Adam Reach’s excellent first-half finish earnt Wednesday a second successive victory for caretaker boss Lee Bullen at Middlesbrough on Boxing Day.
Reach latched onto Barry Bannan’s cracking through ball on 20 minutes and steered the ball past Boro keeper Darren Randolph from close range for the only goal of the game … and against his former club.
The success lifts us to 16th place, nine points clear of the relegation zone, and two wins in a row – both with clean sheets – will have surely boosted Bullen’s hopes of staying at Hillsborough in some capacity when the new manager is installed in the coming days.
Boro dominated the early stages but we gradually found our feet and Reach’s goal rocked the home side, who were looking for three points to bolster their promotion challenge.
We also restricted Boro to just three shots on target in the entire 90 minutes and while only managing two efforts on goal ourselves, the disciplined and determined performance throughout the side, coupled with improved teamwork, saw us to that second successive victory.
Westwood, Palmer, Lees, Hector, Fox, Matias, Bannan, Hutchinson (Pelupessy 73), Reach, Joao (Onomah 15, Boyd 66), Fletcher.