Who’s the man to make a difference?

THE one player who can make the biggest difference to Boro’s hopes in the second half of the season is Martin Braithwaite. The Danish international is clearly a very talented player, who will not only score goals, but can makes things happen for his team-mates. But Braithwaite has struggled to find his best form in recent weeks. So it’s no surprise that the team in general has suffered. Braithwaite was arguably Boro’s best signing in the summer. He is an experienced attacking player who made a huge impact in pre-season.

Unfortunately he picked up a hamstring injury in the Championship opener at Wolves, which led to seven weeks on the sidelines.

When Braithwaite returned in the home game against Brentford at the end of September, his presence on the pitch was marked.

He was prominent for a few games afterwards, but then began to lose a bit of form. Maybe this is to be expected because the high tempo of English football can prove difficult for some foreign players to adjust, as we have witnessed several times in the past at the Boro. Those missed games in August and September did not help matters because they robbed Braithwaite of the opportunity to settle into a routine.

Braithwaite is not the only Boro player not in top gear at the moment.

The midfielders have not been dominating games as a unit, while Boro have failed to reproduce the defensive edge which they displayed in the Championship two years ago.

Boro reach the half-way stage in their fixtures at the end of this month and cannot look back on the first spell with great satisfaction. All the more reason why they need to see Martin Braithwaite fully wired into the task and proving a driving force in the second half of the campaign.