Michael Carrick this week insisted it “wasn’t the end of the story”, but was the home defeat to Watford the final page for the Middlesbrough head coach?
It’s over to Steve Gibson, who was in attendance at the Riverside on Saturday, to decide what happens next.
“Listen, I understand the game and how it works,” said Carrick, ominously, on Saturday evening.
“I’ve been in it a long time. It is what it is. If you win enough games you have success, and if you don’t, you’re criticised and ultimately, in the end, things happen.”
Not enough happened for Boro on Saturday. Against a Watford side woefully out of form, the hosts were tepid for far too long, allowing the visitors, who had won just one in their last 10 and been thumped 4-0 at home to Leeds in midweek, to grow in confidence. Moussa Sissoko’s goal, a free header five minutes before half-time, was, unsurprisingly, something of a gift. Boro don’t look like a side ready to break the habit of the season.
Until the introduction of Delano Burgzorg – bafflingly left out after his impressive recent displays – there was an absence of snap, spark and urgency. The confidence looks to have drained out of Boro’s players after a sequence of six defeats in seven games and just three wins in 15.
If Gibson was looking for signs that Carrick can turn this around then they were hard to find on Saturday. Carrick talked this week about “finding the answers” but the latest defeat raised more questions.
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The aim this season was automatic promotion and the minimum expectation was top six, of which Boro now find themselves four points and five places shy. This squad shouldn’t be 11th, 25 points adrift of the top two, and just three ahead of 15th. Season ticket renewal details are imminent.
Boro still have a game in hand and the teams above, jostling for fifth and sixth, are, to be frank, pretty average. It’s too early for this campaign to be written off.
And that will no doubt be at the forefront of the thinking of Gibson and his fellow decision makers at Rockliffe.
Stick or twist? What increases Boro’s chances of finishing in the top six? If it’s the former, Carrick needs to justify that faith with an immediate upturn in results. If it’s deemed to be the latter then time isn’t necessarily on Boro’s side.
For all this season is still alive, with every defeat and missed opportunity, the rot becomes harder to stop and the gaps above grow. There’s now a gap before Friday’s trip to Bristol City, the first of three games in eight days. It feels like a decisive week.
“He’s incredibly supportive,” said Carrick of Gibson on Saturday night.
“I feel the support and have done since I walked through the door. I still feel it now but it’s up to us to win enough games to see what happens in the future. There’s no getting away from it.
“We’ve got to win games. We can dissect all sorts of different things, you go down every alley trying to dissect things. Ultimately, if we win the game 1-0 – which we could have quite easily done so today – it changes the feeling.
“But I understand. I understand what needs to happen. We need to find a way of getting that forward momentum and spark back again. Once you get that, the confidence goes up a bit and we know we have the quality there. If we find that we’ll start winning games.”
Watford had won just three and lost nine of their 16 away games prior to their trip to the Riverside.
“How s**t must you be, we’re winning away,” chanted the away fans.
From the home supporters, there were loud boos. At full-time, Carrick shook the hand of opposition boss and close friend Tom Cleverley and quickly headed down the tunnel.
Was it the end of the story?
