Boro On Right Track For Immediate Return

Things at the River­side Sta­dium were always going to be over­shad­owed some­what by events fur­ther north at St James Park. While the Toon are still fig­ur­ing out who is going to be in charge at the start of next sea­son Gareth South­gate has qui­etly gone about his business.

Life for a newly rel­e­gated club will never be easy, no mat­ter what divi­sion you are in, and clearly there will be a num­ber of depar­tures from Tee­side before the Boro squad for next sea­son is sorted. South­gate will have known this and will be fran­ti­cally try­ing to keep some of the top, young Eng­lish tal­ent Boro are in the midst of producing.

One player who sticks out in that cat­e­gory is David Wheater, a cen­tral defender who has attracted a lot of admir­ers through his dis­plays in a Mid­dles­brough shirt. The 22-year-old no-nonsense cen­tre back has been linked with Aston Villa, but has yet to pledge his future to any­one. Wheater is the kind of player South­gate will need to keep hold of for the forth­com­ing struggle.

Matthew Bates is another player who South­gate will be glad stuck around and in sign­ing a new con­tract has shown some of the com­mit­ment that Mid­dles­brough per­haps lacked last sea­son. Too many of their play­ers drifted through games with­out a care in the world. Those are the types of play­ers who Boro don’t want in their side next sea­son, despite that extra bit of qual­ity they may possess.

South­gate needs to go back to home grown tal­ent, be it from the Tee­side area or from Great Britain in gen­eral. Look­ing at the sides that came up last sea­son a lot of their star play­ers were home grown boys. Michael Kightly and Syl­van Ebanks-Blake stared for Wolves while Chris Eagles and Clarke Carlisle were piv­otal in Burnley’s success.

South­gate has already taken a risk on young tal­ent in the Pre­mier League, a gam­ble which never really worked out for the for­mer Eng­land inter­na­tional. How­ever, the gulf in class between the Pre­mier League and the Cham­pi­onship is still huge. The likes of Andrew Tay­lor, Adam John­son and Tony McMa­hon will look much bet­ter play­ers in the sec­ond tier of Eng­lish football.

What South­gate needs now is some expe­ri­ence to bring the young­sters together, and I feel sure he knows that. It is still only June and a lot will change before the big kick-off on August 8. Yet look­ing at the three sides who came down I feel if South­gate can get the bal­ance right, despite hav­ing not man­aged in the Cham­pi­onship before, his Boro side may finally steal the head­lines in the north-east.