A Middlesrbough legend, Tony Mowbray says assessing his boyhood club’s season so far comes down to expectation.

Mowbray served the Teesside club as a player for more than 400 appearances and a manager for three years, but won’t be greeted with his usual homecoming at the Riverside today with the game being staged behind closed doors.

There has been a Teesside flavour to the Rovers squad throughout his tenure and he maintains a close eye on proceedings at Boro who are currently seventh in the table.

Neil Warnock’s side have won five of their last seven matches and victory against Rovers would move them level on points with Bournemouth in sixth.

They finished seventh in 2018/19, but managed just 53 points and 17th-placed last season, and despite their recent good form, Mowbray says expectation levels will decipher who their start to the season has been.

“It depends how you see Middlesbrough. I know Middlesbrough as a team who I’ve supported since I was a boy and I expect them to be in the Premier League or competing right at the top end of this league,” he said.

“They’re just outside of the play-offs now, is that acceptable for them? It depends on expectation I suppose.

“If you’re judging off last year’s performance then they’re doing pretty well or are you’re judging it off a few years ago when they were finishing first or second in the league and getting to the Premier League?

“I think they’ve got a very athletic squad. If you watched them against Birmingham at home you wouldn’t think they were very good but if you watched them against Nottingham Forest the other night you’ll think they’re a very dangerous team.

“Like a lot of teams they’re inconsistent, they’ve had their bad days and they’ve had their good days.”

Rovers haven’t won on their last seven visits to the Riverside and to do so this afternoon they will need to overcome a formidable defence that has conceded just five home goals this season.

With 20, Rovers are the league’s most prolific side away from home, and Mowbray is looking forward to the challenge of finding a way through Boro’s defence.

“No team has scored more than one goal against them at home, so we know it’s a tough ask for us but we should go there on the front and ask some questions of them and see how we get on,” he said.

“Neil’s team are generally very well organised defensively and work extraordinarily hard.

“I’m not sure how many goals they’ve scored and football is a balance of course, are you going to score goals, are you going to keep clean sheets, which way do you want to do it?

“We’ll go there and be positive and see if we can be the first team to score more than one and see how we get on.

“We are where we are now and the last couple of weeks now hasn’t been game after game, mainly because of the weather, but I feel as though the second half of the season is about to start so let’s get on with it and see how we go.”