Neil Warnock takes responsibility for Birmingham defeat and praises on Britt Assombalonga's performance after Nottingham Forest win

The Teessiders were recently hit by a Covid-19 outbreak which forced several players to self-isolate, meaning they only returned to training a couple of days before the 1-0 defeat by Birmingham.

Boro bounced back from that result, though, after goals from Britt Assombalonga and George Saville either side of half-time gave them a two-goal lead against Forest.

Substitute Loic Mbe Soh pulled one back for the hosts in stoppage time, yet Boro deserved their win at the City Ground – a result which moved them back up to seventh in the Championship table.

"I think you could see we were at it from the first minutes tonight,” said Warnock after the match. “I turned to the bench after about two minutes and said we’ll be alright tonight.

“Saturday we were so sloppy and you can blame Covid and that we hadn't trained for two weeks but tonight I thought we were right at it.

“We played some good stuff and the only disappointment was we didn’t score more goals, we were unlucky on a few occasions and apart from the goal I can’t think of a save Marcus (Bettinelli) had to make.

“The three in midfield, I thought Jonny Howson was unbelievable tonight, I think I’d give him 11/10 tonight.”

When asked about the contrasts to the Birmingham game and Covid issues, Warnock added: “I blame ourselves as well, for example Marvin (Johnson) missed 10 days, came back on Friday when we couldn’t train with a frozen pitch so I should have played him. That was my fault.

“You just look at him for half an hour on a frozen pitch and think he’ll be alright because he did well in the last game but he shouldn’t have played and there were a few like that.”

Assombalonga’s goal was his first against his former club Forest since he moved from the City Ground to the Riverside in 2017.

When asked about the striker’s performance, Warnock replied: “When he’s like that he’s as good as anything isn’t he. I just wish he’d do that every week.”

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