Source: Daily_Mail
NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Southgate stays calm as Gibson sticks the boot in
In happier times: Steve Gibson (left) and Gareth Southgate [LNB]'I would love to have left with that club in the Premier Leaguewhich is why I would have liked the opportunity to see if we could havegot them back up but the chairman was very good at giving me thebacking when we were relegated and he felt there was need for change atthe time he did it and we have to respect his decision and moveforward.'[LNB]Gareth Southgate broke his silence on his Middlesbrough departurelast night and, as anyone who has had the good fortune to meet one offootball's good guys will have expected, he was calm, dignified andreflective, and refused to get in to a slanging match with Steve Gibson.[LNB]As he reminded viewers of BBC1's new Monday night Football Leagueprogramme, Late Kick Off, it was Gibson who stunned football, and upsetSir Alex Ferguson and the LMA by appointing his recently retiredcaptain as Steve McClaren's successor. [LNB]Mid-table finishes followed, but Southgate survived, with more Gibson support, when Boro were relegated last season.[LNB][LNB] Middlesbrough were a point off the top two and comfortably in theChampionship promotion race when, less than two hours after anadmittedly unconvincing and rare home win over Derby County, Gibsonsacked him.[LNB]In Martin Hardy's excellent News of the World interview last month,the Boro chairman revealed the reasons behind Southgate's departure,adding it was a 'series of events' rather than a sudden decision.[LNB] More from Colin Young... NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Magpies are not counting their chickens just yet15/01/10 NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Expect change at Middlesborough as Gordon Strachan moulds his regime06/01/10 NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Say what you want about Joey Barton, but he has the guts to pose some uncomfortable questions31/12/09 NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Returning Lee Cattermole lifts the clouds over Sunderland for Steve Bruce15/12/09 NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Strachan has made a mark but novelty is wearing off01/12/09 NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Wigan's humiliation may be bad news for Bruce24/11/09 NORTHERN EXPOSURE: Jimmy Bullard hails Hull's unsung hero10/11/09 NORTHERN EXPOSURE: A sure sign this region has become a deadzone05/11/09 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE 'At the end of last season,' Gibson said. 'I got Gareth and his entire coaching staff in. I said: "Look, let's not talk about opinion, everyone has an opinion. Let's talk about fact.[LNB]"We are the worst management team in the Premier League history of this football club. We have the lowest number of points the club has ever got. We concede more goals from set pieces than any other club in the Premier League. [LNB]"With Stewart Downing, we had the most prolific crosser of the ball and we scored one goal from a header. We made more changes at a substitution than any other club. Every time we had a substitution, we made two other switches in the team."[LNB]' It was crackers. [LNB]'I said to them all: "We have been declining consistently for three years but I believe there is enough talent around this table to get us up at the first chance. [LNB]'It has to be made clear that if there is anytime in the coming season where I don't think those objectives will be fulfilled, I will change it. I don't want you living under fear of the axe because that is not my way of doing things. But I want to be absolutely honest with you." And that's what I did.[LNB] Final fling: Gareth Southgate during his final match as Boro manager[LNB]'One day I woke up and thought: "I'm not happy about that, I'm not happy about that and I'm not happy about that." My faith had gone.'[LNB]And there was more from Gibson, whose commitment to Middlesbrough football club and people has never been stronger. A lot more.[LNB]Southgate's former Boro and England team-mate Danny Mills posed the questions to him last night, and armed with that article, probed for a reaction, admitting he would have run to the nearest newspaper at the first opportunity, full of hell. [LNB]As I have discovered myself, Southgate is not interested, and presumably not that angry, and has declined newspaper interviews.[LNB]But he did speak to Mills. 'It is disappointing,' he admitted. 'It doesn't matter how you finish any relationship it is always going to be difficult and when they make a change they have to justify that change and so inevitably there will be things said that are either critical or perceived as being critical of me and I have been in football long enough to know that is how it works. [LNB]It's all going wrong: Gareth Southgate sees another defeat[LNB]'I have to accept that the chairman gave me an opportunity when he first gave me the job. We both knew I wasn't ready for it at that moment in time.[LNB]'He had offered it to Terry Venables and Martin O'Neill, who didn't take it, but we managed to finish 12th and 13th, so you've got to remember that as well.[LNB]'The disappointing part was the club had finished mid-table in the Premier League most seasons they have been in it and the expectation then is that you are always going to push forward and keep improving and that is not always the case. Sometimes standing still is an achievement because of the finances of different clubs.[LNB]'So the club have overachieved for a long time and that is great credit to the chairman. That period in the last ten years, when people look back, has been the best years of the club's history.[LNB]'Building a winning team was the challenge I was looking forward to this year. I wanted to redeem what we had done last year. We learnt a lot of lessons from that and it was just a shame not being able to see it through.'[LNB]Whatever lay behind Gibson's reasons, it is safe to say Strachan has not had the impact he wanted or expected. They lie 13th now, 19 points behind Newcastle and six off Sheffield United, whose comfortable 1-0 win over Boro on Saturday took them to the fourth play-off place.[LNB]Like every Riverside manager, the former Celtic boss certainly has Gibson's backing and has already made three January additions from his Parkhead squad, with more recruits on the way. [LNB]They have not given up on a push for the top six but while naturally reluctant to claim he would have kept his squad in the race, Southgate feels they would still have been serious contenders under his continued control.[LNB]He added: 'It would be easy to sit here and say we would have done it. Who knows? It is a complete unknown. I think we would have been close.[LNB] I can do no more: Stewart Downing set up one goal despite a series of crosses [LNB]'We knew there were certain areas we knew we would always have to strengthen and with the balance of the squad, as Gordon himself has said, we were always short on the strikers front.[LNB]'But there is no way of knowing what would have been and it is pointless me thinking about it. It has gone.'[LNB]Southgate says he plans to stay in management, although he is also comfortable on TV, and has shown off his considerable knowledge and intelligence as a pundit on virtually every channel to guarantee the BBC and ITV will be scrapping for his services during the World Cup Finals. If he gets a taste for it, like so many before him, he may find it difficult to return to the game.[LNB]Enthusiastic Late Kick Off host Clem loves unusual stats and he claims 49 per cent of first-time managers don't go back into football management after losing their jobs. Hopefully Southgate will be one of the 51 per cent.[LNB]But as he says: 'Unfortunately you sit and wait for some other poor sod to lose his job.'[LNB][LNB][LNB][LNB][LNB] [LNB]
