Mike Holden

Clearly so much wrong at Burnley. It’s hard to know where to begin. Plenty of talent in the dressing room but so many intangibles absent in the team — and the last two managerial appointments have been unorthodox to say the least. Nicky Hayen and Fabio Celestini: a Belgian and a Swiss with 19 previous jobs between them (mostly in Belgium and Switzerland), average length of tenure less than a year. It’s anyone’s guess what the club’s strategy is at this point. But for now, Celestini seems like an interesting character and one we should embrace as a spectacle. He could easily become the story. He walked straight in and typecast himself as a firefighter. Someone totally at ease with chaos and uncertainty. The man you need in a crisis. So it’s no surprise that he responded to yesterday’s jaw-dropping collapse at Cardiff by declaring this a relegation battle. Get used to him raising the emotional stakes. He’s looking to make an impact because he has to. Expect him to be bold and say the thing that maybe others wouldn’t say, or do the thing that maybe others wouldn’t do. Expect some hyperbole and sensationalism. Expect him to be unpredictable, and perhaps change tack from one week to the next. It’s all for the sake of real-world feedback. The job for someone with his personality is to stir the pot and see what emerges, find out what’s wrong and find out quickly. So the immediate question is whether those Burnley players respond positively or negatively to this early framing of their situation. Celestini seems like a man with the energy and enthusiasm for what lies around the corner but it’s questionable whether those players have the same appetite. That’s where the tension lies. Who knows where this goes. But it’s one to keep an eye on. The next few weeks could be fun.

Big shout out to Philippe Clement today. Making a big deal about long-term fitness and availability when Norwich were coming up short in September and October. Player loads, blood testing, rotation, managing course and distance. Lessons learned from last season. Results today show how hard back-to-back away games can be in a three-game week, especially when rounding off seven games in 28 days. Middlesbrough, Southampton, West Ham and Sheffield United all odds-on against struggling opposition. All nowhere near it. Norwich 4-0 winners at Derby in midweek, then 5-0 winners again at Bristol City today. 15 goals in the last four matches. No idea what was wrong with them initially — eight defeats in 11 matches is crazy for a team expected to challenge. But Clement did give the impression he was working to a much bigger plan when continually bringing the conversation back to energy and managing loads.

Whatever the issue was, kudos to Parker for working through it and figuring the relationship out. Personality clashes like this will always happen when a manager of one type has a dressing room 25 random other personalities — nearly all of them uniquely different from each other. Now if only there was a system to figure out the most subtle of differences and communicate better straight away… 👀

My point is, the next Hellberg or Eckert could show up at any moment — at Wolves for example (who are just a point behind Boro without playing particularly well). And then that newcomer (maybe even Peixoto) finds the right chemistry and gets a decent runway as an unknown quantity, where opponents struggle to figure it out. Meanwhile, the runway for Hellberg (who always wants things a certain way) might start to run out soon. Some managers, like Phil Parkinson, are wired to break opposition systems. Other managers have to wait for a Parkinson to show them how it’s done and then incorporate the bits that fit their game model. Boro fans want to hope there wasn’t a big clue hidden in the rough challenges on Wednesday night, something that other managers and analysts hadn’t thought of before.

Karl Robinson's first game in charge of Bromley will be against Rotherham in the FA Cup tomorrow, managed by Alex Bruce — his assistant at Salford for the past two seasons. Probably has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on how the game will be approached by either side. Just a nerdy quirk that I can't physically stop myself from sharing.

Just catching up on the Championship in midweek. Scott Parker quite damning on the Nuno legacy at West Ham… “I’ve been in football a long time and I got a lot of answers in that first half tonight. We looked really slow in our build up, never a real threat and didn’t even force it. “Certain changes at half time made me realise this is probably the team we’re going to have to be. “You can’t expect to score four goals to win a game and that’s been the case a little bit. Slow starts have been the case as well, and conceding early. So for sure, that’s what we’ll be working on.”

My comments touched a nerve with many Boro fans the other day but I think this further illustrates that they need to toughen up if they want to do themselves justice this season. And I’m not just talking physically — emotionally as well.

Another sorry defeat for Charlton. Not many managers survive 11 games without a win nowadays. I'd like to go into bat for Nathan Jones, but he's too highly-strung and simply doesn't come across as the most resilient in the middle of a run like this. Hard to imagine him still in charge on Saturday. All or nothing against Sheffield United surely, if he does take one last shot.

Can’t think of a better move for Challinor to keep his “At least the play-offs” record going. Remember: it only counts in full seasons!

Quote from Kim Hellberg yesterday. Middlesbrough top of the league and favourites for the title because they’ve set the highest standard and been the best team in the Championship so far. But this is an example of why they won’t win the league. Bad framing from Hellberg. Demon emotions when things don’t go his way. Victimhood. Freaks out over anything that goes against his best plans and always someone else’s responsibility to fix what’s making him feel bad. Note: Middlesbrough scored after TWELVE MINUTES yesterday. If this was Hellberg’s experience on the touchline so early in the game, imagine where his head goes if Charlton keep it up for 75. Last season, Boro took 31 points from Hellberg’s first 14 matches. Then the pressure came and they started dropping silly points, failing to win in six straight home games against teams mostly relegation candidates. They were their own worst enemy and it starts with the accumulation of needless anxiety like this.

Michael Skubala picking pockets again. The guy who cut his teeth in Futsal knows a thing or two about substitutions. He used to make about 100 a game. Late goals at Preston, Burnley and now Bolton worth an extra 8 points to Bristol City.

"No pictures on a golf scorecard." Meaning the result is all that matters. Chris Wilder's got some of the best phrases.