Man of the Match: Middlesbrough 2-0 Bolton Wanderers

So I have to admit now I didn’t see or follow the game all that closely. I also haven’t and do not intend to watch the highlights of yet another Championship loss.

But I think it is fair to say a game like this would have been out of sight after about ten minutes before Karl Henry arrived so lets give him the man of the match.

Bolton Wanderers managed to hold their own without doing anything special in the first half. That would not have been the case in the opening games of the season, and indeed was not the case in the return fixture which I had the displease of sitting through.

Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images

Henry along with a resurgent Darren Pratley have offered the basis for the likes of Sammy Ameobi and Josh Vela to turn things around further up the pitch.

We desperately needed the stability, and despite results still being up and down things have not got as bad as the beginning of the season again. To think right now just how little we would have needed from our 11 games without a win to be out of the relegation zone right now is as depressing as it is remarkable.

Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images

This stability needs to continue as Bolton enter a challenging and important run of fixtures. The club needs to stay in touch through the trickier games unlike at the outset of the season or relegation will become a certainty. Henry may well offer the basis to keep the points ticking over, or at least we can hope.

Those who were at the match please do use the comments to tell us who stood out on the day.