The line up confused me a little and yet it seemed to make sense. First of all I’m sure there was a few fans saying words such as ‘what’ and ‘he’s playing where?’ Of course I am referring to players playing in positions where naturally they don’t play such as Wheater at right back and Aliadiere on the right wing but somehow the ingredients of it were there. Aliadiere might have felt as if he could push further a field knowing he has the brute centre half in Wheater giving him a strong cushion. A raised eyebrow for Shawky being given the nod as many would have expected new signing Digard to be in the middle with O’Neil but I suppose Gareth might be easing him in.

It seemed even with Brad Jones between the sticks everyone seemed to be ready for the plunge. Obviously media attention seemed to be rife with the return of Normanby-born Jonathan Woodgate. The Spurs side included new signings Bentley, Modric and Dos Santos, all of whom  were in the spotlight.

The first 15 minutes seemed to be encouraging, with the back four we had I was left optimistic that Darren Bent wouldn’t get a sniff of the leather within the six-yard box.

We seemed to be counter-attacking on both flanks but of course the left hand side in Downing seemed to be a little direct in the crossing, whether the right hand side seemed to be more pace orientated, the first chance came from the right hand side and it was exactly what we’ve needed, pace down the right hand side from Aliadiere squaring it goal pouncing Alves to stick it in the back of the net unfortunately not in this case as it just swooped over.

We attacked and took the game to Spurs who didn’t look like scoring, we did on the other hand, a corner, which was whipped in and met by the presence of David Wheater only to be harshly disallowed. Half time occurred and it gave us fans time to look and see if should have been a goal, and surprise surprise it was.

It came to 70 minutes before we broke the deadlock, and with Berbatov coming on. With it being 0-0 I was a little sceptical at the time I admit, but when Boro are in this brutanicas [Word of the week award: Ed] mood who cares? A Davie Wheater prod was enough to go 1-0 up and the 3 points were looking promising.

Tuncay came off for new boy Digard, sticking with Tuncay though, who I thought was excellent, that bloke ran his socks off as well as providing more creative flair than Modric, Bentley and Dos Santos put together (which is 35 million squid of flair I might add) He got taken off much to his frustration.

On the plus side another substitution was Alves for Mido, Alves looked slightly different in terms of a more aggressive style and more willing to get the ball which if you see on the opening day of the season isn’t too bad, in fact, slightly promising.

The icing on the cake however was in fact Mr Mido netted the 2nd and  clinching goal, my first ever article I’d written stated that I would love Mido if he scores against Spurs last year only to be left injured and not play which got the writing off to a wonderful start.

Oh and I got my prediction right! 2-1 Boro need to get my thinking cap on for the scousers though.

MarkA