 |
TRANSFER TALK: Who do you think should be Sunderland's first choice targets in the
summer? Which positions do you feel the club need to strengthen?
• Share your views here |
Middlesbrough 0 Reading 1
RECORD signing Afonso Alves made his first Premier League start for Middlesbrough but he failed to inspire his underpar side to victory in a largely forgettable and uneventful spectacle, which was settled in injury time by Reading's James Harper.
The £12m capture from Heerenveen built on Wednesday's cameo in the FA Cup, where he revealed several good touches, but it's clear manager Gareth Southgate's assessment is correct in that the club won't see the best of him until next season. The closest the Brazilian came to a goal was from a free-kick two minutes before the break when he shot straight into Marcus Hahnemann's arms. But once the striker becomes acclimatised to the Premier League surroundings he looks capable enough.
Boro largely dominated the possession but despite making several good opportunities the home side failed to take advantage of them.
Stewart Downing had a couple of good chances in the first half and Gary O'Neil and David Wheater probably had the best of the openings after the break, although they were hardly great opportunities.
But Middlesbrough were made to pay by a lapse in concentration when Harper put his foot through the ball from the penalty spot following good work by Stephen Hunt down the left in injury time.
5:47pm Saturday 1st March 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
