MIDDLESBROUGH were by no means at their free-flowing best but Michael Carrick praised his players for digging deep in their hard-fought victory over Birmingham City.

Riley McGree's moment of magic at St Andrew's secured a third successive win for Boro, who are now just five points off the top six.

The second half was a grind but Boro stood tall defensively and kept their second clean sheet away from home in four days.

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Carrick said: "I'm delighted with the win. It was hard fought, we showed a similar side to what we showed on Saturday.

"It wasn't exactly free-flowing at times but there were moments of quality and some good play, we were solid as a team and defended the goal well. And obviously the moment of real quality from Riley sees us over the line but I think there was a bit more in it. I think there was another goal in it for us, obviously the penalty shout.

"I'm delighted with the win. It's a tough place to come, I've never found it easy to come here so I'm delighted.

"We defended the goal really well. We'd like to have a bit more control with the ball. I thought we controlled it in moments without the ball and were comfortable to a point, keeping the ball in certain areas, but the boys defended the box really well when they had to. Seny didn't really have too much to do. It was a good team performance."

Carrick was visibly frustrated at times in the first half but laughed that off in his post-match press conference, saying: "I don't know, I think I just expect a lot of the boys and understand what type of game it is.

"It was windy, it's a bouncy pitch, it's not easy, but I just wanted to try and make the game a little bit easier for us in certain spaces we felt were available that we didn't quite exploit, but that's me probably being a bit of a pain and asking a bit too much sometimes.

"But the boys were fantastic, I can't fault them. It's been a good week, real credit to them, and one more to go before we can have a breather."