Middlesbrough host Watford at the Riverside on Saturday at 12:30pm UK time with their hunt for automatic promotion still alive, but badly dented by a run that has left them fifth in the Championship. Boro are 13 points behind Coventry after a 3-1 defeat to the new champions, and they have won only two of their last nine matches.
There was at least some lift in midweek, when Middlesbrough beat Sheffield Wednesday and Hayden Hackney was voted the league's player of the year this week. Morgan Whittaker is expected back in the squad after missing months with injury, while Alfie Jones and Leo Castledine are both out with muscle and knee injuries respectively.
The backdrop matters because Middlesbrough had looked for long stretches like one of the division's top two teams before the slump that pushed them out of the automatic places. Their downturn has been linked in the source to Hackney's absence, and the margin for error is now gone with Coventry crowned champions on Tuesday night.
Watford arrive with their own instability. They are on their third manager of the season, Ed Still, after a 3-0 defeat to West Brom in midweek, and they have not finished in the top 10 of the second tier since their relegation from the Premier League in 2022. A win at the Riverside would lift them to 11th in the table.
Still has a thin squad to work with. Rocco Vata is out with a hamstring injury and is not expected to feature again this season, Stephan Hfuni is expected to return from an ankle problem, Hector Kyprianou is sidelined with a broken hand and Pierre Dwomah is recovering from a thigh issue.
For Middlesbrough, the task is straightforward even if the table is not. They need a result to keep the pressure on the teams above them and to show that the midweek win was more than a brief reset. For Watford, the visit is another chance to salvage respectability from a season that has already gone through three managers and still has little room for optimism.