And so without further ado, the date is 7 July 2007, and Steve Gibson is welcoming me to the Riverside. I am told to predict my own league finish, and rather ambitiously I stake my reputation on Boro making the top-half of the table. Gibbo is impressed. I am given a hearty £8.75m to spend on players. Talking to Malcolm Crosby, it becomes apparent that the squad will need some work if it is to meet my targets. It’s suggested that the weakest link is none other than Mark Schwarzer. He isn’t the goalkeeper he once was, and it’s put to me that playing Brad Jones would be football suicide. A new keeper is therefore my first priority.

Beyond that, Boro don’t look in such bad shape. There’s a slight concern in defence, where Pogatetz and Huth are injured and will miss at least the first month of the season. That leaves Riggott and Wheater to shore things up, with young Seb Hines on stand-by. When fully fit, it’s a good unit, and I’m reasonably happy with Young and Taylor starting in the full-back slots. There are no doubt better players out there, but what we have will do for now.

Sean Davis - delighted at moving to BoroThings are a little less healthy in midfield. There’s England star, Stewart Downing, of course, but elsewhere I am less confident that O’Neil, Arca, Cattermole and an ageing Boateng can handle the rigours of a full season. Talking of the Boat, I actually start pre-season with Mohammed Shawky preferred as my starting defensive midfielder. This won’t last, of course. Though Didier Digard makes it clear he wants nothing to do with Teesside (and worryingly, the game hasn’t even heard of Marvin Emnes) I am able to snare Sean Davis, who’s sitting on his hands at Portsmouth. £2.6m is enough to capture a player who has been a real-life target of Boro’s for some time. Continuing my policy of going for English meat where possible, I spy David Jones, the 22-year old Derby County midfielder. He’s available for a bargain £2.1m and will be eased into the starting line-up over the course of the campaign. My purchases leave us with a well stocked central midfield. I plan to play a dedicated holding mdfielder operating behind two central men, and I get to choose from Davis, Shawky, Boateng, Cattermole, Arca, Jones and Rochemback. Heck, if things get desperate I can even offer the odd game to Gaizka Mendieta, and let’s face it they’d have to.

On the flanks, I’m happy with the left where Downing is neatly complemented by the emerging talent of Adam Johnson. It’s a bit dicier on the right, where I’m just not convinced that Gary O’Neil is ready to bear the weight of the position. Tuncay Sanli can of course play on either wing, but I make my most contentious foray into the transfer market, offering £1.8m to Everton to take Dutch winger Andy van der Meyde off their hands. My logic? He’s been good for me in previous games, and sadly we’re talking the 2001/02 edition. Oh well, I’m sure it will work out.

My preferred tactics for Boro mean I will only be using one dedicated striker. This is obviously going to be Alves, though the pressure is effectively off the unit and I also have Mido (oft injured) and Aliadiere (not sure he’s up to it) at my disposal. It also means I can put Lee Dong-Gook out of his misery and add him to the transfer list. Guess what? No buyers.

I have just over two million left to splurge on a new goalie. Palmeiras make it quite clear they want megabucks for Diego Cavalieri, the one I was really after. Liverpool have already committed Scott Carson to a year in purgatory on loan with Aston Villa, whilst Manchester United have foolishly injured Ben Foster for seven months. So I shop around, and win a bidding war to land Bogdan Lobont, the Romanian international number one. He sets us back £2.1m, which means I have chewed up and spat out the vast majority of my transfer budget.

Bogdan LobontMore on tactics in the next chapter, but for now my preferred starting eleven is: (4-1-4-1) Lobont; Young, Taylor, Huth, Pogatetz; Davis; Van der Meyde, Cattermole, Arca, Downing; Alves. Aston Villa start sniffing around some of my players. They want Downing; I tell them they can talk to him once they offer £25m. Taylor is next on their list - £10m to open personal terms, I demand. It’s enough to fend them off, though I know I may have to sell at some point for the sake of progress.

Our pre-season tour of Scotland goes well. The highlight is a 5-0 pistol whipping of Queen’s Park, the boys looking in fine fettle across the board. In the build-up to our league opener, Hines clumsily trips over a bollard in training and pulls his hamstring, which leaves us with no first team cover in central defence. We start away to Bolton Wanderers, who quickly go a goal ahead through on-loan Danny Guthrie. I start to panic. Have I got it so horribly wrong? Bolton don’t look so fearsome despite their goal, and I let the players know at the interval that I expect better during the second half. Sure enough, it’s all Boro pressure after the break, the players gaining in confidence as they realise the Trotters aren’t in fact very good. On the hour mark, Alves wins a free kick just outside the area. Downing takes it, the wall deflects and Jaaskelainen watches it float serenely past him and into the net. From this point, the home team starts preferring ill behaviour to playing football, racking up the cards and putting in some grisly challenges. None of this stops substitute Mido from knocking in a winner, created by Downing’s corner.

It’s all going so well that I barely appreciate the implications of David Wheater’s injury time knock. The Redcar Rock leaves the field nursing what turns out to be a broken wrist, meaning he’s out for a month. We win the game 2-1, but all of a sudden I only have one fit centre back in the entire team (unless I call on Rhys Williams, and I’m not going to do that). It’s my first injury crisis, which leaves me musing rather ruefully on what a realistic game Football Manager is…Flushed by the success of our win over Bolton, the club reveals its season ticket sales. We’ve flogged 22,900 of the bleeders - I bet Gareth would kill for those numbers.

With one fit central defender at the Riverside, it’s time to source a new signing. The only problem is that I’ve spent my transfer budget, and none of the players available for loan deals are up to scratch. A session with Keith Lamb that has me banging my head slowly against the surface of his magnificent Chippendale desk (no change there then) ends when he suggests I adjust my wage limit to create more transfer funds. Brilliant! No wonder Boro’s never got any money, but for now I have little choice in the matter. After some creative accounting, I have a princely £1.4m to spend, and the candidates for our interest begin to line up. Early favourites include perennial Boro target, Bobo Balde, Stephane Henchoz, who’s transfer listed at Blackburn, Fulham’s Phillippe Christanval, and Eric Addo, the Ghanaian who turns out for PSV Eindhoven. Speed is of the essence here. There are only a few days left before we travel to Everton, which means Celtic’s haggling over money shifts Balde out of the picture. In the end, we opt for Addo, who looks the part, is fully fit, and isn’t being treated like a leper by his current club, which is never a very good sign.

Eric Addo, presumably pre-injuryAddo makes the first eleven for our sojourn to Goodison Park, which will be patronised by Sky’s cameras. Afonso Alves is the man of the first 17 minutes. He scores early, and then gets himself sent off for elbowing Joseph Yobo. We’re now on the back foot, and the Toffees take quick advantage. Johnson and Pienaar have them in front by half-time, only for substitute Mido to restore parity. We then pass aimlessly for the rest of the game until Mikel Arteta finds a winner right at the death. We leave with nothing, though I’m encouraged by our gritty play in midfield, particularly as we have played with ten men for the majority of the match.

Arsenal are our first guests at the Riverside. You know how these games go, right? Either we win, which prompts Arsene Wenger to declare we have the best young manager in the game, or they stuff us in the first half and lose interest during the second. This is one of the latter scenarios. The Gunners are 3-0 up before we’ve had chance to do much in retaliation. I’m left believing that Adebayor is a God of the game, and that it’s a shame for everyone who filled the near-capacity Riverside.

On our travels again, this time to Luton Town in the second round of the League Cup. As though my defensive headaches weren’t pressing enough, Addo sprains his ankle in training when he doesn’t follow a ‘Mind the Step’ sign at Hurworth. Totally out of options, I shift Luke Young into the centre and give a start to Tony McMahon on the right. Even with this patched up unit, we’re too much for the Hatters, winning 4-1 with goals from Arca, Downing, Mido and Aliadiere. The downside is Chris Riggott’s bruised jaw, which will keep him out for a week, and the vagaries of the draw for Round Three, in which we are paired with Chelsea.

Somehow, a defence held together with Prit Stick (i.e. Young paired with an unfit but breathing Seb Hines) engineers a 0-0 draw away to Tottenham, which moves us into 16th. How Spurs produce such a moribund display against a side there for the taking I’ll never know, but the reprieve is most welcome. Riggott’s back for our next game, in which we welcome Liverpool to the Riverside. No such favours from Rafa. The Pool are poor, yet good value for their 1-0 win. I acclaim the fine battling display from Julio Arca in central midfield as a crumb of hope.

The fixtures computer has us at the Riverside again for the visit of Fulham. This we must win, and with David Wheater restored both to fitness and the line-up, the side starts to look more composed. The players are simply magnificent this time. By the final whistle, we’ve claimed a convincing 3-0 victory and Alves has his first hat-trick in the Garmin red. Having praised Arca recently, he naturally gets injured during the game. The Argentine pulls a hamstring, putting him out for a month, and offering a ‘baptism of fire’ opportunity to David Jones for the first of our trips to Chelsea. This one is in the league, a typically dour match that we only lose 2-1 despite racking up four shots to the Blues’ 17! Drogba claims a brace; Alves responds, making him the third top scorer in the Premiership. It’s 22 September, and we’re 10th after seven fixtures. Glancing through the roster of players available to me, I should bite someone’s hand off for that position at the end of the season.

League position: 10th (7 points)
Impressed by: Lobont, Arca, Downing, Alves
Could do better: Young, Davis, Cattermole

Boro's formation in the gameTactically, Boro line up with a one-striker formation (see image). The reason for this is my lack of confidence in the side’s set of forwards and our inability to splash much cash on acquiring better. That said, it’s a system that complements the skills of Afonso Alves nicely. Often, I’ve seen him put through by a defence splitting pass from either the wing or central midfield, which suits his pace and off the ball awareness. The formation requires a dedicated defensive midfielder whose job is to patrol the gap between defence and midfield. Having Sean Davis in this position means we have five defensively minded outfield players, and a further five who can attack. I also wanted to find a way to bring the best out of Downing, and giving both him and the right winger some creative freedom should play to his strengths.

Julio Arca has benefited from a system that allows him some flexibility in central midfield, though I’m convinced less and less by Lee Cattermole, who ever appears to be a bit of a meat and drink footballer who is inclined to play defensively. It may be that he loses his place if I don’t see an improvement, giving playing opportunities to David Jones (which hopefully will happen more as a matter of course) or Fabio Rochemback (not sure if that will work).

Finally, our fullbacks are encouraged to surge forward within the formation. Luke Young has struggled with this a little, suggesting he’s better as an out and out defender. Maybe a longer term project will be to find somebody more suited to this role, though shelling out for a new right-back is among the least of my priorities at the moment.Lee Cattermole has finalised his move to Wigan Athletic, Boro have offered a trial to some Kiwi fullback, and there’s precious little to report on the ’signings’ front. More on this and hopefully some interesting stuff to talk about tomorrow, but in the meantime here’s the third instalment of my stuttering attempt to be the managerial answer to Middlesbrough’s prayers, via the playmanship of Football Manager 2008. Read on…

Previous Episodes - 1 - 2

You know how Gareth’s Middlesbrough are almost the model of unpredictability in their results? Matches you expect them to win are lost tamely; others where they are given not a cat in hell’s chance turn into a heroic three points banked. Needless to say, it hasn’t been like that for me. My record against the big four Premiership teams is played three, won zero, drawn zero, lost three. Simple as that, as Lee McCloud might say. It doesn’t matter what line-up I send out, the special tactics or marking I try and instil in my players. If Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool or Arsenal are next up, home or away, we go down like a Formula One boss at a Fascist-themed fancy dress party.

Similarly, under my tutelage Boro have turned the Riverside into something of a fortress. Not only do we win at home, but we do it cleanly, a model of efficiency that soaks up opposition attacks and stings like a bee in retaliation. It’s a different matter on our travels, where we just aren’t as good and struggle to snatch a point from the jaws of defeat.

Nicolas Anelka in classic Tupac poseWith the above information in mind, you can imagine how our Third Round League Cup tie at Chelsea works out. No, it isn’t a trick question. To the crowd’s gentle disapproval, Afonso Alves nods us into the lead, but a Nicolas Anelka hat-trick sets the game back on course, and when Andriy Schevchenko finds the net you know you’re in trouble. 4-2 it finishes. The Board are disappointed with me. They wanted us to reach Round Four at least, and perhaps we might have done but for coming across one of the division’s form teams at its magisterial pomp. I had hoped they would field a weakened side, but no such luck. Unless they did, and their second stringers still outclassed us.

Still, it’s the league that counts, and with no cup distractions we can bring our squad back to full fitness against the backdrop of a reasonably gentle Premiership calendar. Manchester City are the next visitors to the Riverside. Fourth and highly confident, they have at us from the start. Only they fail to score, Valeri Bojinov’s goal being ruled offside, and then Afonso Alves nets twice at the other end to secure the points. In fairness, City are the better side, free flowing and imaginative. A combination of good defending (especially from David Wheater, who’s man of the match) and profligacy from their strikers does for the Blues.

We don’t carry the sweet smell of victory into our next match, which is at Old Trafford. Manchester United are top of the table, 3-1 winners here and it’s all done so effortlessly. In most departments we don’t actually look that far behind them, apart from in poor Andrew Taylor’s case. Cristiano Ronaldo dances past, bemuses and generally tortures the young defender in a nightmare performance that could have him waking up in a sweaty mess for weeks to come.

And so it goes on. After beating Birmingham City 3-0 at home, we suffer a 1-0 defeat away to Aston Villa. At least the latter is a reasonably positive performance. David Jones begins to settle into his groove in the absence of Julio Arca - £2m well spent, I hope. A full house is on hand to watch us lick Sunderland 3-1 the following weekend. Michael Chopra gives the Mackems an inexplicable lead, but Alves and a second half brace from subsititute Tuncay wrap up a deserved win. The fans and Board are delighted, and I start to realise the importance of success in local derby matches. With a trip to St James Park to come in December, I feel a watershed moment coming on.

Michael Chopra celebrates, and then we wipe the smug grimace from his faceBut first a couple of tricky fixtures to get out of the way. We take our stuttering away form to 17th placed Derby County and can only achieve a 1-1 draw. Wheater is the man of the hour, nodding the ball in from a corner kick, and he needed to be as we allowed the Rams to dominate the pace of the game from the opening minute. If we can’t win here, where can we? At least we get home matches to compensate. The Hammers are our next victims, and we win 3-1 with goals from Alves, Arca and Jones. It’s a slick defensive operation from us once again, with Huth rehabilitated and playing alongside Wheater who I just can’t drop. Manu Pogatetz is also back, and now fills in at left-back as I try and work out whether to use his experience or Taylor’s enthusiasm. The latter is the more natural fullback, but Pogi is a totemic influence on the side who I ought to fit in somewhere. Cattermole has dropped to the bench, Jones and Arca preferred to start in midfield, whilst Andy van der Meyde’s month-long injury will give Gary O’Neil an opportunity to show what he can do on the right wing.

When we have a fully fit squad, I think it’s pretty good. With the West Ham win under our belts, we’re in sixth place as December dawns. To put this into some context, three points separate us from 13th, so whilst a decent run could cement our top ten status for weeks to come, the kind of winter form we’re used to on Teesside might spell trouble. The Barcodes are next. This one could come at a better time, but then to an extent so could they all.

League position: 6th (20 points)
Impressed by: Wheater, Jones, Arca, Alves
Could do better: Riggott, Taylor, O’Neil