Mendieta

I couldn’t believe it when we signed him for nothing. He always seemed like a bit of an oddity in football. Nothing like your typical player off the pitch but genuine class on it.
 
I felt he exceeded his reputation really

He'd been a bit of a flop at Lazio and Barca, with his Valencia form a distant memory.

I think he was 29 when he first came to us, his reputation was of dramatic decline.

While he may not have recaptured his Valencia form (and at that time, he was as good as anyone in Europe), he had a fine Indian summer.
 
I get so nostalgic watching some of these, especially the clip of the man throwing the season card at McClaren. We had an incredible football team did we?
 
I'm getting moisty-eyed watching that. It was such a wonderful era to be a Boro fan - possibly the ONLY time (except for Jack's golden period) when it was an absolute joy to watch the Boro.

Seeing his class in the flesh was a revelation (after the fallow years). That extended period - with the likes of Emerson, Fjortoft, Viduka, Boksic, Hasselbank, Barnby, Hignett, Zenden, Boeteng, Zeige, and the TLF (and, of course, Phil Stamp) was like a dreamland at times. Anyone prone to re-writing Steve Gibson's history in the light of relatively recent disappointments should remember that.,

I genuinely never thought that I'd see football of that guile, quality and finesse in my lifetime - the Mannion qualities that my Dad always talked about.

We were always just a player or two short of being REAL contenders (especially a replacement for Nigel Pearson when he was crocked), and played some simply marvellous stuff. I was never prouder as a Teessider.

And now I'm getting moisty-eyed again just writing this.

Football is rarely ever the so-called 'Beautiful Game', but for a time, for us, it was.
 
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Humpty said:
In what sense? He wasn’t even our best midfielder during his spell here. He wasn’t a great right midfielder at premier league level. Played his better stuff through the middle but didn’t play there that often.

Lots of revisionism going on because of his name.
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Give over man, he was a superstar.
 
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