WITH Middlesbrough and Blackburn Rovers currently in the play-off positions, Monday’s showdown at Ewood Park could prove crucial to both clubs’ promotion hopes. If that proves to be the case, then for Boro, it will be the second year in a row when a battle with Blackburn has had profound consequences.

Speak to Neil Warnock, and he will swear that last January’s home defeat to Rovers – and more specifically the point at which Jarrad Branthwaite kicked Dael Fry in the head and emerged unpunished – was the moment at which his side’s promotion push fell apart.

The Blackburn defeat sparked a four-game winless run that dropped Boro to eighth, a position from which they never really recovered. Fry missed three crucial matches, two of which ended in defeats, and was fortunate not to have lost his eyesight. Even now, one year on, the frustration at the way in which events played out remains.

“I thought I’d lost my eyeball, I was looking for it on the pitch,” joked Fry, who was left in a bloodied mess after the incident. “The main thing is I still can’t believe it wasn’t a penalty.

“I was really lucky to be fair. The doctor said straight away that if the boot had been half-an-inch up, I could have lost my eye. It was the start of a difficult run for me. I kept getting niggling injuries after that – my calf kept playing up – and the back end of that season became a bit stop-start. When I think about it now, it still makes me feel sick.”

The Northern Echo: Dael Fry

Thankfully, the physical and mental scars have healed, and Fry has found himself playing a central role in Boro’s resurgence under Warnock’s successor, Chris Wilder.

Boro will head to Ewood Park on Monday having won seven of their last eight matches in all competitions, a run that has fuelled promotion hopes and created the kind of buzz around the Riverside that has not really been apparent since the days of Aitor Karanka.

Off the pitch, attendances are steadily increasing as January signings arrive, while on it, Wilder is adopting the same front-foot, energetic approach that proved so successful at his previous club, Sheffield United.

During his time at Bramall Lane, Wilder adopted a formation using ‘overlapping centre-halves’, and while he is still fine-tuning his current defensive system on Teesside, the Boro boss has actively encouraged Fry to step out with the ball, something the 24-year-old feels plays to his strengths.

“I’ve always known I could do it,” he said. “When I was going away with England when I was bit younger, you had to play out from the back and pass through the lines.

“Chris has brought that style of play here as well. We’re all comfortable on the ball, we can all do it, and I really enjoy the way we’re playing at the minute.

“We’re moving the ball across the back quickly, and we’re the ones that are encouraged to create the attacks, but at the same time, we can’t forget that our main job is defending and keeping the ball out of the back of the net. He makes sure he gets that message drilled into us as well.”

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Fry’s defensive relationship with Paddy McNair and Anfernee Dijksteel has been finessed under Wilder, and has led to the Teessider once again being linked with a possible move away from his hometown club.

Wilder is adamant he does not want to lose Fry this month, and while there has been renewed talk of ongoing interest from Burnley, there is very little prospect of Steve Gibson sanctioning the departure of one of his key club’s key performers at the midway point of a campaign.

Fry has never tried to hide his understandable desire to play in the Premier League, but having first been spotted by Boro scouts when he was playing for Cleveland Juniors at the age of seven, and now with more than 150 senior appearances for the club under his belt, the boyhood Boro fan is desperate to progress to the top-flight with his current employers.

“If I’m going to play in the Premier League, I’d love it to be with my hometown club,” he said. “Hopefully, this year, we can really give it a good go. The feelings are fantastic around the place, and I’m looking forward to the back end of the season now.

“The atmosphere around the place is absolutely fantastic. Everyone’s buzzing, even my family back home, they keep talking to me. I have to keep saying, ‘Look, stop talking about promotion, just take it game by game’. But everyone’s really excited.

“With the last-minute winners, and obviously the comparisons to the Adam Forshaw winner (also against Reading), it feels a bit like the last time we got promoted. But we need to take each game as it comes and keep on getting points on the board.”

That brings us back to Blackburn, and Monday’s trip across the Pennines. Tony Mowbray’s side suffered a surprise slip-up on Wednesday when they went down 2-0 at struggling Hull City, and will be without their leading scorer at the start of next week, with 20-goal Ben Brereton Diaz having been called up for Chile’s World Cup qualifiers against Argentina and Bolivia.

“It should be a good game,” said Fry. “Blackburn have been really good, although they lost in the week so they’ll be on a bit of a downer about that. We’ve been doing well, and they’ve just lost their striker to international duty, and actually I was a bit gutted about that.

“I wanted to play against him and test myself against the best in the division, but I’m sure they’ll still have threats. It’s a tough place to go, and the manager’s obviously good, as well as being an ex-Boro legend. We’re close to them in the table, and we can catch them with a few more points. Hopefully, we can get a bit closer on Monday.”