False promises leave Gareth a loan Ranger

Well that’s that then!

The transfer window slammed shut at 5pm on Tuesday with Middlesbrough successfully managing to alienate virtually all of their supporters by making precisely no signings at all, selling the players who could realistically have helped secure their championship football betting odds for an instant return to the Premier League and also managing not to offload the dead wood £13m flop Afonso Alves!

The early summer promises from chairman Steve Gibson turned out to be timely red herrings aimed at keeping fans on side as the season card deadline loomed in early June. And it is fair to say many people parted with their hard-earned cash on the strength of what they were told was going to happen at the Riverside ahead of the Championship assault.

So they will no doubt be asking today, where is the experience playing staff promised, the badly-needed target man and the midfielder that the current side is sadly lacking?

True a bid for Rob Hulse was ‘made’ but if there was any real desire to sign him then why was not it made on Friday or earlier? Then again the player admitted only a week ago that he had no intentions of leaving Pride Park, so why didn’t Gareth Southgate try and lure an alternative target from that extensive list he kept telling us he had devised?

The likes of Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and Nigel Reo-Coker were mooted as possible targets in June. Instead we got Danny Coyne, Leroy Lita and Mark Yeates. No disrespect to these boys as all three look promising, but they were not the players in the fans’ minds after Gibbo’s BBC Tees phone-in.

The fans could have handled the loss of Stewart Downing, Robert Huth and Tuncay for £23m if even a fraction of that money was used to bring in the players that were promised to us.

In reality we spent around £450,000 on one player, got two freebies and made a half-***d last ditch, was never gonna come off in a million years, £3m bid for Hulse. No doubt the ‘couldn’t get any further away from a target man’ signing of Danny Webber will make it a hat-trick of freebies in the next week or so, while we still have ‘the Goal Machine’ Alves sulking away after the Arabs conveniently put the brakes on his move.

We are now being told that Gareth is looking at the loan market!

Well Gareth you obviously need specs because two of your Championship football transfer targets from the past 12 months have already gone on loan to rival Championship clubs while you have sat with your finger up your backside!

Reading’s James Harper and Wigan’s Ben Watson – both decent midfielders who would do a good job for Boro in the Championship – have gone to Sheffield United and QPR respectively!

We have until November to utilise the loan system, but no doubt we will just sit and wait to see how far down the table we can drop before the fans kick off big style and they are forced to act on that front!

To be honest when it comes to the Boro and transfers I think I will switch off in the future because if anything is said by the club, it is usually lies! In fact the fans have been kept so much in the dark and fed that much *** by the club I would not be surprised to see 20,000 mushrooms at the Ipswich game!

In the meantime all we can do is give the players that are still at Boro our backing – it’s not their fault the club’s transfer policy this summer has resembled a joke – and hope they have what it takes to get us up! After all they will not be getting help from anyone else to do it!

Written by Craig Smithson, a Middlesbrough season-ticket holder and a sports writer who blogs about football betting.

very well summed up,cant add anymore to that. :)

WELL SAID

Well said

Its a good piece and totally true.

So correct in saying that Southgate/Gibson/Lamb are alienating Boro fans.

Don't they realise that all they need to do is simply tell the truth.

Totally agree.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Only thing that surprises me is the supporters & appologists of the 3 Amigo's have not written a iota of protest.Could it be that even they know they have been had?

I think they just like to chose their battles.

The madness of it all is I WANT to believe in us again, I want to bellow 'COME ON BORO' and mean it I just don't know what it will take for that to happen.

its going to be a hard and long season for boro fc belive me.

Completely agree!

Totally sums up what I am feeling. Gibbo...Grow a pair of balls and come out and explain to us why you blatantly lied to us at the time of season ticket and shirt sales!!!!

I'm disappointed with how things have gone since Gibson's interview, but in retrospect I can appreciate the point that has been made by others that to advertise the financial state of the club to other clubs on the lookout to take our 'best' players would have probably resulted in lower offers than we actually got. Unfortunately, as has been said previously, bids for players we needed to offload/expected to leave did not materialise until the 11th hour, the last one to go being the one that would provide some finance for new players. The late bid for Hulse was presumably made in the expectation that by that time it was a safe bet that Alvez's transfer was going to take place. However it would seem that money doesn't buy everything, unless you're prepared to offer daft wages!

If it is true that Lamb would meet the personal terms of Hulse then I am glad Lamb stuck to his guns, and to the wage structure policy. Breaking it would only cause unrest between our other players so why risk rocking the boat.

BoroLegend ... Rumour has it that Lamb wasnt keen on Hulse coming to the Club but he was on Southgates shopping list.Lamb apparently doesnt like Southgate hence offering a package lower than what he is currently on at Derby. Like I say its only rumour.

Lamb doesn't like southgate?

what has southgate done to upset him. It would seem being a total patsy and bending to the every whim of his bosses and copping loads of flack is not enough for lamb?

Perhaps Lamb wants a 'gimp' like in pulp fiction. Someone he can get out of the box every now and then but otherwise is completely subservient?

At the moment it seems Southgate submits his list of players he would like to keep and ones he would like to buy and Lamb and gibbo look at it and go 'aaah, that's sweet' and then do exactly what they want regardless.

Is that the best way to do things?

Although in Lambs favour, at least we didn't spend the tuncay money on a 29yr old target man.

Gareth must be at the end of his tether.