Middlesbrough made it two wins in three Championship fixtures by seeing off West Bromwich Albion at the Riverside Stadium.

Middlesbrough head coach Kim Hellberg revealed a stern half-time team talk laid the foundations for his side’s impressive home win against Championship rivals West Bromwich Albion.

The Swedish boss felt his side failed to show enough intensity during a first-half that ended goalless and he wasted little time in letting them know when they returned to the home dressing room during the break. The improvement was almost instant as summer signing Will Lankshear continued his impressive start to life at the Riverside Stadium by opening the scoring just three minutes after the restart.

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The Baggies got themselves back on level-terms midway through the half with a neat header from Jimmy-Jay Morgan but Boro would not be denied as former Tottenham Hotspur striker Lankshear restored their lead with his sixth goal in five games with just over quarter of an hour remaining before Alfie Jones added a third goal to clinch all three points in the closing stages.

The win rounded off what has been a positive week for Hellberg and his players in the aftermath of last weekend’s defeat at Blackburn Rovers after they bounced back with a comprehensive Carabao Cup win at League One side Doncaster Rovers before marking their return to league action with a hard-earned three points against the Baggies.

The result has left Boro with four wins from five games in all competitions during the opening month of the season - and head coach Hellberg believes his side ‘ran over’ their visitors to continue a promising start to the campaign.

He told BBC Radio Tees: "We talked about things. We weren't intense enough and structurally not good enough, and that's why the first half was not as good as we wanted. Then the second half was totally different. We could have scored six in that second half - it was chance after chance. We did a brilliant second half and were running over them. That's very strong from the boys. I'm very happy. The second half was brilliant from us. And what a big win against a team that hadn't lost."

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