Middlesbrough manager Steve McClaren is seen by many of his own team's fans as an unadventurous manager whose priority is always on defence rather than attack. It's not a label that appeals to the man himself, as Scott Wilson discovered.

FOR someone who has been pigeon-holed as far too defensive a manager, Steve McClaren is surprisingly comfortable on the attack.

Taut and taciturn in his technical area, remove the Middlesbrough boss from his natural environment and he becomes a far different proposition to the cagey creature that evokes such an ambivalent response from the club's fans.

Given McClaren's recent record, he should be the toast of Teesside. No other manager has guided Middlesbrough to success in a major final, led the club into European competition or secured a top-seven finish in the Premiership. The former Manchester United assistant has done all three in the space of 15 months.

Yet, while Middlesbrough's fans eulogise about chairman Steve Gibson, they remain steadfastly unmoved by McClaren's achievements. Praise is grudging rather than glowing, limited rather than lavish.

It is not that the 44-year-old has failed to achieve anything during his four years at the Riverside. It is just that, rightly or wrongly, he has been branded as a negative coach.

The tag, which was originally placed around his neck during a fraught first season in the North-East, has stuck and, while subsequent seasons have seen Middlesbrough become more and more expansive, the unadventurous image has remained.

Notorious for giving little away, challenge McClaren to prove his attacking credentials and it does not take long for his hackles to rise.

"It frustrates me and it annoys me because we're the fourth top scorers in the Premier League," he said, in the reflective atmosphere of an end-of-season chat.

"It annoys me because we've progressed. I've no qualms about what I did when I came in. We had to build from the back up and we had to build a defensive platform.

"I don't hide the fact that the first year was all about defending in two banks of four with an extra man in midfield. We achieved safety through doing that.

"The next year was about trying to build on that and we did. Our signings have been the likes of (Gaizka) Mendieta, Juninho and (Benito) Carbone - exciting, flamboyant players - that's what I like to do.

"This year, we signed (Mark) Viduka and (Jimmy-Floyd) Hasselbaink and, had Viduka been fit, we would have scored a lot more goals in the second half of the season.

"We played good attacking football, but needs must. At the end of the season, we had two fit strikers. We didn't have anybody on the bench, so our goals were always going to come down.

"We qualified for Europe in the last eight games because of our defensive record and because of our clean sheets. You can win games 4-3, but you won't win too many championships playing like that."

You can, though, win friends. Middlesbrough fans' consistent criticism of McClaren is that he places too great an emphasis on keeping things tight at the back.

It would be much better, so the popular theory goes, if he moulded his team on the swashbuckling side assembled by former boss Bryan Robson.

Juninho, Emerson, Fabrizio Ravanelli - the three musketeers that put opposition defences to the sword and provided thrills and spills every time they went onto the field.

A nice image but one that, in common with many footballing memories, owes rather more to fantasy than fact.

As well as crashing out of the top-flight, Robson's Middlesbrough side scored 51 goals in the 1996-97 season. Last term, McClaren's current vintage ended with a tally of 53.

"They were described as Middlesbrough's most flamboyant team, yet we've outscored them," argued McClaren. "How we've done it is how we've done it. We looked at our season and broke it down into three parts.

"We had the first 20 games in which we collected 35 points and were fifth in the league. We were third top-scorers, ahead of Man United.

"At the beginning of the season, we said 'We need to score two goals to win football matches'. So, every time we went out, we aimed to score two goals because we were more attacking and were always likely to concede. It worked for us.

"Then we got an injury to Viduka, amongst others, and after that we went on a ten-game spell where we won one game. We collected seven points in ten games.

"We were still fifth but the reality was, in those ten games, we were fourth bottom.

"So, we addressed it and changed our approach. We weren't scoring two goals a game any more so we changed our policy for the last eight games.

"Our philosophy changed. We collected 13 points from eight games through keeping clean sheets and winning 1-0. We got draws when we needed them and we got European qualification. We did the job."

So the statistics do not bear out McClaren's over-cautious image. Perhaps his perceived lack of passion is another important factor in the fans' lack of warmth.

Supporters have always warmed to a boss with character and charisma. Despite his evident shortcomings, England's fans always felt more affinity to Kevin Keegan's emotive outbursts than they do to Sven Goran Eriksson's calculated comments.

McClaren has more in common with the Swede than simply sharing a bench on national team duty.

Tactically astute and technically sound, the duo both place a high premium on meticulous preparation and eschew any temptation to lose their temper or air their dirty linen in public.

Yet, just as England internationals will talk of Eriksson's ready wit and caustic tongue, so Middlesbrough's players will describe a very different manager behind closed doors.

"If anybody saw me after Norwich, they'll know what I can be like," revealed McClaren. "I'm so emotional and so passionate, but I bottle it up.

"After Norwich it came out. I also remember that I had to pay for a door at Notts County - I opened and closed it a little bit quicker than I should have done!

"But I don't like to give much of myself away. Some people might say that's a fault and I should do it more but, rightly or wrongly, I try to keep myself in check."

Leaning back on his chair, McClaren ponders how he would like to be remembered once his Middlesbrough career is at an end. Would it bother him if, despite re-writing the club's history, he was cast in an unflattering light?

"I'm neither a defensive coach nor an attacking coach," he mused. "I want to be described as a winning coach." Few Middlesbrough fans could deny him that.

Read more about Middlesbrough here.