As Middlesbrough's 2018/19 ended with an agonising near miss attempt at reaching the play-offs, Tony Pulis left the club after nearly 18 months in charge. 

The former Stoke, West Brom and Crystal Palace manager ended his final campaign as Boro boss in 7th place in the Championship. 

Boro looked set to confirm a top six spot at the very least throughout the season and at times were flirting with automatic promotion. They were firmly entrenched in a play offs after a 3-2 win over West Brom at he beginning of February where spirits were high and Pulis was pump his fists to the travelling away support after getting one over his former side.

The following month, their season crumbled before their eyes with a six match losing run to Brentford, Preston, Aston Villa, Norwich City, Bristol City and Swansa City respectively and, to no one's surprise, they fell out of the top six. 

Despite winning five of the remaining six games of the season, Boro fell short by a point on the final day of the season.

Looking back on the year-and-a-half as a whole, Tony Pulis was widely unpopular on Teesside for the style of play he manifested within the Boro team. They were horrible to watch, hard to break down and by no means entertaining.

Fans ofen vented their frustrations of Pulis from the stands, on social media and by phoning up the BBC Radio Tees Sport phone-in. Some went to the extreme by saying they wouldn't renew if the Boro boss remained in charge for the following season. 

One fan even went to the extent of releasing an unflatable dinosaur into the crowd at one of Boro's home games which provided some amusement to an otherwise tough afternoon's watch. 

However, the 63-year-old always maintained he did the club a lot of favours.

It was highlighted on a regular basis when he spoke to the media that he had a tough job on his hands as the club attempted to balance a promotion push with stripping back their financial outgoings.

The club's bank balance had taken a huge hit under the stewerdship of Garry Monk and Pulis was tasked with putting together a squad capable of promotion on a shoestring budget. An impending end to parachute payments didn't help either. 

Whilst operating on that tight budget, Pulis would often sing the praises of chairman Steve Gibson for continuing to provide much needed support for the club and for his time in charge.

Pulis was able to bring in the likes of John Obi Mikel to help spearhead a push for the play-offs while Paddy McNair was another one who came through the door. Even though he played a bit part role in the side, McNair has gone on to become a huge figure at the club which no doubt Pulis would take some credit for. 

Despite Pulis' shortcomings in mounting a serious promotion push, his spell on Teesside is statiscally his most successful.

Out of all the teams he's managed in his career, his win ratio at Middlesbrough was 43.75% from 80 games in charge. 

With a failed play-off campaign in the season he took over from Monk, losing to Aston Villa in the semi finals, and a 7th placed finish the following season, any man who would be in charge may well be proud of that accomplishment. 

However, in the eyes of the fans, lack of success coupled with a stale offering of lacklusture football was the final straw for the club.

The following two seasons in Championship for Boro have seen the side finish in 17th and 10th under Jonathan Woodgate and Neil Warnock respectively.

Pulis has since gone on to manage Sheffield Wednesday, where he was sacked after 10 games in charge in December last year. The owner Dejphon Chansiri, would later go on to describe Pulis' appointment as a mistake after the two clashed over the club's January transfer window plan.

As Boro enter their 5th consecutive Championship campaign, fans may well be reluctant to look back on a period at the club which ultimately yielded very little. However, two years on from Pulis' reign and the club hasn't come any closer to mounting a challenge for promotion.