Boro Hard-fought win spells positives for the future
FOR all the talk of a brave new Boro dawn, Jonathan Woodgate’s side won’t be mistaken for Barcelona or Brazil just yet.
But there is evidence that they are slowly breaking off the shackles they were asked to wear under Tony Pulis for a season and a half.
That’s not to decry the former Middlesbrough manager’s methods, by the way, but to simply outline the difficulty of making a 180 degree tactical shift without overhauling the playing staff.
Nobody is going to brand Saturday’s performance as a vintage display but there were enough positives to keep the fanbase sated for the seven day wait until their team kicks off in Cardiff next weekend.
The win was hard-fought and all the more welcome for that. The players didn’t always gel as well as Woodgate would have liked but they stuck to their task, rode their luck and forced a win that takes their unbeaten run to four games. Nobody’s going to gambling the house on promotion just yet but there are reasons to be cheerful.
Here’s what we learned from the 1-0 win over Reading.
SOME WINS ARE MORE VITAL THAN OTHERS
It seems faintly ridiculous to brand an early season fixture as a must win match but that’s what Saturday’s game was.
Jonathan Woodgate has a big job on his hands and the task of rebuilding Boro into a young, exciting side that plays attacking, entertaining football will be made a whole lot easier if he can chalk up a win or two.
The three points accrued against the Royals opens up some breathing space and pushes Boro closer to the middle of the table.
Failure to beat Reading will have left Middlesbrough with one win from seven and, at best, seven points to show from as many games.
That kind of return is hard to justify after what’s been a relatively kind start to the season in terms of fixtures.
Bu t eight points out of a possible 12 is something to build on.
The home wins over the Latics and the Lions also keep the home fans onside. Pulis lost the battle to win hearts and minds because his team lacked adventure on home soil.
The supporters have stayed patient with Woodgate because they can see what he’s trying to do. The build up play is clunky at times and Boro have seldom performed like a well-oiled machine but there is clearly an intent to attack. That’s refreshing.
Ashley Fletcher and Britt Assombalonga were quiet against Reading but their fellow forward Marvin Johnson showed good intent, delivering some decent balls into the box and scoring a crucial – if slightly jammy – winner.
Paddy McNair is full of drive and determination and Adam Clayton seems to be relishing his role of destroyer in chief.
On the day Boro did just enough to win a tight game and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a helluva lot better than losing!
COPING IN A CRISIS
When analysing the performance
against Reading, it’s pleasing that Boro were able to win despite missing key players.
George Friend and Jonny Howson are both recuperating from minor surgery while Hayden Coulson, one of the big pluses to come out of the opening weeks of the campaign, will be out for a while yet.
Dani Ayala may have been declared fit but he missed the first week’s training during the international break and was named on the bench.
So that’s at least three, maybe four first choice players watching from the sidelines. That’s a significant handicap but one Boro overcame.
Woodgate’s had to make do and mend. Both Marc Bola and Anfernee Dijksteel look raw and will take time to get up to speed with the rigours of the Championship but, and here’s the thing, they are getting better and will take great heart from helping their team keep a clean sheet.
Had Friend, Howson and Coulson been available, neither summer signing might have played.
Their time in the team will be hugely beneficial to them and give them the opportunity to gain muchneeded confidence.
In midfield, McNair carried the load. He was the pick of the outfield players in Northern Ireland’s defeat to Germany in Belfast and his increased confidence was apparent against Reading.
It took a sequence of sensational saves from Darren Randolph to deny him the man of the match award. No wonder Woodgate was fulsome in his praise of the players
after the game.
DARREN ‘SAFE HANDS’ RANDOLPH
Let’s face it, Boro’s record in the transfer market over the last few years hasn’t yielded too many gems, but Darren Randolph was a magnificent piece of business.
He’s proven his value time and time again since making the move from West Ham in July 2017.
His saves against Reading almost certainly meant the hosts pocketed all three points.
Good keepers are worth their weight in gold. Look at the difference Peter Shilton made at Nottingham Forest in the 1970s or, in the 1990s, Peter Schmeichel at Manchester United.
More recently, Alisson Becker has helped make Liverpool European champions and potential Premier League winners.
Those keepers stand out because they make critical saves at crucial times in matches.
Randolph may not be playing at that standard but he fulfils the same role at Boro.
Great goalies can be virtual spectators for 20, 30 or 40 minutes but, when the moment arrives to do their job, they are on hand to deny the opposition by making breathtaking saves.
That’s down to fantastic reflexes but also to superhuman levels of concentration.
And the end result is they turn potential defeats into draws and draws into wins.