Mogga has MFC clogging up his veins like treacle. Let’s stick with him.

Cast your minds back to October. We set off on a run of five wins on the bounce. It was a glorious month. A great time to be alive. We bounced to every game. The clinical comeback against Bolton, dumping Sunderland out of the cup and the goals flying in at Charlton on the first weekend of November. Heady days.

That felt great. January and February are hell. We couldn’t have been prouder then but wounds sure are sore now. But if we want to ride the highs with Tony Mowbray as manager (Teesside born, Boro captain in his early twenties, nursed the club when it was on its deathbed, remember?) we need to be prepared to stick with him and cut him some slack when times are hard.

I’ve heard and seen some nonsense tonight. The lunatics are out in force. They should bow their heads in shame.

I’m not dodging facts. Boro were abysmal today. The first half was a disaster and set the tone for what followed. I turned up expecting a reaction after Ipswich but the horror show only continued.

Criminally, it was the basics again. Control? Touch? Boro looked like they were playing barefooted with a balloon brimming with scolding water. There was no drive from a flat footed midfield. A defensive shambles. Confused up front.

By the end of the game there wasn’t even a recognisable formation. It was if a jigsaw had been scattered around a nursery floor by a severely pissed off toddler. The poor kid might have even been watching Boro in 2013. The performance in every possible way was baffling.

I’m not absolving the manager of blame or saying he’s bulletproof. No way. Let’s go through just today’s head scratchers. Rhys Williams at right back. Again? He appears as comfortable as a man who has been sat in an A19 traffic jam for four hours.

Emmanuel Ledesma. Again? Another chance? Are you serious?

Lukas Jutkiewicz wasn’t injured forcing him to be substituted? Just EH? Surely we need two strikers on the pitch at home against Barnsley. There were a lot of things I would have done differently today and over the last month but that doesn’t mean we give up on Mogga or even flinch in the face of the crisis we find ourselves in.

It is a crisis. There is no doubt. The season is trickling through our hands but what we don’t do now is start pulling each other apart.

Success with Mogga would be incomparable joy and in exactly the same way rough patches with him hurt like hell. But seriously: “Mogga out”? It’s terrifying. These people are allowed to vote. They can drive cars on the same roads as me. They’re allowed to leave the house on their own. But they’re clearly off their rockers.

Middlesbrough Football Club is the treacle that clogs up Mogga’s veins. He wants this more than me or you. He’s getting less sleep than us tonight. His heart belongs to this cause.

Today was a car crash, granted. But we don’t give in now. If anyone wants to throw in the towel they could consider supporting Nottingham Forest. Or Blackburn Rovers. Or even bloody Chelsea. If it’s sackings you want, look elsewhere. See how you get on.

Right now I don’t fancy us on Tuesday in that pressure cooker game with Dirty Leeds United. The team of ghosts that us gone out in red shirts the last two weeks don’t look best equipped to deal with a stadium full of venom under lights as a big away following yells its side on.

Neil Warnock can smell blood. He holds the Indian sign over Boro and Leeds have never lost at The Riverside. Leeds will hurtle out of the blocks. Boro have nervously nudged a zimmer frame in the openings of the last two games.

It doesn’t look good. It’s frightening. But look at the table. We still, somehow, staggeringly, stupidly sit sixth. We still have a couple of breaths worth of space over the chasing pack. Bury Leeds and we might walk tall again.

I know I sound deranged, even desperate. How are we going to beat a tussling, fiery, up for it Leeds? I have absolutely no idea but we might. And then who knows?

Tuesday is the biggest game of the decade. Win and we give ourselves a chance of pushing on and claiming the playoff place that would represent an outstanding success. Lose and the club just might tear itself apart.

We need a win. We need to remember Mogga in front of the Holgate, talking about his Bovril with his dad and leading the lads out at Wembley for the ZDS. Yes it’s grim at the moment. But let’s not be morons. Let’s just pray for another October.