Alarm bells ringing after blowout at Boro

I GUESS I should come clean about my role in Sunday’s defeat at the Riverside and the untimely demise of an unbeaten Premiership run stretching way back to last April.

Having travelled to Newcastle in midweek, I couldn’t find any away-day meshuganas mad enough to accompany me on an early morning return to the North east on Sunday. I didn’t fancy the risk of driving the 500-odd miles on my tod, in my increasingly decrepit little Fiesta, nor was I going to gamble a further £92 on the single-only Sunday train connection getting me to Teesside in time for kick-off.

After spending only a couple of hours in the sack, tossing and turning in frustration at our abject failure to take advantage of our game in hand against the Toon, before having to get up for work on Thursday morning and then joining what seemed like half the population of this country, hanging on in there until 5am Sunday morning to cheer on Ricky Hatton, I had just about given up on making it up to Middlesbrough.