FAN’S VIEW  2025/26 – MIDDLESBROUGH AWAY

Written after the Norwich defeat

I bought my ticket for Boro as soon as they became available to “away members”. The last away game I missed was when I had covid back in those dark days. I go to every game because that’s what I do. I call myself a supporter, admittedly at times a (very) critical one. I’m addicted but there will come a time when this will stop / has to stop. Common-sense needs to kick in. Trouble is common-sense and being a dedicated fan of a football team do not sit comfortably together.

I’ve not felt this low as a follower of the Yellows for many many years. Okay, it is clearly better to have these feelings in the Championship than in the National League. That though does not make the hurt any less.

During the game I, partially in jest, said I’d like to think we’re playing League One football in preparation for next season but we’re not even that good. (My son though thought this team would be okay in tier three). Regular Radio Ox phone in man Tim R commented post-match that we’re going down, then added all the way to the National league playing like that.

It really is difficult to take. Before the game when I popped into the Catherine Wheel for a pint I was asked “do you think we’re going down?” I answered “yes”.

It is never quite over until it is mathematically impossible to survive but afterwards my guesstimate at that happening was 2%.

There is so much that is wrong and has been wrong all season and going back further than that truth be told.

We have not scored at home this calendar year. That’s four matches under Matt Bloomfield. Apparently, this run is the worst ever in the club’s history.

New manager bounce? Someone is having a laugh.

When I come to a view on all things OUFC it is based on what I see before me and how I interpret it, with both heart and head, looking at the stats and trying to work out what they are actually telling us. Also listening to the opinions and arguments of others (some very illuminating and others just nonsensical drivel – this is of course just my view of their views).

From time to time, but much too rarely, we will produce a battling performance to get a point against a good side and will win an occasional game deservedly so. We’ve not got it in us to follow up a good performance / win with something even half decent next game. Or so it seems.

Here’s a few things for thought.

In most games this season none of our players would get into the opposition’s team. That was definitely the case against Norwich. So logically we’ve got players that other teams at this level don’t want. We don’t have sought after players.

It’s very unlikely we’ll get the money back we’ve paid for any of our players by being able to sell them on. (We’re now spending a million here and a million there. Two million in Ole Romeny’s case).

The recruitment team has so much to answer for. Yes, we’re up against bigger spenders and higher waged payers but the gap between us and them is much larger than it should be. It’s not as if our owners are not providing finance that should make us much more competitive than we are.

Other teams can keep the ball. We can’t – and when they keep it, we’re not very good at getting it off them. It looked so easy for Norwich but I’m not just talking about this game.

Often it appears that our opponent’s worst player is better than our best player.

When we get new players in, I tell myself to wait and see but I do try to focus on the positives and talk them up somewhat in my head. Only to be disappointed one way or another not that much further down the line.

Then there’s the academy that has produced nothing to help the first team for years now. Whilst the first team were losing to Norwich, the U21s were losing in the Oxon senior Cup to Oxford City. That’s Oxford City of the National League North. Gatlin O’Donkor, who will be 22 in October, scored one of our two goals at Court Place Farm. At least one of our teams has scored a goal in Oxfordshire in 2026.

Our fans have lost faith. We’re no longer selling out. Before the end of this latest defeat I’d wager more than half of them who had turned up had buggered off.

There’s no belief in Bloomfield. He got it all wrong. “We wanted to go as high press as we could”. Wtf? What we actually did was the opposite. We just stood off and let them have as much freedom at they could have wished for. If the players were not carrying out his instructions he should have bawled them out from the first seconds and ensured they were at the least trying to carry out his game plan. That said, when we try this, we’re usually played around and through anyway. Square pegs, round holes, mistakes come and, in this case, immediately so.

It is all rather embarrassing. A post-match caller couldn’t recall a worse performance since we’ve been back in the Championship. It is difficult to think of one. Plenty to choose from though. At the moment we’re an embarrassment to the Championship.

I needed to write the above to get it off my chest. Has it made me feel better? Answer, no.

FA Cup – Is there any point?

We were drawn at home to a Premier League team. I had no enthusiasm for it and nor did I detect any amongst our fanbase. It was hardly mentioned. Why is that? Could it be because we’ve played Sunderland quite a few times in the league over recent seasons? Nothing new to see here. Well there is actually because they’ve got an entirely different team from the one that won them promotion. More to the point I think it’s because for the most part this season, we’ve been awful. Even if the Black Cats were to put out a second string which we’re kind of expecting, they’d still likely give us the run around.

Some may argue that it’s a nice distraction from our tier 2 woes and gives us the chance to get some confidence back by giving a good account of ourselves against vastly superior opposition. On the basis that we’ve been unable to follow up a rare decent showing this season with anything the next game I’m not having that.

A good cup run to boost morale? Look at Plymouth last season. They won at Brentford in round three. They beat Liverpool at home in round four and then only lost 3-1 at the Etihad in the next round. Argyle were relegated, finishing second bottom with just 46 points from 46 games. That though is a better return than we’re on course to get.

But there’s always the money that’s made by progressing in this competition I hear you say. True, but when it’s spaffed away on players that are not up to it what’s the point?

That was my thinking as I headed to a rain soaked Kassam stadium.

Gallant losers …

… is the description used after only a debatable penalty saw us eliminated. We had a much better shape and players playing in positions they were comfortable with.

So, did this increase my optimism that Championship football would be played in OX4 4XP during the 26/27 season? Following Blackburn’s wins at Loftus Road and at home to PNE, Pompey’s win at the Valley and Gary Rowett being appointed as Leicester manager until the end of the season, absolutely not.

For me it’s still a 2% chance of staying up.

That’s the thinking I took with me to the Riverside. But whilst there’s that slim chance I’ll be there. (And I’ll still attend when the fat lady has sung. I can’t help it.)

Middlesbrough 0 Oxford United 0

This might be one of our longest trips of the season but as there was not much on the roads and even with a couple of stops, we were in the Isaac Wilson by mid-day. Thanks to one of the many Marks I know for the driving.

The pub used to be a Wetherspoon establishment but has been under new owners for a few years now. It still though is very much in the Wetherspoon image. The CAMRA website said the pub gave a discount for card carrying members. One of the many girls behind the bar looked blank and shrugged when I mentioned this. (NB: CAMRA site now updated. The feedback form works a treat). Many of the bar staff weren’t very good at pulling full pints, particularly the lager which was massively short, real ales not so bad but still a fair bit missing. Aren’t they trained properly or is it all done as a matter of course to boost profits? It can’t have been too bad though because we stayed for over two hours and I liked my second pint – which was a stout – enough to stick on that even though there were plenty more handpumps to choose from.

Walking up to the turnstiles I just showed my ticket and was waved through. Nobody searching, all very civilised and do you know what, no riots inside the stadium with dangerous projectiles being hurled onto the pitch. (How did that flare get into the Tottenham ground on Sunday?)

Another Middlesbrough plus was the price of the pies. Quite a bit cheaper than many places.

It wasn’t that long into the game when I commented “they’ve got better dead ball delivery than we have”. A mate rightly pointed out “they’ve got better players than we have”. 

They certainly have and that would explain many things. However our guys put on a superb defensive display and thoroughly deserved the draw. Proper shape and bodies being put on the line.

Of the current top four we’ve only got one fixture left, that’s Millwall away the last game of the season. It goes without saying that could be a very interesting Sunday lunchtime.

We’ve drawn with Boro home and away. We’ve drawn with Coventry home and away. Although we lost at Portman Road, we beat Ipswich 2-1 at our place and when Millwall visited we played out a 2-2 draw.

If we’d been able to replicate this form against the other Championship teams throughout this season, we would have ended up being safe on just about as many points as last time. But we all know that very much has not been the case.

Here, as is usual against the very top teams and particularly on our travels, the stats show that our opponents were dominant. We only had 25.5% possession. They had 54 touches in our box. We had 15 in theirs. They made 298 successful passes in the final third. We made only 40. Their passing accuracy was 89.7%, ours much lower at 67.3%. They had 24 shots, seven of which were on target. We had 13 and two.

But all these figures mask the fact that it was us who came closest to scoring when we hit the frame of the goal twice in the first period. The first of these was when Stan Mills, going down the centre of the pitch, thrashed a shot from distance against the bar. A great effort.

The second was when Myles Peart-Harris got a toe on a knock down and sent it against a post close to the end of the half.

Fine margins indeed.

There’s no getting away from the fact though that it is our inability to find the back of the net that has been our undoing. We’ve not scored in our last three league games. We’ve got one in our last five and three in our last eight. Only relegated Wednesday have a lower goal per game ratio than us.

Defensively we’re joint 15^th best in the Championship along with Wrexham and Norwich.

Why so terrible at scoring? Lack of creativity? Forwards missing chances? I’m putting no blame on Will Lankshear here. He put in a shift and a half, taking a good old battering.

Might be early days but I do very much like the look of Jeon Jin-Woo. He seems to have a fair bit of quality about him. Shame he’s not yet up to 90 minutes of this robust demanding football. It remains to be seen whether he will start banging in the goals for us at the same rate as he did in the K League.

We’re running out of games.

After this very encouraging but again goal-less performance I’m sticking at the survival rate being 2%. I can’t ignore what a pisser it was that Blackburn got the only goal of the game against Preston in the 5^th minute of added time on Friday night.

And we didn’t want bloody Pompey to get anything at Millwall but they took all three points and appear to be escaping. And we obviously could also have done without Leicester getting anything against Stoke.

Talking of Stoke we go there tomorrow so I’d better get this FV out pdq before that fixture has come and gone even though I’ve not actually written much about Saturday’s encounter.

One thing we really do have to put up with now is home fans singing at us about our very likely forthcoming drop down to Tier 3. We just have to shrug our shoulders in a way that can be interpreted as, of course you’re right. But isn’t it just a little bit satisfying to be able to give a little bit back in the form of “that’s why you’re staying down” when one of their attackers hopelessly blazes a shot way over the bar?

I wonder what will be sung in the Potteries tomorrow. Stoke are mid-table and have picked up fewer points than us over the last six games. I am not travelling without hope.