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Broken Boro are limping towards the end of an era.

An unthinkable seventh successive defeat at crisis-club Bolton would surely be an embarrassment too far.

It would surely slam the door on a Tony Pulis project that has spluttered and stalled on the back straight.

The beaten body language of the team in the spanking at Swansea was deeply worrying.

Battle-scarred supporters who have seen it all before will recognise that as one sign of a team stumbling towards the end game.

It feels like the position of the manager now rests purely on mathematics: so long as the play-offs are possible, the message will be ‘keep fighting’.

But the form of an anaemic team and fans’ morale have dropped off a cliff and layers of loyalists have lost faith in that happening.

If they did it could set up some very strange dynamics: Boro could even be booed into the play-offs.

The most strident have explicitly said they don’t want promotion if it means the manager stays in situ.

The situation is so corrosive that for many, even victory at whipping boys Wanderers would not bring much reason to cheer.

It would just extend the agony. It is against all supporters’ instincts but some are actively ready to embrace defeat in the hope it will bring the crisis to a head and force decisive action to end the torment. That’s where we are now.

The fanbase is fractured. The atmosphere has become toxic. There is a fractious cocktail of anger and apathy.

A long tail of disappointment

Boro are stumbling towards the end of an emotionally draining chapter. And not just the Tony Pulis one.

We - the club, the team, the fans, the press - are still struggling with a long tail of disappointment that goes right back to relegation.

In fact, it goes back further. We are at the end of a narrative arc that goes back through five years of functional football to Aitor Karanka’s reign.

The play-off push and the promotion season under Karanka were the high watermark in the last decade prompting belief, pride and unity.

The Basque boss and his demanding high-pressure culture of incremental improvement and excellence led Boro to the Premier League.

But it also racked up the pressure and demands by the week. He managed by creating a state of siege and crisis as a form of fuel and that took a grip in the crowd as much as it did the squad.

As a result the intensity of the promotion run-in was nerve-shredding. Fans were creaking. The regimental framework of the team was rattling.

‘She’s gonna blow, captain’.

Karanka himself almost cracked in the aftermath of Rotherham and with the crazy Lost Weekend of Charlton, there was almost a terminal meltdown of the entire project.

But there was no let up. The relegation season ramped up the collective emotional and psychological demands even further. It was almost painful.

As the pressure cooker campaign became critical, tetchy Karanka unravelled, the crowd and dressing room fragmented into factions and the head coach was axed. And whatever the revisionism, the vast majority of fans welcomed that.

But the exit plunged Planet Boro into a state of shock that hastily-promoted poisoned chalice recipient Steve Agnew was never going to deal with.

He was powerless to patch up the punctured side, ill-equipped to turn around a calamitous collapse, unable to rebuild the backroom suddenly stripped of Spaniards - how weird was the Joe Jordan interlude - and totally unprepared for the vitriol he was suddenly faced with. What a mess.

A stinking relegation hangover

Boro were dumped back in the Championship battered and bruised with the remnants of a squad mentally attuned to pragmatic football.

In some ways you have to feel sorry for Garry Monk. A go-ahead young coach with big ideas was handed an attractive package but it had suspicious looking wires coming from it and was still ticking.

Collectively, brooding Boro were emotionally hurt at how the top flight season had imploded and the messy end to what seemed a genuine bond with Karanka. Maybe it was a far bigger job to clear minds, regroup and bounce back than anyone expected.

And the squad was hugely unbalanced. The Premier League cameo crew had swiftly left the scene of the crime leaving the rump of the promotion side dented and demoralised by some serious schoolings and expected to pick up the pieces.

Then there was a well intentioned but badly executed spending spree and a clutch of disparate attacking-minded players were grafted onto the well drilled functional framework and ingrained regimented psyche left by Karanka.

Monk failed to reconcile that contradiction. As a result his side were not fit for purpose. There were plenty of good players in the mix but they were crudely welded together in a weekly formation flux and were prone to fracture under pressure.

And there was plenty of pressure. The public ‘smash it’ ambitions and being the bookies favourites weighed heavy on the team and ramped up expectations among the crowd. Karanka’s success and the heavy investment had raised the bar.

When Boro failed to spark, the simmering post-relegation, post-Karanka anger quickly bubbled up through the cracks.

Functional fire-fighting

Enter Tony Pulis. He was not starting from scratch but picking up the narrative started under Karanka.

At the time he seemed a good fit. Boro wanted an wily older head to do some fire-fighting and on the hoof repairs after Monk led a side without identity down a tactical cul-de-sac.

And they wanted a manager who would retune the functional framework and deep seated defensive mentality that still existed.

To some extent he succeeded. A flailing team was slowly reshaped and with a rock solid rearguard and the high-speed enigma of Adama Traore they got into the play-offs before their safety first style was ruthlessly exposed.

This season Boro have played in fits and starts and been in the top six almost all the season until the sharp end when they have faded badly.

But without results and excitement to cushion the soul-sapping effects of dour goalophobic football the season has drifted towards the current crisis.

Boro were booed off in the last home game and their were chants for the manager to go. That was reprised in the away end at Swansea and when even the high-mileage loyalists turn you have problems. You can't put that genie back in the bottle.

But the current angst is as much because of the complex emotional backstory and baggage of the last few years as it is because of Tony Pulis.

Patience has worn thin with Boro. The batteries are drained. And the current style does little to recharge them. There is nothing to foster hope or excitement. There is a fear of a drift towards entrenched ordinariness. A feeling the club is flat-lining.

Rip it up and start again

Boro could yet turn it around. It’s a funny old game. Boro could still go on a run. The players tell us that after every defeat.

And it is possible. Beat Bolton and then Hull and who knows, Boro may just somehow squeeze back into the play-off picture. We know how crazy this league is.

That would be a brilliant out-of-the-blue bonus after so many have written the season off, a sarcastic post-script.

And we’d revel in it while simultaneously fearing the prospect of being further traumatised by weekly wallopings by ‘the likes of’ Bournemouth or Burnley, assuming we didn’t surrender at Wembley. Again.

But it wouldn’t change the underlying dynamics or the direction of travel. This chapter of the Boro story is coming to an end.

Right now there is a pressing need to regroup and reboot as a club and as a crowd and rewire properly for future success.

We need to finally shrug off the relegation hangover and start afresh with an exciting, attacking brand of football that is in contrast to the current purgatory of pragmatism. Rip it up and start again.

Without a clean break from that fearful football the malaise will linger and enmesh any new boss before they have kicked a ball.

Supporters are yearning to be inspired and galvanised by a new vision that they can buy into and get behind.

So often this season Boro have been bamboozled by fluid movement and teams set up to play with panache and zest and come away envious of lesser clubs with swash-buckling style. That should be something to aspire to.

We know that if Boro don’t go up it will mean a drop in resources and prompt a recalibration and change of emphasis.

So that presents a moment of opportunity.

Whether that is a turn to the Academy and shrewd signings from the lower league, or well targeted investment doesn’t matter. Let’s make that the next chapter.