Football experts around the world are still trying to work out the mystery of the Middlesborough FC's strangely random set of results so far this season. Losing to Reading? Beating Chelsea? What's going on?

The key is the new approach by Boro boss Gareth Southgate. Probably the most new wave manager currently working in Britain, Southgate is a man whose anti-establishment image has been carefully crafted for years. But he is still famous for one moment of madness during Euro96.

'"I remember it so clearly. I got onstage with the Sex Pistols at their reunion gig at Finsbury Park and declined to tell them they had sold out punk's ideals. It still haunts me to this day."

Southgate is still a believer in the philosophy of punk, however, and tries to instill into his side the importance of randomness.

"I explain to them how the Clash lost their spontaneity when they went into the studio with producer Sandy Pearlman and recorded the over-worked and fussy Give 'Em Enough Rope. A good football team is like the Clash first album - simple, hard-hitting and with enough chaotic random elements to keep the punters interested.

"We try to do the opposite of what people expect, to keep them on their toes. No-one knows which Middlesborough will take the pitch, least of all me. I'm pretty vacant. And I don't care."