NEIL Warnock was full of praise for Marc Bola as he battled through his fitness problems to earn Boro a 1-1 draw against Fulham. 

Bola's strike at Craven Cottage meant Boro walked away from West London with a point on the road in a game that Warnock's side had to ride their luck. 

Fulham opened the scoring through Harry Wilson's 29th minute effort but Boro clung on after missed opportunities from the Cottagers and Bola took his goal well after some neat build up play. 

The 23-year-old passed a late test before the game with Boro short on numbers on the left-hand side and Warnock admitted after the game he asked Bola to do a job for him, despite his late recovery from a hernia. 

Warnock said: “I asked him to play 55 minutes if he could but then when he went down injured on the far side I told the physio ‘I don’t want him to go on. Don’t go on, leave him, we need him to get up’. I was delighted he made up for it because it was probably his mistake for the goal.

“He should have played him the other way we told him that but he let him go and top players like Wilson they’re not going to miss from that. So all credit to him. He took his goal like a striker. It was a cracking finish.”

On the game itself, Warnock was quick to praise the rest of his hard working players for their result on the road against a Fulham side who had plenty of chances and are early promotion favourites in the Championship. 

“Let’s be honest, they are a good team aren’t they. They’ve got good players not even in the squad.

“They’re not going to be far away. Whoever finishes above them will get promotion so we knew how difficult it’s been and we couldn’t go open, we had to hang in there really at times.

“I thought the subs did well. I thought the lads that come off, Uche (Ikpeazu) and Duncan (Watmore) ran their socks off but then I thought the fresh legs, the little bit of movement that we had give us a little bit more.

“I think we were unlucky not to win it in the end. (Marcus) Tavernier is disappointed he’s not scored a couple and the lads were saying another five minutes. In fairness, they did deserve to get a result out of it and it’s a good result for us on first day."