Dear me! That was an unbelievably tense finish against Bolton.
When they were throwing the ball forward into the box and even their keeper came up I think I needed Valium.
I had to stop chewing my nails because I was up to my elbow and besides I needed my hands at that stage so I could watch through my fingers.
It wasn’t glamorous. It was a very scrappy, nervous finish to a poor second half - I don’t think much of it will make it onto the season highlights DVD let’s put it that way.
But Boro got the job done and that’s all that counts at this stage.
People may say it wasn’t a great game but that doesn’t matter.
The points are on the board now and no-one can take them away because it wasn’t one for the purists.
Boro did enough to win. They created a few decent chances in the first half, Patrick Bamford could have had a hat-trick and there was a moment of real quality with a super ball from Lee Tomlin to send Albert Adomah through for the goal.
But that ball was the only moment of composure we saw in the game.
The rest seemed hurried.
Players rushing and making the wrong call.
Maybe the nerves were showing now the stakes are getting higher, maybe they could sense the jitters in the crowd, I don’t know, but there was a lack of confidence in the box.
It was same against Leeds: in that game we played well, created a load of chances and had plenty of shots but for me they were all lashed too hard or too soon or were hurried and wayward because the contact was all wrong.
You don’t have to whack it as hard as you can. Just steer it in. Pick your spot. Beat the keeper. Make it hard for him. Accuracy is as important as power.
And the longer Boro went without scoring, the more tense the crowd got and the more scrappy and nervous the players were.
When you are a player you can feel that tension. Of course you can. Especially when it isn’t a full house. The early roar dies down, then it is a low buzz and then it goes quiet with just the odd yelp.
You go to take a throw and you can see nervous people sat there in stony silence, biting their nails or holding their heads in their hands.
Or play stops for a second and you can hear the frustrated shouts from fans telling you to get your finger out.
Or you have a poor touch and lose control and as the ball bobbles away you just hear all the low moans and groans and frustrated tutting.
Players know when the crowd are nervous and sometimes, if they are not having the best of games, it can get to them a bit.
But it wasn’t just Boro not quite clicking or playing poorly or not getting a grip that made the game scrappy late on.
No, it was Bolton. I have to be honest and say they were a poor, poor side.
I couldn’t imagine having to watch that style of football every week.
They reminded me of the old Wimbledon at their best. Or worst.
I’ve not seen a team so route one for a long time.
They just knocked long diagonals for big Emile Heskey all night and, to be fair, while is getting on a bit now he won just about every ball in the air and caused all kinds of problems for the defence.
Big guys at the back. Big guy up front. Get it forward quickly. In open play they were woeful and didn’t really threaten but they put everything into winning set-pieces and putting it Heskey’s head.
It was like watching Wimbledon with Big John Fashanu up front.
It is not really crowd-pleasing stuff but it seems to be getting some results for Neil Lennon - who was stomping and steaming about like a complete lunatic on the touchline, by the way - and on another night they might have got something.
It is hard work to play against that and it is easy to get dragged down to that style and end up scrambling it away and booting it long yourselves.
For me Boro did well to deal with it but Aitor Karanka won’t be happy about how they got sucked into a scrap in a game that they should have won early on.
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