Reports are leaking out of Teeside that Middlesbrough are close to agreeing a deal with former Barcelona and England manager Terry Venables to replace Steve McLaren in the hotseat at the Riverside.

Venables has a brief history with Middlesbrough after a spell in temporary charge of the side during their relegation battle in 2001 under Bryan Robson’s failing regime and was credited at the time with saving Boro’s Premiership status.

The intervening years under McLaren have solidified Boro’s place in the premiership and the constant yo-yoing between the top two tiers under Robson has made way for silverware and UEFA CUp final appearances.

Quite what chairman Steve Gibson expects the 63 year old Venables to bring to the table now is an interesting conundrum. Venables hasn’t had the same managerial midas touch since he was forced to leave the England job to concentrate on his court cases involving some dodgy business interests and there are plenty of fans at Portsmouth, Crystal Palace and Leeds United who would have a few stories to tell Boro fans by way of warning.

There must be something in the water up in the North East that makes the chairmen go temporarily crazy from time to time with Sunderland having looked to Howard Wilkinson and Newcastle to Graeme Souness as their saviours in recent seasons. Neither was and their outdated managerial approaches were ripped to pieces all too easily by opposing teams and their own demanding fans.

Maybe Venables does have one last hurray in him, for Middlesbrough to gamble their Premiership lives on him would be a bet they may come to regret.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 at 7:14 am and is filed under Middlesbrough. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.