Boro Mania

On Tuesday night, Boro sacked Gareth Southgate: cue rejoicing on Teesside. Southgate was the clueless manager who got us relegated for the first time in 12 years. He was the man who took us from the Uefa Cup to the foot of the table. He was the man who sold our best players, and brought in our worst.

Thanks for the memories

But that's not the whole story. Steve McClaren - our most successful ever manager - had left Southgate a legacy of £90million debt and unrealistic expectation. Chairman Steve Gibson had tried to hire Martin O'Neil and then Terry Venables to replace McClaren, but neither wanted the job. So Gibson turned to Southgate. Southgate was captain of the team, with no coaching badges, no experience and no credentials in management. But he had ambition. He would not turn down the opportunity which had fallen at his feet, and he would not argue when Gibson said that we needed to streamline the club. We needed to sell off the best players. We needed to rely increasingly on the academy. We needed to become self-sufficient for the future. All of this made sense to Southgate, and he not only carried out Gibson's wishes but genuinely believed in what he was doing.

Trying to steer the likes of Mendieta, Ehiogu and Viduka out of the club, while trying to persuade the likes of Yakubu, Woodgate and Downing to stay was a unique brief, like which no other manager had experienced before. Forget the big names: the idea was to make the club run cheaper but stay in the Premier League.

For Southgate this was an outrageously big ask. But he put everything in to it. He made some awful signings. He snared some bargains. He was honest, to the last. He did not deserve the indignity with which he was finally dismissed. He had stuck dogmatically to what he had been asked to do. He had tried hard. In the face of the most intense scrutiny, he always remained true to what he believed, and to the brief he had been given.

We were relegated. This was the disappointing result of the necessary restructuring. Perhaps it could have been avoided with more guile and nous. But the guile and nous of O'Neil and Venables had turned us down. Nobody of that calibre had wanted the job. The reason? Because it was going to be a damned hard job. The 'top' managers wouldn't have gone for it, because they would have known it was a dead rubber.

How will Southgate's sacking affect players like Johnson?

Southgate took it on because he wanted to do his bit for Middlesbrough, and because he was willing to put himself on the line for the club. For us to have treated him so shabbily is deeply upsetting. Sacking him after relegation, or even before, would have been acceptable. But to publicly announce, and for Keith Lamb to tell Southgate to his face, that Gordon Strachan had been lined up (rightly or wrongly) two weeks earlier was just plain rude to a dignified man who had always done his best for us.

If Strachan comes in and gets us promoted, no-one will worry about the principle of what has gone before. If Strachan comes in and struggles, perhaps he will get sacked and we'll look for another manager. Perhaps we will start to behave like Newcastle, who never stand by a manager if he ever has a bad spell and perhaps we will end up being as much of a joke as they have been in recent times.

Yes, they are ahead of us in the league now but, prior to Tuesday, we had a greater stability and a better platform for long-term success. We could have been proud of our club for staying true to its principles. If we have now dropped to Newcastle’s level of managing their club by populist whim, then we should worry for our future.

And it is worrying that Strachan is yet to be confirmed. If he was interviewed three weeks ago, what is the hold up? Is he holding out for more spending money, bearing in mind we have just spent three years making the club financially viable? Isn't that why O'Neil didn't want the job four years ago?

Let's hope that Strachan will come in and fix the problems we have had under Southgate, particularly conceding late goals. But if he doesn't, and we fans have simply had Southgate sacked with no evident alternative, then we could have ruined any chance we had of getting promoted at the first time of asking.