After picking up their first win of 2017 against Sunderland on Wednesday night, Boro now finds themselves in the precarious position of still being in with a chance of avoiding relegation this season. Middlesbrough currently sits 19th in the league, six points behind 17th place. They also must face a very hard final four games against Manchester City, Chelsea, Southampton and Liverpool. With these four hard games to play it would seem only a miracle could keep Boro up this year.
However, while it looks unlikely Middlesbrough will pull off a great escape, it has been done before.
Wigan’s great escape
If Middlesbrough fans do still believe they can stay up this year, they will surely look to Wigan’s 2011-12 season for inspiration.
Between August 2011 and February 2012, Wigan Athletic managed a grand total of just four wins. This also happens to be the same amount of games, Boro won this season in that period. Wigan’s season looked destitute and they looked doomed to relegation. However, in one of the greatest comebacks in modern football, Wigan went from staring relegation in the face to finishing 15th.
Boro may also take comfort in the fact that in Wigan’s final seven games of that season they faced Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Newcastle United, who were 5th at the time. They also managed to beat three out of these four teams and narrowly losing 2-1 to Chelsea.
Therefore, while Boro does face a very hard run of games, Wigan’s 2011/12 season shows that Middlesbrough may be down but they are certainly not yet out.
While Wigan’s season can give Middlesbrough some hope, a series of points do suggest Middlesbrough will not be able to pull off the great escape.
One win in 2017
Before Wednesday night Boro’s last win came on December 17th, 2016 against Swansea City. Since the turn of the year, Middlesbrough have been in less than stellar form. They had picked up just six points before their win against Sunderland, all from draws. This kind of record is absolutely appalling and with just four games left one win all year is simply not good enough.
You can argue that the win has sparked a new lease of life into Boro and may have reinvigorated their survival hopes. But, a more realistic view is that Middlesbrough only won because Sunderland are somehow even worse. Those who watched the game will know it was hard to sit through. Both teams looked poor on the ball and neither side looked like a Premier League team.
Boro’s form did not exactly improve against Sunderland. They were simply the less awful team on the night. Once they are faced with more difficult opposition, it is hard to see them winning another game this year.
A failure to replace Karanka
After a less than great 2017, Aitor Karanka left Middlesbrough on March 16th. Middlesbrough had a plethora of managerial options to attempt to sign. The Teessider’s were linked with Guus Hiddink, Harry Redknapp and a number of other experienced managers.
Instead what Steve Gibson opted to do was put Middlesbrough’s survival hopes in the hands of Steve Agnew. Before taking charge of Boro, Agnew had never been a manager. He had taken charge of four Boro games as caretaker manager. He lost all of them.
Since taking over from Karanka, Agnew has managed seven Middlesbrough games. In these games, he has won just one and that was only because Sunderland are so bad it would have been harder to not beat them.
Agnew replaced Karanka because under Karanka, Middlesbrough were the lowest scorers in the league and it was simply not good enough. Now under Agnew, Boro are still the lowest scorers in the league. Furthermore, when Karanka was in charge, Boro had a solid defence, the 5th best in the league when Aitor left. Now, however, Boro’s defence has slipped down to the 8th best. Middlesbrough have also conceded four goals in two separate matches under Agnew (Hull and Bournemouth). Something they did only once in Karanka’s entire time in charge.
This shows Middlesbrough have not replaced Karanka. Steve Gibson put his faith in an unknown inexperienced manager instead of finding a world class manager like Guus Hiddink. The result of which is Boro have got even worse defensively, which was their one saving grace. They are also still unable to play attacking football and still remain the league’s lowest scorers.
A poor January transfer window
One of Middlesbrough’s biggest problems is their inability to score goals. Boro are the league’s lowest scorers managing just 24 goals in 34 games. However, the January transfer window gave them the chance to strengthen their attacking options.
Middlesbrough’s three main targets in January were Jese Rodriguez, Robert Snodgrass and Bojan. All of these players were exactly what Boro needed to start scoring more goals. Unfortunately, Middlesbrough did not manage to secure any of these players, all of which opted to move to other clubs.
Instead, Middlesbrough signed Rudy Gestede and Patrick Bamford in order to strengthen their attack. This was simply not good enough. Before the Sunderland game, Gestede had not won a Premier League game in 43 appearances. Furthermore, while Bamford was a fan favourite from his loan spell in 2014/15, since leaving Boro, Bamford made 17 appearances for several clubs and scored 0 goals.
So, instead of signing any proven Premier League quality attackers, Middlesbrough ended up with a bang average Championship striker who hadn’t won a Premier League game in 43 games and a striker who had not scored a goal since 2015. This poor recruitment has sealed Middlesbrough’s fate as they simply do not have a good enough attack to stay in the league.
The fatal three games that doomed Middlesbrough to relegation
With Middlesbrough facing a very tough end to the season their best run of games came at the beginning of April. In the space of a week, Boro would get to play relegation rivals Swansea and Hull and then host Burnley who haven’t won away all season. This seemed like a great opportunity for Middlesbrough to possibly earn nine points and move away from danger.
In reality what happened was Boro drew 0-0 with Swansea in a game Gestede should have won for them. They got humiliated 4-2 by Hull City and then drew 0-0 at home to Burnley.
Those three results were all terrible for Boro as it showed that they are simply not good enough to compete in the Premier League as they couldn’t manage even one win in three against two relegation rivals and a team who hasn’t won away all season. If Middlesbrough were to stay up this season they really needed at least five points from those games. Instead, Boro are stuck in the relegation zone and are showing no signs of surviving this year.
Only a Wigan esque miracle can see them surviving what is looking like a near certain relegation.
