Karembeu class fails to unlock bold Spurs

Alen Boksic, the man with the biggest pay cheque in British football - try to imagine opening the blue slip and seeing a figure of around £250,000 every month - sent a sick note, apparently still suffering the after-effects of his exertions against Coventry on Saturday.

Alen Boksic, the man with the biggest pay cheque in British football - try to imagine opening the blue slip and seeing a figure of around £250,000 every month - sent a sick note, apparently still suffering the after-effects of his exertions against Coventry on Saturday.

"He was very stiff and sore," said Bryan Robson. Ah, poor lad. Eagerly anticipating the Croatian's home debut, there was something of a pregnant silence in the Riverside when the name of Hamilton Ricard was announced in his place.

Not that the crowd - surprisingly, some 4,000 below capacity - didn't get their money's worth. Exciting and open are not always the first words that spring to mind when describing a George Graham team, but Spurs played their full part in an entertaining game graced by two fine headed goals.

Well, "open" may be over-doing it a bit, even if it did look like someone had taken a tin-opener to their defence for Middlesbrough's equaliser. Sans Ginola they may have been, but Spurs were always positive and a point was the least they deserved.

Like Boksic, Ricard appears to have just two gears. Both spend a lot of time walking, but while Boksic can switch on the afterburners, nothing much changes when Ricard lengthens his stride.

He has a lovely touch though, when the mood takes him; witness the first minute combination with Brian Deane to set up Joseph-Désiré Job. The young Cameroonian's side-footed effort barely extended Neil Sullivan, but the Spurs goalkeeper had to use an outstretched foot to block the same player's left-footed drive on the quarter hour.

Job's speed and neat turn was giving the Spurs back line problems, but the visitors were playing neat and increasingly incisive football going forward in their turn, full-backs Stephen Carr and Ben Thatcher eagerly providing width.

Carr, cutting in from the right, almost repeated his opening day effort against Ipswich, but it was Sergei Rebrov who provided the cross from which the diminutive Oyvind Leonhardsen outjumped Curtis Fleming to glance a fine header beyond Mark Schwarzer.

The Boro reply on the hour was equally impressive. Christian Karembeu, his influence and ambition growing with every minute that passed, broke from midfield and found Fleming overlapping on the right. Anxious to redeem himself, the full-back's cross was a thing of beauty, curling perfectly on to the head of the onrushing Summerbell, whose header from eight yards was emphatic.

Fleming nearly repeated the trick 10 minutes later, burrowing into the area from the right. The lobbed cross brushed the statuesque Ricard's head.

Spurs though were far from a spent force, and the introduction of Les Ferdinand for the relatively ineffectual Rebrov gave them a focal point.

Three minutes after coming on "Sir Les" had bundled the ball into the net, only to look up and see the linesman's flag, and both sides continued to press for a winner until the final whistle.

Middlesbrough (4-3-3): Schwarzer; O'Neill, Pallister, Vickers, Fleming; Karembeu, Okon, Summerbell; Job (Whelan, 84), Ricard (Campbell, 80), Deane.

Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-2); Sullivan: Carr, Campbell, Perry, Thatcher; Anderton, Freund, Sherwood, Leonhardsen; Iversen, Rebrov (Ferdinand, 75).

Referee: P Jones (Loughborough).