Middlesbrough climb into Championship top six with win over Birmingham City

Nico Gordon’s unfortunate own goal following good play between Folarin Balogun and Anfernee Dijksteel put Boro in front after 23 minutes.

Despite Paddy McNair’s second-half penalty miss, Balogun extended the visitors’ lead and returned Middlesbrough to winning ways after failing to win in their previous two.

Blues’ misery was compounded when Kristian Pedersen was shown a second yellow card in the final minutes.

Birmingham started brightly with Onel Hernandez, who spent the first half of the season on loan at Boro, at the centre of their attacks in the opening stages.

In his first start for the Blues since his January loan move from Brighton, Taylor Richards was unlucky not to score when his shot was blocked by Jonny Howson before Lukas Jutkiewicz could not on to latch onto Hernandez’s cross moments later.

After McNair blazed over from the edge of the penalty area, Chris Wilder’s side went ahead when Neil Etheridge’s save from Aaron Connolly rebounded off teenager Gordon.

A neat interchange between Balogun and Dijksteel cut the Birmingham defence in half before Gordon was helpless in the ball hitting the back of the net.

Boro were denied a second in first-half injury time when the impressive Balogun was judged to be offside after he tucked the ball past Etheridge.

Four minutes into the second half and the play-off chasing side squandered the chance to double their advantage when Richards brought down Isaiah Jones in the penalty area.

Etheridge got down well and pushed the ball against the post to deny McNair of his first goal of the season.

Middlesbrough managed to add breathing room between themselves and Birmingham shortly after the hour mark when Balogun topped off a quality striker’s performance with a curler past Etheridge.

Matt Crooks’ dangerous run into the hosts’ area was not dealt with and the Arsenal loanee received the ball from Marcus Tavernier before unleashing a spectacular strike for his second goal in three games.

Clear-cut chances were hard to come by for Birmingham, who look safe from yet another relegation battle with a 13-point gap between them and the bottom three.

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