have been what would have been a delightful third as Tuncay and Rocky combined to pick out Downing in space in the box on 78 minutes but his low shot was well held.

A word for the ref. The officials have taken some stick in recent weeks (and the man in black got his share of the mandatory boos yesterday too, not least when he sent Wheater off for treatment leaving Boro to defend a corner a man down) but he let the game flow, played the advantage law at all times and there was a commendable outbreak of common sense in the second half as Downing and Mvuamba grappled on the by line after the Pompey man had blocked a cross. The ref started running to intervene almost before they hit the ground and by the time the legs and arms started flying he was there to drag them apart. Five yards slowly and one of them could have landed a haymaker.

In fact a string of dead ball debacles going back to Cardiff opener - the moment the season shattered apart - has helped send Boro into a worrying tailspin in recent weeks, so much so that, according to dejected Luke Young, management are weighing up whether their zonal system has been rumbled and may be axed in favour of the traditional man-to-man approach.

Shell-shocked Young got the short straw at Sunderland and was ushered down the tunnel to explain where it all went wrong to the assembled Teesside press corps - well, me, Mark Drury from BBC Tees and Gordon Cox from the club website - and after some agonising over the cruelty of the late kick in the teeth he flagged up the problem unsolicited. I managed to press him further later on and he expanded on the problem and admitted there had been a discussion on the failings of the zonal system and changes were being considered.

Some of what he said was in the Gazette (and then recycled elsewhere), but there was a bit more, and I've got it in my notebook so what the hell, here's an extended 12 inch remix.

"It was a cruel blow," said Young. "And worse, that's twice in two weeks we've been done from a corner in almost exactly the same way and maybe thats something we need to look into. Bolton caught us like that too and there is nothing defenders hate more than being done at a set piece because it is something you should be good enough to deal with.

"We mark zonal," he explained. "I think maybe a couple of teams have been looking into the way we are setting up for set-pieces and being clever about finding little holes. We have to deal with it in a more professional way."

Zonal marking involves defenders taking responsibility for a specific area of the box and picking up opponents who run into their particular zone when the ball is delivered as opposed to more traditional man marking where defenders are designated an individual and track them wherever they run. The advantages are that defenders are less likely to be drawn out of position following decoy runs leaving gaps to be exploited by attackers arriving late and so can more effectively protect vulnerable areas like both posts. Having designated roles also means they can set up quickly for free-kicks to prevent them being vulnerable to a quick one from the opposition plus it also means they are in place ready to break forward when they gain possession.

The disadvantages are that rather than the tallest defenders cancelling out the most potent aeriel threat, shrewd movement can hand a height advantage to the attacking side, as when towering Higginbottom beat hapless Arca in the air to head home Sunderland's opener, and unless everyone is drilled to perfection markers can 'lose' their man as they run across zones leaving an alert attacker to find an unprotected spot.

Boro have used the 'zonal' system since Steve McClaren was in charge and have made it work very effectively. In the early part of the season Gareth Southgate's side were among the meanest when it came to defending set-pieces and until two months ago only Manchester United were more water-tight.

Even now the OPTA statistics show Boro have conceded on 14 goals from set-pieces and that only six teams - including Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United - have leaked fewer.

But the system has been creaking in recent weeks. Boro leaked an early goal from a free-kick in the painful FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Cardiff while Chelsea's winner in the 1-0 Stamford Bridge showdown, Arsenal's late leveller in the 1-1 draw at the Emirates, Bolton's goal and now Sunderland's sucker punch have come from set pieces. Now Young believes it may be time for Boro to go back to the drawing board when it comes to defending dead balls.

"I don't think it lack of concentration," he isnisted. " We mark zonal and teams are getting clever and are starting to putting people in positions that cause you trouble. They have obviously looked at what we are doing and are hurting us so it is something we will have to look at ourselves. We have to work on it and decide whether to continue with zonal or start going man to man.

"It is not something you can easily change overnight. Zonal is something we have practiced all season, it is what we know and are comfortable with and it has worked well for us for most of that time. It is just maybe now at the tail end of the season that it seems to have been found out a little bit so maybe we need to assess why and what we should do. "

It is right if the system is wobbling that Boro examine it. That should not be seen as a sign of weakness, dissent or a dressing room split. It is sensible management to look at how opposition coaches are approaching Boro's previously solid defensive set-up, where the potential weaknesses are and how best to counter that. It may be they need to work harder and be more determined to make the prefered system work rather than risk the possible consequences of changing horses in mid-stream.

Boro should be wary that they do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. 'Zonal' marking is widely employed in Europe, is part of the FA's official tactical text-book infra-structure for national teams and although - or maybe because - it is a complex system that demands a high degree of technical preparation and understanding from the players. No one will be surprised to find that Steve McClaren was a passionate advocate.

In English football Liverpool have been the standard bearers for the system and Rafa Benitez has reached two Champions League finals going zonal against the cream of continent and made Djimi Traore look a decent defender to boot. It is easy to say the boss uses it in order to play in Europe and that it has not fared so well in the thud and blunder of the Premiership - zonal has been a political hot potato in red Merseyside after every defeat for years now - but Liverpool have rarely finished outside the top four and rarely conced from set-pieces.

And besides, the Anfield approach to defending pre-dates Benitez. In a tactical teach-in on the BBC last year stopper turned surly scar-faced small screen tut-tutter Alan Hansen said: "We always used zonal marking when I won championships with Liverpool. It was all about winning the first ball and if not, you've got to clean up the second ball. The other thing of course is having a goalkeeper who we knew was going to come for crosses."

Ahh. That may point to one reason Boro's zonal system has wobbled in recent weeks. Brad Jones' vampireseque attitude to crosses may well have been a factor at Sunderland with his failure to dominate his box piling pressure on the rest of the system and causing it to crack. Likewise against Bolton stand-in shot-stopper Ross Turnbull played and whil ehe shows great promise he is not an integral part of the well oiled machine that is Boro's backline.

Former FA technical director and coaching guru Howard Wilkinson (don't laugh, he has more badges than a boy scout jamboree) has used the zonal system for more than 30 years and made it work as he became the last English manager to win the title and later made it the norm in coaching national teams from the senior side right down to the schoolboys although his disaster at Sunderland maybe emphasises that it ios as much about the quality of the players as the technical shape of the system that determine whether it works.

Wilkinson said: "Zonal defending is based on the principle that when free-kicks are taken in the attacking third in wide positions or from corners, there is a dangerous space which can be identified. Within this area roughly three out of 100 goals are scored from the first touch.

"The system attempts to concentrate the best headers of the ball in that space. Your other players are in positions to defend the second ball. With man-to-man marking, attackers can drag defenders all over the place by taking them away from the danger area. It is a collective responsibility whereas man-for-man marking is based on personal responsibility."

That raises an interesting point: under zonal marking when a goal flies in at a set piece it is the system that takes the flak while in man-to-man the blame might lie with a different individual every time, so the overall trend can be easily overlooked.

But there are issues that can be exploited. "The problem with zonal marking is that because of the movement of the opposition, you're going to have men that are unmarked," said Alan Hansen. "When you start off you need to decide who picks up whom and who then lets the other men go. Sometimes players follow the ball and attackers are able to find space. "

The problems that have been highlighted in recent weeks can best be tackled by intense preparation at Hurworth, the return of a keeper to whom the positioning and logic of the system is second nature and by the players charged with making it work applying themselves. More concentration, more determination and more steel in applying a tried and tested system that was so effective until recently is preferable to a kneejerk switch to an under-rehersed man-to-man method with two high stakes games looming. Now is no time for experimentation.

At their core they remain a limited team of spirited battlers - but they have taken four points off Boro and are higher in the Premier League table. That as much as anything is a searing indictment of Gareth Southgate's soft centred side.

Worst, how many times are we going to concede from loosely defended set-pieces? Out in open play you can't really prepare for a moment of magic, sublime skill or the dropped clangers that can put you under expected pressure and lead to a goal in a flash. They are circumstances beyond control. But dead-balls are situations that the defending side should be able to control. There is a break in play to organise marking, the flight of the ball can be generally predicted, the movement of opposing players is visible and is limited by the offside law, defenders are facing the direction of the incoming delivery... these situations are practiced day in, day out.

Yet Boro, a team managed by a dug-out full of defenders, are being ripped open time and time again by routine set-pieces: costly goals have flown in against Cardiff, Chelsea, Man United, Bolton and now Sunderland. In his post-match interview Luke Young admitted that opposition teams may well have identified Boro's creaky zonal marking as a potential weakness. They are not the only ones: most Boro fans now watch corners and free-kicks through their fingers because we know it is a fatal flaw in the defensive make-up.

The late Sunderland winner was an average near post delivery that Murphy should not by rights have connected with. Forget about any confusion in picking him up when he made his run - he should have been picking himself off the floor because any confident, commanding keeper would have been out quickly to wipe him out - and Pogatetz for good measure - and punch clear.

Which brings us to another pressing problem. For my money, Brad Jones should not be playing for the first team. He terrifies me. And it seems he terrifies the defence. He made two good saves but his is a high risk presence. In almost every game I can remember he has fumbled crosses, dropped the ball or has come out but failed to collect leaving chaos in his wake and nervous team-mates to scramble clear. If we are lucky.

A harsher judge than me might put all three goals at his door. The first stemmed from when he came out to punch in a crowded box but failed to get any distance on it before it came back in and even then he made no attempt to Higginbottom's header, the second arguably he could have got to if he had been more alert in coming off his line (although that certainly doesn't absolve either Taylor for losing Chopra or Wheater for diving in and letting the Geordie Mackem cut back inside) and the third, as outlined above, at that stage of the game and with the stakes so high, he should not have been meekly sticking his hands up hopefully, he should have scythed through friend and foe to collect or punch.

The keeping situation is now critical. If Jones' display has any positives about it, it is that it highlights that no matter what his critics may say, Schwarzer is actually not that bad.

As for the rest... I am probably still too sick, angry, disappointed and frustrated to make a really objective judgement but for me the game was lost in midfield. Stewart Downing worked his socks off and ripped them open down the left but that was all the creativity and penetration offered as the rest were ineffective (and that is generous).

Cattermole was hopelessly lost on the right flank, Boateng was full of running and always willing but a yard short throughout and Arca is a shadow of the player he was going into the previous derby clash. He has never really regained his edge since the injury he picked up in that game, was rightly dropped earlier this year and has been the weakest link in the team since his return.

There were bright spots. Downing was excellent, Tuncay showed some great skills, neat movement and took his goal well and never stops running and Alves got another goal and had a few good touches (although I don't think we will ever be praising him for his workrate). And at the back Luke Young is rock solid and Poggi slugged it out with impressive Kenwyne Jones and picked up another battle scar for the cause. He also put in an incredible full length defensive diving backwards header to cut out a ball to Jones in the box.

Defeat to yet another average team of journeymen was a massive kick in the teeth - but also a reality check. It condemns Boro fans to a summer of parochial ridicule from their neighbours and after Reading and Bolton it was another missed opportunity to escape the relegation zone. For all the hype ("the best team outside the top four") and signs of a new attacking culture Boro have won just one game in ten - and that nervously against whipping boys Derby - and have taken just seven points from a possible 30.

Now we face a tense finish to a season. The odds are still in out favour but again we will stay up by default. It is still possible for Boro to get dragged down but it would take a bizarre set of results. Even if Boro fail to take another point four other sides would need to overhaul us.

Bolton would need to make up a three point gap and they face Sunderland at home (not one for the purists) and then go to a title chasing Chelsea defending and unbeaten home run that goes back to the Crimean War.

Reading also need to make up three points and have what look like winnable games at home to Spurs and then away to a Derby who will struggle to beat Sunderland's 15 point low water mark.

Birmingham, third bottom, need to make up a four point deficit and they go to revived Fulham next week then finish at home to a Blackburn side possibly still chasing European football.

And Fulham need six points and need to make up a six goal deficit to catch Boro. They will need to beat Birmingham in what will be a massive basement battle next week and then win away at a Portsmouth who may be mentally cruising down Wembley Way.

If Boro do not take at least the two points they need at home to Pompey and Manchester City and make themselves hostage to fortune and get caught up in that network of deadly permutations then they deserve to go down. They have had countless opportunities to not only save themselves but to push on. It is unacceptable that after ten years of Premier League experience and - maybe more importantly - Premier League money we are still looking at the results of teams below us two games from the end. There will be a lot of renewal letters, slick DVD and all, being thrown angrily in the bin right now.

There is a lot of work to be done in the summer.

Thank God for that! You don't need to be infected by the bubbling under-current of traditional Teesside paranoia and conspiracism that surrounds all matters media to have noticed a certain jaundiced theme to the weekly pre-match predictions made by the Beeb's stand-up summariser. Almost every week he forecasts defeat for our heroes. And when he doesn't it is the kiss of death. After persistently predicting real hammerings against the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United he switched tack last week to back Boro against Bolton.... d'oh!

Fair enough, that may be an echo of the habitual defeatism of many cynical half-empty Boro fans but he hasn't got the excuse of having stood on the Chickenrun for 30 years. And besides, some of his predictions would make the average Legends caller look like a full on foam hander.

But a look at the more detailed stats in a full league table shows how wildly inaccurate his guesses have been, especially for away games. Of Boro's 18 away games he has predicted NOT ONE victory, not even at Derby. Surely football's tendency to the unpredictable and perverse should have led him to have the odd punt on a coupon-buster.

Of 18 away games he has forecast 16 defeats and only TWO DRAWS. Yes, he has tipped Boro to take just two points from 54 on the road. He has also forecast Boro to score just eight goals and leak a hefty 36 in those 18 games. In fact Boro's stats are disappointing but represent a perfectly normal lower mid-table return: three wins, seven draws, 16 points and 14 goals.

To be fair (as the Beeb are obliged to be by their charter it should be noted) his predictions for Boro at the Riverside are pretty good. He has tipped six wins, four draws and seven defeats - making 22 points - with just 17 goals scored and 19 against whereas in real life the stats show one win less and one draw more, yielding 22 points and 17 goals with 22 conceded. The points haven't come where he thought they would but hey, this is Boro we are talking about.

And it must be said, his table isn't a millions miles away from the real thing. Few teams are more than a couple of positions away in this speculated table from the real one except Spurs who he has bizarrely backed into a UEFA Cup challenge in defiance of all the evidence of their leaky mediocrity. But the devil is in the detail and his detail has Boro as clearly the biggest losers, 12 points and four points adrift of the concrete reality

And there is no getting away from it, his paragraph of predictive text each week is relentlessly disparaging. I know it is "only a bit of fun," falls far short of the kind of statistical or scientific approach employed by bookmakers and is probably rattled off in five minutes flat and we really shouldn't get rattled by it but the national publicly funded broadcaster should at least take a stab at objectivity. Very little credit is ever given to Boro's solidity, there is little recognition of current form and his sly digs in the write ups are unneccessary.

I really don't what we have done to upset him. Maybe he was mercilessly pilloried once by the Holgate or maybe Boro battered his hapless Oxford side in his brief ill-fated spell in club management. Whatever, he is consistent in forecasting Boro will get battered and seldom has a kind word to say about us, not even a patronising one, not on his weekly website predictions page and not on small screen commentaries. He spent most of this season's FA Cup live broadcasts making inane and disparaging remarks about the club, the crowd and Mido's waistline or actively urging on the opposition. The only time he came close to thinking about balance was a comment on the Egyptian's low centre of gravity.

Out of interest, here is the whiny one's prediction for the derby game:

Sunderland v Middlesbrough:

"I thought Sunderland came back at Newcastle in the second half of their defeat last week - they created a couple of chances and showed spirit. However, it's clear they will need to bring in players for next season if they avoid the drop. Certainly, they need a proven goal scorer to play alongside Kenwyne Jones, who is very effective but could do with some help.

Middlesbrough got a bit worn down after a fast start at Bolton last time out and I feel they may suffer a similar fate here. Verdict: 2-0"

********

Meanwhile, knowing that the Cult of Juninho remains a powerful part of the demographic and that part of my remit is pointing your browsers towards things you may have missed, there's an interesting Q and A with Boro's favourite Brazilian on the official website in which the diminutive dreamweaver takes a little pop at Mac, admits he should have stayed rather than be edged out and confuses readers by claiming he won "the title" with Boro. If only.

From the opening day against Blackburn onwards it has been the recurring story of the season. West Ham, Everton, Liverpool, Reading at home have all followed that script. Some have almost gone the same way: against Wigan and Derby Boro managed to make one of the chances count but then contrived to retreat into cautious, terrified defence anyway and almost let beaten opponents back in. Against Sunderland and Liverpool they did concede a point after failing to kill the teams off and inching into a nervous slo-mo late retreat.

Boro need to develop the cold killer touch of an Uzi toting hitman out to ice a crack turf war rival in a drive by. A more ruthless side, even one that did not play such a fluid beauty pageant passing game, could have turned those chances into six or nine or 12 more points this season. That is where we are lacking. Boro have spent £21m on strikers this season and have managed less than a goal a game. That is where the problem lies.

Beating Bolton would have left Bolton deep in trouble and all but secured Boro's survival. Now the gap between the teams is down to just five points and we are looking over our shoulders again going into the last three games. Losing at home to a poor, poor side, one with a death wish and who have looked doomed and even more flaccid in front of goal than Boro since selling Anelka, is a massive own goal. The good will generated by the Manchester United and Spurs games has had a cold harsh bucket of reality thrown on it. And that at a time when the season ticket renewal forms are flopping onto doormats and memories of Cardiff were just fading.

Gutted. But not completely surprised. Some observations:

Mad Dogs of War: It was a blood splattered clash (as they tend to be against Bolton)... especially for Gary Cahill. The black and blue Wanderers man needed treatment after Emanuel Pogatetz, looking for a Kevin Davies substitute, put the nut on the back of his head as they went up for an aerial duel and then he had to go off for stitches in his napper after a another nasty collision with team-mate Cohen. Raziak went off dazed and with a bleeding head after another friendly fire incident in the Bolton box and a bruising first half featured three long hold-ups, a physio sprint race and season record seven minutes added time.

Penalty Clause? You don't want to bang on about it for fear of being branded whinging, paranoid one-eyed bad losers but what will it take for Boro to get a penalty? After the Luke Young "handball" at Villa set the standard for intent fairly low, Boro have had a string of far stronger claims waved away. And alright, the bobble up onto Matt Taylor's hand maybe not. And the shot into the box that clipped a white sleeve in the first half, well, OK, benefit of the doubt. But when Stewy Downing's ball into the box deflected onto McCann's arm in the box he saw it coming and had plenty of time to get out of the way. It was stonewall. And that was at 0-0.

Winging It: Jeremie Aliadiere had a storming first half as a makeshift right winger that may offer a way out of the selection headache the gaffer faces in accommodating his creative forces of Alves, Tuncay, Downing and the jet-heeled Frenchman. Drafted in to replace Gary O'Neil in a wide role he was highly effective. His pace terrified Bolton, he cut in to link up superbly with Alves or offer an extra body in the box and had the legs to get back and close down when the opposition got down the flank, several times racing back 20, 30, 40 yards to put in a tackle - once in his own box! His speed, control and vision can still hurt teams out there and that offers a possible long term solution to the right wing problem (possibly freeing up finance for investment elsewhere) and also some interesting tactical options.

Keeper Up With The Joneses: Ross Turnbull was a positive. He couldn't do much about the goal having blocked the initial Cahill header and maybe he was caught out of position for the chip to the far post that Young had to head off the line, but generally he watched his angles well, made some good saves from shots from the edge of the box (the kind that have routinely flown in unimpeded this term), was quickly off his line and commanded his often crowded box with a confidence that belied his lack of experience at this level.

Brad Jones terrifies me when he is in goal and strikes me as good for at least one major dropped blob per game and gives the impression that the defence are jittery too, but Turnbull seems solid. He did well when he played in the 1-1 draw at Reading and 2-1 win over Arsenal and seems brave and confident. Schwarzer missed the game with a back injury - a freak book signing incident was the cruel press room speculation - and as the ageing Aussie's status at the club is yet to be resolved the gaffer should take the opportunity to give Turnbull a run in the last few games, critically assess whether he has what it takes. It could save a few bob and sharpen the focus on both sides of the table when Skippy next talks turkey on a new deal.

Briefs Interlude: On a day of disappointments the "streaker" caught the mood of the moment and failed to deliver. Firstly he kept his shreddies on. Not that anyone particularly wanted to see the works but if you are going to do it at least give it your best shot. Secondly, the whole enterprise seemed totally aimless and having hopped out of the East Stand and crossed the pitch he seemed lost. There was no jovial attempt to hug a player, no cheeky British Bulldog with stewarsd and police. As the team were to do later, he ran out of ideas and steam and just fizzled out and waiting to be ushered down the tunnel. After the game while I waited for quotes from players (a new season's record of 56 minutes after the whistle by the way) I spoke briefly to the arresting officer who said the streaker explained his actions sheepishly by saying: "It was just one of those things you have to do before you die."

In a radical - and much needed - development the club have chopped back matchday costs in these crucial areas to pocket money prices: for under 18s it will tumble by up to 75% to a juicy £5 a game, competing favourably with an afternoon mooching around MacDonalds, while ST cards for 18-21 year-olds have been reduced to just £195 in the North West and South West corners - down from £300 this year - making that an affordable tenner a game.

But for existing adult card holders there is a three year deal on offer with prices frozen and a swanky personalised plaque on your seat, surely set to become the new cultural battleground, either prized as the new status symbol of the unconditional pre-emptive loyalist or derided as the mark of the uber-fan, a ra-ra badge of distinction to be polished lovingly with a foam hand.

This may fall short of the housing market style "readjustment" that many believe is needed to stop the steady drift from terraces to pub, or the symbolic major cut needed to spark a return to the heady days of full houses. In truth the real engine for that seismic shift in the prevailing mood will only come from success on the pitch or a real "spectacular" signing.

There will be some consumer resistance and talk of how far bigger cuts were needed, especially targeted in those area most prone to red seat rashing in low profile games - the pricier seats of the East End Upper and the main stand corners (both being addressed instead with concessions for the younger fans) - or calls to include cup games for free (an unknown factor) or a guarantee to mirror any one-offs with a retrospective discount for card holders.

The money is certainly there in the game with the new TV deals to fund more creative structures. The issues that prompted tabloid newspapers, government ministers and football bigwigs to call for price cuts at the start of this season have not gone away, indeed, given the changing dynamics in the domestic economy the problems are actually sharper.

But, whatever the quibbling, there can be no doubt that the reductions at the bottom end are an unprecedented (if belated) recognition of one of the key problems facing the game. We have talked at length on here about the changing demographics of the crowd, older by the year. Rising prices and the season ticket sell out (remember that?) helped lock out an entire generation of fans, the noisy, cocky passionate teenagers that we once were who make such a contribution to the atmosphere.

The cuts for kids - "Today's Football, Yesterday's Prices, Tomorrow's Fans" in PR speak - are to be welcomed as a way of countering that drift to tartan blanket Meldrewism. The new prices can be a vital bridge for getting a generation in danger of being frozen out back into the ground and hooked on the narcotic appeal of this emotionally testing club of ours ... and more so, the club will think, if the younger ones bring their full price paying parents with them. It is another significant step forward in the club's newed relationship with supporters.

Now, after making the major political moves to tackle one of the trickiest area of prohibitive pricing, Gibson is calling on fans to back the club’s ambitions with bums on seats, an annual rallying cry but one this time backed by concrete concessions that are hard to argue with.

The chairman believes Gareth Southgate is building a squad capable of competing at the highest level and promises to back him by signing “the best global talent”. He insists the people of Teesside should be proud of a club that is the ambitious flagship of the town.

“The groundwork is in place for the team and the club to really go forward next season,” said Gibson, speaking for a DVD to be sent to existing season card holders. “We want to bring the best that we can to this club. We have a search for global talent. We want to be in a position to be able to attract the best. We’ve done that with Alves, Tuncay and others and just look what we’ve done in the past with the likes of Juninho, Ravanelli and Merson.”

Gibson stresses that the club is nothing without the supporters and asks for continued support through the turnstiles. “The fans are everything,” he said. “Without them, there’s no point in us being here. We need their vocal and financial support for all games, not just the big fixtures, and we want full houses.”

Asked what message he had for wavering fans considering the investment, Gibson pointed to the achievements of the Riverside era that has seen more than a decade of unbroken Premier League football, five cup finals, two European runs and the club’s first major trophy.

“Look at the last 10 years,” he said. “We understand we’ve had some inevitable lows but look at the tremendous highs we’ve had. Be proud of the club, get behind the club, get behind this manager - and we will do everything we can to produce a team that the town and the fans can be proud of.”

Boss Gareth Southgate added: “I won’t make any empty promises by predicting that we’ll achieve a top four finish or qualify for Europe next season but I can tell you that my sights are firmly set on us breaking into the top half of the table where those type of targets become achievable. Fans can be assured that we will do everything we can to further improve the squad over the close season as we continue our policy of bringing youth and pace into the side.”

Chief Operating Officer Neil Bausor, who has been involved in a string of focus group meetings with lapsed and current season ticket holders in a bid to identify the stumbling blocks and price triggers involved, said the cuts are “the most exciting season card initiatives in Boro history”.

Other highlights of the 2008-09 packages are:

A new Family Area in the Riverside's East Stand Lower for 2008-09, which will be the focus of pre-match and half-time entertainment activities.

Card holders who wish to renew the same seat can do so online.

An exclusive three-year season card, offering fans a personalised aluminium plaque on their seat, free entry into a regular prize draw and a price freeze at 2007-08 prices.

A new away season ticket, giving season card holders who are regular away travellers the chance to guarantee their tickets for every league and cup away match.

***

HOMEGROWN Boro stars added their support for the new ticket prices for younger fans.

"I was a ball boy for Boro and I know how much kids get out of seeing the top players close up," said Stewart Downing. "If kids start supporting Boro when they're young they build a relationship with the club and they become fans for life.

"Things have changed over the last couple of years, with us getting to the UEFA Cup final and our other cup runs, and you see more kids in the street wearing Boro colours. We're just a couple of players away from being a very good team. If we can make the right signings I think we can make the top seven at least next season."

Defender David Wheater said: "It's important to get young fans in because they are the supporters of the future. They are the ones we're going to need behind us in the long run.

"The more fans we get into the ground the louder it gets and the better the atmosphere. It makes you feel good about yourself and when the crowd at the Riverside are singing your name, it's the best feeling you can have. One of the things that makes Boro special is we have mainly local support. Some other clubs get fans from all over the place, but when you have local fans they really feel a passion for the club."

Yet it seems we must get used to being bigged up as a Boro bandwagon starts to roll and the talking heads and national hacks scramble aboard. It had been inching forward slowly but at the weekend Sky Sports summariser Alan McInally - keeping a close eye on the Spurs game - gave it a hefty shove with a jaw dropping assertion that Boro are “the best team outside the top four.”

That may not sit too comfortably with the league table, the paltry goals for tally or the memories of long spells of disjointed tedium this term, especially for those supporters still smarting over the FA Cup surrender to Cardiff.

In fact, Boro are actually far closer to the bottom four than the top - uncomfortably so - and if they were to lose to basement battlers Bolton on Saturday then it will be “squeaky bum” time for a team that no matter how much sympathetic press they get are still not yet safe from the drop.
Nevertheless, the professional opinion formers are waxing lyrical about Boro edging towards being the real thing.

After the second half show at Spurs, in which they had enough good chances to win (stop me if you have heard this one before), McInally was practically singing along to Pigbag as he pointing his foam finger at a bright future.

“It's important the way they are playing now because we are getting to the stage where Southgate starts to strengthen for next year,” he said. “And of all the teams outside of the top four going for the title, Middlesbrough of those in that area, are by far the best. By far the best.” He repeated that bit for emphasis as gob-smacked viewers in pubs across the country sprayed their beer all over.

A month ago Spurs were reckoned to be the best bet to break the evil cash-crazed quadropoly that are strangling the Premiership. Under Ramos they were faster, fitter and more organised so the Carling Cup was just the start. Now however they can’t stop shipping goals and the baton has been passed to Boro. After a second half tactical switch saw Boro take control the Times, not normally a natural ally of Teesside, was generous in its praise of Southgate’s slow rise to assume the challenger’s mantel.

“He has taken it slowly, not trying anything revolutionary and his caution is paying off,” wrote Alyson Rudd. “Middlesbrough look capable of sustaining an assault on the top six next season. By contrast Ramos needs all the time his cup glory bought him.”

It would be easy to dismiss the plaudits as a one off, except it is fast becoming the norm.The love-in started back in December after a high-tempo 2-1 Riverside rout of Arsenal raised eyebrows. Boro inflicted the first defeat of the season on the Gunners after out-thinking and out-playing them and Arsene Wenger put aside his big book of excuses and admitted Southgate and his fledgling side were a rising power.

“I am convinced that they will find a way out of trouble and will push on to become a dangerous side next year, perhaps in the top eight of the league,” said Wenger. “Gareth Southgate has been mentioned as a future England manager and I think it is possible.”

Since then Boro’s star has been rising even though results have not improved dramatically and the flashes of fluid play that have led to such optimism have yet to sustained for the full 90 minutes. Then after a sparkling second half in the 2-2 draw last week against Manchester United the spin machine went into overdrive.

The Match of the Day 2 team of Lee Dixon and Gavin Peacock could barely contain their excitement at Boro’s display and were scattering superlatives like love struck teenagers. “Ahhh, Boro are great, Alves is brilliant, Gareth is lush.” The pair competed to heap praise on an admittedly inspirational team display.

And the performance, the steel Southgate shown in standing up to fuming Fergie in a technical area toe-to-toe and his dignified progress through a baptism of fire to become an intelligent manager who sticks to his guns also attracted the support of Henry Winter, the Telegraph’s respected libero.

“Far tougher than perceived, Southgate... refused to kowtow to Sir Alex Ferguson, who usually expects subservience from managerial apprentices, " he wrote of the gaffer. “His image has traditionally been of the boy next door, the polite milk monitor with the nice grey jumper and stripey tie, yet all his own managers have seen a leader in him. Clearly intelligent, he is increasingly prepared to speak his mind. The more his nascent career is inspected, the more evidence of the determination and independent streak in his DNA.”

(Incidently, on the question of Southgate being "too nice" to manage effectively because he can't administer a well timed bollocking, Stewie Downing said some interesting things in today's Gazette on just that subject. He made it clear that the gaffer dished out a dressing-room tongue lashing that was as much a part of turning the game round at Spurs as the substitutions were.)

As if all that praise wasn’t enough, Thierry Henry weighed in. Asked how Barcelona could beat Manchester United in the Champions League he said: “By playing more like Boro than Arsenal.”

It may be too early to get carried away, especially if it is not backed by points. For the media the lack of a return from the admittedly rousing displays against the Champions League is not an issue. That Boro have taken the steam out of first Arsenal and then Manchester United and contributed to the swings of fortune of the contenders has helped shape the story and keep the title race alive has been crucial to the commercial enterprise.

That said, this is not the grudging respect that may have been paid to a battling Bolton or spirited Pompey that may snatch a point and cause an upset but also leave the press box purists bristling at the functional route one stylings of a self-consciously limited team. There is in the praise of Boro an acknowledgment that the team is playing with a certain panache, that it is trying to do things the 'right' way with passing at ground level and a fluidity of movement and that the team are technically proficient.

Yes, there is an attempt to tie that to an individual, to make the team reflection of the manager and his cerebral rather than a brutal approach and in some ways the club, the infrastructure put in place by Steve Gibson over a decade, the good habits that begin in the academy and the core of home grown heroes are brushed over, but to be fair that is true on Teesside too.

Southgate has a certain credibility with the press if only because he is articulate, thoughtful and answers a good question with a comprehensive, well thought out answer that is consistent with his espoused footballing philosophy and is underpinned with a certain honest and ethical approach that is refreshing in a cynical world. Southgate was always likely to win friends within the press but now he is starting to influence people. And convince them too that this is team he is building could be more than just a flash in the pan.

The current agenda in the media reflect a growing respect within the game for a boss who is learning the ropes and starting to express himself ever more forcefully and also a respect for his team, a well balanced side that has put in spirited, tenacious and tactically shrewd displays against title chasers Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United in recent weeks.

If the same team can show those qualities against Bolton, Sunderland, Manchester City and Portsmouth, win over the doubters and start to justify the hype then maybe we can really start raising our hopes for a brighter future.

Nevertheless such a fortune-cookie trueism was disappointing - but although there were no searing technical insights Jeff the ref's analysis did reveal some of the thought processes and hinted heavily that the man in the middle is as subjective and contradictory as the average fan.

Take for instance the assessment of incident 3, the penalty that wasn't at Aston Villa. Luke Young shaped to make a block and was turning his back on the shot when it hit him and possibly deflected onto his elbow. The verdict was "never a penalty in a million years" although Winter concedes "Young's arms were raised as he slid in to make the block. Had it hit his hands or arm then fair enough...."

Yet for incident 9, the Adam Johnson cross at Chelsea that struck Juliano Belletti on the arm, the ref appears to take a contrary stance. The player had his arms up as he leaped to cut out the cross and misjudged his own flight but Winter says: "No way a penalty. The ball hit his chest and bounced onto his arm."

So if the ball had deflected up and hit Young's hand or arm a penalty would have been "fair enough" but when it does that to Belletti it's "no way." How does that work then?

Jeff elaborates on the Belletti incident that: "There was no movement of the arm, no intent, therefore no penalty," which is right and fair and is close to what boils down on the playground to the time honoured "hand to ball not ball to hand."

Intent is the key to handball, there is no question - yet in the Young incident, Winter does not flag this up. He appears to say that despite Young's body shape, forward momentum in the attempted block and turning away so he can't even see the flight of the ball - that is that any of the indicators of intent had been categorically removed - that if the ball had then struck his hand a penalty would be "fair enough."

For me those two cases are totally contradictory and it is deeply worrying that even with plenty of time to consider the decisions and weigh them up against each other that the verdicts still appear to be both totally subjective and totally in opposition.

Elsewhere in the featurette Winter wanderes offside into another problematic area. Looking at in Incident 8, Darby's James McEveley's trip on Gary O'Neil just inside the area that resulted in a free-kick just outside, he says it is often hard to judge when contact occurred when players' momentum then carries them inside the box as they fall. Fair enough, it must be 'mare to call, especially when the linesman is either not up with play or has been told not to make those decisions and to leave them to the ref.

But with the benefit of hindsight and slo-mo Winter should be able to say clearly that the decision was wrong. Instead he cops out and ushers what should be a red-faced ref into the traditional Victorian stronghold of unassailable integrity. "The referee deemed it outside. It was an honest decision so I stand by him". This is of course the get out clause in every single disciplinary panel from local football up to FIFA: "if in the opinion of the referee...."

Yet Winter was not ready to stand by the honest decision of Steve Bennett when he got the Luke Young penalty call wrong at Villa. Then he was just wrong. So why isn't Martin Atkinson just wrong on this penalty call?

This is not a criticism of Jeff who I often agree with when he assesses the latest dropped blob in his rentaquote role in the media, but it is an interesting pointer to the flawed nature of the individual. Even with the most experienced referees there are layer upon layer of complexity - subjectivity, contradiction, and retrospective retreat into "well, it was an honest mistake."

Of course, it is that possibility of human error that makes the game so unpredictable and is part of the excitement and appeal of the game and it is only the media overkill focussing on this facet of the game that has made us so acutely aware of the perpetual problems that were once accepted as routine.

There is a lot of academic research into subconscious refereeing bias favouring home teams but little in the way of either research into "big club bias" or on quantifying the football and financial cost of genuine mistakes, potentially a more costly and pernicious problem.

Big business, big media concerns, big clubs won't accept expensive mistakes for much longer. It is only a question of time before a rich and powerful club loses out on a Champions League place or is relegated because of one quite clearly incorrect decision and "the honest opinion of the referee" won't go down well with the shareholders who lose multiple-millions. Challenging decisions in that context could do more to undermine the authority of referees and the football authorities than any amount of on-field dissent.

The game needs to address the problem urgently. Whether that is a fourth referee in the stands, a video facility or more willingness of the referee to confer with his linesmen, something must be done. The game will inevitably lose elements of that compelling uncertainty in tackling the problem and may also lose the fluidity of action on the pitch, plus it could hand even more of a free hand to the media who want to be able to shape the news agenda in terms of rows and bust-ups - although to be fair we have arrived at that point already.

Failure to address the issue risks provoking other interests to seize the initiative, inviting the G14 clubs to bring in their own refereeing and disciplinary structure in the interests of maintaining their commercial integrity and removing the element of expensive uncertainty than unaccountable human error introduces to their business plans. That could lead to a fundamental institutional break between the game at the very top and the rest and the repercussions of that could be far reaching and vastly damaging.

Refs need to climb down from their ivory towers and tackle the problems themselves to head off having solutions imposed by commercial interests - and they need to go public on their reasoning. They need a charm offensive to get the public on-side and prevent supporters being manipulated into supporting sinister agendas. Blow the whistle on contradiction.

But all true Teesside zen masters of the Holgate know the true essence of the dichotomy is actually summed up in two: "typical Boro," a knowing phrase that pronounced correctly is spat out like an obscenity that combines disgust, betrayal, righteous anger, world weary cynicism, bloody-minded defiance and a kernel of hope, an eternal flame of perverse optimism that can be fanned into glorious life by defeat as readily as victory. We shall overcome. Erimus. The nature of the club, the strength, is derived from a unity in moments of despair.

Southgate is starting to understand the depth of the enigma which is a start. Steve McClaren and Bryan Robson - the two most successful managers in the club's history - never even acknowledged there was a question, let alone tried to grasp the answer.

I like Gareth Southgate. He is honest and open in answering even the most difficult questions in a way that is rare with managers and even though that opens you to quite vicious attacks from supporters and sneering ones from the press when things are going wrong he has never retreated from that during the tough times. He has a dry sense of humour, a dignity in defeat and a willingness to accept that he is still learning. His post-match interviews are articulate, frank and press a lot of emotional buttons that suggest he is acutely aware of how the supporters are reading the situation. On the Beeb after the Man United game for instance he touched on the impact of the Cardiff game in way that suggested he understood its political and emotional impact beyond the result on the day.

One day he could be a true zen master and unravel the enigma. What about you? Can you do it in 20 words? I'm bloody sure I can't.

Some observations:

"Boro Goal Machine" Alves is a Brazilian blend of Bernie and Ravanelli. He has the uncanny and uncoachable Slavenesque ability to be in the right place at the right time allied with the power, poise and clinical finishing of the ruthless Italian finisher. For both goals he made the right runs before the ball broke and was on the spot to ram them home in style. It was inspirational.

There is an argument that it is a learned response, that he has studied Boro in recent weeks, has absorbed the way the team play, has anticipated the kind of moves and the nature of the knock downs and through balls but that is far-fetched over analysis. He has qualities that can be coached: movement, strength on the ball, first touch, finishing ... but what will make him worth the £13m is an instinct to be where the second ball lands, an innate ability to be in the right place in the right time. That is something Boro haven't had since Slaven and is an incredible asset. We have said all along that he will come good. Most of us anyway.

His ability to rattle the woodwork last week was noted and seen as a plus. He was just getting his eye in. Now with fitness levels up and galvanised by a goal or two there will be no stopping him. Now, if only he could head the ball....

MotD2: The BBC branch of the Boro Supporters Club? At times it sounds that way. Both Lee Dixon and Gavin Peacock were gushing in their praise for Boro, which is nice. Both were excited by Boro's positive approach, pace getting forward, willingness to take the game to United and the number of chances created. And they didn't even even pick out a couple of individuals to slag off. They would get slaughtered on Teesside for being bloody ra-ras.

Mad Dog Bites the Granny Botherer: Well, he didn't bite him, it was worse than that - he laughed in his face. Wayne Rooney was giving the lip readers in the armchair audience apoplexy with his foul mouthed invective after being unceremoniously brushed aside again, effing and blinding and looking for trouble and the uber-cool Alpine hardman looked at the emotionally incontinent spud-faced Scouse, sneered and laughed in his face. Quality. It left Rooney incandescent and charging around in an undisciplined rage and put Poggy well and truely in control in that particular battle.

**OVER TO YOU - can you answer the Beeb's Boro enigma and sum up Boro in 20 words? Or get with the zen of the club and answer in haiku form?

The interview runs to 30 minutes and is hard work in places when it gets overly self-serving but it has some illuminating moments, although those who still find themselves easily wound up by his foot-in-mouthisms should probably stick to the seven inch remix highlight package on the site.

The essence of the public information film, especially how it relates directly to Boro, has been distilled by Phil Tallentire in today's Evening Gazette. There are no Earth shattering revelations and don't expect a humbled man admitting too many mistakes - in fact he explicitly shrugs off the terrace sniping and misjudges what could be his own historical reputation - but it is an interesting read nevertheless.

I think the main arguments will break out over these these three statements, all of which I think are fundamentally true but raise a string of other more provocative questions and have the potential to pick at a few barely healed scabs.

"Clubs have a success threshold. We knew we couldn’t win the Premier League, we knew we couldn’t get into the Champions League, but Europe was a distinct possibility, winning a trophy was a distinct possibility and Steve was fantastic in giving us the resources to be able to do that."

"It (criticism) doesn’t bother me personally because I know what we achieved. I know as the years go on the appreciation is there. Players and staff within that club realise that was a great period. We had good players, a good squad and we achieved many things which we wanted to achieve and I think over the years that will be appreciated a lot more than it was at the time."

I think his record at Boro is impressive and unquestionable and history will judge him kindly when it comes to listing the achievements at the Riverside and that with England he did as well as could be expected given the limitations of an overhyped squad and overly inflated expectations from the media and the public.

But football is about more than just results. It is about a dynamic relationship, a feeling, a spirit. A successful club revolves around an intangible unity of team, boss and supporters. At both Boro and England he left fans frustrated, bored and poised to kick the TV screen in with every smiling post-match denial of reality. On that basis McClaren is damaged goods - not because of his pedigree but because of his persona.

His wooden charisma-lite presence is a major turn-off and given that public relations and media management is an essential element of the job, especially at the higher levels, that will count heavily against him. That and the public antipathy to a manager who never enjoyed an England honeymoon and who pretty much believes the background soundtrack to everyday life is booing.

Any chairman who takes the risk on appointing him runs the risk of an immediate and heartfelt public backlash. It will take a desperate man and a desperate club to offer Mac a job just now. We'll keep your CV on file Mr McClaren. We'll let you know if any suitable vacancy occurs.

We need to toughen the mentality and instill a shared will to win that can bridge the quality gap between Boro and the big boys and open one between our heroes and the dead wood. We all know that.

So is it time for a new Bill Beswick?

"Whether we froze or whether the occasion was too much for us I don’t know but we didn’t perform. I’ve got to take responsibility as a manager because whether I’ve pitched it right to them, whether we’ve tried to take some of the pressure off, whether we needed to put more onto them I don’t know. I’ve got to look at everything I did because I know I’ve got a group of players who give everything and they weren’t able to find that and whether that was the occasion, because sometimes in big matches you can’t find the energy, that’s pressure and maybe we weren’t able to deal with that today."

The reasoning was that Boro perform better as underdogs and that when they were the strong favourites they crumbled under the weight of expectation. On paper man for man they were far superior to Cardiff, with a team packed full of internationals. Bar a few sentimentalists who would opt for Jimmy for old times sake, no one would select a single one of them ahead of a Boro player. Yet when it mattered Boro bottled it.

And there is an argument that it was not just on the pitch that Boro lacked mental strength, a total conviction in a positive outcome and a willingness to dig in and work towards it. The crowd too lacked it. There was a certain fear in the air, partly born of a lack of belief among some that this team has the edge, the ruthlessness or the quality to succeed when the chips are own, partly because of an age old 'typical Boro' cynicism that stems from previous kicks in the team delivered at the games against Orient, Wolves, at Wembley and at Eindhoven. Whatever, the crowd didn't have the tangible confidence shown against Steaua when the odds were against us. For my part I expected to beat Cardiff and beat West Brom in the semi but lose to Chelsea in the final... them losing to Barnsley on the Saturday threw the world into flux. And if the crowd was riven with such uncertainty maybe it is to be expected that the team reflected that.

The question of mentality was raised again by Southgate after this weekend's trip to Stamford Bridge when an awestruck Boro appeared to stand off Chelsea and "give them too much respect" and allowed them to bag an early goal.

Later when Boro got their act together and gave it a go they created enough to suggest that had they been totally focussed from the first whistle then they may have hurt the Blues and got a point, or even three. This time he said:

"The biggest thing we have to change as a club is our mentality and we can’t go away from places like Stamford Bridge thinking ‘well, we’ve only lost 1-0 at Chelsea, great’. We should go to places like that believing we can get results. One of the reasons we are where we are is because our mentality has to change. I thought first half we had just come to admire Chelsea and swap shirts at the end of the game. We said we didn’t want to have any regrets and that was the case in the second half when we had a real go."

Again, it was on the psychological level the manager believed the game was lost, this time by the other side of the coin with Boro resigned to being battered by the technically better team and unable to produce the defiant spirit of the snotty nosed underdog that Cardiff had managed.

So is that where Boro are losing games? In the changies?

Clearly it is not just about mental states. More importantly are training, tactics, fitness, preparation, organisation, the skill levels of the personnel and the ability to translate that onto the pitch. A team - whether Boro or Cardiff or the Dog and Duck - can't win just because they are highly motivated. Being pumped up by gangsta rap and having a boss who gives out a stirring pre-match message that is Churchillian in tone but delivered with a side of expletives isn't a recipe for automatic success and it is no substitute for the more mundane business of building a dynamic side at the top of its game. Nor are John Beck dirty tricks and painting the away team changing rooms monochrome dirge going to deliver victory every time.

But the development of strategies to focus the mental strength of individuals and the collective are hugely important in turning out a team that is greater than the sum of its parts. Competitive sport at the top levels is determined by the thinnest of margins. Teams are closely matched in terms of skill, stamina and shape so if fine-tuning the psyche can squeeze out even an extra one per cent in performance it can be decisive.

Which brings us to Bill Beswick. The sports psychologist had worked with Steve McClaren at Derby, then Manchester United and was brought in at Boro as Mac's assistant manager, guru and sounding board amid much talk of a revolutionary new cutting edge approach to off the field matters but with no football background (he had been the GB basketball coach) was an easy target for the traditionalists.

He became increasingly closely identified with the boss and was credited with creating his unpopular aloof public persona - the pair would go into a huddle before half-time team-talks or before the manager addressed the media - and eventually was seen as a joke figure at the Riverside among fans sceptical about his trade or hostile to its totemic role in the what became seen as the manager's strait-jacket of scientific professionalism.

Beswick was the first victim of the post-Mac purge when Southgate took over at Boro and when the nationals started to put the knife into McClaren as England chief the semi-detached shrink became a proxy scapegoat for the media despite many clubs continuing to consult him.

But for all the ridicule aimed at his methods the prospect of increasing performance levels is an attractive one. Sunderland are the latest club to bring him in, offering the godsend "Keane goes mental" headlines, while most other big clubs are acutely aware of the possibilities.

If Boro have identified mentality as and area of weakness - and the public pronouncements of the boss clearly show they have - then it must be urgently addressed. We can not be deterred on the basis of "once bitten, twice shy'' and it should not be seen as a retreat back into teh drak days of McClarenism. It doesn't have to be Beswick either - politically that would be unacceptable for many reasons - but the best available talent should be secured for that role.

Psychological warfare is crucial in securing victory. It can maximise performance from our side and undermine the confidence of the opposition. It can swing the underlying dynamics of what is ostensibly an even competition our way and offer a small but significant advantage. After that it is down to the team - but we should give them all the help we can.

She redoubled the attack with added venom and upped the ante by insisting he was bitter, twisted and evil and had never been right in the head. Hold on, this is the same David Platt we are talking about isn't it?

And yes, he has never quite looked convincing in the far fetched role he now finds himself in. And yes, he does seem to take a delight in being paid to sneer and systematically rain on other people's parades. But come on, David Platt is not EVIL.

"He has been in the papers complaining that old ladies attack him in the street and that children burst into tears," she said. Well the water carrier who fell lucky and built an entire career on the back of one moment of unscripted brilliance was never the pin-up, it's true.

And, to be fair, if he walked through Pallister Park right now he may well get brayed by vigilante nanas. And rightly so.

"I'm glad he has been banged up," she said. "He had to be jailed before he killed someone." What, have I missed something? I'm supposed to be a highly observant, well informed football writer. You'd have thought I'd have noticed if a former England skipper had been sent down for being a threat to life and limb.

And, unfortunately, you can't be shot in Holmehouse just for being an ill-formed, supercillious pratt and shamelessly sycophantic glamour groupie or the government would have to embark on a new prison building programme to house all the recidivist star-struck myopic microphone men who have managed to perfect the art of talking out of their posterior, thus freeing up their lips for kissing big club butt.

Now, I'll be honest, I am spectacularly unmoved by England. In fact I am pretty much hostile.

Not so much to the football because I love the game and will stop to watch the gangs of Kosovan asylum seekers have a kick about in Albert Park and besides, with internationals it is always nice to see a well organised team of top talents at the height of their profession playing a crisp, incisive possession game based on an incredible level of technical skills. It would better if it was two teams but hey, England need a run-out too.

No, it is not the football that annoys me about England. It is the whole sick tabloid driven not-how-you-play-but-who-you-play-for celebrity cat-walk that the saturation coverage of Team England entails.

The national team reveals institutional insanity in the media, a schizophrenia that stems from the commercially driven frenzied need for the papers and sports broadcasters to big up the Premier League prima donnas as the best in the world all day every day then somehow square the circle when England flop pathetically on the big stage.

It leads to agenda scattered scapegoating, bitter in-fighting over which player to big up or knock down this time and the neurotic quest for ever more elaborate excuses for our heroes failure to sweep puny foreigners aside in their quest for their rightful world domination.

Anything other than make an objective assessment of the strengths and weaknesses that may leads to the conclusion that the Golden Generation may in reality actually only be eighteen carot plated crud.

Which brings us to David Platt. He may be a relative newcomer to the world of double-think and hypocrisy that is gantry sniping - he tried management but wasn't very good at it - but has already shown he has grasped the basics: by definition if you play for a big club you are very good and we will want to interview you later so won't say anything too critical no matter how poorly yoy play and if you don't play for a big club, well, you really shouldn't be here, we don't care, we won't be giving you any post-match airtime and if anything bad happens, well it is probably your fault anyway you loser.

David Platt has quickly and willing donned the media's blindfold of elective stupidity that prevents any form of constructive self-analysis and ensures England's future national failure.

His take on the game was deeply flawed, raised big question marks over his ability to judge the contributions of the respective players (although it also cast some light on why he was pedalled as boss of Nottingham Forest and the England Under-21s) and showed a big club bias that was embarrassingly transparent.

In his sycophancy for the Champions League elite he made Alan Green look the model of objectivity.

Platt's heaped praise for Ashley Cole's woeful positioning, inept crossing and repeated erratic overlaps that ended with him cutting inside and leaving big gaps that left England frighteningly exposed on the flanks was almost perverse.

To then blame those faults on Stewart Downing was just bizarre, if predictable. Tedious in fact. And an insult to the viewers.

Downing did more in his first ten minutes on the pitch than unfeasibly large headed playground favourite Joe Cole did in the entire first half.

The human Corinthian figure did a string of snazzy unproductive stepovers and the odd double reverse drag-back dummy but the combined force of gravity and the weight of his cumbersome cranium inevitably tipped him off balance before he could get a cross into the danger area.

Downing in contrast was unfussy in his approach, made himself available, retained possession nicely and several times beat his man and delivered the ball where it hurts, or would have done had the big club strikers managed to get on the end of them from their deep lying position beyond criticism. None of that was noticed.

What was noticed was the first mistake. After a string neat threaded passes, some good movement on and off the ball (movement incidentally that appeared to be as overtly ignored by the capital clique on the pitch as much as by the pressbox posse) and a couple of pin-point deliveries one went astray.

That gave Platt - who had manfully ignored the error strewn antics of the Hello! lifestyle spread heroes - the opportunity to get in a totally unneccessary dig about Stewy not being able to produce at this level.

No doubt he had done his extensive research and will have known that minute for minute Downing's stats are among the best of the current England squad, that he has only been on the losing side twice in his 17 games, that he has put in more assists than any other player in those games.

No, don't be daft. You don't need research. Downing doesn't play for a big club so by definition is rubbish.

I am far from being paranoid about the media picking on Boro. I am wearily resigned to that. But it is a breathtaking arrogance and a calculated insult to the viewers for the broadcasters to employ expert pundits who are so woefully inadequate.

They are there to spot tactical shapes that they lay-man may not, explain the dynamics of the unfolding game and offer insights as to why players are adopting particular roles and what can be done to counter it.

They are not there to regurgitate ignorant barstool bias and ill-informed poison pen prejudice. If I wanted ignorant half-baked vitriol I could have watched the game in the pub.

If Boro turn up at Chelsea with any freak foot injuries among the squad my money is on irate players putting their size nines through their plasma screens in fury at Platt's poor performance and the brainless bitching about their team-mate.

And if Stewy wants to get his revenge he can help provincial no-marks Boro ruffle Chelsea's feathers at Stamford Bridge. Not that he would get any praise then either - no doubt it would be the ref's fault - but we could all have a good laugh at the Cockneycentric media exploding with ingidnation and the thought of the evil David Platt being battered in the showers.