The first North East derby at the Stadium of light didn’t go to plan, with Mido unavailable and Alves up front on his own you kind of thought if Boro were to get anything out of the game it would be a cheeky 1-0 win. 

This gave Boro to have a slight surge on the left hand side and it gave Chimbonda a headache as Johnson started on the left with Downing the attacking option through the middle supporting Alves, but word has reached my ear regarding that if Mido was fit he would have being playing on his own instead of Alves (Ed; alledgedly, perhaps) would that have changed the overall game?  I guess it doesn’t matter now. 

We played well in the first half - we kept the ball and counter-attacked, my only feeling come half time was that Downing would probably need to get more involved and we could break the ice, with chances from Downing and an Alves shot to which he should have done better but we digress and hope after the event. 

Half time, the team remained unchanged and it did occur to me that attacking options on the bench were limited to alter the pace of the game, as our current best were already on the pitch e.g. if a centre midfielder would come on more than likely O’Neil would move on the right with then Ali pushing up front. 

And so it came to pass, in the process of Ali pushing up, like Johnson when he got the ball he ran with it, so much so it resulted in a penalty, at last a breakthrough, light at the end of this tunnel until…Oh dear a second consecutive penalty miss, now when I first heard penalty I immediately thought Alves but again, and  this is unconfirmed, Downing grabbed the ball off of Alves to take the penalty.  It went hopelessly over, through sheer power. Power rather than accuracy wasn’t the right ingredient in this instance. 

Late on Roy Keane seemed to make his last throw of the dice in Michael Chopra (wrong phrase chosen perhaps) and like last time he seemed to make a nuisance of himself in getting under our defender’s skins.   This was definitely the case when indestructible Huth slipped letting Chopra through and again much to our annoyance and disappointment a late goal was again conceded.  This didn’t bode well for what was to happen a few minutes later as a pass hit a sly deflection off a Boro player only to be squared to Michael bloody Chopra only for the cocky sod to slip in another.  

Now the result didn’t go our way, but as performances go, it was good but that’s not relevant, Gareth has repeatedly quoting the fact that we will learn something from it - what’s there to learn?  I’m your biggest fan Gareth but honestly your in the job for your third season now I can’t condone the learning curve excuses now. It’s time to be more ruthless and start telling certain players that it is a 90 minute game, I’m sure if was a 70 minute game we would be in the top 4 but nevertheless we need to start being more cutthroat and killing teams off when the chance comes along it needs to go in the back of the net and make sure.

MarkA