by Martin Spinks
martin.spinks@thesentinel.co.uk

NEVER mind merely surviving in the Premier League this season, Middlesbrough are gunning for a place in the Champions’ League.

So says Boro physio and one-time Stokie Chris Moseley and, before you snigger at such wide-eyed optimism, he has form for upsetting the odds.

Back in 2001, when Moseley was Stoke’s first-team physio on a pre-season trip to Austria, he reluctantly made up the numbers in a penalty shoot-out competition at the end of one training session ... and promptly won it.

“Yeah I remember that,” he chuckles. “Gudjon Thordarson was manager and he pulled all the squad together after training. There was a £5 entry and as soon as you missed you were out.

“It came down to just me and Peter Thorne in the end and, much to Gudjon’s disgust, I ended up winning.”

What many players hadn’t realised, though, was that their Crewe-born physio was a promising right-back in Stoke’s youth team in the early 1990s before an ankle ligament injury had prematurely ended his career.

He left the club to learn his new trade before returning as part-time youth-team physio and subsequently earning his promotion to full-time first-team duties under Thordarson.

“I got into the physio work because I had spent so much time in the treatment room and had built up a rapport with Richard Gray, the Stoke physio at that time.

“They were great times for me at Stoke, despite the injury, training with characters like Wayne Biggins, Vince Overson and Noel Blake before coming back as a physio.

“I left after Gudjon went and came up to Middlesbrough, but Stoke’s has always been the first result I’ve looked for after a game and I’m really pleased to see them in the top flight.

“Whenever there was a cup draw I was hoping we would draw each other, but it never happened, so it’s nice to come up against each other at long last.”

And he landed on his feet after moving to Middlesbrough by taking his place in the on-going revolution at the Riverside under Steve Gibson’s lavish guidance.

“Middlesbrough has been absolutely fanstastic for me,” he says. “It’s a really good, stable club. On the physio side we get very good funding to try and stay one step ahead.

“Steve Gibson took over in 1986 and his dream was to bring local boys through. He put the foundations in place and now the club is reaping the rewards.

“One of the highlights came on the last day of the season last year against Fulham when only one of the 16 players on duty that day was not born within 30 miles of the ground.

“Before that, Steve McClaren was really looking to stabilise the club when he took over from Bryan Robson as manager.

“He brought in a lot of experienced players and we relied a lot on the front two of Yakubu and Mark Viduka.

“Now we have Gareth Southgate as manager and he’s an absolutely top man. I can’t think of anyone better to work for.

“He’s obviously very intelligent, understands the game and his man-management is very good.
He’s also experienced all the highs and lows in the game and that comes through as well.”

Boro began their league season with a stirring 2-0 home victory over Tottenham before losing late on, and somewhat unluckily, at Liverpool seven days ago.

“The manager is now enforcing his beliefs on the team and bringing in his own players,” Moseley observes. “The team is now playing with a lot of enthusiasm and looking dangerous going forward.

“This season, we are aiming for a Champions’ League spot.” Oh come on Chris.

“Well, if you’d seen us in the first two games when we beat Tottenham comfortably and should have got a point at Liverpool, you’d know why I say that.

“Stewart Downing is the main man, but there’s plenty of others like Tuncay, Mido and Afonso Alves. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Stewart for seven seasons now and he’s a model pro.”

Which is more than can be said of Mido, you might suspect, after seeing the enigmatic Egyptian striker return from injury last season with what looked suspiciously like two tyres strapped around his expanded girth.

“He’s fantastic, a brilliant lad to have around the building,” says Moseley. “He did have some trouble with injuries last year which resulted in him putting on a bit of weight.

“But he’s knuckled down since. We sent one of our guys over to Eygpt with him in the summer to work with him and he lost nearly two stone. He’s firing on all cylinders again and is another one to look out for.”

Well you could hardly miss him, even after this summer’s diet.

Vital statistics for the big match at the Riverside Stadium
PREVIOUS MEETING
February, 1998
STOKE@1
(Kavanagh)
MIDDLESBROUGH@2
(Pearson, Moreno).
CHRIS Kamara’s second match in charge went the way of the first – in fact it went the way of eight of his 14 matches during his pitifully short spell at the helm.
Nigel Pearson, Boro captain and destined to become Stoke first-team coach just 18 months later, nosed the visitors in front before Graham Kavanagh levelled from the spot.
But a Boro team also containing experienced quality, in the shape of Andy Townsend and Paul Merson, snatched the points when Bolivian sub Jaime Moreno netted his only goal for the club.
Stoke dropped two places to 18th that day a decade ago, but they would subsequently plunge a further five places en route to relegation at the end of that first season in the Britannia.

Stoke: Muggleton, Pickering, McKinlay, Whittle, Tweed (Gabbiadini, 87), Keen, Holsgrove, Wallace, McMahon, Scully, Kavanagh.
Middlesbrough: Schwarzer, Baker, Kinder, Vickers, Pearson, Mustoe, Hignett, Townsend, Campbell (Moreno, 45), Merson, Summerbell (Beck, 70).
Attendance: 13,242.

FORM GUIDE
Middlesbrough: WWWLW
Stoke: DWLWW

WHO WE’D LIKE TO SIGN
Chris Riggott. Might have been a Stoke player had circumstances been different.
WHO TO BOO
Mido. No self-respecting Stoke fan will resist a dig at all that excess baggage round his waist.

MAN IN THE MIDDLE
Mike Dean (Cheshire). A select referee since 2002, he graduated to international football with last year’ when he officiated a friendly between Australia and Argentina in Melbournes Australia v Argentina friendly.

PROBABLE TEAMS
Middlesbrough: Turnbull, Hoyte, Pogatetz, Huth, Wheater, Aliadiere, Shawky, O’Neill, Downing, Alves, Tuncay.
Stoke: Sorensen, Griffin, Dickinson, Ab Faye, Cort, Lawrence, Am Faye, Olofinjana, Delap, Kitson, Fuller.

PREDICTION
Cort and Fuller put Stoke 2-0 up, but Boro race into a 2-0 lead through Cort and Fuller before Boro score twice in last half-hour to make it 2-2 for 2-2.