Source: Northern_Echo
Strachan expects new-look charges to deal with the pressure
BILLED as the bookmakers' favourites for the title, buoyed by a summer spending spree that exceeds anything else in the Championship and braced for the difficulties that could lie in store if promotion is not achieved in the final year of parachute payments from the Premier League.[LNB] When it comes to Middlesbrough's prospects this season, the stakes could hardly be higher.[LNB] Expectation levels were sky high as the campaign began last weekend, and while an opening-day defeat to Ipswich dampened the anticipation levels slightly, the Teessiders are still expected to be one of the sides battling at the top of the table come next May.[LNB] With potential comes pressure, but don't expect Gordon Strachan to be dishing out any sympathy as his players attempt to deal with the weight of expectation on their shoulders.[LNB] There's no added pressure, said the Boro boss. There's pressure to play every game. Do you think the players come into work every day whistling without a care in the world[LNB] They don't.[LNB] They know there's pressure there all the time, but it's a pressure to play good football and win games.[LNB] It doesn't matter whether you're favourites, second favourites, third favourites or bottom of the league, there's always pressure to win football matches.[LNB] That hasn't changed in all the years I've been involved in football, but it's no different to the pressure that anyone has in their job.[LNB] When I was a 15-year-old starting out in football, there was pressure to do well because I was getting £15 a week. When I was 17, I was thinking I might be told to get a free transfer - that's real pressure because I had to pay my mortgage of £80-a-month.[LNB] I had to play with an injured ankle because I had to get into the first team to get my appearance money.[LNB] That's pressure, but I don't think it's something the lads here know much about.[LNB] Strachan is under pressure himself, of course, having failed to guide the Teessiders into the top ten last season, but the Scot is comfortable with the changes he has overseen this summer.[LNB] The likes of Kris Boyd, Kevin Thomson and Stephen McManus have arrived from Scotland to provide some of the hard-nosed experience that was lacking last term, while Brad Jones' impending departure to Liverpool should swell Strachan's kitty for the final two weeks of the transfer window.[LNB] I'm happier with the squad now, he said. I know the squad will take more responsibility now. There are more characters in the squad, bigger personalities.[LNB] You're always looking to get that special team where you think, That's it, that's as near as I can get'. I've never got there, but I'll keep trying.[LNB] There's been a lot of changes this summer, but that's not to say this is bang on what I want.[LNB] I would like to go back in a time machine and get people like Alex McLeish and Willie Miller to make it my team. But I can't do that.[LNB] We just have to do what we can.[LNB]
