BEEN there, done it, celebrated on the roof of the Dickens Inn. As Middlesbrough head into the final ten games of the Championship season, Tony Pulis is hoping his players’ experience of previous successful promotion campaigns will prove a crucial factor in ensuring they finish in the top six.

Boro moved back into the play-off positions when they ground out a 1-0 win at Birmingham City on Tuesday night, and will attempt to strengthen their grip on a top-six spot when they host another relegation-threatened team, Barnsley, this afternoon.

Five members of Boro’s starting line-up at St Andrew’s were key members of the squad that secured promotion under Aitor Karanka two seasons ago, and the tally would have been six had skipper Grant Leadbitter not been serving a suspension.

Ryan Shotton won promotion under Pulis at Stoke City, while Jonny Howson made it out of the Championship with Norwich City, beating Boro in the play-off final, and while the likes of Bristol City, Preston and Sheffield United are trying to make it to the Premier League with a squad that has little or no experience of competing in the upper echelons of the second tier, Pulis is hoping his own side’s past record will prove a key strength in the final stage of the promotion push.

“I’ve been promoted with Stoke out of this league, but I knew the players there back to front because I’d had two years of putting a team together to get promoted,” said the Boro boss. “This is a different situation because I don’t know the lads here anything like as well.

“We’re in the top six now, so it’s going to be interesting to see how they react to being in that six. Hopefully, the experience that a few of them have got from two years ago will be a factor.

“Hopefully, it will help to see them through, or at least give us that little bit of an edge. We’re looking for those small margins all the time, and maybe the fact that a few of them have been there and done it will help.”

Patrick Bamford didn’t win promotion during his first spell at Boro, but he was part of the side that made it to the play-off final and the last few weeks have seen him reproducing the form that enabled him to score 17 Championship goals in the 2014-15 season.

His winner at Birmingham was his seventh goal in the space of four games, and he is clearly relishing the opportunity to play as a central striker after spending most of the last 12 months stationed in a wide position.

Pulis admits that when he first took over on Teesside, he did not really see the 24-year-old as a viable option in terms of the leading the line, but Rudy Gestede’s season-ending injury changed things, and with Britt Assombalonga out of favour, Bamford got his chance.

He has grasped it with both hands, and is currently enjoying the kind of run that all centre-forwards dream of, but few get to actually experience.

“I’m still learning,” said Pulis. “I hadn’t really seen him up front, but when we put him up there at Sunderland, he obviously scored a couple of goals and looked very good. He can blame me and say, ‘Well the gaffer didn’t play me in the right position’, and I’d have to take some responsibility for that.

“Looking at the team when I came in, I liked the idea of him playing off the left-hand side and having Stewart (Downing) tucked in a little bit. Stewart has the ability to slow the ball down and get us into the final third, and then Patrick could roll in from the left-hand side – that was what was in my mind.

“But with a twist of fate, Patrick starts up front and at the moment he’s on fire. Things are dropping for him. When I first came in, things weren’t quite dropping for him, but he’s scored a couple of goals and gone from strength to strength. Every time he sees the goal now, he most probably thinks that he can’t miss.”

Bamford is clearly profiting from the supply line provided by Adama Traore, and the pair’s relationship could be a massive factor in determining where Boro finish.

Traore, who was named the Championship Player of the Month for February earlier this week, set up Bamford’s winner on Tuesday night, and while Pulis is delighted with the winger’s progress this season, he is concerned at the amount of rough treatment he is having to endure from opposition defenders.

“I think the referees have got to protect him a little bit,” he said. “I think we’re going into games now and there’s a lot of cynical fouls against Adama. They’re trying to stop him before he even starts.

“I think we’ve seen that in the last couple of weeks, and I think we’ve got to make sure that the referees protect him. He’s a very exciting player, and he’s done smashing, but he’s not the finished article and we’ve got to make sure we keep his feet on the ground.”

Leadbitter will sit out today’s game as he serves the final game of a two-match ban, and both George Friend and Mo Besic face late fitness tests after picking up knocks in the win at Birmingham.

“Besic has a little hamstring problem that we’re looking at,” said Pulis. “George Friend has also got a little problem. It’s the amount of games that the lads are playing, and the travel, that sometimes catches you. Mo has been fantastic for us, but he hasn’t played many games over the past year or so, so we have to be a little bit careful.”