Southgate Riding Early Storm

By Betting Zone
September 25 2006

Gareth Southgate is discovering sooner than he might have hoped about just how much of a rollercoaster football management can be.

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The 35-year-old has been in charge at Middlesbrough for just seven games, but has already tasted the highs and lows of the most precarious of professions.

Victory over champions Chelsea in just his second match at the helm served to enhance his status on Teesside; just a month later, he left the dug-out at the Riverside Stadium yesterday with the boos of the home supporters ringing in his ears for the second time in four days.

Successive home defeats by Coca-Cola League Two Notts County in the Carling Cup and Blackburn in the Barclays Premiership have taken the gloss off excellent Jonathan Woodgate-inspired draws at Arsenal and Bolton and left the Boro supporters questioning the destiny of their club's season.

Southgate's six league games have yielded only five points; his predecessor Steve McClaren managed six in the same period, although he lost each of his first four matches in charge.

No-one at the Riverside, from chairman Steve Gibson down, expected anything other than a sharp learning curve for a man who is held in equally high regard in the stands as he is in the boardroom.

Writing in his programme notes, chief executive Keith Lamb said: "Steve Gibson and I are pleased at the start Gareth has made.

"He is a young manager with a young team, but his effectiveness in the job is gradually increasing, while his attitude to management is exactly the same as he displayed as a player.

"He leads by example, gives it everything he has got, rarely makes the same mistake twice and wants to win every game he is involved in."

But after the game, Southgate, whose appointment is yet to be ratified by the Premier League, was ready to adopt a siege mentality.

He said: "We are missing key personnel, but I do not want to start going down that route six games into the season.

"We had enough experience in the team and enough quality to win matches.

"We have got to dust ourselves down. Everybody is going to be firing arrows in at us and we have got to stay together, get on the training ground and work hard and go to Sheffield and get a result."

Much needs to be addressed if Boro are to halt their mini-slump at Sheffield United next week.

But for keeper Mark Schwarzer, Blackburn would have won rather more comfortably than they did.

Schwarzer, who was given no chance by Shabani Nonda's 27th-minute bullet header, later pulled off fine saves to deny Lucas Neill and Brett Emerton.

The Teessiders, who started with just one specialist striker - and an ineffective one on the day in Aiyegbeni Yakubu - passed up two glorious opportunities to level through Jason Euell before the break.

Mark Viduka and Lee Cattermole were introduced as half-time substitutes to add both firepower and midfield grit, but the visitors saw out the game with few real scares.

Southgate said: "That is not the way I expect us to play. You leave yourselves a mountain to climb if you perform that way.

"We were sloppy and it is for me now to go away and think about why that was and put it right for next week."

Having seen his side claim their first win of the season against Manchester City last weekend, Rovers boss Mark Hughes left the north-east full of confidence going into Thursday night's UEFA Cup clash with Salzburg.

A 2-2 first leg draw in Austria laid the foundation for progression, and that is an opportunity the manager is desperate to take.

Hughes said: "We are on a run of four games unbeaten now and we have scored seven goals and had two clean sheets.

"We are on a decent run of form and we are looking ahead to Salzburg now.

"We are going into it with a great deal of confidence. We are in the driving seat in that tie, so we want to finish the job and progress to the group stages.

"Having played as well as we did today, we feel we are capable of that."

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By Bettingzone.co.uk
Used with permission.

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