‘Mentor’ Neil could be Boro’s best option
BEATLEMANIA was at its peak. England had just won the World Cup. And the Boeing 747 was six months away from its maiden voyage.
It really is that long since Middlesbrough last kicked off a season in the third tier of English football.
Along the way they’ve won a first major trophy, reached a European final and played 15 seasons in the Premier League. Great players. Golden moments. Ravanelli on the telly.
Yet today, 53 years later, the prospect of Boro mixing it with Accrington Stanley and Burton Albion is not just possible. It looks increasingly probable.
Last Saturday’s 4-0 humbling at Leeds was the Teessiders’ eighth defeat of a desperate season. Only Barnsley, dead last and doomed, have won fewer games than Jonathan Woodgate’s side.
Post-match, much was made of an injury crisis that forced the deployment of eight academy graduates. “The Middlesbrough we saw today isn’t the real Middlesbrough,” said Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa.
Bielsa, though, isn’t at the Riverside every other week. “Don’t buy it,” grimaced one local writer who certainly is. “Even when everyone’s fit, they’re in trouble.”
From personal experience, it’s hard to disagree. I’ve seen Woodgate’s side play four times this year, each game roughly a month apart. Two home, two away, with lineups ranging from full strength to decimated. The aggregate score from those games is 10-1.
What stands out is not a particular fault, such as vulnerability to set-pieces. It is the sheer volume of shortcomings.
No pace. No strength. Cenfew tre-halves who don’t attack crosses. A dearth of midfield creativity and a forward line that has scored fewer goals than any team in the Championship. Fragile confidence, a weak bench and inexperience across the board. If that doesn’t scream relegation, you need a hearing aid.
Predicament
Owner Steve Gibson is getting the message loud and clear, but there is little the 61-year-old can actually do.
A £22m annual wage bill – the legacy of a failed bid to bounce straight back to the Premier League following relegation in 2017 – has left the Teessiders smack up against Financial Fair Play restrictions. That is why, despite proclamations about a new homegrown ethos, Boro started the season with a team of kids and an untried manager.
Matters have since gone south faster than anyone imagined. Did Boro cut too deep, and too soon? Did they have a choice? Either way, a begrudgingly accepted mid-table finish is now a distant dream.
One obvious solution is to sign players. “It’s blatant we need to strengthen,” said Woodgate. “And the chairman is on the same page with that.”
Yet having publicly admonished the creative accounting of Derby and Sheffield Wednesday, whose owners purchased the club stadium to balance the books, Gibson can hardly pull a similar trick.
Any signings will need to be cheap players from the lower leagues, unwanted free agents or – best case – subsidised loans from the Premier League. It might work, but it’s no silver bullet.
Risky
More risky but less expensive would be to sit tight, give Woodgate time to find his feet and hope there are three teams worse than Boro. This would be exceedingly brave.
The final option is to sack Woodgate in favour of an experienced firefighter. Neil Warnock, out of work and a master of the art, has predictably been touted.
Over the last three decades, managers at any level have proved so adept at wringing results from limited players. Rotherham’s survival in 2016, with a squad far inferior to Boro’s, is a prime example. Warnock, though, is 71 and eyeing retirement. Much as he wants to work with Gibson, he does not desire a long-term project, let alone one 300 miles north of his home in Cornwall. He is a short-term solution to a long-term problem, as Rotherham demonstrated when they were relegated with a record-low points total in 2017. Perhaps, though, there is another way. Warnock – who is reluctant to take any job until after Christmas – has spoken of his eagerness to operate as a managerial mentor.
Such arrangements are distrusted by young managers who fear, often justifiably, that a replacement is being ushered through the back door. Warnock’s situation precludes such worries.
And mentors can be beneficial. At Newport County, Mike Flynn’s close relationship with ‘managerial consultant’ Lennie Lawrence has yielded success and stability.
For Woodgate, it would be a priceless opportunity to learn from a wise head in the business at a time when he is evidently out of his depth. For Warnock, a parttime job at the coalface free from the day-today demands of front line management.
For Gibson, who is reluctant to deal Woodgate what could be a terminal blow to his coaching ambitions, it is probably the best of all possible worlds.