Boro’s promotion push stalls as mood darkens

Middlesbrough have spent all bar the opening three days of the season in a top-six position in the table, and currently find themselves just six points adrift of the automatic promotion places after Jordan Hugill’s last-gasp penalty against Millwall extended their unbeaten run to five games in all competitions.

Yet sitting in the Riverside, listening to the boos cascade down from the stands during the opening half-hour of Saturday’s game, promotion to the Premier League could hardly have felt further away.

Hugill’s successful spot-kick prevented another outbreak of widespread abuse at the full-time whistle, but the abiding sense on a bitter afternoon that chilled the mind as well as the physical senses was of a club treading water. In terms of both their overall position and their general style of play, Middlesbrough are going nowhere fast.

Their problems tend to crystallise at the Riverside, where their home form is desperately poor. Boro have won just two of their last ten league games on home soil, and while QPR, Stoke City, Brentford and Wigan Athletic all find themselves in the bottom half of the table, they have all recorded more home victories than the Teessiders.

The flip side of that is that Norwich City are the only team to have picked up more points on their travels than Middlesbrough, but the Canaries are also a force to be reckoned with at Carrow Road, hence their position in the top two. For all that Boro have performed impressively on the road, they will not win promotion unless their home form radically improves.

Tony Pulis will cite deficiencies within the squad as an explanation for his side’s repeated failure to break down visiting teams who defend in numbers and look to hurt Boro on the counter-attack, and there is merit to his argument.

The summer departure of Adama Traore robbed Boro of their most potent attacking asset, and the winger’s pace and trickery has not been replaced. In Traore’s absence, Pulis’ side are predictable and one-paced, with a lack of genuine width severely restricting their attacking options. The half-time introduction of recent loan signing, Rajiv van La Parra, at the weekend finally injected some life into Boro’s attacking, but Pulis still feels the Dutchman is not fit enough to start. That might have to change when the league programme resumes with a trip to West Brom in the wake of next weekend’s FA Cup game with Newport.

Pulis also acknowledged a lack of confidence on Saturday, with Boro’s pedestrian start enabling Millwall to seize control of the early stages and inviting the visitors to set a tone that was hard to reverse. “Irrespective of what is or isn’t going on,” said the Boro boss. “If you go out in the frame of mind that you’re a little bit concerned that it’s not going to go well early on, and you can’t then push on, you’re going to struggle all the time.”

Confidence is clearly fragile, with the disgruntled atmosphere at the Riverside undoubtedly a contributory factor, but Pulis has to shoulder much of the blame for his side’s recurring failings on home soil.

The current set-up, both in terms of tactics and personnel is clearly not working, yet the Boro boss remains completely resistant to change. As Einstein pointed out, the definition of insanity is to keep trying the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome.

Yet there we were again on Saturday, watching Boro line up with a centre-half at right-back and central midfielders on both the left and right flanks. Pulis remains desperate to sign a new wide man before the transfer window closes at the end of the month, but in the intervening period, might it not be an idea to at least try to use the ones he already has at his disposal?

Marcus Tavernier, one of the few players able to provide genuine width, was not even in the match-day squad at the weekend, while it was well past the hour mark before Stewart Downing was ushered off the bench. Ashley Fletcher played superbly in a wide attacking role in the FA Cup win over Peterborough United, but has not been seen since.

Further up the field, Hugill continues to plough a lone furrow in attack, and while his successful penalty means he has now scored three goals in his last four league games, he is not a natural finisher. Britt Assombalonga is, but Boro’s record signing continues to be something of an outcast, having been consigned to the bench for the last four Championship matches.

Pulis is clearly wedded to the idea of playing with a lone centre-forward, but when opponents visit the Riverside content to pack eight or nine outfield players behind the ball, it is surely time to at least consider the option of pairing Hugill and Assombalonga together. And if Mo Besic is playing alongside Lewis Wing at the heart of midfield, do they really need Adam Clayton sweeping up behind them?

Clayton was sacrificed at the half-time interval of Saturday’s game in order to accommodate the introduction of van La Parra, but by that stage, Boro were trailing. Indeed, had Millwall been more clinical, they could well have been even further behind.

Lee Gregory would have broken the deadlock in the tenth minute had Darren Randolph not raced from his line to smother his close-range shot, and the Lions striker was a central figure again when his side deservedly claimed the lead midway through the first half.

Gregory drew both Daniel Ayala and Danny Batth towards him as he broke upfield, and was therefore able to slip a square ball to Jed Wallace, who calmly slotted home.

Boro’s only meaningful first-half chance saw Jordan Archer turn Howson’s diving header around the post, and the Millwall goalkeeper made another good stop after the interval as he parried Wing’s drive from the right-hand side of the box.

Wallace wasted a good opportunity to settle things when he shot into the side-netting with three minutes left, and just as had been the case at the Den on the opening weekend of the season, when Boro scored two goals in the final three minutes to salvage a point, so Millwall were undone in the dying seconds again.

Downing swung over a cross from the right, and Steve Morison bundled over Ayala at the back post to prevent the centre-half from reaching the ball. Hugill stepped up, and rolled his spot-kick into the bottom left-hand corner.

“That’s one defeat in six league and cup games,” said Pulis. “But irrespective of what we do away from home, the players have to pick the baton up at home, and they’ve got to show what they show in the away matches.

“The players have to be strong enough and resilient enough to understand that the supporters come to watch a positive performance. They want to watch teams running around and being positive, whether they’ve got the ball or they haven’t.

“The amazing thing with this group is that in the last two games away from home – at Birmingham and Derby, which are two very difficult clubs to go to – we’ve played exceptionally well, been the better team in both games and played with a lot of vigour and positive energy

“You’ve got to respect and understand that if the supporters are not happy, they’re not happy. You’ve got to roll your sleeves up and fight like billy-o to turn it around and make sure they are happy.”