Inconsistency and a bit of an amble about look very much set to be the end of season fare for us then. After three years of scrapping to the last day we d almost forgotten just how poor games can be when all that s at stake is the chance of a top-half fin

Inconsistency and a bit of an amble about look very much set to be the end of season fare for us then.

After three years of scrapping to the last day we'd almost forgotten just how poor games can be when all that's at stake is the chance of a top-half finish.

Boro was almost a carbon copy of the previous week's Blackburn experience - some neat stuff, a goal, an equaliser and a rapid fade in the second half. Not exactly the sort of thing to set the heart racing.

It's a strange old time because nothing seems to be happening at all. Precious little experimentation, no blooding of exotic youngsters, no extraordinary performances from squad players with uncertain outlooks.

Everybody, it seems, is marking time and waiting for the summer and the chance to do some real work. None of which is helping to solve our likely summer headaches.

It would have been nice to see some real progress under Juande Ramos to suggest that he might not need to be thinking, for example, about signing a whole new midfield.

You would have hoped for the football to be really clicking to maybe show Dimitar Berbatov that the future is as bright at the Lane as anywhere.

Some real commitment would have been nice to make sure we hadn't wasted a good chunk of our season ticket cash.

The long goodbye to the season trundles off to Wigan now, and I salute the brave souls making the trip.

With any luck they'll see a display of solid defending, and sharp counter-attacking to indicate we might actually win some away games in future. But I really wouldn't bank on it.