By Peter Holmes
December 29 2005

Fantasy football brings out the manager in all of us. I loved nothing better than to see how my team was performing against the rest of the punters, how many points my players scored each weekend to send them up or down the fantasy league. Fun but it echoes real life and as fans we all play out little scenarios in our minds constantly dreaming of this player and that player pulling on the scarlet red of Boro.

We all like to compare players of this generation to players of yesteryear. Generally it's good fun and we all have our own opinion of who and what we like. We tend to pick players we enjoy watching, blokes who entertain us, lads who get stuck in, basically having footballing attributes that we find attractive, as well as the usual skill, pace, power, goal-scoring ability. It's subjective and very rarely do we pick these players out purely on something like the Opta ratings on pure comparative figures alone. Although some of my Sis' faves are there because they have a nice butt.

Yet perversely we generally judge the coach of a team on their performance in figurative terms. That's because they are judged on their end product, which in the rawest sense is position on the ladder, won, drew and lost.

Yes I know there's more to it than that and I'm not going to simplify an issue that has many variables but the game beggars comparisons at every level and just lately one question has been gnawing away inside the festering gunge between my lugs. Who is the better manager, Bryan Robson or Steve McClaren?

Now in terms of success by dint of that historical epoch making Carling Cup triumph - get in you bloody beauty - surely makes Steve McClaren the best coach Boro have ever had? Not on yer Nelly Chor!

As in the minds of the Boro diehards McClaren would not lace the spare boots of one Jack Charlton, never mind Bruce Rioch. Robson himself, the designer and engineer of the giant Boro Yo-Yo drove the team coach to Wembley on three different occasions and but for some of that intangible medium, luck, would have been a silverware legend at the Riverside instead of his present status of failure. So how do I form a comparison between the two, what yardstick do I use?

What else, figures, specifically the performance of the team under the tutelage of Messer's Robson and McClaren while playing in the Premier League.

So, I have been doing a smidgeon of comparative detective work with the Boro's records and to make the ledger balanced I included only the seasons in the top flight, the Premier league and didn't include any of the various cup games.

Now I know that clever manipulation of numbers, statistics, records and the like can make the end product basically say what the spin doctor wants, but you'll get non of that slight of maths here because I'm too bloody thick to count past ten for a start. Besides I've just spent the last few hours trying to work out the bairns i-Pods and being tut-tutted at by an eight-year old software professor and a twelve year-old braniac rolling her eyes muttering about wether I attended skool. So, I've got no high falutin illusions about my mathematical ability.

Figures presented in black and white, stark, informative, what really happened, the truth then. But they don't show the heartache, the highs, the euphoria, screaming near misses, the bad luck, how good the football was and Juninho in full flight or Mendieta ripping Manchester United apart to the tune of 4-1.

So it's amazing how close the comparative records of the two men are when at the helm of Middlesbrough Football Club in the top flight. Yes I know that Robbo got a decent helping hand off El Tel in his final season but Macca gets a helping hand when on England duty as the club does not run on auto-pilot. So here they are, have a squiz, and no I didn't get a calculator for Chrimbo!

Overall record first shown as totals of P W D L F A and PTS, followed by an averaged season using those figures expressed over thirty eight games:

ROBBO;

Seasons 95-96, 96-97 (three cup finals and relegation), 98-99, 99-2000, 2000-2001.

	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
Total	190	56	62	75	224	260	227
Average	38	11	12	15	45	52	45

McCLAREN;

Seasons 01-02, 02-03, 03-04 ( Duck murdered!), 04-05, 05 to present.

	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
Total	170	57	46	67	203	217	217
Average	38	12	11	15	45	48	47

A gnat's knacker marginally better performance by the Yorkshireman over the Durham lad then. Nowt to crow about though for McClaren, especially in comparison to a bloke who got the arse from the Riverside after well and truly losing the fans. Is that an echo I hear?

Middlesbrough Football Club has a history of being very loyal to the first-team manager and always has been. We tend to stick with a manager when other clubs would have jettisoned the non-performer. I can't honestly see this trait changing at present with a Chairman as honourable as Steve Gibson. Situation status quo then.

But ask yourself bluntly, is this good enough? NO! I don't think so as there comes a time when you have to say enough is enough and that time is here and now in my opinion.

Steve McClaren has not performed any better than Bryan Robson. What's worse, he has lost touch with the fans of Boro and I believe the players in the team. He wouldn't know a good player if he tripped over one and a high proportion of his signings have been rubbish. The quality of football on offer is crap to say the least and the truth is that the majority of the games in a purist sense have been dire to watch.

More importantly, he is not getting the best out of a well paid and well thought of collection of experienced footballers and young guns. He's stubbornly persisted with Rochemback, who couldn't hit a hanger door at Heathrow with one of his free-kicks, to the detriment of far more deserving individuals. Namely, he allows the burgeoning talent of our prolific youth system to rot in the reserves and on the first team bench playing the odd cameo when the really should be getting a run on merit not on desperation.

Look at the performance of one of my personal favourites, French Frank this season as a case in point. He's gone from arguably one of the best three left backs in the EPL on the verge and deserving of a Frog cap to a shambles of his former self. I'm well aware that his partner in crime, Zenden on the left, has moved on and the brilliant Stew Downing is injured but you can see that the lad's confidence is gone and McClaren is to blame. He has him in and out of the team, subbed early when picked, played out of position when he should be a cornerstone of the back four like he has been for the last four seasons.

The other thing I have to get off my chest is that McLaren isn't a manager anyway, he's a coach and there is a huge distinction between the two. It's pretty obvious from the verbal accolades that Steve McLaren has garnered from within the game from respected luminaries that he is an excellent football coach. He's a cornerstone of the England set up in that very role.

He has an acknowledged prowess in that field, as a high quality, deep thinking coach, a teacher and trainer of players, developing skills and conditioning minds making what could be an extremely mundane and repetitive process an innovative and refreshing routine. But being a manager is a totally different kettle of fish entirely, and I don't think that Steve Mclaren is a very good manager. In fact he's quite an ordinary manager.

With his busy demanding schedule I expect he really doesn't do a lot of coaching at the Boro, which is really his forte. So what's the answer you may ask? I think we all know but greater powers than us minnions hold that key.

I hope that very soon the sun returns to BoroWorld as ErimusRed has been a pain in the arse to live with lately because of my Boro hangover and the way we aren't playing. The family think it's something else, something medical and mental.

"Did you take your medication dear? Oh! stop growling and wipe that froth from around your mouth and try to get rid of those bulging veins and scarlet skin and put those bloody red undies in the wash - you've had 'em on for two weeks!"

But as I've said earlier MFC equals managerial loyalty, I just hope we don't end up slipping down that table to the precarious precipice of the relegation shit-pit as the loyalty noose is tightened around McClaren's neck.

Enough Said!
ErimusRed

Very Happy New Year and gargle a few coldies for me!!!!!!!!