Middlesbrough 2 Sheffield United 0 LIVE: Goals from Watmore and McNair give Blades mountain to climb

We know the Championship’s a tough relentless league and we’ve done well in the last few weeks to get on a positive run, we need to continue it because the start we had, we need to be picking six or seven points up a week. The target is still to get promoted back to the Premier League.

He’s done so well in goalscoring throughout his career, it’s incredible what he’s achieved and going on well into his thirties. We need to chip in from other areas as well, which we have done lately. When you get that amount of experience, he’s got all the tricks in the book. He had that when I was at Preston, he’s a clever player and finds the space. It’s no surprise that he gets the goals when you see his timing.

Playing at Bramall Lane in front of a full house really helps, when they get behind the team. We had a difficult start so we’re catching up but that’s why it’s important to keep this run going as long as we can. It’s pleasing to see games through, we need to manage games better when we take the lead late on but the Championship is never easy and each team is a threat until the end. We know it’s not going to be comfortable or easy.

I’ve played against his sides a few times and they’re always tough games, each of us will have our work cut out but we’re in good form and so we’re looking to build on that in an important week for us.

I don’t feel like I have anything to prove, I had six months without playing much football and going back to that has taken a bit of time to adapt, to get fit and resilient. So going forward, we’ll start to see what I was producing at the end of my Preston career, I think. I signed a 3.5 year deal at Liverpool, I’m looking to have a good season here and go back in the summer.

I really am, now I’m settled in as well. I was enjoying it anyway but after the first few weeks I feel like I’ve been here forever. We’ve got a very good manager with very good ideas and they’re a lot different to what the previous managers have been embedding, so it takes a bit of time t get that across. We’ve got a good bit of form now but there’s an important week now, we’re playing catchup after the bad start so we have to keep the momentum going.

and he’s asked the big question of the week... does he have any petrol?

I was scrambling but got sorted Sunday morning, I was down to 30 miles. I drove past the only diesel pump and a car came behind me, so I had to drive off.

and welcome to The Star’s live blog of today’s press conference ahead of the Blades’ trip to Middlesbrough tomorrow - we’ll have all the key themes to emerge from the briefing from manager Slavisa Jokanovic and one of his players