Things really are starting to look grim now. In a week when the unrest of the Boro fans reached a high water mark by lapping against the feet of Steve Gibson himself, the team simply had to get three very winnable points against Wigan on Saturday. They didn’t.

Until recently, it’s been possible to retain the view that we’re simply going through a bad period- a slide that can be arrested. The messages coming out of the team have been positive, the promising start to the season is still in people’s minds and memories of similarly poor spells in the last few seasons remain. In the last week, however, every time I have spoken to a fellow Boro fan, the same barely credulous words are uttered: "We’re going down, aren’t we?" After watching a completely toothless display in what must be dubbed a Must Win Game, it’s hard to disagree.

As anyone who’s ever had to suffer relegation with their club will know, they aren’t clean affairs. Things start to go wrong off the pitch as well as on it as the bad vibes filter down through the club hierarchy. This week saw Gareth Southgate forced to defend Steve Gibson in a BBC interview after fans began to turn against the chairman- something which would have been unthinkable a few years ago- but that wasn’t the end of it. Marlon King, the loan signing who’s yet to register a shot on target for Boro, is facing charges for sexual assault and where that will lead is anyone’s guess. Then there’s Mohamed Shawky, who has told Sky Sports he wants out of the club and followed it up by claiming that fellow Egyptian Mido had suffered "injustice" which had prompted his switch to Wigan. Not the kind of stories coming out of Old Trafford, are they?

After such a turbulent week, a home match against Wigan seemed the ideal opportunity to boost the morale around the Riverside. We’ve already beaten Wigan this season and that was before they lost Wilson Palacios and Emile Heskey in the January transfer window. Couple that fact with our encouraging display against West Ham in the cup and the signs were there for that much-needed win. Surely we had to throw everything we had at Wigan and run until we collapsed to make it happen, to fight for those three points and for survival.

Nope. The performance was weak, the will to win was missing and the fire looks extinguished. Practically the only positive that can be taken out of it is the clean sheet, and frankly that’s such a pitiful plus it’s barely worth mentioning. I think everyone in attendance at the Riverside (and that includes the Wigan fans) would have rather watched us go down fighting in a 2-3 loss than meekly accept the 0-0 draw. The only real talking point of the game was Lee Cattermole’s performance as the villain of the pantomime. The former Boro midfielder sent Didier Digard, one of our few impressive performers of late, off the pitch on a stretcher with a robust tackle, but escaped with a yellow card. The crowd was furious but the referee was probably correct and Cattermole was apologetic afterwards. I’m sure that, behind the anger, a lot of fans secretly wished we still had someone as combative and fiery as Cattermole in the squad. He left for a couple of million in the summer and has attracted rave reviews under Steve Bruce. Since then we’ve sorely missed the kind of tough-tackling determination he offers.

After the match, Gareth Southgate acknowledged that we are now in the position where we will have to win the games nobody expects us to in order to survive. He claimed that we were capable of doing just that, but I wonder how many people share his belief. One Boro fan I spoke to threw doubt on whether we’d even win again in the Premiership this season, a suggestion that suddenly sounds scarily plausible. We are going to seriously struggle to beat anyone with this kind of gutless performance, let alone teams we wouldn’t normally be expected to.

I suppose the big question this week is: should we really be blaming Steve Gibson for all of this? As Southgate rightly pointed out, with Gibson there wouldn’t be a Middlesbrough FC right now, let alone a Middlesbrough FC in the Premiership. He saved us from administration in 1986, took us back to the top flight, built us a new stadium and funded heavy investment in the squad that saw world class names and the club’s first major silverware arrive. Anyone criticising Gibson for a recent lack of funding has clearly been spoiled by his services to the club. We were running on empty for the UEFA Cup years as Steve McClaren spent heavily on ageing players who were given big salaries. The result is a supposed £85million debt hanging over the club. Nobody wants the club to "do a Leeds" and collapse under the expenditure of forced over-achievement, and the current financial climate makes it more likely than ever before, so drastic cut backs are necessary for the long term safety of the club.

The trouble we’re in stems from exactly how Gibson decided to cut down on the spending. Mendieta, Rochemback and Boateng- highly paid relics of the McClaren era- were all removed and younger replacements were brought in on the cheap. The club decided to promote talent from the academy rather than pay to bring it in. The team became younger, less experienced, less deep. In McClaren’s final season we had a monstrous squad that included five senior strikers alone. Now it’s smaller than at any time in recent memory. It was a gamble- if it paid off we could stay in the league on the cheap and balance the books somewhat. The young players would benefit from the experience and we could home grow an entire Premiership side that could be dismantled for profit or kept together for further success.

Gibson’s gamble hasn’t paid off so far. The team badly needs a couple of experienced, proven Premiership players in their late twenties or early thirties. It was obvious in January that we needed more strength and experience in the side and yet the club made no effort to sign players like Jimmy Bullard or Kevin Nolan who were going on the cheap. An investment of a few million in January would have been far cheaper than suffering relegation. Gibson’s frugality could prove excessive, and his risk-taking disastrous. Gareth Southgate is hardly a brilliant manager, but he is still a complete rookie by managerial standards and has much to learn yet. He has been denied the funds his predecessors enjoyed, and the dismantling of McClaren’s side has been handled terribly. Good players such as Zenden, Hasselbaink and Viduka were allowed to leave for free because we didn’t tie them down to contracts.

Steve Gibson should not be blamed for everything- the players and the manager have let him down this season, and Keith Lamb must take some responsibility for the purchasing and sales of players- but relegation would be a disaster in both football and financial senses. We owe Gibson everything as supporters but that does not give him the right to gamble with what he has achieved. By appointing a novice manager and then charging him with cutting down on costs whilst simultaneously keeping the team in the division he has done just that, and his past deeds cannot absolve him of responsibility. The Championship is a hard league to get out of once you fall into it. Just ask Charlton, Southampton or Norwich. Or even Leeds United.