Phantom Striker Spooks Fans In Beeb Nightmare

BATTLING Boro were lucky to get a point after being battered by Watford –  although they could have snatched an unlikely victory if only striker Curtis Main had taken his chances.

Watford dominated. It’s true. I saw it on TV.

Bubbling Boro Can’t Bridge Watford Gap

WHEN Boro scored early in the second half of their 1-1 draw with Watford they were briefly joint top of the Championship table. “Steve McClaren’s Derby” were drawing – they went on to lose 2-1 at home to Wigan – and there suddenly was a huge prize on offer for Boro’s biggest game of the season.

Had Boro held on, or had they got the second goal they deserved at that point, they would have been sitting pretty now with a slice of a three way share of the summit. There would be a tangible background buzz building and those extra bums on seats that turned up  (17,000 home fans there today, it is steadily nudging up) would have gone away bubbling about a great display and spreading word for mouth, doing excitable missionary work among the cynical masses of stay-aways.

Dances With Wolves?

NOT SO BOSTIN….

It was a bad day at the office in the Black County as Boro froze in the Baltic blast to lose 2-0 at Wolves. You can read the match report here.

They started slowly and failed to reach the levels of intensity that has driven them through the seven game unbeaten run. They failed to impose themselves on a Wolves side that started just as tentatively as the visitors. For half an hour it was turgid stuff and although Wolves gradually gained the upper hand it was far from a classic.

Rock Hard Boro Resist Brighton Pier Pressure.

BATTLING Boro dug deep and resisted a furious final flurry from a side that looked a lot better than their league position suggested. It was nervous watching the tense last 10 minutes  after Brighton clawed one back – but this  team has shown they are stronger  now, more organised and far less likely to be bullied out of games.

It was a great game to watch. Boro went toe-to-toe when they had to, frustrated Brighton when they had to, and scored two cracking sucker-punch goals on the break to set up an archetypal away-day display and strengthen their promotion credentials.

Battered and bruised, Boro limped away from the Amex Stadium having banked three precious points and boosted their credit rating.

Mogga Exit: One Year On

NEXT WEEK it will be a year since Ayresome hero Tony Mowbray was axed.

It was a sad but inevitable exit after a large contingent of the travelling Tees army at Barnsley turned on him for the first time in numbers and volume during and after a chaotic 3-2 defeat at rock bottom Barnsley. The sound of booing sharpened the mind of a stony faced Steve Gibson watching at Oakwell with Boro’s high command.  By the Monday evening he was gone, a significant departure that opened the door to a seismic change as Gibson opted for Boro’s first foreign boss and a cultural revolution.

In the Gazette next week we’ll be looking in more detail at Mogga’s impact, achievements and legacy at his boyhood club. To refresh your memory, to set the scene, to give you a head start in the agenda setting debates looming and to offer you something to chew over as the international break stretches on and on, here’s “another chance to see” the blog bit I did in the emotive aftermath of  the exit of a man who remains a club icon and who in time will be seen to have been an important factor in rebuilding a broken club.

Number-crunching Boro’s First XI… PLUS Fulham left Pig Sick

****UPDATED****

WHAT do you think of it so far? Careful now…

A two week coitus interruptus as football takes an international break gives leaden-legged Boro a chance to recharge their batteries after seven games in 22 days.  A break! Oh no! What are we going to talk about now?

With 11 games gone, unless you want to quibble over decimal places, we are have played a quarter of the season. We are legally allowed to look at the table now and there is a body of statistical evidence building up. So it is probably fair enough to start looking in depth at what has happened so far and what could happen in the weeks to come.

Here’s some stats and analysis of the season so far that I did for the old school paper and clunktastic website.  With data graphics and video and everything. I’m really rocking this “digital content across a varity of multi-media platforms” gig.