Football: Middlesbrough's respite may only be momentary

Middlesbrough 4 Sheffield Wednesday

After the euphoria of a pulsating game, of a second League win in 18 matches, of a scoring debut by an expensive Italian, of an unjust dismissal of another expensive Italian, comes the reality.

Boro are still bottom. The pounds 2.7m outlay on Gianluca Festa, plus the pounds 1m small change for a Slovakian left-back, Vladimir Kinder, who sat on the bench on Saturday, takes Bryan Robson's spending to nearly pounds 30m. As Fabrizio Ravanelli reportedly told an Italian paper on Friday: "Billions don't make you a winner."

Middlesbrough's scintillating win has reclaimed the three points docked by the Football Association, but their next three League matches are daunting: Wimbledon and Manchester United away before Newcastle come calling at the Riverside. Boro are still likely to be bottom when they play their fourth fixture, at Hillsborough, where David Pleat's unremarkable team are unlikely to be so easily ravaged.

If the diary is daunting, the statistics are scary. In the four-season history of the Premier League, no team bottom in mid-January has escaped relegation. Middlesbrough, with 18 points from 23 games so far this season, still have a long way to go in the remaining 15 games to reach even the 38 points which consigned Manchester City to the Nationwide League last season.

Records, though, are made to be broken and the signs are that Middlesbrough are at least trying. In a special wraparound cover to Saturday's programme, printed to introduce new players, to rebut rumours, to launch an appeal to the Football Association, Robson declared: "It's time to fight."

This was the mood of the 30,000 crowd. Previously self-doubting and sullen, the stilt-walkers parading before kick-off urged them to hold their heads up and the plane pulling a Boro banner across the Teesside skies suggested they would soon be flying high. The Riverside reverberated like never before.

Ravanelli responded with his first League goal since 23 November, albeit a penalty. Festa, with a grimace straight out of The Addams Family, covered some of the inadequacies of England's leakiest defence, and scored in the 24th minute with a training ground move. An action replay in the 42nd minute - Juninho's corner, Mikkel Beck's near-post flick-on to Festa's far-post arrival - when he hit the woodwork will alert even Newcastle's defence.

But with Beck profligate and Kevin Pressman in fine form, Middlesbrough were never safe. Their defence stood back too often to allow Wednesday to play their neat passing game and twice Mark Pembridge gave the Owls the chance of extending their 13-game unbeaten run.

Having proclaimed his loyalty in the programme, Ravanelli protested too much to a linesman and was sent off. Middlesbrough experienced an unsettling last 20 minutes before Juninho, with superb solo skill, gave the scoreline a measure of comfort that never existed in reality.

Goals: Ravanelli (pen, 14) 1-0; Festa (23) 2-0; Pembridge (29) 2-1; Emerson (pen, 72) 3-1; Pembridge (80) 3-2; Juninho (90) 4-2.

Middlesbrough (4-4-2): Roberts; Fleming, Vickers, Festa, Whyte; Moore, Emerson, Mustoe, Juninho; Beck (Fjortoft, 85), Ravanelli. Substitutes not used: Kinder, Liddle, Blackmore, Miller (gk).

Sheffield Wednesday (4-4-2): Pressman; Atherton, Stefanovic, Walker, Nolan; Nicol (Blinker, 46), Pembridge, Hyde, Whittingham (Hirst, 77); Booth, Humphreys (Collins, 69). Substitute not used: Clarke (gk).

Referee: P Durkin (Portland). Bookings: Sheffield Wednesday Atherton, Pembridge, Stefanovic, Blinker. Sending-off: Middlesbrough Ravanelli.

Man of the match: Festa. Attendance: 29,485.