TONY PULIS feels that Middlesbrough are showing signs of “momentum” after successfully winning at the Riverside Stadium in the Championship for the first time in 2019.

The Boro boss, whose side had only won two of their previous 11 home games in the league, was a relatively satisfied man after watching his team beat Steve McClaren’s Queens Park Rangers 2-0.

Middlesbrough now have a seven-point gap to seventh, while they are chasing Leeds in second spot by the same number of points although that was before Sheffield United faced West Brom in the evening kick-off.

With less than two minutes on the clock, Middlesbrough took the lead when Jonny Howson was left in too much space to make the most of Mo Besic’s pass.

Then in the 32nd minute Ashley Fletcher added Middlesbrough’s second when he fired in the top corner after another Besic pass picked him out.

Pulis said: “We’ve only lost one game this calendar year and that was Sheffield Untied with ten men. We've had too many draws at the Riverside, we've got to turn them into wins.

“It was a great run from Jonny. I thought Besic first half was excellent, that was like him last year. We've got to get him up to that level.

“There’s 13 games left, that's a lot of games. And if we can get Besic up to that level that was at last year, him and John Obi Mikel, that's an awesome pair in midfield.”

He added: “Not for me (no weight lifted), might be for the players, the press, the public. I've been in this situation a lot, you have to keep believing you're going to get it done. There's always time around the corner.

“I thought we gave the fans a really good show in the first half. The movement was good, second half, one or two looked a bit tired.

“Fletcher looked a bit tired, it was second half syndrome. First game you're pumped up. Britt Assombalonga tired off a bit as well. One or two didn't have the energy in the second half to stretch the game and that's what we needed to do.”

McClaren is adamant Queens Park Rangers can turn things around after slipping to a club record seventh straight defeat.

The former Boro boss, who got a decent enough reception after returning to the club he left in 2006 to take over England, was left frustrated by two costly mistakes in the first half that Rangers failed to recover from.

McClaren said: “We lost the game in the first 30 minutes to two errors, two goals and then against a very good Middlesbrough team, who have conceded the least goals in the Football League, it was going to be uphill. We huffed and puffed.

“We couldn’t get the goal in the second half. The lesson is we can’t start a game and within two minutes be one down.

“We are very close, we need to really have a go on Tuesday against Leeds and then Brentford. The errors we are making can be rectified on the training field, we need to be back on there because you can’t do anything on the training ground when you play seven games in 21 days.”