A season turned sour?

A season turned sour?

The news on Friday night of Karanka storming out of a team meeting was met with a mixture of disbelief and disregard.

With the rumour breaking gradually over social media it was widely acknowledged as only another form of fiction created to cause minor panic and give one individual a degree of pleasure over the reaction caused. With many Boro fans going to bed on Friday evening with no real cause for concern, this was certainly not the case when waking up on Saturday morning.

What appeared to be a small scale rumour turned into a story with increased air-time so much so that it started featuring in regional newspapers, and before long the news was broken nationally.

With an air of surrealism around the story- what are the underlying facts behind a largely sweet-tasting season suddenly turning sour?

I’m not one to speculate on mere gossip but it is clear that what happened on Friday is something to be taken seriously- and more so it would be naïve to think it was a one-off occurrence, after all there is no smoke without fire.

With the stories of a division between the senior Boro players and Karanka being reported as true, and with news of Karanka not attending yesterdays against Charlton, I was very intrigued to see what the reaction of the players in the game would be and to see if the team would be playing with a newfound belief in themselves without the pressure of Karanka looking on- but it’s safe to say this was absolutely not the case.

From my viewing, the only thing which was clear to see yesterday was that the team looked like a side short of confidence, direction and heart. And with 2,200 fans watching on- it became increasingly clear that the manager who was dividing opinion amongst the fans had wholesale support after a dire 90minute display in south London.

Steve Gibson now has to get his hands dirty and find the reason for the fallout and ensure that he can piece the club back together as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. With cracks showing within the squad it is vital that everybody is pulling in the same direction with the next 10 games signifying the clubs best opportunity to get back to the Premier League. It would be a massive disappointment for a previously unified group to fall apart at this stage of the season with the finish line starting to appear on the horizon.

With 80% of the Evening Gazette poll voters wanting Karanka to stay it is safe to say that opinion says the club should be giving Karanka the backing and support to finish the job which he has successfully started- after all everybody should be doing all they can to ensure that they are plying their trade with the big-boys next season. If that isn’t worth fighting for I don’t know what is.

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