'YOU can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear'.
Sitting in the Riverside Stadium on Saturday, it was hard not to reflect on the words of celebrated Irish satirist Jonathan Swift. And that wasn't just because Middlesbrough were making a pig's ear out of trying to beat a Millwall side that had lost their previous four matches.
'You can't make a Tony Mowbray side out of the bits and bobs you have inherited from Gordon Strachan'. It was true at Celtic last season, and it already looks like being true at Middlesbrough this.
Whereas one espouses an expressive version of the beautiful game full of free-flowing football and artistic attacking, the other prizes the more prosaic qualities of work rate, industry and a battling instinct.
The philosophies are poles apart, yet one has been charged with the task of clearing up the mess that has been left the other. It should be no surprise to learn, then, that Mowbray does not feel he has been bequeathed the tools required to do the job.
He will not admit as much publicly of course, but having watched a lacklustre Middlesbrough side labour to a third home defeat in four matches, the Boro boss made little attempt to hide his frustration at the situation he has inherited, both on and off the field.
There is little point trying to introduce a positive passing game when your midfielders appear incapable of passing the ball ten yards without conceding possession.
Basically, I'm dealing with the hand I've been dealt and trying to get the best out of that hand I can, said Mowbray, after Jason Puncheon's first-half strike settled a game that rarely strayed beyond the mundane.
You can't go into battle asking something of players that does not come naturally to them. You have to utilise the best qualities of the players you have. But I'm assuming that in the last year and a half, those qualities have left the team in the position they're in.
I don't think anyone is claiming that this team hasn't been fighting and scrapping for the last year and a half. But we are where we are in the table. I would never question the players' attitude. They were desperate before the game to get a victory, and desperate throughout the game, but it didn't go for them.
I'm not here to change things overnight, because I know I can't. That is the conundrum I face. In the longer term, we have to build a football team that doesn't always get embroiled in hard, physical confrontations. I want a side that out-footballs the opposition, but at the minute we're not there. We have to almost go to war every game and try to grind out a result.
The tension between Mowbray's lofty ambitions and the dire reality of life in the Championship's bottom three is obvious, but with finances dictating that his room for manoeuvre in January will be limited, the Boro boss will have to find a way of improving things in the short term while also making progress in terms of his longer-term aims.
Engendering some creativity would be an obvious place to start, but with the Teessiders having scored just 17 goals in 18 matches all season, it is hard to see where an immediate improvement in that area will come from.
It never looked like appearing on Saturday, with Kris Boyd offering nothing in the way of movement or inventiveness in attack and Boro's pedestrian midfield failing to ask any questions of the Millwall back four.
Luke Williams can be excused his failings because of his age, but Barry Robson, Julio Arca, Gary O'Neil and Nicky Bailey are all experienced, highly-rated players who should be tearing defences apart at Championship level. Instead, they spent most of this latest defeat passing the ball sideways and chasing shadows.
Does their lack of flair mean Mowbray will have to rip up his preferred formula for footballing success Not according to defender Matthew Bates, who along with the rest of Boro's homegrown defence, emerged from Saturday's game with a modicum of credit.
We knew Tony's philosophy before he came in, said Bates. We know the teams he's managed and the type of football they like to play. I've spoken to people at West Brom and we all knew the football he would want to bring to the team.
I think everyone would agree that it's the right type of football to play. It's the football I'd like to play, and I'm sure it's the football the rest of the lads in the dressing room want to play as well.
He's made it clear though that it's going to take longer than a lot of people maybe thought. That's not an excuse because even without playing that style, with the greatest of respect to Millwall, we should be beating teams like that at home.
Boro created the game's opening opportunity, with Millwall goalkeeper David Forde doing well to tip O'Neil's deflected effort over the crossbar, but the visitors should have claimed the lead when Steve Morison blazed over from inside the area.
The miss mattered little when the deadlock was broken two minutes later, with Jason Puncheon, who only joined Millwall on loan from Southampton last Wednesday, converting Liam Trotter's left-wing cross.
Leroy Lita failed to find the target with two second-half headers, but Boro never really looked like equalising until the fifth minute of stoppage time.
An onrushing David Wheater met a corner from the left, but James Henry cleared the defender's header off the line.
Match facts Goal:
0-1: Puncheon (25, turned in the box and converted Trotter's cross from the left-hand side)
Bookings: Bennett (33, foul), Puncheon (90, time wasting)
Referee: Trevor Kettle (Berkshire) Didn't have a lot of important decisions to make, but generally got things right 6
Attendance: 15,697
Entertainment:
MIDDLESBROUGH (4-4-2):
6 Steele: Couldn't be faulted for the goal and didn't appear fazed by his international mishap in midweek
6 McMahon: Generally solid, but might have got tighter to Trotter for the cross that led to Millwall's winner
6 Wheater: Won his fair share of things in the air, and just about shaded his private battle with Andrew
7 Bates: Continued his fine form at the heart of the back four and was always trying to gee his team-mates up
7 BENNETT: Underlined the value of playing a naturally left-footed player at left-back with a number of crosses
4 Robson: Toiled away ineffectually on the righthand side with his lack of pace repeatedly exposed
4 O'Neil: Can be excused a below-par performance because of illness and was substituted before half-time
4 L Williams: Didn't look comfortable in the hole behind the front two but went close with a first-half header
5 Arca: Tried his best to get Boro going forward but lacked the change of pace needed to trouble the back four
4 Boyd: Another ineffectual display from a player who was supposed to score goals for fun
5 Lita: Never really looked like scoring, but at least his work rate was far more impressive than Boyd's
Subs:
Bailey (for O'Neil, 41): Did little to suggest that he should be promoted to the starting line-up at the heart of midfield 4
Emnes (for Boyd, 59): Added a much-needed spark in the final halfhour, but is not going to change things on his own 5
Tavares (for Arca, 59): Doesn't look particularly well suited to a role on the right-hand side of midfield 4
(not used): Ripley (gk), Hoyte, Kink, McDonald.
MILLWALL (4-4-2):
Forde 7; Dunne 6, SHITTU 8, Robinson 7, Craig 6; Henry 6, Mkandawire 7, Trotter 7, Puncheon 8; Andrew 6 (Harris 85), Morison 7.
Subs (not used): Mildenhall (gk), Abdou, Carter, Ward, Laird, Marquis. MAN OF THE MATCH
DANNY Shittu the veteran centrehalf out-muscled Boyd and Lita all game and provided the bedrock for Millwall's success.
Source: Northern Echo
Source: Northern Echo