TEN years ago, Jonathan Woodgate produced one of the great Middlesbrough defensive displays to help his side secure a surprise point at Arsenal. Resolute, polished and fiercely-committed, Woodgate repelled everything Thierry Henry and his team-mates threw at him as Boro left North London with their heads held high.

Fast forward a decade, and for Woodgate in 2006, read Ben Gibson in 2016. A proud Teessider, representing his hometown team, shackling an attacking line-up widely regarded as one of the most potent and dangerous in the country.

The key difference, of course, is that whereas Woodgate was an established England international when he made his Middlesbrough debut, with a spell at Real Madrid under his belt, Gibson is still in the formative stages of his career.

On the evidence of the opening two months of the season, though, there is every chance the 23-year-old will go on to emulate his fellow Nunthorpe native. An England debut cannot be too far away, and at some stage in the not-too-distant future, Gibson will surely take control of Middlesbrough’s captain armband. When he does, Saturday’s performance will rightly be highlighted as a key point in his development.

“I remember Woody’s performance that day against Henry,” said Gibson, who was an avid Boro fan when his future team-mate was man-marking one of the Premier League’s all-time greats. “He was absolutely unbelievable.

“To make the story even better, I’ve spoken to him a few times about it and he didn’t even have a pre-season, he was just thrown in. That’s ridiculous really. He told me he was getting cramp after about 15 minutes, but he still marked Henry out of the game.

“He gave him a five yards head start, and still caught up with him. As you can imagine, I’ve heard a lot about it. He was fantastic, and it’s one of the all-time great Boro defensive displays.”

In terms of a team effort, Saturday’s performance can certainly be added to that list. There were times, particularly in the opening 20 minutes, when Arsenal were boasting possession statistics of more than 80 per cent, but despite having scored six goals in the Champions League just three days earlier, the hosts rarely looked like penetrating Boro’s backline.

Victor Valdes saved Alexis Sanchez’s first-half free-kick, and produced an even better stop at the start of the second half as he tipped the same player’s curling effort around the post, but for all Arsenal’s possession and territorial dominance, Boro’s Spanish goalkeeper was hardly over-worked.

Gibson and Daniel Ayala were a major factor in that, resuming their central-defensive partnership with Calum Chambers unavailable and immediately re-establishing the understanding and dominance they were displaying in the Championship last season.

Aitor Karanka also deserves a huge amount of credit for the tactical tweak that was so important in terms of Boro’s defensive resilience, and having been heavily criticised for his inflexibility in recent weeks, this was unquestionably a day when the head coach’s astute thinking came to the fore.

Adding Adam Clayton to the midfield mix and restructuring to a 4-5-1 formation was a masterful move, with Clayton’s energetic presence ensuring Arsenal’s creative players were never afforded the room they craved.

Whenever Mezut Ozil drifted in from the flank, Clayton was there to track him. Whenever Sanchez dropped deep from his central role, Marten de Roon or Adam Forshaw eased alongside him to pick him up.

“The gaffer has set us up in a different way for a fair few of these big games in the past – Man City, Liverpool and Man United, and each of them has paid off,” said Gibson. “We knew it was going to be a tough game, and we knew they were going to control it, and we were delighted to keep our shape and stop them from getting through us.

“You can’t go there and control the game – we’re not naïve enough to think that – so you have to prevent them from getting through you, and we got our just rewards. I actually think we could have won the game, but we got a reward in the end.”

Defensively, Boro’s players knew exactly what they were doing, but the revelation in their play came at the other end of the field as they caused Arsenal no end of problems on the counter-attack. Yes, there was an element of ‘parking the bus’. But there were also plenty of occasions when Boro’s attacking players drove a cart and horses through the heart of the Arsenal defence.

Had it not been for Petr Cech, Boro would almost certainly be celebrating a second win of the season, and again Karanka merits praise for his bold decision to start with Adama Traore.

Having made a £3m move from Aston Villa on deadline day, Traore had shown glimpses of potential in his three previous substitute displays in a Boro shirt. On Saturday, he was sensational throughout, embarrassing Nacho Monreal with his bursts of pace and proving capable of allying an end product to his surges from midfield.

He almost broke the deadlock in the 19th minute as he robbed Laurent Koscielny and drilled in a shot that was saved by Cech – Alvaro Negredo should have done better with the rebound, which was also blocked – and he teed up Gaston Ramirez for a back-post header that was superbly clawed away by the Arsenal goalkeeper.

He was thwarted by Cech again midway through the second half as he galloped clear down the right-hand side, and released Negredo in the final minute, only for the striker to be tackled as he attempted to turn inside when he should really have got his shot away.

With Ramirez also striking the woodwork with a fabulous first-half free-kick, Boro created as many chances on Saturday as they mustered in their six previous matches. Having given Traore his head, it will surely now be difficult for Karanka to leave him out of the team.

“You’ve seen what Adama can do – he’s an outlet for us and he’s absolutely rapid,” said Gibson. “He’s also strong, and he’s a bit of a beast to play against. He had a real effect on them, and he was an outlet that got us up the pitch.

“He made their defence drop a bit, and made them a bit scared. He did his job brilliantly and was unlucky not to have capped his performance with a goal.”

The challenge now is for Boro to be equally effective in their home games, when opposition sides will be less inclined to give them space to exploit on the break. Bournemouth are the visitors to the Riverside this weekend, and for all that optimism has been renewed, the Teessiders are still only out of the bottom three on goal difference.

“That’s the minimum standard now,” said Gibson. “We can’t fall below that in terms of hard work, determination and fight. You’ve seen from everyone that we’re capable of doing that, so we can’t fall away from it now because that’s what Middlesbrough is about.”