Aitor Karanka would hardly be human if he did not regard Watford’s visit to Teesside on Sunday as a litmus test of Middlesbrough’s Premier League survival prospects. With his side having won only once – at struggling Sunderland – while collecting a modest six points from seven games this season, Karanka knows that the late-summer optimism at the Riverside is fading fast.
The same could be said of Álvaro Negredo’s and Gastón Ramírez’s form. The lone striker and the attacking playmaker have lost so much edge since August that Boro’s manager dropped the pair for the team’s last game, a draw at West Ham, although both stepped off the bench during the second half. Considering that Negredo – on loan from Valencia – reportedly earns in excess of £100,000 a week and that the team has largely been built around Ramírez since the Uruguayan’s arrival last January, that joint omission represented quite some dual statement.
Karanka says: “They started the season wanting to show everyone, to show the world, what very good players they are and they showed their qualities. But I dropped them at West Ham because I had to be fair to the players who work hard on the pitch for their team-mates. Now let’s see their reaction.”
He now faces what he says is a difficult decision as to whether to start Negredo against Watford or Jordan Rhodes – who, he says, “did very well at West Ham” as a lone striker – in his favoured 4-2-3-1 formation.
The Spaniard has scored only once this season but – as he proved, albeit briefly, at Manchester City – is capable of so much more. “At his best I can compare Álvaro with Benteke or Lukaku,” says Karanka, who seems reasonably confident of fending off Steve Bruce’s attempts to lure his influential assistant, Steve Agnew, to Aston Villa. “But Álvaro needs to be at his best.
“I always knew it would be difficult for him. He started really well but became relaxed and lost his position. He’s learning that the most important thing for everybody here is the team.”
Boro were 16th at the start of the weekend compared with their opponents’ 11th, though Karanka’s side would move a point clear of Walter Mazzarri’s team with a win. “Who to start against Watford is a hard decision and an important one,” Karanka says. “Álvaro has trained really well, Jordan has trained really well, as usual, and played well in the last game. If you look at the past, Álvaro is the player with the most quality and experience. His value was £30m when he left Manchester City but I’m really pleased with Jordan.”
Ramírez’s recent struggles have come as an even greater shock as, last spring, he consistently seemed the “perfect 10” – even if he wears No21 on his back – while performing a key role in securing promotion before beginning this campaign in similar vein. “For me, that No10 position is very, very important,” says Karanka. “I have a lot of alternatives who can play there like Viktor Fischer, Cristhian Stuani and Stewart Downing but Gastón at his best is an important player for us. He can bring the best out of Álvaro.”
But who is the real Ramírez? Is he the player who so disappointed Steve Bruce as he proved a Premier League flop during a loan stint at Hull during the 2014-15 season and was subsequently told by Ronald Koeman that he had no future at Southampton? Or can he reprise the form that had him watched by Europe’s leading lights in his early, bewitching, south coast days? Might he have been adversely affected by the demands of representing Uruguay in the summer’s Copa América – or is the Championship more his natural level?
Only time will tell but Fischer is keen to show that he is far from a shabby No10. The Denmark international has experienced a slow burn beginning to Teesside life after his summer move from Ajax but is showing signs of throwing off his initial culture shock.
“Viktor’s getting stronger,” says Karanka. “It’s been difficult for him. The tempo of the game, the training sessions, the country – they’re all completely different. But he’s improving. And Viktor’s a strong character, that’s another reason we brought him here. To stay in the Premier League we need those characters. On the pitch, we need players ready to show that character.” Over to you, señors Negredo and Ramírez.