Gareth Southgate sat across the table from Keith Lamb, and his anger was increasing with every word he heard. The night before, Middlesbrough had beaten Derby at the Riverside Stadium. An hour after the final whistle, Southgate had been sacked as the club’s manager.
When he met chairman Steve Gibson in the boardroom, following a celebratory drink with his staff, he pondered whether it was a good time to ask for a striker on loan. Then Gibson broke the news. Despite that 2-0 victory against the Rams in October 2009, Southgate was out. “I didn’t have the slightest inkling I was in trouble,” he later said. “I was too stunned to mount a defence.”
