MAYBE a quick call to Elizabeth Taylor might have dissuaded Juninho from rekindling his love affair with Middlesbrough.

Slightly closer to home, Howard Kendall could have warned the Brazilian of the pitfalls that lie in store on Teesside.

Just as Taylor's second marriage to Richard Burton didn't work, and Kendall presided over Everton's decline from league champions to Premiership fodder in three spells at Goodison, so danger lurks around the corner as Juninho and Middlesbrough attempt to make it third-time-lucky.

No one is doubting the mercurial midfielder's talent. A Will o' the Wisp of a player, Juninho will add verve and elan to a Boro side that was functional but lacked flair last season.

Rather than preparing for muck and nettles battles with the likes of Paul Ince and Robbie Mustoe, Premiership opponents will be quaking in their Adidas Predators at the prospect of having to neutralise Juninho.

But old videos of Juninho running amok in a Middlesbrough shirt during his first sojourn here, and the tantalising glimpse of his best form that he provided at the World Cup, count for nothing now.

Expectation levels among the Boro faithful will be as astronomic as the wage demands the club finally agreed to.

But didn't Juninho play for a team that was relegated in 1997?

And didn't he then look a pale shadow of the player who first joined Middlesbrough in 1995 when he returned to the Riverside on loan four years later?

So, despite the hype, and the surge in sales of Brazil shirts and assorted Samba-related merchandise on Teesside, Juninho's stay at Boro wasn't the raging success those at the club would have one believe.

Reunions can work, of course. Peter Beardsley left Newcastle and came back a better player.

And Graham Taylor is feted by Watford fans for leading the club through the divisions twice, and then steering them to a league runners-up place.

But ask Evertonians if they believe Duncan Ferguson - "A legend before he was a player," according to his former manager Joe Royle - has justified his cult status second time around on Merseyside.

And Taylor's woeful re-introduction to life in the Aston Villa hot-seat last season hardly augurs well for the forthcoming season in the claret and blue half of Birmingham. So, it's time for a reality check as Middlesbrough prepares to welcome back the club's prodigal son - again.

Crowds that dipped to alarmingly low levels at times last season will rise just as quickly once Juninho starts pulling on a Boro shirt.

Middlesbrough's style of football will undoubtedly be infinitely more appealing to the eye with the 29-year-old in full flow.

And strikers starved of chances during the first 12 months of Steve McClaren's Riverside regime will be served by a steady supply line.

Just don't expect Juninho and Middlesbrough to live happily ever after.

Just ask Elizabeth Taylor