WITH the Championship season ending this lunchtime, it is a time for handing out end-of-term reports. In terms of the final league standings, Middlesbrough can realistically finish anywhere between ninth and 12th, depending on what happens in today’s final fixture with a Wycombe Wanderers side that head to Teesside almost certain to suffer relegation. In terms of Neil Warnock’s own conclusions, the grades have already been awarded.

“I’d say I’d probably give us a B,” said the Boro boss, who took his side into the final game of last season with relegation still a distinct possibility. “I don’t think I’d be as harsh as to go with a C. I think a B is about right, although I’d add ‘Could do better, Warnock’, like I used to get on my own reports.”

A fair assessment? Almost certainly. Boro will miss out on the play-offs by around 12 points, and the season has tailed off disappointingly from the point, just before Christmas, when they briefly found themselves inside the top six. Given the difficulties he encountered when he replaced Jonathan Woodgate last June, though, Warnock can still justified pride in the progress that has been made in the last 11 months.

That progress is evident in the club’s league position, and is reflected in the way in which individual players have improved over the course of the season.

Anfernee Dijksteel and Marc Bola are the most obvious examples given they appeared destined for the exit door before Warnock arrived, while Dael Fry, Paddy McNair, Jonny Howson and Marcus Tavernier have cemented their senior status and flourished in their manager’s preferred system.

When it comes to singling out his star pupil, though, Warnock’s eye is drawn to Grant Hall, the pre-season signing from QPR who have overcome a series of major injury issues to claim a place in Boro’s first-choice defence.

“Defensive wise, you want players that are reliable and that you know 90 per cent of the time what they are going to do,” said Warnock. “I think we’ve got a lot of players that have improved at the back – Bola, Dijksteel, Fry.

“I think Grant has done really well, and what can you say about Paddy McNair? He’s like a Rolls Royce to me. He could play for any team in the country. I’m quite pleased with how they’ve stepped up in that area.

“You look at someone like Grant, and while he’s not a youngster, he’s developed into a better player. He’s become more confident by playing with Dael and Paddy, and you see a different style in him. He’s probably surprised me more than anybody.”

The disappointments? Clearly, Boro’s attack has been a major issue, and while Warnock has steered clear of directly criticising Britt Assombalonga and Ashley Fletcher, the duo’s unceremonious departure before the end of the campaign said everything that needed to be disclosed about their standing in his eyes.

Chuba Akpom, a £2.5m summer signing from PAOK Salonika, has failed to impress, but when he looks back over the campaign as a whole, Warnock cannot help but rue the effects of a disastrous week in January.

The controversial 1-0 home defeat to Blackburn was bad enough, with Warnock still enraged at the lack of punishment for Jarrad Branthwaite’s kick at Dael Fry, but it was compounded four days later when Boro suffered a 3-0 home defeat to Rotherham in a game they had hastily rearranged after a Covid-enforced postponement.

“I know no one really expected us to win promotion, but that’s not the point for me,” he said. “The point is that it’s our own fault. We’ve made the mistakes that’s cost us dearly – although we haven’t done it all, we’ve had help from the referees.

“I go back to the Blackburn game – that was manslaughter that. That week probably cost us everything. There was the Blackburn debacle where I could see Dael’s head being kicked off, then we went into the Rotherham game and that was disastrous too. I knew then that we wouldn’t get into the play-offs.”

Middlesbrough (probable, 3-4-1-2): Archer; McNair, Hall, Bola; Kebano, Howson, Saville, Johnson; Coulson; Bolasie, Watmore.