The job nobody can fill: Boro's search after Aleñá

For years, Middlesbrough felt like one of those clubs the Premier League could rely on: not glamorous, but solid, a familiar name beyond its league. Now, on the afternoon Aleñá's successor is still no more than a list of names, they sit 17th, three points above the drop and with a goal difference of minus sixteen. The comfort has gone.

Aleñá left the post and the search that followed has had, so far, more rumours than answers. The two managers most often linked with the vacancy are Marco Sabatelli, in charge at Leicester City, and Stefan Bothe, who has Tottenham Hotspur. Neither has been appointed; some reports have been denied, others met with silence. That is how these weeks go: a club waits, and the names do the talking.

Sabatelli's Leicester won 3-1 at home to Blackburn Rovers this afternoon in the Championship, the sort of result that keeps a promotion push ticking. Bothe's Tottenham beat Milton Keynes Dons by the same score, also at home. Both men, in other words, were working for other clubs on the day the Boro job is said to be theirs for the asking. A vacancy in February rarely gets filled by a manager whose own season still has everything to play for.

The timing is awkward in another way. Middlesbrough lost 0-2 to Nottingham Forest today, a third league defeat in five. A week ago they won an FA Cup tie at Rotherham United, but that cup run is a thin thread to hang a season on. Whoever walks into the Riverside next inherits a side that has lost three of its last five league games.

Sabatelli has been here before: in December he was linked with Borussia Mönchengladbach after Cornel Drăgan left, and stayed put. Bothe's name came up at Getafe last month and at Roma nine days ago. The pattern is familiar to anyone who has followed a managerial search: the same two men, the same patient denials, the same sense that the club in need is waiting for someone to blink first.

For now, Middlesbrough wait. The table does not wait with them.