Most of this carnage was self-inflicted

NO matter how many times they put Middlesbrough away in future, Chelsea will never live down the day they were relegated by the Smoggies.

Little did the good folk of Teesside realise they would spend the next 36 years paying for it.

Back in 1988, when Boro were promoted to the top flight after a two-legged play-off culminating in a riot, their triumph was tempered by manager Bruce Rioch and his players being detained inside Stamford Bridge for their own safety.

When the chaos had subsided to modest insurrection – and the famously temperate Chelsea chairman Ken Bates shuffled wearily into a lift with journalists evacuating the war zone – quick-witted scribe Joe Lovejoy asked: “Going down, Ken?”

Bates bristled: “I’m going home to my 300-acre farm – you lot can b***er off to your council houses.”

Over the next decade, Chelsea would exact plentiful revenge, beating Middlesbrough in three Wembley finals – Full Members Cup (1990), FA Cup (1997) and League

Cup (1998).

Since Paul Gascoigne was docked a fortnight’s wages by his manager Bryan Robson (both left) for compounding another Boro defeat in 1999 with a red card (for making a lurid suggestion about a linesman’s private life), it’s been mainly one-way traffic.

And Chelsea’s rampant first-half display in this rout begged the question: Where were they on Teesside a fortnight ago?

Michael Carrick’s injury-ravaged side probably ventured south more in hope than expectation, but rarely has a first-leg lead been coughed up as spectacularly as Boro’s collapse here.

In truth, most of the carnage was self-inflicted.

When a mid-table Championship club takes on the billionaires of Fulham Broadway, playing out from the back is suicide.

Carrick’s principled approach to the game is admirable, but artistic merit is no substitute for grit – and 4,300 travelling fans from the land of Smog deserved better.