Boro have kept faith with manager Gareth Southgate and given him the task of leading them back into the Premiership at the first attempt following relegation last season.

Last Season: 19th in Premiership and relegated Very much like ourselves in the mid 1990s, Middlesbrough paid for their poor transfer market activity with their Premiership place. Boro lost Mark Viduka, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Luke Young, Lee Cattermole, George Boateng, Fabio Rochemback, Mark Schwarzer, Jonathan Woodgate, Yakubu and James Morrison in a couple of seasons without adequate replacement. While Boro are better placed than most to cope with such losses thanks to a youth academy so prolific it once produced an entire starting eleven for a game at Fulham at the end of the Steve McLaren reign on Teeside, that is still a hell of a lot of quality players to lose and ultimately last summer’s activity provide a blow too far. Gambles like Alfonso Alves have proved misguided and ultimately, under an inexperienced manager, it has proved to be death by a thousand cuts. The Boro board is notoriously patient with its managers and while this has been held up as a refreshing change by the media, Gareth Southgate has proved to be out of his depth among the other Premiership bosses and in the transfer market and is lucky to still be in his job. Boro ultimately, with no wins in their final six matches and just seven victories in the entire season, went out with a whimper after a decade of uninterrupted top flight football.

Head to Head: Rangers and Boro last shared a league in 1997/98 when the teams met four times in all competitions. At Loftus Road the R’s came from 2-1 down to seal a 2-2 draw in the FA Cup with goals from Steve Slade and Kevin Gallen. In the league an outrageous and wholly unexpected 5-0 win boosted Rangers’ survival chances against the promotion chasers – with on loan Mark Kennedy in sumptuous form Rangers banged in goals from Sheron (two), Gallen, Bruce and an own goal by Steve Vickers. Up on Teeside things did not go quite so well with the FA Cup replay won easily 2-0 by the hosts and the league match finishing 3-0 in their favour.

Odds: Predictably as a relegated side Boro are heavily tipped by the bookies to go straight back – generally third favourites for the title with Paddy Power, BetFred and others going 7/1 and Sky Bet going as low as 5/1.

Manager: Gareth Southgate While the likes of Paul Ince and Roberto De Matteo had to drop down the leagues to cut their teeth despite glittering playing careers, Gianfranco Zola and Gareth Southgate were parachuted straight into the big time in their first job. Southgate was a classy and intelligent central defender of defensive central midfielder for palace, Villa and Boro and he initially seemed to carry that into management fairly seamlessly when he initially took over from Steve McLaren. However as already said the transfer market activity under him has weakened the Boro team season on season culminating in relegation last season. Southgate is clearly a nice man, a genuine football man, but he sank like a brick under pressure last season and possibly would have been sacked by every single Premiership club apart from Middlesbrough. Southgate remains in charge, somewhat fortunately, for the forthcoming Championship campaign. We did this with Ray Wilkins after relegation only to sack him five or six games into the season and should Boro start badly Southgate may find himself in the same situation which would not be great for him, but would be a disaster for the club with every day that passes taking them a day closer to the end of the vital parachute payments. Boro kept faith with Bryan Robson when he relegated them in 1997 and he took them straight back in 1998 and Chairman Steve Gibson will no doubt be hoping for the same again.
Survival Chances: 4/10

Players: Boro have been reasonably quiet in the transfer market this summer. Stewart Downing has been the predictable departure and Tuncay and Mido are sure to follow before the end of the transfer window. Coming in are two, possibly three, reasonably astute signings with the cloth cut accordingly for the new level. QPR fans may wake up in a cold sweat at the though of facing Danny Coyne again, the veteran Welsh goalkeeper’s performance for Grimsby at Loftus Road in 2001 was quite miraculous and secured a 1-0 win for his team despite the R’s out shooting them in the game by ten to one. A big mistake made by Boro was to allow Schwarzer to leave and rely on youngsters Ross Turnbull and Brad Jones to replace him and Coyne’s signing is a canny one in my opinion. The attacking midfield has been strengthened by the aligning of Mark Yeates from Colchester who, despite a barrel chested appearance, has impressed in this league and the one below since leaving Spurs and has been eyed by several clubs before joining Boro. The club is also in talks with Leroy Lita who has rattled round without a club since being released by Reading at the end of last season. Lita has a justifiably poor reputation as a person, and bringing him into a club managed by an inexperienced manager already struggling in his job, would be a huge risk. The transfer is far from certain and Boro must tread carefully there. Alfonso Alves remains and despite being the butt of Premiership jokes he should be plenty good enough for 20 goals in this league. Matthew Bates is already out for the season injured but the likes of Huth and Hoyte remain in the defence and they look to have maintained enough quality players to make a decent fist of this division.
Likely Star Player – Julio Arca.

Transfers
In:
Mark Yeates from Colchester United – Undisclosed
Danny Coyne from Tranmere Rovers – Free
Out:
Stewart Downing to Aston Villa - £12m
Graeme Owens to Kilmarnock – Free
Ross Turnbull to Chelsea – Free
Gary Smith to Darlington – Free
David Knight to Darlington – Free

Prediction: This could go one of two ways and I just cannot make my mind up which. Boro have enough quality in their squad to make the top six in the Championship, and that may well happen. However they also have a manager who seemed to lose the plot a little bit last season and in sticking with him have Boro created a situation where they will be searching for a new gaffer after a poor start to the season and be left to effectively write off this campaign as early as October or November. I just don’t know and would not like to hazard a guess.
Verdict: Play off push, I think.

Photo: Action Images

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