AITOR KARANKA hailed super-sub Jordan Rhodes after the striker’s first goal since his deadline-day move from Blackburn Rovers fired Middlesbrough to the top of the Championship.

Rhodes came off the bench for the final 22 minutes of Boro’s 1-1 draw at MK Dons, with his stoppage-time header sending the Teessiders one point clear of previous league leaders Hull City.

The Scotsman’s goal cancelled out Dean Bowditch’s ninth-minute opener for the hosts, and ensured Boro were able to pick up only their second point in the last four matches despite another hugely underwhelming display.

It remains to be seen whether Karanka promotes Rhodes to the starting line-up when Boro return to action at Leeds on Monday, but the Spaniard was only too happy to see his £9m signing begin to repay his transfer fee in the most dramatic of fashions.

“It is good for him to score because sometimes if a player comes and doesn’t score straight away, it can put pressure on a player,” said Karanka, who saw Rhodes convert Ritchie De Laet’s left-wing cross with a header that deflected off Joe Walsh. “So I am really pleased for him, but also I am pleased for all the team because we kept fighting until the end.

“When you have the players we have on the pitch, then when we are in the box we are going to score goals, whether it is at the beginning of the game or the end.”

Rhodes’ last-gasp intervention ensured Boro leapfrogged Hull and moved two points clear of third-placed Burnley, still with a game in hand, but the lack of fluency in their play remains a concern.

For the second time in the space of four days, the Teessiders were unable to beat a team from the bottom half of the table, and prior to Rhodes scoring, they rarely looked like breaching an MK Dons defence that conceded three goals to Bolton at the end of last month.

De Laet had a second-half effort cleared off the line, but Boro’s attacking was laboured and predictable, and stood in marked contrast to some of their more fluent efforts from the first half of the season.

Nevertheless, Karanka was delighted with his players’ attitude as they battled to a point, and maintains they are extremely well positioned with 17 games of the season to go.

“We have to keep going,” he said. “The last three or four games haven’t gone the way we would have wanted, but sometimes I think we forget which position we are in because we are now in an amazing place.

“I’ve said I don’t know how many times that if you had said to me or the supporters in the summer that we could be this position at this time of the season, we would have signed up for that.

“I think it was an amazing, massive point because this game was tough and every single game is going to be really tough from now until the end of the season.

“For this reason, the main thing is we are at the top of the table with a game in hand, so I am really pleased and the players are really pleased too.

“If we had scored at the beginning of the second half, then I think we would have won the game for sure, but it is still a day to be really pleased. We did not play really well, but we got a good point and are top of the table.”

Karanka made four changes to the side that drew with Blackburn at the weekend, with the most notable seeing Albert Adomah axed from the squad entirely.

Adomah and Karanka clashed earlier in the season, when the midfielder looked to be on his way out of the Riverside after a heated dressing-room argument, and Karanka confirmed his omission from last night’s game was not due to an injury.

“It was a tactical decision,” he said. “I know how important Albert is for us, but when you have our squad I have to try to choose the right 18 and I though this 18 was the best.”