Southgate banking on spirit to tame Chelsea

11:07am Wednesday 15th October 2008

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GARETH Southgate hopes to take the team spirit that helped secure a last-minute victory at Wigan into this weekend’s daunting home game against Chelsea.

“That win at Wigan was crucial because at times last year, when we were on a bit of a bad run, we got distracted by things we couldn’t control.

But we concentrated on what we were doing right.

“Maybe we didn’t get the quality we would have liked, but maybe we got the win that we had deserved in previous weeks,” said the Boro boss, who believes his team can repeat their trick of previous seasons and secure a surprise result against the Premier League leaders.

“It will be a huge test and, on paper, we shouldn’t have a chance. But football doesn’t work like that, and Chelsea have been here before and we’ve managed to turn them over a couple of times.

“When Arsenal came here last season, they were unbeaten and that was November time. We’ve given the big teams some really tough games here.’’ But Southgate is not underestimating the Stamford Bridge club, who are living up to their preseason billing as bookmakers’ favourites for the Premier League title.

“You know what you’re going to get with Chelsea,’’ he admitted. “They look a very high-quality attacking outfit this year and yet they’ve conceded fewer than anybody as well, especially on their travels.

“Chelsea have brought in better quality players in certain positions. Bosingwa is a much more attacking fullback, and Scolari’s vision of his full-backs is very much based on the Brazilian style where the full-backs provide the width of the team. Jose (Mourinho) used to keep his full-backs in and defend as a four.

“It’s a slightly different philosophy, but they have the defenders and the goalkeeper there to enable them to play like that.

“There were lots of important milestones at Wigan – first clean sheet, first away win of the year, the fact that we’d had to make several changes to the team and were missing some important players.

“We felt we’d deserved more from the previous couple of games.

“We’re certainly looking up the table, but I think this is going to be a very tight division this year.

“It will be how you deal with the difficult times as a club that will determine where you finish.

“We’re in 12th, but there’s a lot more to come from the group. We can only get better.”

Former Boro striker Malcolm Christie will play in a reserve- team game for Leeds United this week after regaining his fitness.

Christie, who scored seven times during his spell on Teesside, has been building up his fitness with Leeds for the last two months and will be given a run-out for the second string against Scunthorpe.

Christie, without a club since his release from Boro in June 2007, was injured while on trial with Leeds last season when Dennis Wise was in charge.

■ Justin Hoyte will be special guest of the Supporters’ Club next Monday, October 20, 7.30pm at the Riverside.