First of all, I'd like to say hello to everyone out there reading this column, whether you're a Boro fan, a devoted Soccernet reader or some wandering soul who has chanced across this page whilst browsing the web. Needless to say I'll be enthusiastically recommending it to everyone within hearing (and reading) distance over the next few weeks.

I wasn't sure where to begin with this blog (I'll stop being ostentatious by calling it a "column"), beginning as it did midway through a week that opened with yet another Premiership defeat, was punctuated by Wednesday's England match featuring Stewart Downing and will close with a very interesting FA Cup tie away at West Ham on Saturday. In the end I decided to give a look at all three talking points for my introductory entry and begin the more in-depth discussion of matches and talking points after the West Ham match.

Let's start with the Man City game last Saturday, which encapsulated in ninety minutes almost all of Boro's problems this season. Craig Bellamy scored the only goal after getting past Emmanuel Pogatetz slightly too easily, and while Gareth Southgate spoke afterwards of it being the sole defensive mistake we committed in the game, City had several good chances to win more comfortably.

At the other end... well, many Boro fans will have been happy to see Shay Given depart from local rivals and fellow relegation strugglers Newcastle at long last, as it leaves the Toon in yet more trouble, but few were cheering when he denied Afonso Alves no fewer than four times to guarantee a City win.

Despite Given's headline-grabbing excellence, it was an all-too familiar sight watching Alves get into great positions but fail to provide the finish. He's messed up against a series of keepers inferior to the Irishman this season, and the £12million Brazilian is looking less and less like the solution to our goal drought he was touted as upon arrival a year ago.

He has undeniable quality, as his goals against Manchester United demonstrated last year, and the goals he does score are often spectacular, but Boro have scored fewer goals than any other team in the entire football league, despite creating a decent amount of chances, and Alves must take some of the blame, which will hardly help his confidence.

It all adds up to a painfully simple truism: when a team is passing up chances in front of goal and always looks liable to concede they are going to struggle, and we have been guilty of both far too often this season.

Last season Downing stepped up with eight league goals to ease the burden on our rebuilt strike force, but he's yet to score this season and has missed two penalties, one a critical miss against Sunderland in the derby. The much-hyped winger has received a lot of criticism from some fans of late, and his attempted departure to Spurs in January has hardly won back the critics, but like a lot of our team he looks devoid of confidence. Those penalty misses won't have helped, and neither will the pressure of being expected to prop up a misfiring strike force for a second successive season.

Despite his club form, Downing started for England on Wednesday against Spain in Seville, although you have to wonder how much good it did. He was substituted at half time after an indifferent performance and the ever-voracious England fans were unimpressed. Stewey has never won the England fans over, in part because he plays for a less visible and fashionable club and partly because he's keeping the excellent Ashley Young out of the team. Although you could argue that England looked even less threatening after he departed, the inevitable cavalcade of substitutions almost always renders the second-half of an England friendly pointless. Downing simply didn't play well and his confidence can't have been improved by the whole affair, not to mention his immediate fitness in preparation for Saturday.

The one uplifting aspect of being a Boro fan these last few seasons has been our cup form, which is usually decent (let's forget about the Cardiff game).Our epic voyages into Europe and the historic Carling Cup triumph were arguably the club's highest points and we've been FA Cup quarter-finalists or better for three years running, so a good run this season could inspire the confidence we're in desperate need of. That said, West Ham are a tricky proposition right now, especially at Upton Park, with our poor run standing in stark contrast against their impressive form. I have the feeling (and I know it's an FA Cup cliché) that this is a game where anything could happen and while my prediction is a draw and a replay back at the Riverside I wouldn't be surprised if we lost 4-0 or won by the same scoreline.

Some cynics might question whether we want a cup run at such a crucial point of an already precarious season and it begs the question: would we Boro fans take winning the FA Cup if it meant relegation in the same season? I'll leave you to mull that one over until after the match, when this column - sorry, blog - will kick off for real.