World football knew who Middlesbrough were on the back of their European exploits and, after McClaren was handed the England job on the back of it, we could possibly have had any manager we wanted.
The majority of the fans had grown tired of McClaren’s negative tactics and wanted a new boss to entertain them, while also bringing in the results on the field. The talk was of enticing Martin O’Neill back into the game, while German great Ottmar Hitzfeld was mentioned.
However with Steve Gibson’s onus on maintaining the status quo with regards to the successful youth set-up he stunned the fans by opting to promote retiring skipper Southgate into the management role.
Many fans felt this was a wasted opportunity given the new-found status the club had found, while there were suggestions that the chairman was taking a cost-cutting gamble that might back-fire.
Southgate did pull off a coup by replacing himself with Boro-born defender Jonathan Woodgate on a season-long loan from Real Madrid. And, while he guided the club to a satisfactory 12th-placed finish, the high point of his first season was reaching an FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester United which ended in a 1-0 defeat after a replay.
The cracks started to appear in summer 2007 when Mark Viduka left on a Bosman free transfer and Yakubu sulked his way into a move to Everton. It left Boro without a striker who could score over 10 goals in a season as free transfer arrival Tuncay Sanli was an unknown quantity despite his big reputation in Turkey.
Southgate moved to rectify that problem by snapping up Mido from Tottenham for £6million, while it was hoped South Korean Dong-Gook Lee would find his feet in the Premier League.
Neither worked out as Mido was frequently injured, while Lee turned out to be a laughing stock.
It was left to Stewart Downing to save the day, while David Wheater’s emergence in defence paved the way for the club to sell Woodgate to Spurs for a profit only months after signing him on a full-time deal from Madrid.
The money was used to make Brazilian hitman Afonso Alves the club’s record signing after a £12.7 million fee was agreed with Dutch side Heerenveen in January 2008.
The fans hoped Alves would complete the jigsaw and it looked like that was the case when he scored twice in a 2-2 draw against Manchester United, before grabbing a hat-trick in the amazing 8-1 home win over Manchester City on the final day of the campaign as the club rallied late on in the season to quash any relegation fears.
That game proved to be a false dawn as the club’s ongoing bid to slash the wage bill and cut costs last summer saw experienced heads like keeper Schwarzer, full-back Luke Young, and midfield trio Boateng, Fabio Rochemback and Lee Cattermole all offloaded.
Young unproven foreign players like Didier Digard and Marvin Emnes were brought in for a combined fee of around £6million, while Southgate was left to rely on a small squad made up largely of inexperienced youngsters leaving many fans rightly fearful for the future.
