Boro win has two-fold effect (From The Northern Echo)

Boro win has two-fold effect

5:24pm Saturday 28th February 2009 in

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Middlesbrough gave themselves a massive boost in their relegation fight with a shock win that will have been celebrated in Manchester and on Teesside in equal measure.

The result had the duel effect of lifting moral in the survival fight, while it also surely brings an end to Liverpool's flagging title hopes and hands the Premier League crown to Manchester United.

Sir Alex Ferguson's side are not even in league action this weekend, instead playing the Carling Cup final against Spurs on Sunday.

The Merseysiders now drop to third, seven points behind leaders the Red Devils who now have a game in hand and a superior goal difference.

But of much more significance on Teesside was Boro's first win in 15 games, and their first at home since October.

League victories have been almost as rare as goals of late, and that Boro found the net twice was almost as surprising as Middlesbrough's defeat of a side that still holds Champions League final hopes.

Just three days after the Reds win over Real Madrid in the Champions League, Boro scored their two goals in a league match for the first time since November.

That was an impressive defeat of Aston Villa, and today's defeat of Rafael Benitez's men will stun the sides around Boro at the bottom of the table.

Tuncay Sanli sealed victory midway through the second half, but Boro had some good fortune and Liverpool to thank, literally, for providing the crucial opener.

It came in the 32nd minute via Xabi Alonso's leg, the Spanish midfielder accidentally diverting the ball past his own keeper from an inswinging Stewart Downing corner.

Having found he net only once in their previous nine Premier League games, it was perhaps the only way Middlesbrough were going to break the deadlock against a Liverpool side who, by that stage, had wasted four good chances of their own.

Dirk Kuyt fired wide from a good position while Boro keeper Brad Jones provided saves from Nabil El Zhar, Kuyt and Ryan Babel.

More fortunate came Boro's way after the break when El Zhar displayed the kind of profligacy that Middlesbrough's Afonso Alves has become infamous for.

The forward fired over from ten yards when he had time to pick his spot in a central position.

The chance was teed up by Steven Gerrard who clealrly became increasingly frustrated in the second half as he saw his side's chances of winning the club's first title since 1990 agonisingly slip away.

Gerrard cut a frutrated figure as Boro's central midfield pairing of Julio Arca and Matthew Bates stopped the England international stamping his usual authority on proceedings.

Bates and Arca stopped Liverpool from mounting many meaningful attacks, and midway through the second half Boro's win was complete with Tuncay scoring with the same kind of chance El Zhar had wasted.

After a pass by Jeremie Aliadiere, the Turkish international swept home from a central position and the goal sparked rapturous celebrations at the Riverside which played host to Boro's biggest crowd of the season.

Over 33,000 were in attendance, twice that which watched Wednesday's win over West Ham United in the FA Cup, a game which saw the best atmosphere on Teesside for sometime.

But Tuncay's strike was perhaps the most keenly-celebrated goal of all season as Middlesbrough fans relished a surprising but crucial victory, while the Liverpool supporters were left to contemplate yet another season without winning the title.

With the next six games being against Middlesbrough's relegation rivals, Tottenham, Portsmouth, Stoke, Bolton, Hull and Fulham, the victory has set the Teesiders up nicely for a crucial spell.

And they could not go into it in better heart.