Leroy Lita’s injury-time leveller against Derby County last night might be the break that Middlesbrough need at the business end of the season. After going ahead through Barry Robson in the first-half Nigel Clough’s team levelled proceedings midway through the second period and then scored a second on 74 minutes which looked like being the winner, but Leroy Lita rescued Strachan’s side to record their second successive 2-2 draw in the space of three days.

Despite wasting numerous chances in the first-half to double Robson’s goal, Middlesbrough gently eased off the pressure and allowed Derby breathing space in the second period which was a sure sign that the lads were a little fatigued following on from the Newcastle match on Saturday. When the home side levelled it was always looking likely that they were going to grab the third goal of the game as their fans got behind them.

We showed a bit of naivety at times in the second-half and as Strachan said in his post-match interview, Williams got a bit ‘emotional’ resulting in his dismissal. Once we were a man down and still losing I thought we showed character to get back on level terms and thanks to Lita’s header we grabbed a vital point at Pride Park last night which will go a long way in the season finale.

My message to the Boro fans would be not to write-off our chances of making the Play-Offs. There are still nine games left including five home games which are very winnable games so keep the faith and get behind the lads on Saturday. Up the Boro!

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Scott McDonald scored his first goal in a Middlesbrough shirt on Saturday and after coming through the match unscathed will be hoping to add to his tally in tonight’s game at Derby.

The Australian international was a live-wire against Newcastle in the Tees-Tyne derby and threatened throughout with his pace and use of the ball. Boro fans witnessed an almost fully fit McDonald at the Riverside on Saturday and can expect a bit more from the former Celtic hot-shot tonight at Pride Park.

With his first goal now in the bag for Boro and the pressures of scoring for his new club now lifted I can only see the little Aussie ripping through defences in the coming weeks especially as we have a whole host of games against teams in the bottom-half of the Championship table coming up.

Not only is there the incentive of playing in the Premier League next season for the 26-year-old but there is also a big incentive for him to go into the World Cup Finals this summer full of confidence. With ten games remaining I wonder if his aim for the rest of the season is to get into double figures!?

The Middlesbrough fans could be in for a treat at Derby tonight if he plays as well as he did against Newcastle on Saturday.

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After conceding early on in the first-half when Peter Lovenkrands had put the visitors ahead, Barry Robson and Scott McDonald linked up well to level the scoring 20 minutes later. It was a peach of goal from the 31-year-old who lashed the ball home with a 20-yard left-footed strike. Some could say it was a goal made in Celtic as both McDonald and Robson showed the Boro fans what they are capable of in big games.

The Middlesbrough players were in the opposition’s faces after the equaliser as they completely dominated play until the half-time whistle. Julio Arca and Robson were causing problems down both flanks, linking up well with the crafty McDonald but Boro were unable to take advantage before the break.

An excellent second-half of football flew by until Barry Robson curled in a delightful free-kick which Chris Killen nodded across for McDonald, who turned and volleyed the ball into the back of the net giving Harper no chance. It was a moment for the Australian international to remember and hopefully it was a turning point in our season.

As we approached the last 10 minutes of the game the Boro fans were thinking we could take all three points but as the minutes ticked on we were playing deeper and deeper and our tempo dropped off allowing the Magpies to throw men forward and, as we’ve seen many times before, the opposition grabbed their chance as Andy Carroll poached to score the leveller.

It was a tough one to take for the Boro players and fans but we have to take the positives from the game and on reflection we were the much better side and caused the most problems but a lack of creativity and guile in the final third was the key factor as we should have been out of sight after scoring the second goal.

There were some outstanding performers for Boro against the Geordies. Robson again showed us how much drive and quality he has. Kyle Naughton was excellent at right-back and there were good performances from Julio Arca and O’Neil but I have to give man of the match to Scott McDonald for his contribution to Boro’s first and also for scoring his first in a Middlesbrough shirt. His movement off the ball and tenacity throughout was awesome, he was a joy to watch all afternoon.

Cardiff and Blackpool both lost whilst Sheffield United and Coventry both drew so a point against Newcastle for Boro is not bad at all. The performance will certainly give the players a lift going into the next game at Derby.

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Bragging rights are up for grabs at the Riverside tomorrow as Strachan’s Middlesbrough take on the league leaders Newcastle United in a game that is set to be fiery encounter.

Newcastle are almost guaranteed promotion back to the high-life and fair play to them because they have knuckled down this season and done things the right way on pitch playing some decent football along the way. In contrast, Boro have been up and down throughout the season and still show no signs of consistency.

Boro Doubles

As we head into the Tees-Tyne derby, not only will their be bragging rights for this game but also the matter of getting one over on them after they defeated us 2-0 in their back yard just before Christmas. If the Geordies do beat us tomorrow then that will be one double we won’t be able to forget in a hurry.

After doing some brief research I’ve found that we have already racked up two doubles against us so far. Cardiff City and Blackpool have both beaten us home and away this season and with Newcastle and a whole host of other teams looking to do ‘the double’ over us we could end up having one of the most embarrassing seasons for a very long time. From now until the end of the season there are six games, including tomorrows, which Boro have to salvage at least a point to save blushes.

Compared to last season in the Premier League where we let four teams get the better of us in both fixtures, which included Chelsea and Manchester United, the Boro chiefs will be facing a very tough Q&A session with the fans at the end of this season if that total is increased.

Newcastle’s Bubble

The Geordies are having a great time this year sitting pretty at the top of the Championship and already thinking about the Premier League next season playing the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and United once again at St James’ Park. It looks likely that their bubble may burst once again like it did last season if they don’t sort out their off-the-field antics.

Do the Newcastle fans think that their team will be able to cope any better than they did in the Premier League last season? Go easy, I’m just adding a bit of fuel to the fire ahead of the game..

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The game against Newcastle on Saturday could be a platform for us to build on which will hopefully start a mini revival in our so far dismal season in the Coca-Cola Championship.

The last time to the two sides met back in December 2009 Newcastle brushed past a lacklustre Middlesbrough team at St James’ Park signalling the massive distance in quality and determination between the two sets of players at the time. The Geordies deservedly won that game 2-0 as Boro were sent packing down the A19 reflecting on how 12 months in professional football can take you on a long and forgetful journey.

Gordon Strachan’s years in football management will ultimately pull us through this bad patch of our journey as I’m sure he will mould a new Middlesbrough which will compete in the Premier League once again. That might not be for another season or two though and the Boro fans need to deal with that as Strachan needs time to do things his own way. Don’t worry though Gibson will not make the same mistake twice in succession in appointing a manager with an ambitious 5-year-plan that fell very flat in the third year.

Strachan, in my opinion, has brought in players that he feels will ultimately win us more football matches than losses and that is the most important factor for a new manager at any club. A solid foundation is needed before we can start to think about promotion and with that comes games like the one we saw at Cardiff last Saturday where we had to scrap and fight for everything but unfortunately were undone by a couple of decisions that were out of our hands, no pun intended.

The Championship is a league made up of brutality, sharp-thinking, spirit and passion which a team needs all of if they are to be successful. Strachan is slowly adding these elements to the once flat Middlesbrough we saw last season.

Players like Barry Robson and Stephen McManus, who in games I’ve seen, are capable of moving mountains if necessary just to get a strangle-hold on a game. We have missed players like this for a few seasons now and with games like the Tees-Tyne derby I expect we will not be short on commitment out on the pitch against the Magpies.

The former Celtic lads have all played in arguably the biggest rivalry in club football so they will have no problems in showing what they can do in the somewhat tamer version on Saturday afternoon.

It is very important to have players in a side that have experienced the biggest occasions and with Robson, McManus and McDonald we have three players that will be raring to go against Newcastle. Let’s hope that the rest of the Boro boys can mirror what those lads can do.

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Jeremie Aliadiere’s injury nightmare on Teesside is set to continue after the midfielder/striker was ruled out for six weeks yesterday with a broken toe. The 26-year-old had just returned from the treatment table having been out of action for several weeks but now it seems that the Frenchman may face being sidelined for the rest of the season.

Aliadiere has his critics on Teesside which is no fault of his own because Southgate and Strachan were both short on answering the question: where is his best position? Boro’s number 10 has been used as a striker and also as a winger in his 75 appearances for Middlesbrough and us fans are still not sure where his best position is.

With the effects of relegation to the Coca-Cola Championship Aliadiere, and other players, have had to adapt to the brutal and punishing style of football in this league so it’s no wonder that Ali’s technical ability has not been recognised as much as it would in the Premier League.

Another factor is that Middlesbrough have sold most of their best players which has made our play less entertaining to watch this season. We don’t have the quality of Downing, Tuncay or even Robert Huth any more who would keep the ball and pick out a pass to a team-mate. Aliadiere wasn’t a tremendous player and probably never will be but he was good enough for us in the Premier League for a few seasons and now it seems that the level we are at we can’t have luxury players any more.

The first season he played for Boro was a good season for the former Arsenal player. He played his part in securing our Premier League status with some important winning goals against Wigan Athletic and Fulham and also a strike at his former club to earn a 1-1 draw.

Last season was less impressive with only one goal, again against Arsenal, but he was used for his pace down the wings and as a second striker for most of the season in 29 league appearances.

Boro will wait until the end of the season to see if they want to renew his contract but at the moment that looks very unlikely as I’m sure he is one of the highest earners at the Riverside so a reduction in wages would be appealing to Lamb and Gibson.

We may have seen the last of Aliadiere in a Middlesbrough shirt if he can’t get match fit before the end of the season, but if we do somehow manage to make the Play-Offs we might well see him play a couple more times for Boro.

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I didn’t have enough space in the headline to put ‘great goalkeeping and poor refereeing deny Boro’ so I just left it with praise for the opposition’s stopper, plus I don’t want to make people think that Boro were hard-done-by on Saturday and that Cardiff City and the officials played very well.

David Marshall in the Cardiff City goal was in inspiring form for the Bluebirds and clearly was the best performer on the park at the Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday. His saves from Barry Robson and Chris Killen were outstanding to say the least. It was a third away game in-a-row where we have been unable to breach the opposition defence which is a worrying statistic considering that those matches were against three of the top 10 sides who are chasing promotion.

I won’t go on about the refereeing decisions in the game because, to be fair, it was the same for them. I’m pretty sure they had a good case for a penalty that wasn’t given so that evened out at least one of the contentious moments but that still left us one bad decision down which would have given us a point in South Wales.

We have to expect the officials in the Championship to be worse than the elite refereeing of the Premier League so we can’t moan but we can moan at our team for not creating more and using the ball better or am I being a bit hard on the lads because after all we also must expect our team to be worse than last season’s campaign in the Premier League.

The loss to Cardiff has stopped the momentum going into the Newcastle game this Saturday which is going to be a massive test for the Boro boys. They tore Barnsley apart last Saturday, albeit because of another poor refereeing performance, and will be full of confidence as they make the short trip down the A19 so the Middlesbrough players will have to roll their sleeves up for this one if we are to get anything from the game against the league leaders.

Can we beat the Geordies at the Riverside? I’m not putting money on it that’s for sure.

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After the 2-0 win over Queens Park Rangers last Saturday Gordon Strachan will be looking to grab another victory to take into the Newcastle United game next week. Cardiff City are having a good season and currently sit in the last Play-Off position with 49 points ahead of the likes of Blackpool, ourselves and Sheffield United.

Boro hosted the Bluebirds at the Riverside in December last year and lost out by a single goal scored by Cardiff’s Chris Burke so the return fixture at the Cardiff City Stadium will be a chance for the Middlesbrough players to grab revenge and try to leap-frog Dave Jones’ men in the table.

Emanuel Pogatetz and Scott McDonald remain doubtful for the game with knee injuries and hernia problems respectively and are rated at 50/50 for the trip to South Wales tomorrow. Both will face late fitness tests but if either, or both, fail Strachan has options at the ready to come in and replace the injured duo.

Reading a few of the Cardiff fan pages this afternoon have revealed that they are currently experiencing a few injuries in their squad and, looking at the recent names added to the treatment table, it seems that they will be without a few of their first-team players for the match.

Peter Whittingham and Mark Kennedy will be missing which is a massive boost for Boro with both being very important to Cardiff’s excellent run this season.

We have lost our last two away games in the Championship and have failed to score in those defeats so it will be an intriguing match but has draw written all over it.

I would love to see Boro put a couple past Cardiff tomorrow without reply but I’m concerned about our away form recently so will settle for a draw which would maintain an unbeaten run going into the Newcastle game next week.

Cardiff City 1 Middlesbrough 1

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Scott McDonald is back in training after seeing a specialist about his troublesome hernia. The 26-year-old has had problems with the injury since he had surgery in January and has not been match fit for Boro since signing from Celtic for £3.5million in the transfer window.

A second operation was on the cards for the Australian international before a trip to see a specialist recently confirmed he only needed injections to recover from the injury allowing the former Celtic striker to return to light training this week.

Although he is back on Teesside and back in training the Cardiff City game may come too soon for him and it is likely that Gordon Strachan will rest him for another week before unleashing him against Newcastle United a week on Saturday.

Talking to the Northern Echo McDonald insists he wants to be fully fit before putting a Boro shirt on again.

“Whether or not I am ready for Saturday we’ll wait and see. It’s just a day by day progression,” he said. “The most important thing is if it’s not this week we’ll look towards the Newcastle game. But whenever I come back it has to be 100per cent right this time. That is the most important thing for me and for Middlesbrough.” – Scott McDonald

I’m pretty sure that Strachan would play McDonald even if he was only 75per cent match-fit so I wouldn’t count him out of the squad for the trip to the Cardiff City Stadium on Saturday.

It’s important for Strachan’s boys to keep the momentum going after last Saturday’s home win over Queens Park Rangers and if McDonald is not available it means the likes of Lita and Killen will have to step up to the plate. The challenge is there for them two now so let’s see how they handle it before one of them drops down to the bench when McDonald is back raring to go.

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Gordon Strachan is slowly piecing his own Middlesbrough jigsaw together with the help of a few of his old pals from yesteryear in Scotland. The 53-year-old endured a few months of mixed reactions from the Boro faithful but now, after grabbing a few experienced players from north of the border, it looks like he has transformed our team of over-paid and inexperienced players into to a workforce of honest lads and it’s far from the finished article.

The January transfer window was always the one thing that Strachan wanted to utilise to build his own team and from the players we have seen slot into the side we have to be impressed. Stephen McManus has added calmness and authority to our defending since joining us on loan from Celtic and Kyle Naughton, another loan signing, has given the side increased energy down the flanks.

Permanent signings Willo Flood, Chris Kellen, Scott McDonald and Lee Miller have all added that extra bit of hunger to the team as we fight for Premier League football next season. These players are very eager to play top flight football in England and want to make the next step up having played at the top in Scotland.

The best signing has been saved until last. The capture of Barry Robson could prove to be the best signing of the season in the Championship. So far the 31-year-old has started seven games scoring three times and grabbing two man of the match awards along the way.

His engine is unbelievable for a thirty-something and with his desire and leadership in the middle of the park we could be on the move in the league now because I think, despite the loss of Johnson to Manchester City, we have one of the strongest midfields in the Championship – certainly the middle pairing of O’Neil and Robson.

We’ve been desperate for someone as passionate as Robson to fill the boots left by George Boateng two years ago. Many fans could see it last season that the side lacked a certain bite in the middle of the park despite the efforts from Matthew Bates but without players like these a team can crumble in minutes, just like we did in games that eventually resulted in us being relegated from the Premier League last term.

Now we have the fight back in our midfield we can hope for better fortunes in games as we enter the business run-in of the season. Tough games against Cardiff City and Newcastle await but I’m sure our players will be up for the fight.

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