FOOTBALL can be a glamorous business. Burnley on a Tuesday night in February is not one of those occasions.
Yet if Middlesbrough are to finish this season in a position which at the very least offers a play-off path to the Premier League, which is pretty glamorous just about every night of the week, you get the feeling they must win in the Lancashire town tomorrow evening.
Lose at Turf Moor and Boro’s 2013 record would read eight Championship games played, one win, seven defeats and no draws.
If that’s not a rut then it will do until one turns up.
Entire seasons, and the Championship campaign does seem longer than most, are decided not by one game but by sequences of results, good or bad. Right now Middlesbrough are smack bang in the middle of a run which could quite easily end their promotion hopes if the players cannot find a way to win games again.
Tony Mowbray’s side had lost all five matches in the league before Tuesday’s vital home derby with Leeds.
They managed to win that, albeit fortuitously, but according to their manager the effort of that victory was so much they had little left for Saturday’s trip to Selhurst Park.
Crystal Palace scored four times to Boro’s one when the home side were 3-0 ahead and coasting.
Mowbray knew his side were lucky to come second in this one-sided contest.
So what has gone wrong? The case for the manager’s defence is he has no defence.
Jonathan Woodgate’s body doesn’t allow him to play two games in a row. Seb Hines is also out, as is Justin Hoyte while Stephen McManus, an international centre-half, is unavailable for selection in that Mowbray doesn’t rate him.
Stuart Parnaby limped off during the second half on Saturday.
However, desperate times call for desperate measures and Mowbray may have to throw the former Celtic captain into his side tomorrow. He honestly could not do any worse than Saturday’s back four, who had no clue how to cope with Palace’s attacking players.
Even Kevin Phillips, 40 in a few months, found it a simple task to free himself from Boro’s defenders to score his side’s fourth after coming on as a late substitute.
Mowbray said: “The squad is as weak or as strong as the numbers underneath what you would call the first 11. That’s what football is. If we have Hoyte, Woodgate and Hines injured, you have to take it on the chin and get on with it.
“There is no chance any of them will make it for Burnley.”
As for McManus, Mowbray gives off the impression he would rather play Michelle than Stephen.
He said: “He was at Palace on Saturday and sat on the bench. Let’s see whether we need Stephen or not. A centre-half has to play that position.”
Saturday was desperate. Palace looked as if they were in another league. They had started the day two points above their opponents.
Palace striker Glenn Murray scored twice, one in either half. He could easily have got five.
His strikes sandwiched Peter Ramage’s goal just after half-time when the centre-half was able to turn and shoot inside the box, with three Boro players around him.
Mowbray added: “What do you want me to say? That’s football. People make mistakes.
“It’s up to the team to dig out their team-mates if they are in trouble.
“Once a mistake is made someone else has to react to stop the goal going in.
“I feel like that isn’t happening at the moment. Their second goal comes directly from a corner and at Ipswich we lost goals from two corners. That really kills you in the end.
“If you lose two goals from corners you don’t win football matches.
“Even though you work hard on these things on the training ground, and everyone knows their jobs, it happens.
“We could have a debate about marking men, marking space, zonal marking against man marking...
“However, if you give someone a job to do and their man scores then what can you do? You rely on individuals to do their jobs.”
Middlesbrough do remain in the play-off places. It’s not as if they are mid-table, in all fairness.
Mowbray admitted: “That is because we were so good before Christmas when we accumulated a lot of points. We still are doing that.
“We still have enough points to stay in the top six of this division regardless of any negativity.
“We have earned those points and between now and the end of the season we need to ensure we win enough points to stay where we are.”
So does he worry about the likes of Brighton, who sit in seventh, are on a decent run and are four points worse off but have a game in hand?
Mowbray said: “No. We have to look after ourselves. How can I worry about Brighton?
“The day I worry about Brighton is when they come to the Riverside.”
CRYSTAL PALACE: Speroni; Richards, Delaney, Ramage, Parr, Zaha, Jedinak, Dikgacoi (Butterfield 76), Williams (Phillips 70), Dobbie (Bolasie 81), Murray. Subs (not used): Price, Wilbraham, Moxey, O’Keefe.
Goals: Murray 9, Ramage 48, Murray 57, Phillips 84.
MIDDLESBROUGH: Steele; Parnaby (Dyer 58), Bikey, Friend, Halliday, McEachran (Miller 60), Leadbitter, Rhys Williams, Haroun, Jutkiewicz (Bailey 59), Carayol. Subs (not used): Leutwiler, McManus, Emnes, Ledesma.
Booked: Rhys Williams.
Goals: Haroun 80.
Attendance: 17,213.
Referee: Oliver Langford (W Midlands).
