Hignett's departure raises serious questions about Karanka's willingness to tolerate dissent

Will the wheels come off now that Hignett is no longer in his assistant manager role, as was the case when he left Colin Cooper’s side at Hartlepool United?

I really can’t see it. Without wanting to diminish Hignett’s impact during his eight months of working under Aitor Karanka, his involvement in the day-to-day training and preparation of the first team was fairly limited.

Karanka likes to personally organise and oversee the vast majority of training sessions, and when he needs an element of tactical insight or a discussion about future opponents, he tends to turn to his trusted advisors Leo Percovich and Carlos Cachada.

None of that will change in the wake of Hignett’s departure, and in terms of preparing for tomorrow’s testing away game at Millwall, it has pretty much been business as usual at Rockliffe Park. If things go wrong at The New Den, it will not be because Hignett was not there to offer an opinion or deliver an instruction to the team on the field.

In terms of the possible impact of Hignett’s departure in the longer term, however, I can see much more of a potential for a problem.

When Karanka attempted to explain his former number two’s exit earlier this week, he spoke of “differences of opinion” and “different points of view”. If the Spaniard is not prepared to tolerate that in his backroom set-up then there clearly is an issue that needs addressing.

All the best managerial teams, indeed all the best business groupings in most walks of life, thrive on a degree of creative tension. It was what made Brian Clough and Peter Taylor so successful together, and while football has moved on a fair bit from the 1970s and 80s, the need for entrenched opinions to be challenged remains.

Is Karanka really so distrustful of dissension that he felt compelled to engineer the removal of the only member of his senior coaching staff who does not have a long-standing personal relationship with him?

Clearly, a manager needs to have trust in those working beneath him, and if that was no longer the case, there had to be a parting of the ways. But it is troubling to look at Middlesbrough’s current coaching staff and see a coterie of advisors who owe their standing in the game primarily to Karanka’s patronage.

If Hignett’s successor is another long-term associate – and the sudden arrival of MLS coach Pablo Mastroeni is undeniably interesting on that score – it will be hard to avoid the conclusion that Karanka is determined to surround himself with ‘yes’ men.

That applies to plenty of other managers of course, not least Karanka’s close friend and mentor, Jose Mourinho, and given the undoubted progress he has overseen, Boro’s head coach can justifiably claim he has earned the right to do as he wishes.

But whereas Mourinho is a manager with two Champions League titles to his name, Karanka is a head coach still in his first full season in management. It is exceptionally unlikely that he knows everything, especially when the unique challenges of the Championship are considered, so might he not benefit from the input of someone with markedly different opinions and methods to his own?

While Karanka’s relationship with Hignett was fracturing well before the weekend, the fall out from Saturday’s dramatic climax against Blackburn was the catalyst for this week’s parting of the ways.

The pair were involved in an argument within the bowels of the Riverside that is understood to have revolved around Karanka’s perception that Hignett did not do enough to support him after he challenged the decision to award Rudy Gestede’s stoppage-time equaliser despite a clear foul on Dimi Konstantopoulos.

Clearly, there has to be a degree of solidarity within a coaching set up, but given Karanka’s hot-headedness at the weekend, perhaps a sense of perspective and equanimity was what was required.

Karanka’s subsequent claim that he would “always fight until the last second for this club” was straight out of the Mourinho play book, as was the attempt to contrast the officials’ attitude to the Middlesbrough bench with their more jovial relationship with other clubs’ managerial teams.

Fostering such a ‘them and us’ mentality might work in the upper echelons of the Premier League, where every decision is endlessly debated and pored over, but it is unlikely to cut much ice in the Championship, indeed there is a risk of Karanka’s approach further alienating those who will play a key role in determining Boro’s fate in the future.

If Karanka genuinely feels he and his fellow coaches are being hard done by, perhaps he should modify his touchline approach or give increased authority to someone who knows how English referees and fourth officials work, and can cultivate relationships with opposition managers and staff rather than antagonise them. Someone like Craig Hignett perhaps...

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YOU know you’ve had a good game when you’re applauded off by the opposition supporters, and that was certainly the case with Sergio Aguero when he left the field during the closing stages of Manchester City’s 4-1 win over Sunderland on Wednesday.

For all the talk of Chelsea’s potential invincibles, Aguero has been this season’s stand-out player by a considerable distance and his display at the Stadium of Light was surely his best of the campaign.

It is his speed of thought and movement that are his greatest assets, closely followed by the masterful close control that makes it all but impossible to take the ball off him when he is in full flow.

He might not be quite at the level of Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, but on this season’s evidence, he is not far off.

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NEWCASTLE’S 1-1 draw with Burnley on Tuesday was fairly unremarkable in most aspects, but in time it could come to be regarded as the moment when Remy Cabella finally started to feel at home in a Magpies shirt.

Cabella’s bedding-in period following his summer switch from Montpellier has taken the best part of half a season, but Tuesday’s second-half performance suggested he has gradually come to terms with the demands of the Premier League and is prepared to challenge them head on rather than shy away from them.

With Sammy Ameobi injured, he should start against Chelsea tomorrow, and a strong showing there could really represent lift off.