Source: Telegraph
Middlesbrough banned from discussing relegation battle in bid to boost morale
That edict has been delivered at the Teesside club by the former Crystal Palace manager Alan Smith who has been hired by Boro chairman Steve Gibson to help manager Gareth Southgate, who played under him at Selhurst Park.
"Nobody wants to hide from that but I have had a rule within the club that we don't talk about last year so I don't want to dwell on that in any way, " Smith said.
"This is a Premiership club. Everything about this club is Premiership.
But it is no good us talking about it and coming up with mega ideas. We need to come back.
It is absolutely vital that we get back to the Premier League at the first time of asking. The chairman has put a lot of time and efforts ion this club. He is so committed it is unbelievable. First of all we owe it to him and we owe it to the fans to get back. That's the truth of it. We know we let people down last year.
Smith, who will be operating on a behind-the-scenes, consultancy basis, added: "The club has been hurt. It has lost a little bit of pride and we need to bring that back.
"When your pride has been hurt and you have been relegated the first thing you have to say to people is look we owe the fans something. We needs to put something back into this town and I am very aware of that just through meeting people.
"So I think that before we started, we needed to say look let's get hold of this club and try things differently because clearly last year for whatever reason we weren't doing it correctly." The Boro players are also being discouraged from swapping shirts under the new regime.
Smith continued: "I think that this year you won't be seeing any Middlesbrough players handing their shirts out to the opposition at the end of the game.
"You've got to fight to wear that shirt. I will keep on about that and the manager will and (coach) Colin Cooper will and the rest of the coaching staff until the lads accept it. You either want to play for this club or you don't. It's black and white to us.
"The truth is that anyone that anyone who doesn't want to put on one of our shirts or doesn't want to be here have been told in no uncertain terms that they can go and Smith is also confident that Southgate has the right character to steer Boro to promotion following last term's disappointments.
"Don't under-estimate Gareth â " he is a tough character and he is nobody' s fool," Smith said.
"Sometimes because he is different and treats people, with respect, and talks to the players and sometimes that is seen as a weakness.
"I have pointed out quickly to our players that the way he conducts himself is the way we want to conduct ourselves as a football club. I just want to emphasise that as a team we have to be hard and gritty and do not give anyone anything. We can not be a soft touch anymore.
"We have to lay down the platform that we might be polite and we might do the right things socially but on that pitch we are a very hard team to beat.
"The manager is aware that the opening five or six games are going to be very important to us. We have Swansea away next and a couple of games we should win. We need to set the pace early on so we are not playing catch-up in this division."
