AITOR KARANKA admitted Adam Forshaw’s last-gasp winner had provided one of his “best moments” as a manager as Middlesbrough returned to the top of the Championship table with five more games to play.

Forshaw’s 94th-minute strike secured a 2-1 win over Reading and took Boro two points clear of Burnley, who drop down to second position. Perhaps more importantly, it also leaves the Teessiders four points clear of Brighton, who fill the first of the play-off positions.

With Simon Cox having cancelled out Emilio Nsue’s early opener, Boro looked like enduring a frustrating evening as Reading goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi produced a string of fine saves.

However, Forshaw drilled home a dramatic late strike, and after David Nugent scored a similarly late winner against Hull City just under a month ago, Karanka was left breathing another huge sigh of relief.

“It’s one of my best moments,” said the Boro head coach, who brought Forshaw off the bench midway through the second half to replace skipper Grant Leadbitter. “I had another one a month ago, and now I have this one as well.

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Aitor Karanka during the match. Picture: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire 

“Everything is going really quick for me because we are doing really well. But all the credit has to go to the players. Moments like this can define a season, and we are leaving a lot of them.”

With Brighton having claimed a stoppage-time winner of their own at Nottingham Forest on Monday, the pressure was on the Teessiders to make the most of their game in hand on their promotion rivals.

Their performance certainly deserved all three points, but with Al-Habsi producing fine saves to deny Albert Adomah, Stewart Downing and Ben Gibson, it looked like Karanka’s side would be denied top spot.

They continued to pour forward in search of a winner though, and their boss insists it is no co-incidence that they have now scored two crucial stoppage-time strikes in the space of a month.

“In the last few games we have had the game against Hull, and now today,” said Karanka.  “That happens because the team is fighting until the last second. This team believes.

“They have an amazing relationship and have fought every single day. I am really pleased for all of them, not just the players who have played, but the players who are on the bench and in the stand too. All of them are really together.

“I prefer to think about the way we have scored in the last minute. It can be lucky, and I think against Hull we were probably a bit lucky because a draw would probably have been a fair score. But today I think we scored in the 94th minute because we had a lot of chances to score. For that reason, the way we scored that goal is the most important thing.”

Boro now head to a Bolton side who have already been relegated for a lunch-time kick-off on Saturday. Brighton host Fulham on Friday night, so could already have closed the gap to Boro back to one point by the time the Teessiders play, but with Burnley not playing until Saturday afternoon, the trip to the Macron Stadium offers an opportunity for Karanka’s side to pull five points clear of the Clarets.

With games against Burnley and Brighton still to come, Saturday’s game will be regarded as something of a gimme, but even though Bolton have only claimed four league victories all season, Karanka insists it would be dangerous to take anything for granted.

“We cannot look past Bolton because it will be a really difficult game,” he said. “In the same way that when we beat QPR everybody thought we had nine points in our pockets, so now everyone will think we already have three points against Bolton.

“That is not true because Bolton will win more than one game from here to the end of the season. Everyone has to know how difficult it is to win a game in this league.”

Nevertheless, last night’s winner has transformed the picture at the top of the table, and while Karanka is hardly someone prone to outpourings of emotion, even he was unable to control himself when Forshaw’s shot hit the net.

“I said after the Preston game that I was more tired than the players. Now, I think I am injured after what happened when Adam scored that goal. It showed we are together to the end.”