At the break it looked like a comfortable Leeds win, but Middlesbrough fought back in the second half and Leeds had to show a lot of determination to take all three points.

If the size of the crowd was anything to go by, there are certainly signs that the good times could be returning to Elland Road, with over 30,000 in attendance, though this was helped by a Boro taking their full allocation, and the visitors made a contribution to a very lively atmosphere. As promised, there was a pre-match tribute to Gary Speed on the second anniversary of his death, and on eleven minutes his picture appeared on the big screen, as the cue for another burst of chanting in his honour.

Brian McDermott continued with his system of three centre backs, so Marius Zaliukas came in for the injured Wooton, with the only other change being Mowatts return in place of Michael Brown. Leeds had a couple of chances early on, with the best of them falling to Jason Pearce, who sent a header wide of the post when he seemed certain to score.

But the central defender made amends by putting his body on the line to block a fierce shot at the other end, as the visitors started to come into the game. And Zaliukas was particularly impressive at the back, with the result that Boro were unable to convert their possession into any decent chances. It was Leeds who could have gone in front when good work from McCormack on the right set up Blackstock, but he could only sidefoot the ball wide with his left foot, when I thought he would have been better off hitting it with his right.

But the breakthrough finally came in the 35th minute. Firstly a fierce shot from Pugh was blocked by Steele at the expense of a corner. This was played back to Mowatt, and his deep cross was headed back across goal by Lees and it came through to McCormack, who had the simple task of nodding it home from six yards. McCormack pointed to his badge as he ran off to celebrate in the general direction of the fans, and to remind them what they missed out on, the kop taunted them with “he said no Boro, he said no!”

And it got worse for Boro two minutes from half time. A poor back header set Blackstock racing through on goal, and Steele came racing out of his area and clattered into him. The Boro players protested that it wasn’t a clear goalscoring opportunity as Blakctock was heading wide and would have had a difficult angle to shoot from had he been allowed to catch up with the ball, but the ref thought otherwise and produced the red card.

Emnes was the man who Boro sacrificed to bring on the substitute keeper, to my relief as I remember the long-haired striker getting a few goals against Leeds in the recent past. With Leeds a goal up against ten men we could have expected a comfortable victory, but Boro came out for the second half in a determined mood, and managed to draw level only seven minutes after the restart.

Adomah raced down the wing and Carayol was able to get in front of Austin in the centre and sweep his cross past Kenny into the far corner. At that stage I sensed a bit of a Boro fightback, but thankfully it was short-lived, and we were able to retake the lead in the 57th minute. Peltier and Mowatt exchanged passes after a corner, and when Peltier finally got the cross in, Jason Pearce climbed higher than the defender to score with a header.

The visitors continued to battle, but we never really looked like conceding another and had a couple of chances to seal the win, with Mowatt and Austin both going close. McDermott made a couple of substitutions towards the end. Blackstock had been struggling to make much of a contribution and was replaced by Smith, and at the same time Byram came on for Pugh, which was a rather more odd as this meant Byram having to play left back.

With three minutes left the final change saw Michael Brown coming on for Muprhy to shore things up at the back, and this set things up for a final few minutes of timewasting. It was frustrating to see Smith following the man with the ball as we took it into the corner, as he could have tied up a couple of Boro players by getting into the box.

It all seemed unnecessary against 10 men, but we held out even though the referee managed to conjure up five minutes of injury time from nowhere in particular. Maybe we’d made hard work of it, but I was impressed by Boro’s spirit and work-rate, and on this evidence they should start to climb the table under their new manager, hopefully by taking points off the teams we need to catch at the top.

It’s been a while since we’ve won three games on the trot and this little run has taken us into that all-important top six. Dare we start to hope that we might still be there at the end of the season?

Photo: Action Images

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