Boro fail to warm the hearts with a red-hot display (From The Northern Echo)

Middlesbrough 0 Crystal Palace 0

5:01pm Saturday 4th February 2012 in Middlesbrough FC Match Reports By Paul Fraser, Chief Football Writer

MIDDLESBROUGH'S hopes of increasing the heat on their promotion rivals were frozen at the ice-cold Riverside Stadium this afternoon.

Crystal Palace goalkeeper Julian Speroni must have been the coldest man on Teesside as he spent all most all of the 90 minutes untested.

There were moments when the first goal looked on the cards, but the best of those fell to the Eagles, who were denied by Boro keeper Jason Steele.

Middlesbrough, still searching fir their first Championship win of 2012, never looked like winning this one and ended up pretty relieved to have earned a point.

Steele had to make decent second half saves to deny Chris Martin and Jermaine Easter, while his defence had to be alert to the regular threat of Wilfred Zaha.

But in the end a goalless draw, as the snow fell from the skies throughout, was the outcome and skipper Matthew Bates was one of the only other players in a Boro shirt to impress.

In the closing stages Lukas Jutkiewicz forced Speroni in to a fine one-handed save but it was too little, too late on an afternoon to forget in the Championship.

MIDDLESBROUGH (4-4-2): Steele; Hoyte, Bates, Hines, Bennett; McMahon (Smallwood 84), Williams, Thomson, Haroun (M Martin 9); Emnes (Main 51), Jutkiewicz. Subs (not used): McManus, Ripley (gk).

CRYSTAL PALACE (4-2-3-1): Speroni; Parr, McCarthy, Gardner, Clyne; Dikgacoi, Jedinal; Zaha, Martin, Ambrose (Scannell 82); Easter. Subs (not used): Garvan, Murray, McShane, Price (gk)