A day to forget as Boro fail to make impact

IT MAY well be the ultimate compliment to Middlesbrough, but it will do their promotion chances no good unless they're a lot better than they were against Oxford United on Saturday.

- By CRAIG JOHNS

In the end, results elsewhere mean the frustrating goalless draw feels little more than a missed opportunity.

Defeats for Ipswich Town, Millwall and Hull City mean Boro’s draw leaves the gap one point better off than at the start of the weekend. But it could, and should, be three.

In the bigger context, with 13 games remaining, Boro might find that more and more teams set up this way against them.

It’s a respect of their quality, but it’s also, as Michael Carrick found towards the end of his time at the Riverside, a way many have found is a good method to get a result from Boro.

Oxford boss Matt Bloomfield noted: “If we tried to go toe-to-toe with them today, with the level of players that they have, and the cohesiveness... We knew that we had to respect our opposition and have our game plan, and that’s what I’m pleased about. The boys stuck to the game plan and executed it”

That game plan, as it so often has been in recent years, was the low block. It was letting Boro have the ball - 74% of it across the 90 minutes, to be precise - and to stay compact at the back. Oxford had deep lines of four and five behind the ball at all times. They offered Boro so little space to utilise in the final third.