Middlesbrough vs Sunderland
EFL Championship
Riverside Stadium
Boro who managed just six points in seven games welcomes the in-form Black Cats on Monday. The hosts, however, were a step ahead of the visitors for most parts of the game.
The hosts scored the first goal of the fixture in the 25th minute through McGree. Both teams were not able to build momentum for the rest of the half.
The second half did see the visitors impose a significant threat. With that being said, the hosts were able to successfully defend the one goal lead. Thus, the contest ended 1-0 in favour of Boro.
Middlesbrough vs Sunderland: Match report
Full time result: Middlesbrough 1-0 Sunderland
Middlesbrough: Roberts, Fry, Clarke, McNair (Dijksteel 51), Jones, Mowatt, Howson, Crooks, Giles, McGree (Watmore 68), Muniz.
Subs not used: Daniels, Hoppe, Smith, Forss, Bola.
Sunderland AFC: Patterson, O’Nien, Batth, Cirkin (Dajaku 75), Gooch (Wright 75), Evans, Neil, Clarke, Pritchard (Embleton 67), Simms, Roberts (Amad 67).
Subs not used: Bass, Matete, Alese.
Managers’ reactions
Middlesbrough’s Chris Wilder: “I’m knackered after that, I think we all are! But we got there in the end. If you look at our eight performances so far, in terms of box-to-box, that was possibly not one of our best. Our objective today had to be a clean sheet and that gave us an opportunity to go and get that win.”
Sunderland’s Tony Mowbray: “I thought we had some brilliant opportunities – Pritchard had an amazing chance pretty early on – but I think you have to accept it’s a derby game that was end-to-end. We lost our talisman {Stewart) before kick-off and I think it knocked the stuffing out of us a little bit.”
