Parachute payments spent, attendances dwindling, belts tightening, results stagnating — it’s a crucial winter ahead for founder Premier League members Middlesbrough.
For Middlesbrough, money has never been far from the top of the agenda over the past 30 years.
Bankrupt in the 1980s and hauled from the ashes by a local consortium involving the chairman to this day Steve Gibson, they rose to be founder members of the Premier League in 1992/93 with Lennie Lawrence in the dugout and Tony Mowbray at the heart of the defence.
While survival proved beyond them that year, despite losing just two of the first nine games, Gibson subsequently built a club that was unrecognisable from the one he inherited, playing at a new stadium and outspending most of the rest of the country on player transfers. Nick Barmby was a high profile trend setter, making his debut in a purple away shirt at Highbury in a televised 1-1 draw with Arsenal at the start of the 1995/96 season as Boro had a second crack at the new big time.
Over time the signings became more expensive, ambitious and outlandish. Boro brought Juninho to these shores, and Fabrizio Ravenelli. The former was an absolute star of the Premier League at a time when foreign players were just starting to infiltrate the English leagues in a big way, while Ravanelli bagged 31 goals in his debut season including a hat trick in a 3-3 draw against Liverpool on the opening day of the 1996/97 season.
Despite the presence of those two, and Brazilian Emerson as well as Barmby, Boro were relegated that season by two points having earlier been docked three by the league for refusing to play a league fixture at Blackburn because of a sickness bug sweeping their first team squad. Had they turned the youth team out and lost 11-0 they’d have stayed up.
No matter, in came Pauls Merson and Gascoigne as Boro bounced back at the first time of asking. Steve Gibson built a reputation as one of the most generous and supportive chairmen in the country, and moved Boro into a new purpose built stadium. Even when, despite all the investment, it looked like his side would be relegated again in 2000/01 he brought in Terry Venables to help manager Bryan Robson, rather than just terminating the contract of a man who’d already shown, and has demonstrated several times since, the capability of relegating any team no matter how well funded or talented.
Rather than the money itself, the overriding theme or issue for Boro throughout Gibson’s chairmanship has been the people spending it. Getting that Boro team of 1996/97 — a team capable of reaching both cup finals — relegated was an achievement even for a manager as terminally useless as Robson.
It’s a problem that continued well into the new millennium. Even Steve McClaren, whose time as a manager since leaving the Riverside Stadium with England, Twente, Wolfsburg, Forest and Twente again has been one part success to four parts unmitigated disaster, had Boro in a UEFA Cup Final with Gibson’s backing. When Gareth Southgate was subsequently handed the keys to the safe he spent £12m on striker Alfonso Alves — the worst Brazilian since David Blunkett was allowed to trim his wife’s pubic hair. Again, despite heavy investment, Boro were relegated from the Premier League in 2008/09.
Gordon Strachan was then entrusted with the parachute payments — a time restricted bonus for relegated teams that QPR, Southampton, Norwich, Leeds, Forest, Sheff Utd and countless others besides have all shown previously you waste at your absolute peril. Spend the parachute money trying to bounce straight back up and fail, and it’s usually a decade or more before you’re in a position to challenge again, and that time often involves a stint in the third tier.
Strachan had previously managed Celtic, so should have known the folly of lashing the money all over the best that the Scottish Premier League had to offer. Barry Robson, Scott McDonald, Kris Boyd, Willo Flood, Chris Killen and Lee Miller all travelled south for decent transfer fees and wages having only previously strutted their stuff in a country where it’s possible to face St Johnstone, St Mirren and Inverness 21 times in a season if the cup draws fall a certain way. The Scottish Premier League has provided sanctuary for Bob Malcolm, for Michael Duberry, for Jody Morris, for Rowan Vine. And they all looked half decent there. The idea that Middlesbrough could assemble a sort of SPL dream team and walk the Championship was folly, and shown to be as much. Strachan crashed and burned — QPR beat Boro 6-0 on aggregate in the 2010/11 Championship season and could have scored double that.
Parachute payments spent, they now have Tony Mowbray in charge with little to spend relative to his predecessors. Whether that’s a good thing or not is unclear. Mowbray being in charge at Boro, given his history with the club, would be like if QPR had ever appointed Alan McDonald as manager, and Mowbray’s performance in this league with West Brom earlier in his managerial career was exceptional — cantering to a league title playing wonderful football. But Mowbray failed at Celtic, which much like Robson with the Juninho and Ravenelli team, is a difficult thing to do even if you’re trying to do it. Like taking the world’s biggest gun to the World Fish in a Barrel Shooting finals and ending up blasting your own foot off.
After an initial revival post Strachan shuttle disaster Middlesbrough have stagnated completely. They’ve won only four games in 2013 and play their home matches in front of vast banks of empty seats. The parachute payments have gone, as have the days of a blank cheque from Gibson, and if things don’t start to improve soon they’re starting to resemble one of those Sheffield Wednesday type clubs described as some sort of sleeping giant while circling the drain leading to the bottom two divisions.
Mowbray’s history with the club buys him more time than anybody else would get, but this winter feels like a pivotal few months for both him and the club.
This week we took to the message board on the long running Fly Me To The Moon Middlesbrough website to gauge the locals’ opinion of their side. Thanks to everybody who took part, all the answers are available by clicking the link and a selection is pasted below…
Tony Mowbray is obviously a hero at Boro from his playing days, but how would you assess his performance as manager so far?
"Tony Mowbray did well in his first half season but has done nothing since. He used the excuse that it wasn't his own team in previous seasons but now it is.... and we are still doing badly. However, it must be said he does have limited funds (do you lot know what limited funds means)?”
"Amazed that no-one has mentioned 4 wins in 2013! And for that reason many (not all by any means) Boro fans understandably have a bit of a downer on Mowbray at the moment. Good start to his Boro managerial career, sorting out Strachen's mess, followed by two very frustrating seasons that saw very good starts thrown away. This season we've looked good at times but are so brittle at the back it’s unreal. Mid-table obscurity and I think his job will probably be safe for at least one more year. We are unpredictable though, only four wins in 2013 but one of those was against Cardiff, and this season we should already have beaten Forest and Wigan away if not for defensive frailty meaning we only got draws.”
"Confident start under difficult circumstances and an appreciation among supporters that he had a rebuilding job to do. He has done his rebuilding job over 3 years and things look every bit as bleak as when he took over.”
"Excellent in keeping us up, and for the first half of the last two seasons we've been amongst the best teams in the country on form. And then the very worse for the second half. Started slowly this year, but some promising signs that the more belligerent of our fanbase choose not to see.”
Are Boro capable of mounting a challenge for promotion this season? What's in your favour or going against you? How confident are you?
"No we are not capable as our team simply isn't good enough. We either score a few and then conceded just as many or do well at the back but then can't score. It is an odd one.”
"Not very confident. Inability to hold onto a lead, weak defensively, and we have an extremely pacey forward line set up for a counter attacking game who run as though their boot laces are tied together.”
"Nah, maybe the play-offs, but that would be an achievement. We missed our chance to dominate this league when we first came down, now we've got a slightly above average squad with an average budget. Looking at QPR getting Krancjar and Assou-Ekotto, and Reading signing people like Royston Drenthe, shows the disparity in budgets between the haves and have nots. But you're not allowed to talk about money on here anymore, because people are sick of hearing it used as an excuse.”
Assess last season for us, it seemed to rather peter out after Christmas. How have you started this season?
"We've started in a similar vein to how we finished last season. It's frustrating to watch and we're never comfortable - even when 2-0 up.”
"We couldn't score and looked fairly solid, now we're scoring and look awful at the back. Last season we had a massive squad of crap to average players. We've signed some quality this season, but we've yet to gel as a team.”
What transfer activity did you do in the summer? Who left and arrived and were you particularly pleased or disappointed about any of them?
"There was a massive overhaul of the squad in the summer. The main players to leave were probably Scott McDonald and Nicky Bailey who both joined Millwall. There were mixed emotions about Scott McDonald because despite not being worth the extortionate wages he was earning, he was our top scorer last season and we didn't look like replacing him. We signed a few players most notably Dean Whitehead who's battling it out with Grant Leadbitter for the award for most sideways passes in a game. Albert Adomah was signed for in excess of £1m from Bristol City and looks promising. We made two deadline day signings in Jacob Butterfield from Norwich and Kei Kamara from the MLS. Both of these have made bright starts to their careers at Boro. Others include Richardson, a right back who's looked solid so far, and Varga - a Hungarian international - who has had a couple of decent games but finds himself battling with Leadbitter and Whitehead for a defensive midfielder role.”
"No great losses apart from top scorer Macdonald. We were desperate for a replacement goal scorer and centre half along with competition/replacement for goalkeeper but got none of them. Varga, Butterfield, Kamara, Adomah look ok but nothing special. Whitehead has been disappointing.”
"Others have listed incomings. Glad we got shot of McDonald and Bailey, who both seemed like gobby bad apples. We should have signed one dominant centre half to replace the two we let go, McManus and Bikey, who were both rubbish. Happy with Adomah, Butterfield and Kamara especially.”
What have you made of Emmanuel Ledesma since he joined you? Strange player at QPR, prone to moments of absolute genius but wildly inconsistent.
"Ledesma is currently serving a three match ban having gotten a straight red when coming off the bench a week ago at Forest. He is crap, odd good thing but far too many weaknesses.”
"We haven't really seen enough of him. He showed promise early last season but hasn't featured much at all. He was sent off last week at Forest for a rash tackle and doesn't really appear to be ready to make a first team place his own.”
"Barely featured since being here, probably because of his inconsistency. Looked a world-beater in one game last season but was anonymous when picked thereafter.”
"I like him. In our formation, he's worth a go playing as a number 10 behind the front man at home, to try and create things. He'd need ten games though, to get up to speed, and you just don't have that time in the championship. He's talented, but petulant.”
Where is your team strong, who are the men to watch?
"On his day Muzzy Carayol can be excellent. He has pace in abundance and with Adomah on the other flank we can be quite dangerous at times.”
Who or where are the weak links?
"Weak links - only pass sideways for 89 minutes of the game. Centre backs will be interesting for your game with Williams suspended so young Gibson will probably play. Not started a league game at centre half yet.”
"Defensively we are weak. Set pieces especially. Our left back is great going forward but is suspect at the job he's actually paid to do.”
"Goalkeeper is wildly overrated. He is particularly vulnerable at long range shots/free kicks and clueless with crosses. He also does not command his area which creates nervousness at the back. At centre half Woodgate has seen better days, Williams is average normally but having a poor season and should never be captain. At left back, Friend is joint top scorer with two but has cost us more than that with poor defending and our best defender, Hoyte, is out of favour with Mowbray.”
"Going against us is definitely the defence, especially Friend at left back who is an honest trier but very limited defensively. Williams and Woodgate are, although good players individually, too similar to play together at centre half. Whitehead is also a weak link, I reckon. Not been impressed. He's too slow and never leaves his 20 year semi-circle near the half way line.”
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