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Tony Mowbray has tonight parted company with Boro. His assistant, Mark Venus, will take temporary charge of the club.

A poor start to the current campaign coupled with the club's woeful form over the second half of last season has led chairman Steve Gibson to make a decision he thought long and hard about.

Boro have won just three league fixtures out of 12 so far this season and were eliminated from the Capital One Cup at the first round stage by League Two strugglers Accrington.

Saturday's 3-2 defeat at rock-bottom Barnsley proved to be the last straw for Gibson, who was believed to be close to sacking Mowbray in the week preceding the crucial 4-1 victory over Yeovil.

The loss at Oakwell leaves Boro in 16th, 10 points adrift of the top six and just four more than third-bottom Barnsley, who climbed off the bottom thanks to their weekend win.

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At the Riverside, Boro have won just five league games in total this year including two this season.

Away, the pictures even worse with just one Championship win on the road in 2013 and a total points haul of six out of a possible 51.

The chairman believes a top six finish this season was the minimum requirement and with the team averaging just a point a game, he's decided enough is enough.

Gibson's search for a replacement to take the club out of the Championship is already underway and an appointment is expected to be confirmed sooner rather than later.

Mowbray , 49, spent almost three years in charge of the club he supported as a boy and captained with distinction in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

He was appointed in October 2010 as a replacement for current Scotland boss Gordon Strachan, who resigned with Boro languishing fourth from bottom of the Championship following a poor start to the season that had seen the team pick up 11 points from 11 games.

Mowbray's backroom team included assistant manager Mark Venus, first team coach Mark Proctor and goalkeeping coach Stephen Pears.

With a minimum of fuss, in his first season he guided the team back to the safety of mid-table, taking a creditable 51 points from the remaining 35 fixtures.

His first full campaign in charge saw Boro mount a genuine challenge for promotion before Christmas but a New Year slump left the club in seventh place overall, just one spot below the play-off zone.

Given Mowbray's financial restrictions – he had virtually no transfer kitty due to the hefty contracts handed out to Strachan's signings – it was widely believed he'd done a good job with the resources at his disposal.

It was a similar story last season, Boro started well and were briefly top in November but another New Year slump saw the club drop to 16th, their lowest league finish since 1990.

Boro only won three of their final 21 fixtures, picking up just 12 points out of a possible 63.

The club, it must be noted, did do relatively well in the cups under Mowbray, taking Sunderland to an FA Cup fourth round replay in 2012 and losing to Chelsea in the fifth round earlier this year.

They also reached the quarter-finals of the Carling Cup last season before losing narrowly at Swansea.

Mowbray also completely overhauled the Boro backroom team, building an extensive scouting network headed by Gary Gill and pushed hard for more fitness and conditioning staff to ensure the players stay fitter for longer.

A summer overhaul saw the remaining big earners from the Strachan-era depart and Mowbray was able to bring in his own signings as the chairman loosened the purse strings.

But a failure to address an error-prone defence meant Boro were unable to capitalise on generally decent early season performances and Gibson finally decided it was time for a change.