Teams are terrified to play us apparently.

Embarrassing stuff. Only had to look at the managers before kick off. The 56 year old looking miserable, about ninety, and going through the motions, trying to eke things out as long as possible to top up his retirement fund. The 70 year old who's been at his Club a relatively short time, beaming, bouncing and full of beans and trying to add one more promotion to his already impressive resume. Has no - one told him "a slow build" is the way to go? ?

I wouldn't want to see him in the starting line up ahead of Brereton Johnson Dolan or Elliot, I think it would be completely contrary to the free flowing play we've shown in the games we've played well in. I wouldn't play him ahead of Douglas either. He only comes under consideration for selection if Douglas is unavailable imo.

If it was technically possible to sign him for a month just while we got a couple of people back it would have been more palatable. When everyone is fit, who misses out to accommodate Downing? It's a retrograde step whichever way you look at it.

Come on, you can say there's no evidence he's lost his legs until you're blue in the face but it doesn't make it any more true. The evidence was there last season. To myself and most people he slowed up and his performances dropped off considerably in the second half of last season. He's now 36 and it's overwhelmingly likely that that was the reason and he's even less likely to have benefitted from another extended break. If he was 26 maybe you could overlook last season's drop off in form and put it down as just one of those things but to take another punt on him at 36 is madness and simply a case of Teflon Tony ignoring what went on on the pitch lin the second half of last season because he likes the bloke.

What's Davenport done wrong, he hasn't been given a chance!

I wouldn't say there was no basis for it, Imo, he was poor post lock down after a break. Very optimistic to think at his age he is going to improve on that, back to the form of the start of last season after another extended break imo.

Doesn't that say it all????

He was good in the first half of the season, less impressive the longer the season went on and fairly poor after lockdown imo.

Yep. And for the middle Bernie Slaven will be sat by the phone in case Armstrong is out for any length of time.

Yup, wonder if there's any more washed up ex Boro players or players Warnock has released doing the rounds. They're bound to be next in.

Absolute desperation stuff this - going back on bended knee to a 36 year old. The bottom of a very deep barrel being scraped. The last throe of a desperate manager completely out of ideas. (And contacts)

Yes, that was in the offing. Must not have had many decent offers in this Country.

Do you really think so, there's a couple of really good European commentators on Talksport Mark Langdon and Andy Brassell (sp) who could probably point you in the direction of the best up and coming European talent in 10 mins, ditto Tim Vickery in South America. Even if it wasn't those particular guys there must be reputable people about in the game who could point you in the right direction. I also reckon you or I could put a decent shortlist together in a couple of days from home and abroad if we had a few days spare to research it on the Internet, but it's not our job.

Should have gone Feb 19 for me, I'm not sure the job market is quite as bleak as you paint, Mccarthy is still available, Pearson and Pulis are also out of work and even though Hughes' stock has dropped somewhat I'm not sure why anyone would advocate sticking with Mowbray over rolling the dice on him. That's even before the countless hidden gems there must be out there like the bloke Reading unearthed.

Can we play all 14? We might be able to keep Boro down to a single goal with five defenders and two keepers strung out across the goal. Only one magic rule needed for the starting eleven. Evans and Gallagher nowhere near it. If Armstrong is unavailable I'd go with a front 3 of Dolan Brereton Elliot.

That's my main worry. For me Evans offers absolutely nothing and on Saturday's evidence I'm worried Trybull might turn out to be similar. You can barely afford one player in the side like that, let alone two. Mowbray should look at the line up that beat Wycombe then note he stuck with it and we put 4 past Derby away from home. That wasn't coincidental but he seems to be doing his usual tinkerman routine and drifting further and further away from that line up which worked.

Injuries are an inconvenience but no matter which eleven players are on the pitch we ought to be able to defend to a reasonable level commensurate with a team competing in the second tier of professional football in England. We have been very wasteful in front of goal at times as well but it's the defensive frailties that are the main problem, we'd have needed three to beat Swansea, four to beat Watford and five to beat Reading!

I never thought he was worth £8 - £10m anyway. I'd take Hanley when he was here over Lenihan every day of the week. Just hope DL can improve a bit if Ayala ever regains fitness.

Agreed. Looks to have bulked up considerably since he was originally here and it seems to have robbed him of his mobility. He just looks like a big useless lump now, at least when he was first here he looked a lot leaner and more athletic and able to make a bit of a nuisance of himself by running the channels.

What's the alternative then Gav? Stick with him indefinitely regardless of results because he's allegedly "a nice guy"? That's probably subjective anyway. I don't suppose certain players like Mulgrew, Nyambe, Davenport and Chapman would automatically agree.

"I must be dreaming." ? Connery is Bond for me. Or vice versa. He had the character just right with the mixture of charm and underlying ruthlessness that was apparent in Ian Fleming's books which were written in a completely different era. The rest were just playing at it for me although I'll give Daniel Craig his due, he's been very good and has got closer to the original than anyone else. He also rescued a franchise that was dying on it's arse after nonsense like invisible cars in Die another Day. RIP.

e.g. Gallagher

Remember a few weeks ago when some people were getting very cocky about the Greek keeper and saying it was a massive feather in the cap of the European scouting network? God knows what he's like if he's worse than Pears. Add that to Walton and Leutwiler I don't know how we manage to find them. You couldn't be that unlucky so many times if you were sticking a pin in!

Boro don't seem to be spanking people, I expect them to grind out a scrappy one goal victory, maybe we'll get some strokes of ill fortune in the game which Mowbray will be able latch on to and point at in conjunction with the injury list and on we limp regardless. You're right though, if we did get a real tubbing it might raise some eyebrows