IF the manager’s job at Middlesbrough had come up before the season started, the job description would have included the words “get us out the Championship this year”. Some three months into the season, the job is up for grabs, and the job description will include the words “keep us in the Championship this year”.

This is the measure of how badly wrong things have gone for the Boro.

Yet it seems barely five minutes ago when the Boro were in a European final and with Southgate, Viduka and Hasselbank had players known throughout the football world. This is the scale of the decline that the new manager has to tackle and reverse in a very short timescale.

There is a great deal of goodwill among Boro fans for chairman Steve Gibson, but he has to get the next management appointment right or this goodwill will start to fade away. After all there is only so much torture that any set of fans can be asked to endure.

Martin Birtle, Billingham