What Should The Fans Expect?

Things haven’t been the same at the Riverside since Boro’s relegation from the Premier League five years ago.

 In that time the same fans who watched their club reach the final of the 2006 UFEA Cup have been forced to settle for significantly less, with home attendances almost half as a flourish of promising managers have failed to propel Boro back to England’s top flight.

Will the Boro fans witness a return to the Premier league?

Each Championship season has brought its own promotion optimism, however whether it was former captain Garth Southgate, big spending Gordon Strachan or club legend Tony Mowbray in charge, each campaign has frustratingly peated out, and now after just fourteen games, their fifth year in the second tier threatens to do the same.

Two weeks after Mowbray’s dismissal Chairman Steve Gibson appears no closer to appointing a predecessor. With Boro currently 16^th in the table eight points away the final play-off spot, the Premier League return appears more distant than ever, so is it time for the fans to accept their status for this season at least?

Under Mowbray Boro looked on the brink of promotion two seasons running only for their hopes to be catastrophically dashed at the turn of the year on both occasions.

Even then the fans still viewed Boro as one of England’s big clubs with the third biggest stadium in the Championship, only behind Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday, excellent training facilities and a recent Premier League history.

Gibson has even expressed that at present Boro are a Premier League club in every aspect apart from on the pitch, and that is where the problem lies.

Gone are the parachute payments which last four years after relegation, gone are past Premier League and local heroes like Adam Johnson and David Wheatear, and what we appear to be left with is a mid-table championship side rather than one destined for promotion.

Thanks to Mowbray the new manager will start with the foundations already in place and won’t have to work with an unmanageable wage bill.

However as caretaker boss Mark Venus admitted after this week’s defeat at Blackburn this Boro side “aren’t [yet] good enough for promotion”    

As hard as this is for the loyal fans who have witnessed the great Premier League and European days, and still continue to support their club in some of its darkest hours, maybe this is the time rebuild and start over again.

Yes the long term goal will be a return to the Premier league and a top half finish should still be expected rather than a relegation scrap, but for the foreseeable future promotion seems a distant dream, hopefully a new manager can change that.

The fans will expect the new manager to lead Boro into a promotion battling campaign, why shouldn’t they? However in a new era for the club success may have to come in the long run rather than instantly.