Patrick Bamford was simply mesmerising when it mattered most in the second half against Ipswich on Saturday.
Timing the runs for both of his goals in his well-taken - and first ever - double strike for Boro to perfection, his skills were a mixture of unpredictability, vision and even a little arrogance, a combination of delightful dummying, dribbling and calm, composed finishing that brought awe and admiration from observers.
And fittingly it was who gilded the lily and gave us extra cause for celebration on March 17th, with an equally impressive and most vital goal from an incisive Lee Tomlin pass.
Pacy, crafty, clinical, good in the air... I don't think I had said it before I tweeted it on Tuesday night, but Bamford is the real deal, and his progress from someone who I didn't think would fit into Aitor Karanka's Boro to a near-record breaker (three more goals, and he will have broken the record for most league goals in one season in the Riverside Era, set by Fabrizio Ravanelli in 1997) is positively heart-warming.
It's the epitome of Boro's recent revival, with both the player and the team surprising us in unexpected and exciting ways. Perhaps moving Bamford to a central striking role was all it took (it wasn't the whole story, but more on that later).
Patrick Bamford celebrates against Ipswich
But oh so recently, things were very different. We'd bemoaned AK's rotation at Sheffield Wednesday, regardless of whether or not it seemed like a gamble worth taking in advance (at the final whistle, I tweeted "It's a Marathon, but the only Snickers will come from Boro's promotion rivals. Our starting line-up was nuts."). An uninspiring defeat at Forest had completed a run of one point from four league and cup away matches, although two wins out of three at home had somewhat countered that.
Unthinkably, too, Boro began to leak goals... following just one concession in over 800 minutes, we'd conceded ten in almost the same length of time.
Yet what really symbolised Boro's dip in form, to me, was our first home loss - and blank - since August, the 1-0 defeat to Leeds. At the time we seemed shellshocked as to how we lost a game we bossed, yet the result was ultimately defined not by what we did as by how we did it.
Perspiration overtook inspiration that day, with Boro's attacks increasing only in predictability as the match went on. Any hope that a blend of controlled persistence, power and poise would be enough to wear down a modest Leeds side was eventually quashed by Boro's lamentable lack of ideas. It was a case of overelaboration over invention, safety overtaking risk, too much of the ordinary and almost none of the extraordinary.
It's only a theory, but I believe AK has rectified this problem by "Anglicizing" Boro a little - taking a bit of what we find exciting (and even rough!) about English football and combining it with his Spanish philosophy.
Consider Boro's 4-1 win over Ipswich alongside England's 5-1 triumph in Munich in September 2001 - Boro did not outplay Ipswich, nor did England outplay Germany. Rather, it was one of those days where everything seemed to fall in the right place at the right time for the winning team.
Like ourselves, England were fortunate to be 2-1 up at the break, but a well-worked goal from a set-piece - in their case, a Steven Gerrard thunderbolt, in our case, a deflected Albert Adomah strike following a superb six-pass move from a short corner - gave each performance a shot in the arm and allowed each team to lay the foundations for an eventually convincing victory, with numerous very well taken goals.
The individual expression of England's most talented offensive players was very visible that night in Munich, and Boro's own attack combined vision and persistence in abundance against Ipswich. Think of Daniel Ayala's superbly timed run on to Adam Clayton's perfect cross in addition to the goals already discussed; this Boro side feels liberated with or without Lee Tomlin as the totem.
Albert Adomah celebrates scoring against Ipswich
That can be put down, mainly, to the welcome resurgence of Adomah as an attacking force, two well-balanced flanks of graft and flair (Tomas Kalas and Adomah on one side, George Friend and Adam Reach on the other side), the harsh but fair dropping of the off-colour Kenneth Omeruo, the imperious form of a rejuvenated Jonathan Woodgate, and perhaps... perhaps... the hubbub surrounding Jordan Rhodes.
Maybe it was a psychological ploy on AK's part, a hint that either his highly regarded strikers would find a way to be more direct and penetrative at this stage of the season, or he would find someone who actually was more direct?
Of course, relying too heavily on one model or one set of attacking players would be foolish, as England found out when they laboured to a 2-0 home win over Albania not long after Munich. For Boro, more vision and courage is required, if possible, from the likes of Jelle Vossen, Kike, and maybe Yanic Wildschut if AK gives him a chance.
We know Vossen can still pull rabbits out of hats - his 40-yard post-hitting chip against Derby is proof of this - and that Wildschut has pace to burn, but what about Kike? The man who was once a goalden boy now seems like the epitome of bluntness. It's as if his and Bamford's Boro careers have come full circle. Something to think about, then, as we approach Boro's third big test in the "Week Of Destiny" - which I am now looking forward to with confidence.
Up The Boro!
