Southgate set to keep passion burning

Aug 31 2008 by Steve Brown, Sunday Sun

FACED with a smattering of hacks during a Press conference last week, Gareth Southgate joked that “Kevin must be doing his”.

Such self-effacement is typical of the man managing a club previously starved of attention, in the shadow of its local rivals.

Change, however, may be afoot.

True, few attended the midweek media inquisition — and no, Southgate was not double-booked against his Newcastle counterpart — but the rare presence of one London-based national No 1 at Hurworth was not without significance.

The start Middlesbrough have made to the season has made people sit up and take notice, to the extent that sight of the big-coiffeured columnist at the Rockliffe Park training complex came in the same week Justin Hoyte compared his new club to his old one, and Yeovil boss Russell Slade tipped the Teessiders for the top six.

Why, they aren’t even last on Match of the Day anymore.

Now it may be early days, but if “Boring Boro” aren’t serving up sexy football quite yet, it is getting raunchy at the Riverside.

The challenge for Southgate is to keep the passion burning.

“It’s great if other people are making nice comments about us but the team are doing their talking on the field, which is the most important thing. Now we have to continue that,” he said.

“We knew we had a good pre-season and what we hoped was that the lads could go and perform in the first few games in the way that we knew they could. They have done, and that’s really pleasing.

“There’s a sense within the club and within the town that things are happening, there’s a good feel about it. But we have to continue to work extremely hard to make that happen.

“The second half of last season was top 10 form and we’re showing that same level of performance. It’s a case of how much we can improve, can we keep that consistency going?

“I think the style of play is important, especially for our fans. We got over 15,000 for the Yeovil game, which reflects well on the relationship the club is trying to build with fans in terms of ticket prices, which we obviously got right, and the style of our football.

“If we know it’s going to be difficult for us to challenge for the league, then we’ve got to entertain our fans. We know that we need to be organised defensively.

“We have excited people in the first few games but we’ve also been disciplined in our play as well. Combining the two’s important, we can’t just go out against any team and say ‘Right, we’ve got good players, we can go and outplay them’.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re competitive as well. But it’s nice that we’re entertaining them too.”

Long may it continue. Then there might be a few more at the pressers.