By Nathan Rayner
Despite winning five of their last six games of the season, Middlesbrough narrowly missed out on the final play-off place by a single point. From the outside, Boro’s season could perhaps be seen as one in which they were unlucky to finish just outside the play-offs and from which some positives could be taken. However, from those in and around the club, it will be remembered as one of failure and huge disappointment.
Worrying Signs
The season began with manager Tony Pulis recalling his first team squad to pre-season training two weeks earlier than all other Championship sides. A team brimming with players of undoubted second-tier quality headed out to Austria to be put through their paces at an intense rate in the hope that even if they couldn’t outplay other teams, they’d be able to outrun them.
Boro had already been given a boost with the signings of Northern Ireland international Paddy McNair and goal-scoring colossus Aden Flint, both of whom joined the club for the full preseason. Furthermore, despite links with a move away from the Riverside, Adama Traore, Boro’s Player of the Season in 2017/18, was still at the club and gearing up for the next campaign.
After a successful pre-season trip away, the team returned to Teesside with all of the main playing squad fit and well. However, with only a week and a half until the season was to commence with a trip to Millwall, key men Patrick Bamford, Ben Gibson, and Adama Traore were sold on to Leeds, Burnley and Wolves respectively.
During his first six months at the club, Tony Pulis had always maintained that the books needed to be balanced but things didn’t really add up.
Although the club’s main financial assets had been sold on for large profits, the positions that desperately needed strengthening weren’t filled. Despite trying to ‘balance the books’ and cut spending at the club, Boro continuously targeted big name players like Tammy Abraham, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Yannick Bolasie that would surely be on huge wages. Pulis’ frequent references to a need to cut the club’s transfer and wage budgets didn’t correlate with the club’s transfer targets, and would be a sign of things to come in terms of contradictory statements from the Welshman.
As such, Boro emerged from the tunnel at the New Den on the opening day of the season looking like they were down to the bare bones. Club captain Grant Leadbitter led the team out whilst, with his future at the club hanging in the balance, and forgotten man Martin Braithwaite started up front.
A shambolic first half display from Boro meant they went in at the break 2-0 down and it could’ve been much worse. In the second half; however, Pulis’ tactical and personnel changes salvaged Boro a point. Academy starlet Marcus Tavernier and non-league dynamo Lewis Wing played pivotal roles as Boro snatched a point in the dying embers of the game.
A Topsy-Turvy Early Season
Boro came out lucky from the opening weekend but quickly found themselves at the top of the Championship table after four wins and two draws from the opening six games.
However, all was not well. During Boro’s quick sprint to the Championship summit, Tony Pulis stated in his pre-match presser against Birmingham City, as well as the day after the transfer deadline, that the current Middlesbrough squad ‘isn’t good enough to get promotion’. Though probably a ploy to put pressure on the club’s higher-ups to secure vital loan signings, it will have undoubtedly had a detrimental impact on squad morale.
From the get-go, Pulis had set out his stall of excuses. With few of his main targets coming in through the doors at Rockliffe, he would repeatedly deflect the failings of the transfer window upon Boro’s supposedly limited financial capabilities (despite trying to sign big-name players on massive wages) over the course of the season.
Perhaps it wasn’t just the club who were responsible for these failings, too. Would the dynamic, tricky players that Boro were (and are still) really want to play in a Tony Pulis side of limited attacking freedom and persistent scapegoating?
A rather dry patch of results followed the opening six, with only eight points secured from the next possible fifteen. The final game before the next international break was against Aitor Karanka’s Forest side who arrived at the Riverside in good form and showed everything that Boro weren’t and aren’t. A mix of strong defensive resilience partnered with fast, fluid attacking football on the break secured a 2-0 win for the visitors, with Joe Lolley’s pace, directness and clinical finishing opitimising everything that Boro were crying out for.
Boro had been taught a footballing lesson by their former manager.
An important win at Hillsborough against Sheffield Wednesday on a Friday evening in late October sent Boro back to the Championship summit but was followed up with a dismal display at home against lowly Rotherham. Boro lacked cutting edge once again and, despite being joint top of the Championship table, were booed off at the Riverside.
All things were rosy in the Carabao Cup though as on Halloween night, Boro booked a place in the quarter-finals after defeating Crystal Palace 1-0 courtesy of a Lewis Wing wonder-strike. They were drawn against the lowest ranked team left in the competition, Burton Albion of League One. Since mid-October, Boro had been unbeaten and things were looking up.
Until Dean Smith’s rejuvenated Aston Villa came to town.
Mid-Season Frustration
Villa had a swagger about them as they stepped onto the Riverside pitch in early December and it showed throughout. With the strings being pulled in midfield by Jack Grealish and John McGinn, the attacking trio of Anwar El Ghazi and rumoured ex-Boro targets Tammy Abraham and Yannick Bolasie were allowed to shine. The front three in white and claret terrified the Boro defence with their pace, with Bolasie teeing up Abraham for the second, and they ran out 3-0 winners.
Villa’s quick and tricky frontline interchanged positions all night and caused Boro all kinds of problems with their clever movement. The Villa defeat was the only time in which Boro conceded three goals in a home game all season and felt like a wake-up call and once again emphasised the squad’s rigidness and lack of pace to deal with sides that attack with high intensity.
On the back of two inconsistent results against Blackburn Rovers and QPR, Boro returned to Carabao Cup action with a tie against Burton Albion, a game which provided the opportunity to reach the semi-finals of a cup competition since the infamous comeback victory over FC Basel in 2006. During the game, Boro once again allowed for a lot of their chances to go begging and paid a huge price for underestimating their opponents.
Early in the second half, the Brewers scored as a result of lackadaisical play from the Boro defence and Mo Besic in particular. Boro continued to pile on the pressure, creating many clear-cut chances but, once again, lacking the cutting edge needed to draw level. Aden Flint missed the chance of the game; a header from six yards out with the goalkeeper in no-man’s land which he nodded wide and Boro crashed out of the cup. Some at the final whistle booed off Boro as disappointment filled the Riverside. Boro needed to move on and quickly from such a defeat.
In the following three games, Boro picked up six points from a possible nine against Reading, Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town as such entered the new calendar year still in the play-off places. Next up were play-off rivals Derby County at Pride Park. A point, courtesy of a Jordan Hugill headed goal, on a below-par day for Boro proved as a good result and was followed up with a fantastic win at St. Andrews against Birmingham City a couple of weeks later.
Then came one of the major high points of the season, a fixture against West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns. In a play-off six-pointer, Boro raced into an early lead thanks to George Saville before the Baggies turned it around to make it 2-1. The substitution of eventual match-winner Britt Assombalonga changed the game as the striker bagged a brace to send Boro back to Teesside with all three points. In the away end that day, a sense of togetherness emerged among the fans. Everybody sung in unison at the final whistle; every player applauded the travelling army behind the goal, and the result felt massive.
Downwards Spiral
A midweek FA Cup 3rd Round replay at Newport County. Off the back of the fantastic win at West Brom and with a home tie against Premier League champions Manchester City on the line, a strong side was fielded. However, Boro failed to perform in the pouring rain at Rodney Parade and were ran ragged in the second half by the Exiles. Goals from Robbie Wilmott, a shelf-stacker only two years prior, and former Hartlepool man Padraig Amond sent Boro crashing out of the cup. A 2-0 defeat proved that the win at Albion was nothing more than just another result, as reports of a bust-up at full time between some fans and players circulated online.
Following the defeat in the FA Cup, Boro drew with Leeds United and lost to Sheffield United at Bramall Lane, before stringing two wins together against Blackburn Rovers and QPR. The next seven games proved to be disastrous for Boro’s play-off push though, as they gained one point from a possible twenty-one and lost six on the bounce. Defeats at home to Brentford, Preston North End, Norwich City and Bristol City (and away to Aston Villa and Swansea City) meant Boro’s grasp on a play-off place, which had seemed certain only a month before, was weakening.
With frustrations with the style of play and results increasing, calls for Tony Pulis to be sacked were sung loud and clear and fans’ discontent was evident as banners and chants rained down on the Boro boss at both home and away fixtures in the wretched six-game losing run.
The drop in form seemed to coincide with issues off the pitch such as the contract of Stewart Downing. Downing had been a mainstay in the Boro team throughout the first half of the season; however, he didn’t start a league game between the end of December and the end of March due to a clause within his contract which stipulated that he was to make another league start, he would receive an automatic one-year extension to his current deal. With the club reluctant to commit to paying Downing’s current pay-packet for another season, Downing was ostracised from the first XI.
Downing is a player who makes the team much better by being the calibre of player that he is. The former England international provides such as calming influence to the rest of the side and this, coupled with his unbelievable array of passing ability helped Boro to tick in the first half of the season. The loss of the Teessider proved to be hugely pivotal to Boro falling away in the second half of the season as, with just two other recognised first-team wingers, alternative formational set-ups were limited.
A win away at administration-threatened Bolton Wanderers stopped the rot of losing and breathed life back into the Boro side and was followed by five victories in the final six games of the season. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done by poor results against lower-ranked sides in the division and the six-game losing run in March and Boro missed out on a play-off place.
There were some positives to take from Boro’s performances on the pitch this season though.
The implementation of Lewis Wing into the first team fold can be viewed as a massive positive from an otherwise disappointing season. The ex-Shildon man has arguably been Boro’s best outfield player and the side’s most creative asset going forward. To have such a quick development from a Northern League player to now a second-tier footballer has been quite astonishing.
Also, the performances of Garry Monk’s best signing as Boro boss, Darren Randolph, have been nothing short of magnificent. The Irishman has made many astounding saves this year to keep the team in games and without him, Boro would have not finished where they did. As a result of his fantastic season between the sticks for Boro, Randolph earned himself a place in the SkyBet Championship Team of Season, and also claimed the Player of the Year Award at Boro.
However, there’s no getting away from the failings on the field this season. A lack of excitement and a poor style of football has pushed fans away from the Riverside for the first time in years. Boro’s away support again this season has been magnificent with fans travelling up and down the country to watch Tony Pulis’ side; however, this season, it feels that Boro haven’t had the same numbers in away followings as in previous seasons. A real disconnect between those inside the club and the fans has formed, with some fans turning their back on the club for now.
Fans are sick and tired of constant negative football every week and they want change.
After a season of disappointment and silence from the club hierarchy, lots of questions need to be answered within the next few weeks. It has been reported that Tony Pulis will be leaving his post as Boro boss within the next couple of weeks, so that leaves a large vacancy to fill and the question of who will be the man to lead the club forward next season?
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