Confident Agnew: I can deliver Boro survival
Steve Agnew believes that keeping Middlesbrough in the Premier League would be the biggest achievement of his life.
Ex-Sunderland midfielder Agnew was installed as the club’s interim head coach on Thursday after Aitor Karanka’s reign ended after almost three and a half years.
Boro are 19th in the table, three points adrift of safety going into tomorrow’s home clash with Manchester United (noon), and without a win in 10 outings.
Agnew, who has drafted in the hugely experienced Joe Jordan as his number two, said: “It would be the biggest single achievement of my life. I sit here and I keep using the word ‘confident’, and I do believe we will stay in the Premier League.
“I think I’m capable of delivering it, the players are capable of delivering it and I know we have got the support of everyone else in the club, and the supporters will play a massive part in that.”
Asked if there is enough to engineer an escape with rumours of splits in the dressing room being rife in recent weeks, he said: “Absolutely, yes.
“The players understand where we are and what we need to do to get out of the situation we’re in. But they also realise that we’ve played some really, really good football, we’ve played well against a lot of the top teams, so they are more than capable.”
Chairman Steve Gibson will give Agnew the chance to prove he is the right man for the job on a longer-term basis as he continues to assess his options in the search for a permanent replacement.
Huddersfield Town failed to increase the pressure on Newcastle United and Brighton at the top of the Sky Bet Championship last night – crashing 4-0 at Bristol City.
The Terriers would have moved within three points of the top two with a win, but it proved to be a miserable night for the Yorkshire side.
Midfielder Jonathan Hogg was taken to hospital after suffering a nasty-looking neck injury when he collided with team-mate Mark Hudson. The game was held up for almost a quarter of an hour while he was placed in a neck brace before being carried off on a stretcher.
Head coach David Wagner did not want to use the injury as an excuse for the defeat, though, saying: “Bristol City were strong and we under-performed.
“I have never spoken about automatic promotion and we now need to use the internationalbreaktorefresh and respond to this result.
“We are in a very good position with nine games to go andwehavebeenthroughtoo much together as a group for me to question my players.”
Lee Tomlin, Tammy Ab- raham, Aden Flint and David Cotterill (penalty) had Huddersfield reeling, lifting City clear of the drop zone.
Reading beat play-off rivals Sheffield Wednesday 2-0 to climb above Leeds into fourth place.
Goals from Yann Kermorgant and sub Adrian Popa, in the dying seconds with keeper Keiren Westwood out of his goal, gave Reading victory, leaving Wednesday with just one win in their last six.