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

We have to be careful with him, it’s a lot this league, but I think he enjoyed it. I thought it was a cracking game for the Championship. I didn’t think they created much but joe pulled off a world-class save from McGoldrick. I couldn’t have picked a man of the match tonight. I thought they were all fabulous.

It didn’t take many decisions, I picked what I thought was the best side. We are really thin, but Sol epitomised it really. He was released at Cardiff and didn’t have anyone, he asked me for a favour, such an incredible pro. Talks all the time. He led us, and the lads responded.

That’s football for you isn’t it. I said before they went out, what a great night it was for a game of football. Go and enjoy it, and I think we played like that as well. We knew we’d have possession but we did well to limit them, they’re a good side. Another decisive pass here and there, we might have scored more. Two great goals.

We tried something similar to previous games but it wasn’t successful, we will look for the reasons but this is the Championship, no easy challenges exist and everything is complicated. We must focus 100 per cent on everything that will happen, we mustn’t be surprised what we found but we didn’t have enough energy. Boro were better than us at the end of the story.

They were strong and quick and winning a lot of second balls more than us, we have some plan to try and attack but it wasn’t successful, we didn’t run quick enough and find the spaces. We showed some improvement but not enough.

It’s not a question of confidence today, it was a hard, physical game and they beat us in that aspect. They scored two and could have scored more, we didn’t have enough knowledge. There was an improvement in the second 45 minutes but it wasn’t enough.

We didn’t play a good game, especially our start was so slow. They won all the challenges, they had energy and power, and we weren’t comfortable. We played a lot of balls backwards and didn’t find the space to turn. We expected that situation but I thought we could find the spaces and try and be more dangerous. They were stronger than us and we found it difficult. We had some situations to come back in the game but it wasn’t enough and we couldn’t score the goal to come back.

We didn’t play a good game, especially our start was so slow. They won all the challenges, they had energy and power, and we weren’t comfortable. We played a lot of balls backwards and didn’t find the space to turn. We expected that situation but I thought we could find the spaces and try and be more dangerous. They were stronger than us and we found it difficult. We had some situations to come back in the game but it wasn’t enough and we couldn’t score the goal to come back.

A thoroughly disappointing evening at the Riverside for the Blades, who barely laid a glove on their hosts despite their possession and neat interplay in front of Boro’s defence - Sol Bamba was absolutely unbelievable tonight as he blocked, headed and kicked everything that United threw at him clear, and two neat finishes proved the difference between the sides. Stay tuned for post-match reaction from both camps...