Sam Hall

It’s been an odd season for fans of the Boro. Selling a large amount of first team players, yet still managing to reach the top of the championship and stay in touch with automatic promotion spots well in to December. Just over a fortnight ago our form was stuttering; 1-1 at Peterborough, 2-2 against Blackpool and 0-2 to West Ham. We were 8 points behind second placed West ‘Am and had surrendered our superior defensive record to them, with Piquionne and Cole doing the damage for them. However, going in to Saturday’s game with Cardiff we are level on points with the welsh team and only 2 points off second. We won 1-0 against Bristol with a stunning free-kick from Malaury Martin and were gifted a morale lifting home victory against Brighton. We’re now well in the mix for promotion – be that automatic or via the play-offs – and I don’t think anybody else would have predicted this on August 7th.

We dominated the Brighton game, playing good football for the majority of the game, however holding a 1-0 lead can often result in a negative twenty minutes towards the end of the second half. This is never good for a nervey, unbelieving and aggressive Teesside crowd. Merouane Zemmama had a very good first half hour – until he was taken off with a strain – where he showed a delightful touch and his ability to shoot from outside the box. A couple of his shots cannoned just wide or against a defender. He has shown lately that he could be a highly creative outlet, when Mowbray brought him in The Manager claimed that: “He’s a very technical player who can handle the ball very comfortably with both feet,” and added,“At times he’ll excite our supporters when he skips past a couple of players and yet he will have to acclimatise to the physicality of the English league. ” How true that was, despite assisting two goals versus Millwall [1] in only his second appearance for the Boro, he lacked the ability to put his foot in or stay on his feet when he is challenged. Now he is starting to look like, not only one of our most creative players, but one of the more complete attacking players in the squad. He can put it through a player’s legs and then dance in to the box, whilst his decision making has often flattered to decieve. Scott McDonald showed his goal poaching prowess in burying the only goal of the game following a rebound, but also attacked the goal from range and put the opposition’s defence on the back foot.

So to Cardiff Cityand the obvious headlines of, “Boro aim to bring down the Blue Birds”. Will we win? Possibly. Will we lose? Could do. Will we draw? Likely. It’s a tricky fixture, they’re not in the same position as us for no reason at all. We’ll have to try hard, we’ll have to fight and battle our way to  success. If we were to win though, and that is a big if, we would be looking at a great platform going in to 2012 – could we be looking at promotion? Time will tell. Until then, keep the faith.

Erimus