Bubbling Boro coast to Cardiff victory

Last updated : 02 May 2011 By Northern Echo

Their 3-0 victory over Cardiff City, which came courtesy of first-half goals from Leroy Lita, Barry Robson and Richie Smallwood, featured the Teessiders' best performance of the season, and means they have now lost just one of their last 11 matches.

Those 11 games have contained 23 goals, with Boro showcasing a free-flowing attacking style that is as attractive as anything currently on offer in the Championship. It is just a shame their radical improvement has come too late to enable them to compete for a place in the Premier League.

Cardiff still hope to be playing in the top-flight next season, although last night's result will surely require them to negotiate the play-offs unless QPR suffer a heavy enough points deduction to take them out of the top two. On the evidence of their final home game of the campaign, however, the Bluebirds are some way short of Premier League quality.

The same would undoubtedly have been said about Boro for much of the season, but Mowbray has gradually encouraged his players to express themselves in a manner that would have been anathema to his predecessor, Gordon Strachan.

The likes of Robson and Kevin Thomson look completely different players to the one-dimensional midfielders that played under Strachan, while former exiles such as Andrew Taylor and Marvin Emnes have been reintroduced to great effect. It is only to be hoped the vast majority of yesterday's starting line-up are still around to continue their good work next season.

Mowbray will be particularly keen to hold on to his emerging talent, and 20-year-old Smallwood, who claimed his first senior goal at the Cardiff City Stadium, and goalkeeper Jason Steele, who returned from a ten-game absence in goal, will surely feature prominently in next season's side.

Steele is desperate to prove his fitness before Stuart Pearce selects his England squad for this summer's European Under-21 Championships, but he can hardly have had a quieter 90 minutes.

His only intervention of note was to save a 17th-minute free-kick from Craig Bellamy that appeared to clip Robson's arm. By that stage, however, Boro had already claimed a two-goal lead. Indeed, for the second away game in a row, the Teessiders scored twice inside the opening 13 minutes.

Less than three minutes had gone when they claimed their first, Tony McMahon delivering a teasing cross from the right-hand side, and Lita out-jumping Kevin McNaughton to angle a superb looping header into the bottom right-hand corner.

For all that he has flattered to deceive on a number of occasions, Lita now boasts a respectable 11 goals for the campaign.

His opener increased the nervousness that was already apparent within the Cardiff City Stadium, and kick-started a sustained spell of Boro pressure that rapidly brought even greater rewards.

There appeared to be little on when Lita chased a long ball into the channel 13 minutes in, but after holding off the attentions of full-back Jloyd Samuel, the former Bristol City striker rolled a teasing low cross across the face of the six-yard box.

Robson burst beyond his marker to reach it, and calmly turned the ball beyond an exposed Tom Heaton.

The overriding emotion at that stage was shock, but it rapidly turned to disbelief eight minutes later as the visitors claimed their third goal of the opening quarter of the game.

A passing move involving Lita, Robson and Emnes ended in the latter scurrying into the penalty area and wriggling his way to the byline. He picked out Smallwood's run into the area, and without breaking stride, the Dormanstown-born youngster slotted home his first senior goal from 12 yards.

Even at that stage, a handful of Cardiff supporters had seen enough. Promotion push or no promotion push, a three-goal deficit in barely 20 minutes is a bitter pill to take.

The damage might have been even worse by the interval, with Robson and Thomson's dominance of the central area enabling Boro's flair players to attack at will. Emnes, in particular, needed no second invitation to run at a surprisingly fragile Bluebirds backline.

Cardiff's only first-half chance of note came to nothing when Stephen McManus threw himself in the way of a goalbound Jay Bothroyd effort, but the hosts should have scored within a minute of the restart when McNaughton prodded Chris Burke's cross wide.

Bothroyd also fired wide as Cardiff attempted to keep their automatic promotion hopes alive after in the second half, but Boro displayed some battling qualities to go along with their first-half finesse as Smallwood and Thomson both picked up yellow cards within a minute of each other for mistimed, yet committed challenges.

Perhaps understandably, the visitors were unable to repeat their first-half dominance after the break, although with McManus winning a succession of tackles at the back, Steele was barely tested until he produced a fine save to deny substitute Michael Chopra with one minute left.

Source: Northern Echo

Source: Northern Echo